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