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CLASSIC: The Malleus Maleficarum: A Real-life Witch Hunter's Bible · Ridiculous History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: So Villa Ridiculous Historians. As you know, nobody fact checked this.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: We used to be witches and witch hunters before we
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: started podcasting.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: That's how we met. Yeah, we're a regular van helsing.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: Between the two of us, we create one whole van
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: helsing exactly.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Yes, this is a classic episode as we're moving toward
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: the autumnal Halloween season that we wanted to share with you.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: It is about one of the most famous books about
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: hunting witches.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: And as you might imagine, it has an incredible name,
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: the Malleus Mela.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Fakara, The Hammer of the Witches. Hell.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, let's get to it.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Let's cut straight
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: to the chase with some fairly terrifying numbers. During the
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: early modern period of European history that stretches from around
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: fourteen fifty to seventeen fifty, somewhere in the neighborhood of
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: one hundred thousand people, the overwhelming majority of them being women,
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: were tried for the crime of witchcraft, and about half
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: of these folks fifty thousand, were executed, usually by being
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: burned alive. But why man, why Because they were suspected
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: of being witches nol Ah.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: Yes, the great witch panic of those years you mentioned.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the great three hundred year witch panic.
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that I was a big one.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: That's a big one. That was a big one.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: It was. That's why it's the great witch panic. And
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: with the mediocre, the other lesser witch panic.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, let's give a shout out to our super producer,
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: Casey Pegram, who, too our knowledge, has never in fact
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: hunted witches. That's true, right, Casey, that is correct.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: Yes, no witch hunting in my past, Casey on the
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: case that's good. That's good to know because it's not
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: a very noble pursuit. No. Yeah, we read about it
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: in history, some of the most famous ones being like
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: the Salem witch Trials, the one that was famously depicted
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: in The Crucible, the play by Arthur Miller, and it
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: typically involves a bunch of over zealous religious nuts looking
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: for something that just is not there.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: Right. It's strange because I had studied this in the past.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: There's a book I want to recommend called The Devil
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: in the Shape of a Woman. Witchcraft in colonial New England,
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: and one of the most interesting things about the witch
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: hunting hysteria and the practice that continued for so long
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: in Central Europe, well most of Europe, and in the
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: colonial US or what would become the US, is that
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: in many cases there were people who genuinely believe that
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: some occult or supernatural event was occurring. But there were
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: also people who were prosecuting these cases out of a
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: more cynical self interested motivation, because you see, if you
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: could prove that someone was a witch in a lot
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: of jurisdictions, their belongings and their estate would.
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: Later go to you. I did not know that, ben.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: So its a way to disenfranchise women.
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: Oh not only disenfranchised women, it was a way to
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: persecute women for their sexuality. And a lot of the
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: language in the book we're going to talk about today,
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: the Melias Maleficarum, revolves around women being temptresses in some
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: way or some how using their sexuality to lure men
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: to be tools of Satan, in some way making them
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: more open to Satanic influence. So it's in large part
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: a way of punishing women for their sexuality because a
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: lot of these men were either used to just controlling
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: women in the form of a wife or in the
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: form of being some sort of higher up in a
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: community and having expecting to be kowtowed too at all
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: times members of the opposite sex in any sense that
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: a woman had some kind of power that they could
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: not understand it and maybe made them uncomfortable, they wanted
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: to kind of squash it.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, absolutely, and not even kind of. They definitively wanted
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: this status quo he had established to remain the same.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: The crime of witchcraft, as it was defined during this
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: period of time, consisted of two main sort of branches.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: The first was the obvious one, the practice of harmful magic,
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: using some sort of mysterious other worldly power to bring
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: misfortune on other people in your community. This could be
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: the infliction of a disease. Everybody gets sick. Let's blame
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: that a elderly person who lives alone over by the
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: edge of the woods. It could be the death of
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: human beings or livestock. It could also often going back
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: to your note about sexuality, knowal, it could be the
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: crime of making men sexually impotent, and so they're like, oh,
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: I can't get aroused anymore. You know what, It's not me,
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: It's that elderly person who lives alone on the other
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: side of town.
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but didn't have to be elderly at all. Right,
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: it could be anyone.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: It could be anyone. And these these hunts were incredibly
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: extensive at times. In Germany. In fifteen eighty nine, in
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: a place named Kuedlenburg, one hundred and thirty three women
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: were executed in one day and there was a witch
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: hunt fifteen eighty five. Germany is very bad about this.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: That left two German villages we get this, only one
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: female resident each.
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: It's insane.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: So that's the that's the context we want to lay
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: out here. This stuff was tragic, horrific, and looking back
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: from our time in the modern day, it could seem
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: like some sort of group insanity. But we have to
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: remember the people who were prosecuting these cases didn't just
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: believe that they were acting logically. They wanted to, I guess,
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: formalize this, and that leads us to the book you mentioned, Noel.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: The proper name is what malleus maleficarum, that's right, and
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: also known as the hammer of the witches.
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: Or in German. I love this, de hexin hamma. There
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: we go, de hexinama hexa.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: So what is this?
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: It is, as you said, ben a codify book of
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: all of these things that we just mentioned. Okay, so
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: the writers of this book didn't just invent this stuff
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: out of whole cloth. It was kind of in the
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: zeitgeist already. Witches do exist in the Bible, right, I
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: mean this idea of black magic or of you know, Antichrist,
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: sort of some kind of anti god entity.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: Right, sorcery as an infernal power?
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: Exactly? Is the word witch in the Bible?
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: Ben It's a fascinating question, no, because there are various
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: kinds of things that we call witchcraft and divination in
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: the in the Hebrew Bible, and it's generally mentioned in
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: a disapproving tone. But the problem that we run into
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: is a problem of translation, because somebody might translate something
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: that just says like sorcery or soothsaying into witchcraft.
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I've got one here from Leviticus nineteen thirty one
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: that uses the word spiritists. It says, do not turn
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: to mediums or seek out spiritists, for you will be
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: defiled by them. I am the Lord your God. Or
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: from Chronicles thirty three six, he sacrificed his children in
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: the valley of ben Hennon practiced divination and witchcraft sought
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: omens and consulted mediums and spiritists. He did much evil
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: in the eyes of the Lord, arousing his anger. So
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: to your point, been translation, but very interesting to google
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: this and see, Yes, witchcraft is in that form in
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: the Bible in such ways.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: If not the W word itself, the privuses, yeah, the
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: tone like Galatians five nineteen mentions it. It's there are
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: several places where you can find Bible verses about witchcraft.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: But to your point, Noel, which I think is a
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: very important point, the authors of this book, who are
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: understood to be two Dominicans, a guy named Johann Sprenger
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: and a guy named Heinrich Kramer, they weren't just saying,
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: let's give people our pace of witches. They were pulling,
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: as you said, from a tradition and a system of
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: beliefs that it existed long before them. The book, or
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: the document as some people prefer to call it, was
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: written around fourteen eighty six, and when they were writing it,
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: they were essentially compiling all these other things into sort
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: of a one stop shop.
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: But not without their own editorializing. Right, That's a big
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: part of it, because this guy, Heinrich Kramer, was sort
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: of like a failed witch hunter, and he never really
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: got the respect that he felt he was due and
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: was kind of a bitter man, and decided he wanted
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: to spread the word and kind of get people thinking
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: about these things that were very dear to him, persecuting
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: potentially wicked women for whatever reason. You know, he wanted
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: to influence that and kind of have his say on
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: how people were going to look at this, and he
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: put all this in a book along with his partner
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: Jacob Spranger. M hmm.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: That's correct. And there's an interesting part of Kramer's motivation
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: that we have to examine here. You know how some
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: unscrupulous people on a get rich quick scheme will self
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: publish a book on Amazon and then use that book
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: as sort of a bona fide or a mark of
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: their own credibility, totally expertise, Like, you know, the best
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: way to become a self help expert is just to
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: write a book that purports to teach people to help themselves.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: Kramer also wanted, in addition to warning the general public,
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: or at least the literate public, against the danger of witchcraft,
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: he also wanted this book to give him the official
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: authority to hunt witches. And again, this guy has somewhat
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: of a myopic focus, but it also has some alarmist
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: nature to it. It doesn't. Over the what two hundred
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: and fifty six pages, it attempts to do several things. First,
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: it wants to prove that witches and witchcraft are real.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: Don't be deceived, they are real. They are out to
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: get you. Second, building from that and says these witches
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: are real, they are infernal, they work with demonic forces,
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: so therefore they must be killed. And then third, it
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: wants to convince readers that not only are witches real,
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: not only are they dangerous, but they are signed of
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: the apocalypse, the end of the world.
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: And it does a really interesting thing that creates a
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: real conundrum for when these witch trials start going completely bonkers.
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: It points out that the Bible says there are witches. Therefore,
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: if you don't believe in witches, you are an accessory
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: to their evil crimes. Yeah, similar to that old Edmund
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: Burke quote the only thing necessary for the triumph of
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: evil is for good men to do nothing, only even
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: further right, Because this is literally saying if you think
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: it means you know, if you're standing up for the
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: truth and saying that this is not real, this there
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: is no witchcraft, or this person definitely is not a witch.
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: Then they can accuse you of being a heretic yourself
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: simply for not believing what you're supposed to believe.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: If you're not with us, you're against this, totally against us.
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: So if we divide the book, we talked about kind
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: of three aims of the book, we can also divide
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: the work into three rough sections. The first is, as
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: we said, this explanation that witches are real, they are dangerous.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: The second is a guide for the experts the clergy
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: on how to recognize a witch, and they get pretty specific,
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: you know, like devil's marks, which could be anything from
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: a mole to a scar, right certain types of behavior
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: or things that occur in their communities. And then the
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: third part, the final part, is a legal manual for
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: how to properly accuse and persecute a witch and if
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: finding them guilty spoiler alert, very few people were found
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: innocent to give them the death penalty. And in the work,
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: there's a really interesting bit of double think here because
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: the authors say that you shouldn't be deceived if someone
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: appears to be weak, they say, in fact, the weak
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: people are the most dangerous witches. And what this meant
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: is that a lot of times people who lived on
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: the fringes of society because they were say mentally ill,
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: or they were very poor, they became the number one targets.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: And then also we have to face the facts. I'm
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: pulling some of this from a really excellent podcast called
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: fifteen Minute History, with an episode on witch hunting in Europe.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: The guests on this episode is guy named John E. Green,
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: professor in history at the University of Texas and Austin,
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: and he points out that a lot of times persecuting
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: witches made things even worse for the community because people
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: who would be considered witches would be like medical practitioners
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: literally the only healthcare in the village or in the town,
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: or midwives and you know, let's say a birth goes
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: wrong through no fault of the midwife, if you know,
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: depending on their luck, they may be accused of purposely
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: killing the child. Or if you're treating someone who has
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: a disease and they don't get better because hey, it's
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: an incurable disease, then they flip the script and say
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: they're not better, not because leprosy is incurable at the time,
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: but because you're a witch.
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: What a horrible position to be in to literally being
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: the first line of defense for helping people and opening
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: yourself up to this kind of scrutiny and ridicule. It
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: reminds me of that scene we're talking about the tests
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: and like the things that were contained in this book,
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: which is also the kinds of tortures and how now
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: you should go about torturing a witch to get a
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: proper confession. But it reminds me of that scene in
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: Monty Python the Holy Grail where they're trying to see
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: if it's a witch, and they're like, does wood sink
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: in water? No, it floats, So then throw her in
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: the water and see if she floats. What else floats
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: in water? A duck? And then the king is like,
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: so if she weighs the same as a duck, then
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: she's a witch. It's like this kind of circular logic.
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: You know, this is satire, obviously, but that's the kind
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: of stuff that was in this book.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: In this book, although maybe it started out as somewhat
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: of a specialized tool, this book becomes wildly popular, right
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: it goes through what twenty eight editions. I think there
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: are more than thirty thousand copies circulated throughout Europe.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's sold more copies than any book
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: but the Bible up until sixteen seventy.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: Eight, which is insane, especially when you consider what a
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: pain it was to make a book at that time.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: So this also get some endorsement from the papacy itself.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: The Pope issues a papal bull, it's document that the
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: Pope signs themselves stating the official church opinion.
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: And this is pre publication though, right, It's like he
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: kind of sanctioned them to do this research. And this
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: bull was included in the in the printing.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, and this book it's a hexellen Hammo is
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: the only thanks man. This book is the only work
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: of its kind to receive the official approval of the
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: Catholic Church. Now, people will tell you that there's some
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: fairly convincing, circumstantial evidence that Kramer bribed the Pope to
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: condone the Hammer of the Witches.
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I also read somewhere that it's not even specifically
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: about the Hammer of the Witches, that they sort of
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: almost like fudged it a little bit to make it
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: seem like it was more about that, but it was
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: actually a little broader and not specifically condoning everything that
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: they were putting forth in this book. But it's like
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: the best New York Times book review you could possibly get,
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: or the best celebrity endorsement you can ever imagine having,
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: is having this thing included inside your book jacket cover.
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: Pope says, good to go. You know, this is this
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: is the this is the one.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's kind of like having writing a book about
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: how to be a better person and having h an
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: endorsement from mister Rogers or something. Not quite because we're
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: talking about God, you know, in divinity. But while we're
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: talking about fudging this, there's an interesting thing. We we
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: mentioned Jacob Springer or Johann Springer as he's often called.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: He was in later editions mentioned as a collaborator, but
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: nowadays a lot of historians believe that his name was
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: just added as kind of an endorsement. Yeah, that's right,
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: that's right. I read that too, and that he didn't
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: actually have much to do with the creation of the book,
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: sort of like how Quentin Tarantino air quote presented the
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: man with the Iron Fist directed by Rizza, and Tarantino
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: didn't really have anything to do with how he hung out.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: I'm sure, yeah, I'm sure he They.
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: Probably had n't share with his name on it on set.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: And he probably made a rant about something in pop culture.
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: But that's just what he does.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's just kind of how Quinton is totally.
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: So what was the bone? What were the bona fides
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: of Springer? Again, Ben, I'm sorry if you said it
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: just helped me out. I want to understand a little better.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he was dean of the University of Cologne in Germany,
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: and he was also a friar of some note.
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: And here's the thing the bull itself, it was more
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: intended to confirm powers that inquisitors, or that a guy
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: named Henry instatoris and James Springer, who were inquisitors, already
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: have to quote deal with persons of every class and
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: every form of crime, for example, with witchcraft as being heresy.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: And it called upon the Bishop of Strasburg to lend
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: this is a quote from the from the Bull, lend
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: inquisitors all possible support. And the reason that Kramer enlisted
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: Springer was because Spranger's name is actually in the bul
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: but it had nothing to do with the book. It
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: was more about seeking out witchcraft and prosecuting it in general,
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: because the law had changed where I believe it used
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: to be more a church specifically a church duty to
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: seek these things out, but then it kind of became
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: more of a municipal thing. And when we start seeing
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: the crazy panic of witch hunt pandemonium, that's because it
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: became a lot easier to do.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's the thing, and I think that's that's
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: well put. We would be remiss if we didn't mention
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: that one of the things clear condoned by the book
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: is torture.
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, horrific torture. Yeah.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: Kramer's favorite was something called the strepato, which is a
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: device that attaches to the wrist and pulls them upwards
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: so the victims hang by their arms until their arms dislocate.
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, anytime we talk about this kind of stuff, I
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: just get the hebe gv's so bad, Like the thumb screws,
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: the ones that would literally shred your hands, you know,
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: by like these vices that your hands would go in.
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: And there was one that was some kind of like
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: helmet you would put on with like a drill that
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: would go right into your forehead. Just barbaric stuff. And
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: another thing that was in the in the book was
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: a caveat saying you don't have to tell the person
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: you're accusing who accused them.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: Right. It also recommends, oddly enough, deception in order to
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: obtain confessions. So there's a quote here where it says,
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: and when the implements of torture been prepared to judge,
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: both in person and through other good men zealous in
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: the faith, tries to persuade the prisoner to confess the
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: truth freely. But if he will not confess, he bid attendance,
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: make the prisoner fast to the strepado or other implement
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: of torture. The attendants obey forthwith yet with feigned agitation.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: Then at the prayer of some of those present, the
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: prisoner is loosed again and taken aside, and once more
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: persuaded to confess, being led to believe that he will,
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: in that case not be put to death. That's why
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: so many people confessed, because they got tortured for some
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: amount of time, and then they got pulled aside and
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: someone said, hey, look, if you just come clean about this,
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: stop it can end. Now, of course you don't have
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: to die.
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: And we already know this about military interrogation, that interrogation
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: under torture does not yield results that are reliable because
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: people will say anything if you'll stop doing the horrible
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: thing to them.
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: Right exactly, And that's I mean, it's the I hate
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: to say it. Tortures of tale is old as time.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: And didn't they also talk about the quote unquote more
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: carnal inherent nature of women.
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, that's what we're talking about the top of the show. Yeah,
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: I feel like that's something it's inherent in this whole
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: persecution of women for witchcraft. But yes, it carries over
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: into this codified you know, book of all of these
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: different techniques. I was watching a documentary on this book
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: on History Channel, and I forget the guy's name, but
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: he was a scholar who specifically studies this work, and
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: he pointed out all of these very charged words that
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: were used in the text, the words that didn't have
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: to use and they were Latin obviously, but words that
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: would mean something like disgusting or filth, you know, as
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: opposed to just you know, not good, like very charged
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: language or a word that meant a temptress or some
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: kind of adulteress, you know, where it was like, this
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: is what these women will turn men into through their
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: you know, witchly wiles or whatever. So very charged language,
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: very much within it with a position, you know.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: And additionally, it's important to note there's a different definition
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: of seduction at play here. It's completely possible, for instance,
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: for someone to have sexually assaulted an innocent person in
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: a village and then say, I'm a good Christian man.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: She seduced me through the use of witchcraft, of course,
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: so in addition to me attacking her as a punishment
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: her powers, she should be put to death.
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: It reminds me of the story we did about women
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: being incarcerated for having sexually transmitted diseases, where that was
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: flipped as well and used by men to treat like
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: men would give women these sexually transmitted diseases and then
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: act like they had given it to them, or use
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: it to ostracize them in some way. There was one
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: story I believe where a man like left a woman
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: on the side of the road or something like that.
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: It's another one of these really fed up power dynamics
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: that is again tail as old as time, and we
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: see it all codified in this book here, like this
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: is the way to do it.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: There's a pretty interesting argument from Atlas Obscure by Sarah
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: Lascau about about the hammer of the Witches, which, you know,
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: while we're at it, shouldn't it be the hammer for
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: the witches? Just grammatically the witches do not have the power, right.
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: So what they found was that The Malice Maleficarum was
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: once thought to be the handbook for witch hunters, but
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: more recent research has found that maybe it wasn't as
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: influential as we initially thought, because you're right, you know
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: all that Papal Bull from fourteen eighty four and the
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: book was written in fourteen eighty six, published in fourteen
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: eighty seven, that Papal Bull allows witchcraft prosecutions, but as
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: you said, doesn't specifically say this is.
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: The book, but it named that guy Springer, which is
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: the reason that Kramer needed to have him as his
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: co author, because that allowed him to use that as
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: a manipulation. And I think we've made it clear. But
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: this thing caught on like wildfire and spread even to
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: like the New World, you know, which is where the
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: Salem stuff comes in. I mean, this became a thing,
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: and it was literally this like best seller, but not
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: just one that people were talking about around the water cooler.
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: This actually caused the deaths of what was that figure
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: at the top of the show bends the women.
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: The early modern period, approximately one hundred thousand and fifty
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: thousand of whom that's excuse me, I've ever stated the
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: number of no, you got it, you got it.
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: I think I said hundreds of them, but hundreds of
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: thousands of women who were persecuted, and a lesser number
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: who were actually killed, but in the most gruesome and
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: horrific ways.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: And to the point about the perceived importance of the book,
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: as it was catching on with the public, it looks
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: like some members of the clergy were becoming increasingly, I
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: don't know, skeptical of the book would be, oddly enough,
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: a good word. Leaders of the Spanish Inquisition didn't put
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: too much stock in the Hammer, and by at least
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: the fifteen thirties they were actively warning their own officials
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: away from it because maybe they saw it as sort
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: of a personal mission of Kramer's, maybe a little more
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: self interest than public interest. But it was still influential
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: enough that people would commission specific copies of it, and
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: I guess it is important for us to mention that
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: while the vast majority of people prosecuted for witchcraft were women,
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: there were dudes in there too, and they were also
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: put to death. Absolutely, it was kind of anything goes.
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: I've got a couple of resources that I'd like to
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: plug really quick, sure, and I'm interested in finding out
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: more about this stuff. I know you and I both
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: love the a twenty four film The Witch. I feel
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: like that displays these attitudes very strongly. There's a young
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: girl character who kind of represents that sexuality that we're
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: talking about, and there's some kind of telling shots that
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: show that that's not only an issue for the man,
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: it's an issue for the mother, because the mother is
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: almost even as much threatened by that as any you know,
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: authority figure male might be. And that becomes a theme,
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: and this idea of a witch harming crops or livestock
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: is represented, and just the kind of idea of this
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: witch being is it real? Is it not real? Is
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: it just religious zelotry? Run a muck. That's the thing
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: that's fun about that movie.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: But there's also the subtle argument for air got poisoning.
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: That's right. It's right that they're all hallucinating on some
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: kind of poisoned crop, poisoned corn that has hootinogenic effects,
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: which is one of the possible explanations for the Salem
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: witch trials, which here in How Stuff Works. Our buddy
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: Matt works on a show about Salem called Unobscure with
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: Aaron Mankey of lore fame, and our pal Alex Williams,
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: who composed our theme.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: And now, thankfully this book is surprise, surprise, no longer
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: considered an authoritative an authoritative guide to persecuting people for
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: perceived supernatural abilities.
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you don't hear so much about people burning witches anymore, thankfully,
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: But you know there are still which hunts of other varieties,
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: and all this stuff is very interesting to learn from
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: and apply to modern day politics and things, which is
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: something that they parallel in that show. And I'm scured
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: that we're talking about.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: And for his part, Kramer kept writing and preaching until
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: he died in Bohemia in fifteen o five. His gambit
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: to increase his reputation, or maybe to justify his failed
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: attempts at which hunting did seem to succeed because we
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: said the Papal bull on persecution witchcraft was published in
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: the fourteen eighty seven edition. We didn't mention that by
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: fourteen ninety the Church had officially condemned the Hammer of
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: the Witches. Was it because they were genuinely concerned for
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: the damage it was doing to communities? Or was it
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: because he was late with yet another bribe that we
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: don't know?
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: Well, what we do know is that there was rampant
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: corruption in the Catholic Church and the papacy, and you know,
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: likely still is given what we know about some of
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: the scandals that keep coming to light. So it's uh,
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: you know, the more things change and all that. And
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: this brings us to where's the silver lining here? Yeah,
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: we need a silver lining. I have a comic recommendation.
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: Oh good, let's see. That's why the comic recommendation is helpful.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: It's our insurance plan. Yeah yeah, okay. So I'm a
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: fan of murky and dark stuff, and I would like
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: to recommend today the commic Sir Edward Gray, Witchfinder. So Noel,
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: you you know hell Boy and maybe Baltimore and all
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: those other things.
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: I know hell Boy.
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: Okay, So Witchfinder is a spin off from hell Boy,
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: and it concerns a guy named Sir Edward Gray, who
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: is the Queen's official expert on all things supernatural because
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: of various interactions he has had saving people from the
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: nefarious activities of witches. Edward Gray does not spoiler alert
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: use the Hammer of the Witches the hex Mohammah. But
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: it's a great story as a matter of fact. Man,
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: if you want to borrow some of the trades, I
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: have them.
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: Sure, as soon as I return Locking Key to you.
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: Oh that's right, can't be double dutch to you. Comic
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: book wise, Oh, Lock and Key is so great. But
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: that's my comic recommendation for today. As far as we know,
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: there is not Thank Goodness a graphic novel adaptation of
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: the Nalius Maleficara. I think the Constantine comics are really fun.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: That's great, and it involves a.
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: Lot of different supernatural exploration and things like that. I've
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: always been a huge fan of Sandman and Neil Gamon's work,
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: and Constantine was in that briefly, and he has his
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: own series that's really great and has Witchcraft and Devilry
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: and uh Lucifer and all of these great deities, but
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: they have real personality, so that that's a fun one.
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't bother with the movie with Keanu Reeves.
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: I would. I would watch the movie after reading the comics,
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: so just recognize it's a very different thing.
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: And I have heard that the TV series that got
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: canceled was okay, but I was I didn't see it.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: I liked it. To whomever they picked to be the
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: lead actor for that the protagonist.
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: He's got to be real Cockney. He can't be Keanu.
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: Reeves genuinely looks like Johnny Constitute.
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, cont of Reeves is a weird choice. Here's a
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: weird choice. I hear he's a great guy though he
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: seems like a lovely dude. That's sad. Keanu on the
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: bench meme is is just delightful. There we go.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: Now we're inting on a better note.
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: We just had to make ourselves cheer up. I think
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: that's what it was. We hope that it worked for
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: you as well. Ridiculous Historians, thank you so much for
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: tuning in. Thanks to our super producer and avowed opponent
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: of witch hunts, Casey Pegrew. Thanks to our research pal
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: Gabe Lucier for hipping us to some of the details
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: in this kind of depressing but incredible story.
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: We already thanked Alex, we did, but we get to
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: think you do it again.
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: It was weird thinking him out of context.
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: No, I think it was great. Still, I feel like
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: we should let him know that we still do this
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: because you said he just nodded once.
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: That's just what he does.
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: He's just he's a nodter.
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: He's a nodter.
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: I mean that as a compliment.
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: But both he and our long suffering buddy Matt both
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: work on this Salem show Unobscured with Aaron Mangy, So
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: check that out if you want to do a deep
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: dive into the Salem witch trials and how it kind
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: of dovetails a bit with American politics right now. It's
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: a very interesting show. Thanks to you, Ben for being
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: a friend.
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: Thanks to you Noel, and thanks to everyone in society
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: ever who decided to stop burning people alive. Yeah yeah,
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: I think that deserves it. Thank you, and stay tuned
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: for our next episode. We can't tell you what it
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: is yet for various reasons.
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: Is it because we don't know.
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: Primarily it's because we haven't picked one yet, but we
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: can promise that. We hope it will be interested.
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: It'll be an episode. See it n folks. For more
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.