craft who do not refer to its pages as an ultimate authority. It was continually quoted and appealed to in the witch-trials of Germany, France, Italy, and England; whilst the methods and examples of the two Inquisitors gained an even more extensive credit and sanction owing to their reproduction (sometimes without direct acknowledgement) in the works of Bodin, De Lancre, Boguet, Remy, Tartarotti, Elich, Grilland, Pons, Godelmann, de Moura, Oberlal, Cigogna, Peperni, Martinus Aries, Anania, Binsfeld, Bernard Basin, Menghi, Stampa, Clodius, Schelhammer, Wolf, Stegmann, Neissner, Voigt, Cattani, Ricardus, and a hundred more. King James has drawn (probably indirectly) much of his Daemonologie, in Forme of a Dialogue, Divided into three Bookes[1] from the pages of the Malleus; and Thomas Shadwell, the Orange laureate, in the “Notes upon the Magick” of his famous play, The Lancashire Witches,[2] continually quotes from the same source.
To some there may seem much in the Malleus Maleficarum that is crude, much that is difficult. For example, the etymology will provoke a smile. The derivation of Femina[3] from fe minus is notorious, and hardly less awkward is the statement that Diabolus[4] comes “a Dia, quod est duo, et bolus, quod est morsellus; quia duo occidit, scilicet corpus et animam.” Yet I venture to say that these blemishes—such gross blunders, if you will—do not affect the real contexture and weight of this mighty treatise.
Possibly what will seem even more amazing to modern readers is the misogynic trend of various passages, and these not of the briefest nor least pointed. However, exaggerated as these may be, I am not altogether certain that they will not prove a wholesome and needful antidote in this feministic age, when the sexes seem confounded, and it appears to be the chief object of many females to ape the man, an indecorum by which they not only divest themselves of such charm as they might boast, but lay themselves open to the sternest reprobation in the name of sanity and common-sense. For the Apostle S. Peter says: “Let wives be subject to their husbands: that if any believe not the word, they may be won without the word, by the conversation of the wives, considering your chaste conversation with fear. Whose adorning let it not be the outward plaiting of the hair, or the wearing of gold, or the putting on of apparel; but the hidden man of the heart is the incorruptibility of a quiet and meek spirit, which is rich in the sight of God. For after the manner heretofore the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection to their own husbands: as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord: whose daughters you are, doing well, and not fearing any disturbance.”
With regard to the sentences pronounced upon witches and the course of their trials, we may say that these things must be considered in reference and in proportion to the legal code of the age. Modern justice knows sentences of the most ferocious savagery, punishments which can only be dealt out by brutal vindictiveness, and these are often meted out to offences concerning which we may sometimes ask ourselves whether they are offences at all;[5] they certainly do no harm to society, and no harm to the person. Witches were the bane of all social order; they injured not only persons but property. They were, in fact, as has previously been emphasized, the active members of a vast revolutionary body, a conspiracy against civilization. Any other save the most thorough measures must have been unavailing; worse, they must have but fanned the flame.
And so in the years to come, when the Malleus Maleficarum was used as a standard text-book, supremely authoritative practice winnowed the little chaff, the etymologies, from the wheat of wisdom. Yet it is safe to say that the book is to-day scarcely known
- ↑ Edinburgh, 1597.
- ↑ 4to, 1682. Produced at the Duke’s Theatre, Dorset Garden, in the autumn (probably September) of 1681.
- ↑ The word is from fe–, feu–, =Grk. φύ–ω to produce; whence fetus, fecundus, etc. Cf. Sanscrit bhuas, bhavas, to become. Also fi–o; fu–turus.
- ↑ The word is from διαβάλλω=traducere. So διαβολή, slander, enmity. ὁ διάβολος, the slanderer, the enemy; hence, Satan, the devil.
- ↑ For an excellent study of this most difficult and most painful subject see a valuable work by George Ives, “The History of Penal Methods,” 1914.
