The Hammer of Witches

In the history of humankind, there are books written to influence the minds of contemporaries and descendants. Some of them have become moral guides for many centuries, while others are chilling monuments of gone eras. Among the latter is the... book "Malleus Maleficārum," the infamous "Hammer of Witches." The treatise was written in 1486–1487 by inquisitor Heinrich Kramer, who poured all his outrage into this stern text regarding the verdict of the Bishop of Innsbruck: the latter not only acquitted the women for whom Kramer sought the death penalty by burning at the stake but also ordered Kramer himself to leave the city. In the first part, the author vengefully accuses officials who deny witchcraft of heresy; in the second part, he vividly describes the types of malice committed by "ministers," or rather, "ministeresses of the devil"; and in the third—he formulates rules for his followers regarding the judicial persecution and harsh punishment of witches... It is believed that the Dean of Cologne University, inquisitor Jacob Sprenger, has little to do with the text and was drawn in as a co-author solely to lend greater authority to Kramer's work in the eyes of his contemporaries. It is hard to say what played the decisive role, but the "Hammer of Witches" was indeed destined to occupy a special place among a considerable number of similar treatises and serve as a methodological guide for one of the darkest pages in history...