Latest / Ridiculous History / The Malleus Maleficarum: A Real-life Witch Hunter's Bible

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

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