Sprenger, JACOB

Sprenger, JACOB, of the Order of Preachers, and professor of Theology in Cologne, and HENRICUS INSTITOR (Latinised form of Krämer), two names of enduring infamy as the authors of the famous Malleus Maleficarum or Hexenhammer (1489), which first formulated in detail the doctrine of witchcraft, and formed a text-book of procedure for witch-trials. They were appointed inquisitors under the bull 'Summis desiderantes affectibus' of Innocent VIII. in 1484, and their work is arranged in three parts—Things that pertain to Witchcraft; The Effects of Witchcraft; and The Remedies for Witchcraft. It discusses the question of the nature of demons; the causes why they seduce men, and particularly women; transformations into beasts, as wolves and cats; and the various charms and exorcisms to be employed against witches. The writers detail the extraordinary dangers to which they were exposed in their task, and how all the artillery of hell had been employed against themselves in vain, and they tell with complete composure of mind how in one place forty, in another fifty, persons were burned by their means. They admit bodily transmission of sorcerers through the air, and relate numerous cases of the devilish malice of witches upon horses and cattle as well as mankind; and in the latter part, consisting of thirty-five questions, give minute directions for the manner in which prisoners are to be treated, the means to be used to force them to a confession, and the degree of evidence required for a conviction of those who would not confess. The book contains no distinct allusion to the proceedings at the Witches' Sabbath any more than did the Formicarium (c. 1440) of John Nider, whose fifth book is devoted to the subject of sorcery.