A Book Story

I occasionally write historical essays that blend into the past and relate somewhat to the present.  Today, I'll bring up the topic of Malleus Maleficarum.....a book which originally was published in 1486, in Latin.

Translating Malleus Maleficarum....it literally means 'Hammer of Witchcraft'.

To be honest, in 1486....if you did get a copy, it was hand-written and limited to the 'inner-circle' of Catholic priests, bishops and cardinals. 

It's basic theme?  Back in the 800s-to-900s, the Catholic Church got around to something that bothered them greatly....magic, illusions, conjuring, and alchemy.  So they wrote up a 'paper' that condemned the various practices and said that if you were involved in any of these....you were doing the devil's work.  Around five-hundred years would pass before this would be documented and put into a complete book.

Oddly enough, this Malleus Maleficarum didn't come from Rome (which you would expect).  It came out of Speyer, Germany.  The Malleus Maleficarum was supposed to be the detailed rules on how to handle discovery and execution of witches.  It will hint of being a legal document, but only as far as church affairs go.

If you pulled up the book in late part of 1400s....it'd explain how you need to get a confession out of a witch and the various ways to prevent escalation of witchcraft.

Here's the odd part of the story over Malleus Maleficarum.  As long as it was hand-written....there were a limited number of copies.  But when you get up to 1515-1520, and the Gutenberg printing press came to exist....things changed.

Oddly enough, copies of the Malleus Maleficarum came to be outsourced (probably without the consent of the Catholic Church), and it was printed on a massive scale.  Oddly, if you go back to prior to 1400, it's hard to find anyone in Europe who got accused of witchcraft, or burned at the stake for such activity.  It was simply something that didn't exist....as far as people were concerned.  After the publishing started up (on a massive scale).....everyone was using the witchcraft agenda to solve perceived problems.

So you start to look thirty to fifty years after Gutenberg's press went into mass production, and you start to notice a massive public agenda going on....witches everywhere....accusations made out of thin air....and a deterioration of public society.

Malleus Maleficarum went from a difficult to get book.....to a highly prized, and cheap book...in just a period of 100 years.  It actually became one of the highest selling books of the 16th and 17th centuries. 

If the printing press had never come along?  Well....it would have been still hand-written and limited copies would have gone out.  Learned men readily accepted the words of the Malleus Maleficarum, and went to work finding and terminating witchcraft. 

A fake book?  Yes.  Fake news?  Yes.  This is one of the great examples of how fakeness wonders into our lives, without us realizing the power of persuasion and the agendas of individuals.