In 1486 an ambitious Dominican monk and an inquisitor Heinrich Kramer decided to write an extraordinary manuscript. He wanted to prove in his work the existence of witchcraft and that the majority of those who were practicing witchcraft were women. Kramer’s document was supposed to serve as some kind of manual for authorities who would hunt witches, find them in local population and “deal” with them accordingly. As a web analyst I tried to review Kramer’s advertising and marketing “campaign”. The guy was a master crook of his times. Here is what he did.
He spent over a year to complete his project and as a result produced an infamous, opportunistic treatise named “The Hammer of Witches” (in Latin, Malleus Maleficarum). Kramer understood that he was too insignificant for Catholic church, so he decided to add the illustrious name that would give his manuscript credibility. So he added as a co-author the Inquisitor of Germany Jacob Sprenger without the permission of the latter.
Read more …
One of the most interesting forgeries in the medieval times is the so called manuscript Canon Episcopi. This infamous document played a sad role in the birth of inquisition and witch hunts that took place all over Europe. I found about it in the archives of my web analytics company. Canon Episcopi was first mentioned in the beginning of the 10th century by religious scholars who assumed that it was written during the some religious council of Anquira in 314. Needless to say, that such a council never happened. In fact, the manuscript was some kind of Frankish composition. It did not prevent Catholic church from treating Canon Episcopi as a canon law for centuries until the views on European witchcraft began to change dramatically.
So why this manuscript added fire to the later witch craze of medieval Europe? The Frankish author described in it Pagan worship of the Roman goddess Diana. In several paragraphs he was telling the audience that some women became the “instruments of Satan” by fooling other people about their participation in goddess Diana’s wild hunt. In their stories during certain specified nights they would travel on the backs of the animals great distances, serving goddess Diana and obeying her orders. The author concluded, that thanks to these “wicked” women stories, people leave Christian faith and fall into pagan error.
Anonymous author called this worship as superstition and phantasm, but, medieval theologians used it as a link to non-existent witchcraft beliefs of their own times. This allowed Catholic church to create a theological position of witchcraft based on this pre Christian descriptions of pagan beliefs. Religious scholars did have very vivid imagination, so they did their best to reconcile Canon Episcopi with their own views on witchcraft that they considered both real and effective.
If you think that witch hunts ended several hundred years ago, think again. Do you know that up to 1951 there was a Witchcraft Act in England which provided penalties for the practice of witchcraft? And that the last case when this act was enforced was not in Medieval times but in 1944? I found the name of the last victim of 20 century witch hunt in the archives of my local web analytics company.
The name of a poor woman who was the last one to be sent to jail because of the Witchcraft Act in 1944 was Helen Duncan. This lady honestly believed that she could summon spirits.
These were the tough days of World War 2 Who knows, maybe Helen Duncan was really a clairvoyant or a true medium? Authorities learned about her existence when she tried to summon the spirit of a sailor who served on a war ship HMS Barham. By the way, the sinking of this ship with a crew was hidden from the general public at the time.
The alleged witch punishment did not take long. Intelligence officers were so scared of this lady’s medium powers they they caught and quickly prosecuted her. They were scared that she, as a powerful witch, would be able to learn through spirits of secret war plans. Their superstition cost Helen Duncan nine months in prison.