Renaissance and Reformation Primary Sources | Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger

Excerpt from Malleus Maleficarum (1486)

Reprinted in The Malleus Maleficarum of
Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger

Edited by Montague Summers
Published in 1971

During the Reformation, in the sixteenth century, witchcraft trials were held throughout Europe by officials of both the Roman Catholic Church and the newly emerging Protestant faiths. The term "Reformation" originated with the movement to reform the Roman Catholic Church. Known as the Protestant Reformation, it was initiated in 1517 when the German priest Martin Luther (see entry) posted his "Ninety-Five Theses" in Wittenberg, Germany, to protest corrupt practices in the Catholic Church. Eventually, advocates of church reform, who were first called Lutherans and then came to be known as Protestants, separated from the church and organized their own religious groups. Almost simultaneously the Catholic Church...