“Bad Books Kill People” Exhibit A: The Malleus Maleficarum
“The swift propagation of the witch hysteria by the press was the first evidence that Gutenberg had not liberated man from original sin.” — Jeffrey Burton Russell
Sometimes readers forget that these cherished bound objects aren’t always beacons of goodness and enlightenment in a mad world. Sometimes, in fact, they can be a medium for a 15th century incel to rain down misery and death on thousands of people for hundreds of years!
Chris Curran from episode 16 returns to discuss the origins and the general repulsiveness of the Malleus Maleficarum—aka The Hammer of Witches, aka the Witch Hunter’s Manual—with Corinne and Emily.
Our sources today include…
- The Malleus Maleficarum as translated by Montague Summers
- Witchcraze: A New History of the European Witch Hunts by Anne Llewellyn Barstow
- The Malleus Maleficarum and the Construction of Witchcraft by Hans Peter Broedel
- Witches in Print: Or, how the patriarchy weaponized the Printing Press to Silence Independent Women by Jessica Caponigro
- Witchcraft in the Middle Ages by Jeffrey Burton Russell
- The Battle for God: A History of Fundamentalism by Karen Armstrong
