According to the latest estimates, 45,000 people were executed for witchcraft in early modern Europe.1 The culmination of the witch hunts continues to fascinate historians after decades of debate. These historians point to the Malleus Maleficarum as one of the major influences on the belief in witchcraft. I argue that the misogynistic views of the Malleus Maleficarum represent an extreme worldview about women because in no other treatise has an author so strongly emphasized that witches were women as the Malleus.
Examining the misogyny within the Malleus in the context of the time period is key to understanding how widespread these ideas about women were. One of the more bizarre claims in The Malleus Maleficarum is that witches can trick men into believing their penises have disappeared. Women's support of the patriarchal system, with violence if necessary, is ideal for Kramer's perspective.
Kramer's obsession with female sexuality and fertility does not stop there. Kramer apparently believed that sexually immoral women were more likely to be witches. Kramer still maintains an extremist view of women, as can be seen in the third part of the tract. Historians often regard the Malleus Maleficarum as a “demonological view of witchcraft and women.”72
An examination of the ideas contained in the Malleus Maleficarum and other treatises is necessary.
A Comparison of Misogyny in Other Treatises
A witch sucking the blood of children symbolizes the witch as an inversion of the mother, which is also used in the Malleus. Another parallel between Malleus and Errores is the idea that witches can use magic to damage the act of intercourse between a man and a. 15 “The Errores Gazariorum,” in The Witchcraft Sourcebook ed. wife. 16. Conversely, the reason that more women than men were persecuted in most of Western Europe can be attributed to Western European witchcraft beliefs.
According to the gender theory of witchcraft, women perform magic where they have been directly enslaved, while men have the appearance of being able to control the devil. As for the rites that the devil makes to perform witchcraft, it is obvious that they are false religious rites, an inversion of the Catholic mass. This passage not only bestializes women, as the Malleus does, but also presents the idea of witches fornicating with demons, which is also the case in the Malleus.39 At first glance, Guazzo's representations of women may appear to be in line with the misogyny in the Malleus. .
However, another passage in the Compendium shows that men were also thought to exhibit similar behavior. Guazzo suggested that the devil knew the man's sin, so he stole a human fetus and implanted it in the cow.40. In his example of the woman captured by a monkey, it is implied that the woman was raped.
She did not consent to having sex with an animal. but in the latter case the Belgian man forced himself on a cow. Also, Guazzo did not state that the cow was a demon in the form of a cow. This is further supported by the statement that the Devil stole a human fetus and implanted it in the cow to cover for the man's sin.
Obviously, there is still debate among demonological theorists at this point, particularly on the question of whether demons can impregnate women. There is certainly the fear that the shepherd is dominated by a woman; a clear violation of the social order. In some cases, witches could retract, hide or remove a man's penis49, as seen in the Malleus Maleficarum.
Because he, the most profound scholar of his time, believing in the visions of women as. Demonologists addressed the issue of women as witches, but no treatise contained the degree of sexism that is in the Malleus Maleficarum.
Historiography of Gender and Witchcraft
5 William Monter, “Witch Trials in Continental Europe in Witchcraft and Wizardry in Europe: The Period of the Witch Trials, Eds. In fact, the Home Circuit Assizes called 1,207 witnesses for witchcraft trials between 1600 and 1702; 52 percent of these witnesses were men and 48 percent of them were women. 9 Women were. The testimony of women in the witchcraft trials raises another question: Why did women testify against other women.
Therefore, the witch craze could not be a response to women's growing political power simply because their political power was not growing. 23 Stuart Clark, "The Gender of Witchcraft in French Demonology: Misogyny or Polarity?" in New Perspectives on Magic, Witchcraft and Demonology, Vol. For example, Evelyn Heinemann asserted: “The explanation of why women became the main victims of witch persecutions can be seen in the misogynist attitude of the Church.
41 Barstow, "On Studying Witchcraft as Women's History: A Historiography of the European Witch Prosecutions," in New Perspectives on Witchcraft, Magic, and Demonology, Volume IV: Gender and Witchcraft, ed. 43 Malcolm Gaskill, "Die duiwel in die vorm van 'n man: heksery, konflik en geloof in Jacobean Engeland." In New Perspectives on Witchcraft, Magic, and Demonology, Volume IV: Gender and Witchcraft, Ed. 47 Elspeth Whitney, "The Witch 'She'/The Historian 'He': Gender and the Historiography of the European Witch Hunts," in New Perspectives on Witchcraft, Magic, and Demonology, Volume IV: Gender and Witchcraft, ed.
So the witch portrayed as a sexual deviant further reinforces the idea of a witch as servant of the Devil. Some historians argue that these demonological texts prove that the witch hunts were a war against women.58 In Stuart Clark's analysis of French texts, he found that references to women mainly referred to their lesser. Eighty percent of the accused in this era were women.61 This staggering figure warrants the question: why were women so strongly represented in these witch hunts.
The Malleus Maleficarum certainly emphasized the sexual immorality of women, but it is clear from other treatises that this is a trait of a witch, and not of a woman. Witch trials in Northern Europe in Witchcraft and magic in Europe: the period of the witch trials. Barstow, Anne Llewellyn. “On the Study of Witchcraft as Women's History: A Historiography of European Witch Persecutions.” New perspectives on witchcraft, magic and demonology, part 4: gender and witchcraft.
Witch Trials in Continental Europe Witchcraft and Wizardry in Europe: The Period of the Witch Trials. International Trends: The Witch 'She'/The Historian 'He': Gender and the Historiography of the European Witch Hunts,” New Perspectives on Witchcraft, Magic, and Demonology, Volume 4: Gender and Witchcraft.
