The Malleus Maleficarum – Malleus Maleficarum

The Malleus Maleficarum, also known as The Hammer of the Witches, written by the inquisitors Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger in the 15th century, remains to this day one of the most famous books on witchcraft in the world. The book includes three main sections and is aimed at witch hunters as well as ordinary people of the time. The first section examines, through short questions and answers, whether witches are real or a figment of imagination, concluding that they exist beyond any doubt, just like the Devil, from whom they derive their powers. In the second section, the authors present through incidents the ways witches act, as well as methods by which one can protect oneself from them. In the third section, the inquisitors explain the tortures and trials that those accused of witchcraft must undergo in order to be found guilty, as well as every other measure that must be observed in the Church's war against the Dark Arts. The text was used for centuries by Christians as a reference source on demonology, although it was not directly used by the Inquisition, which became notorious for its tortures and murders. After its publication, witchcraft became more widely accepted as a real and dangerous phenomenon. The Church would eventually label witchcraft as the greatest of crimes and sins in existence and reduce it to the level of heresy – as a result, persecutions and punishments became more brutal.

"Unless God, through an angel, compels Satan to refuse his help to the witch, she will be so insensible to the pains of torture, that she will rather have her hands and feet torn off than confess the truth!"