The Mad Monk & The Witch Hunts

Malleus Maleficarum may sound like a spell but it is actually almost the opposite. This book was nicknamed the Hammer of Witches, and today we're finding out if it really started the European witch hunts. Kate is joined by the wonderful Eleanor Janega to talk all things Heinrich Kramer, the monk who wrote the Malleus. Where did his obsession come from? And did his colleagues in the Catholic church support his views? This episode was edited by Natasha Hughes. The producer was Sophie Gee. The senior producer was Freddy Chick. Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can take part in our listener surveyhere https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/6FFT7MK. All music from Epidemic Sounds. Betwixt the Sheets: History of Sex, Scandal & Society is a History Hit podcast. Voting is now open for the Listener's Choice Award at this year's Podcast Awards! UK & Ireland listeners please place your vote on the Spotify mobile app here: https://open.spotify.com/s/xhg6PJa Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Kate Lister?

  Do you want even more shocking and scandalous history? Like why the ancient Greek statues had such small manhoods? Or what went on behind closed doors in the Georgian era? Well, sign up to History Hit, where you can see me discover the scandalous side of history, as well as hundreds of hours of original documentaries, plus new releases every week, covering everything from prehistoric Scotland to the Treaty of Versailles. Sign up to join me in locations around the world and explore the past. Just visit historyhit.com/subscribe.

• 0:35Kate Lister?

  Hello, my lovely Betwixters, it's me, Kate Lister. Welcome back to Betwix the Sheets. Hello, how fabulous it is to see you once again, you little historical pervert. Yeah, I know, I know what you really are. I know why you're here. It's why I'm here as well. But before we can go any further together, I do have to tell you, this is an adult podcast book about adults, other adults, bad adult things and adults away, covering a range of subjects, news, being an adult too. Do you feel safer? I certainly feel safer. Right, let's crack on.

• 1:03Kate Lister?

  Welcome to History Watch. It's a gorgeous day and we have a treat for you. We have been watching this little nest in a tree for a few days and we're pretty sure that there are some chicks in there, so let's go and have a look. I'll tell you what, climbing trees is not a strength of mine, but here we are, high in the branches. Okay, everybody quiet and let's take a little look. Oh my God, what on earth is that? Those are cute chicks. Oh no, we've got dismembered penises eating oats. What on earth is going on? What kind of insane world have I ended up in? Well, I don't know what it is, but you're here with me as well.

• 2:04Kate Lister?

  Hello and welcome back to Betwix the Sheets, the history of sex scandal and society with me, Kate Lister. There were over 100,000 witch trials in Europe between 1450 and 1750, and we've spoken about them many times here on Betwixt. And today, we're going to be taking a look at a book that is very closely linked with the birth of the witch trials as we know them. What is the hammer of witches? Or to give it its fancy name, the Malius Malaphicarum? What prompted a clergyman to write it? And how and why did he manage to put so much blame on to women? Today, I'm joined by the one and only, the wonderful Dr Eleanor Jarniger, host of Gone

• 2:46Kate Lister?

  Medieval, General Queen and expert on the witch trail. So if anyone can tell us what the hell is going on in this nest, it's Eleanor. Let's do this.

• 3:03Kate Lister?

  Well, fancy seeing you back around these parts, gorgeous. How are you doing?

• 3:07Speaker 01

  I'm very good, thank you very much. I live in the walls now.

• 3:11Kate Lister?

  In the cellar, we just take you out from time to time.

• 3:13Speaker 01

  That's right, that's right.

• 3:15Kate Lister?

  That's what they do with all the History Hit presenters. They just keep us in a cupboard, bring us out on rotation. It's terrible, really. We should unionise.

• 3:22Speaker 01

  We should, we should. There is power in a union, Kate, so.

• 3:26Kate Lister?

  But we're not here to talk about unions, we'll do that on our own time. We're here to talk about one of your favourite things to talk about, which is the Malius Malaphicarum.

• 3:34Speaker 01

  Malius Malaphicarum, mentioned.

• 3:36Kate Lister?

  Fun to say.

• 3:38Speaker 01

  Listen, my eyes begin to glow red, I just show up. It's like if you say it three times into a mirror, I show up behind you and I explain how it's actually more complex than that, so.

• 3:47Kate Lister?

  It's such a catchy title. It's fun to say Malius Malaphicarum.

• 3:52Speaker 01

  And then you can feel very cool and my Latin is so good about everything.

• 3:56Kate Lister?

  It's some of the only Latin I know, quite frankly.

• 3:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 3:59Kate Lister?

  What does it mean, by the way, Malius Malaphicarum?

• 4:01Speaker 01

  It means the hammer of witches. So the idea is that with this tool, you can hammer upon witches. Right, so it's like this machine kills witches, essentially.

• 4:11Kate Lister?

  Is that the Malius bit?

• 4:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, the Malius is the hammer, the Malaphicarum is of witches.

• 4:16Kate Lister?

  Ah, okay.

• 4:17Speaker 01

  So arum, that's the genitive, duh, we all know, we all know Latin.

• 4:20Kate Lister?

  Yeah, I know that, yeah, I know Latin, yeah, absolutely. So Hammer of the Witches. And this is a really interesting text in the history of witchcraft, because there's a great deal that has been made of it. And if anybody has read it, and you can read the whole thing online for free if you want to, and it is not time badly spent, because it is a mad piece of work.

• 4:41Speaker 01

  Listen.

• 4:41Kate Lister?

  It is absolutely out there lunacy levels.

• 4:47Speaker 01

  It is so important to read, because it is absolutely bonkers. It's really funny as a result of that, but it's also this really interesting example of someone who is not particularly clever, attempting to use medieval grammatical and rhetorical ways of arguing to advance his idea. So if you're a real one, like me, I've gone through it and I try to look up when he cites, for example, St Augustine, and he'll be like, oh, this is in this part of De Civitatum Day. And I'm like, no, it's not. Like, he's just lying half the time. Like, my man is out here lying, but it's like, he'll say, oh yeah, Thomas Aquinas backs me up about this. And I'm like, girl, where?

• 5:32Speaker 01

  Like, let's be so for real.

• 5:33Kate Lister?

  Imagine that, a man using shonky science to back up a really crap argument and trying to sound smarter than he already is.

• 5:40Speaker 01

  Like, maybe his citations are just off, but I'm just telling you, like, people with too much time on their hands are out here checking him.

• 5:48Kate Lister?

  Are gonna call you.

• 5:48Speaker 01

  And listen, I'm not finding it compelling, babe.

• 5:51Kate Lister?

  Who is him, by the way? Who's the him that we're talking about? Who's the him with the bad Latin?

• 5:57Speaker 01

  Okay, this is a man known as Heinrich Kramer. And Heinrich Kramer is a Dominican inquisitor, so he's also known as Heinrichus Inquisitorius, which just means like.

• 6:09Kate Lister?

  What is an inquisitor? Is that like the Spanish Inquisition? What is that?

• 6:12Speaker 01

  Yes, so the guys involved in the Spanish Inquisition are these dudes. Okay, so.

• 6:15Kate Lister?

  Oh, he really is?

• 6:17Speaker 01

  Well, it's not him, but like, yeah. It's because the Spanish Inquisition is kicking off at the same time. Ferdinand and Isabella see things like this and they're like, we love that. Can we have our own? Right, so. But an inquisitor is a very particular office. And inquisitors are drawn from the ranks of the mendicant orders. So in particular, the Franciscans and the Dominicans. Heinrich Kramer, he's a Dominican.

• 6:39Kate Lister?

  And what do they do? What's an inquisitor? They just inquisit?

• 6:42Speaker 01

  They do inquisit. So the idea when we first come up with inquisitors is, the idea of an inquisitor is supposed to be that they're supposed to stop violence happening to people who are accused of heresy in particular. Because before, if a group of people decide that an individual is a heretic, we do have instances where a whole town will just burn someone to death. And the church is like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, who is this? Right? So an inquisitor is usually a Franciscan or Dominican, because they are members of this particular type of monastic order, which was made in order to kind of like, make the church stop being so profligate, essentially. So they are born out of these reform movements, like these movements to get the church on the right track.

• 7:27Speaker 01

  That's point A. And point B, they are monks who work with the community.

• 7:31Kate Lister?

  So they're like the ones you'd call if people are losing their shit a bit? And they'd kind of come down and go, look, everybody just needs to take a big, deep breath.

• 7:39Speaker 01

  Calm down, yeah.

• 7:39Kate Lister?

  Go touch some grass and we will reconvene.

• 7:42Speaker 01

  Yep, and they would be like, listen, you are not equipped to decide whether or not this thing that is happening is heresy. We are, because we are church members and we are very calm about all of these things.

• 7:53Kate Lister?

  So they're like a heresy ombudsman?

• 7:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a good way of putting it. Now, in the High medieval period, where we invent these guys, they are kind of like a damper switch, you know, they're notable exceptions. So for example, the Albigensian Crusade, it gets a little bit out of hand there. To be fair, those people were heretics. Just because I agree with them, doesn't mean that they aren't heretics, but they absolutely were. By the late medieval period, which is when Heinrich Kramer is working, they are more particularly powerful. The church as an instrument has a little bit more power in the real world at this point in time. Having said that, you have to take that with a grain of salt. So for example, the Spanish Inquisition, that's on Ferdinand and Isabella. They were like.

• 8:42Speaker 01

  Can we get some guys to torture Jewish people? We'd like some, right? And so that's a little bit more from a royal point of view, if you look into it. So Heinrich Kramer, more particularly, he is working in the German lands at the time. So he's a Holy Roman Imperial guy, right?

• 8:59Kate Lister?

  What if they just like go from town to town and go, look, is anyone, is there any heresy around here? You want to talk about?

• 9:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, but it's also kind of like a contested beef. So like, one of the first ways that he enters the historical record, he enters this historical record as a result of a papal bull that we have, which is called Sumus desideriantis effectibus.

• 9:18Kate Lister?

  That's my favorite one.

• 9:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a really good one. And it comes out because he and he's got like a guy over him who's called Hans Springer. They are both in this and the Pope is saying, these guys are allowed to inquisitor around in the German lands. Here is like the Pope being like, yo, you gotta let these guys in. And that-

• 9:39Kate Lister?

  Is Springer an inquisitor as well?

• 9:41Speaker 01

  He is, and he's another Dominican one. And so this is like a really important point because it used to be that when we talked about the Malais, people would say, oh, it's written by Springer and Kramer.

• 9:51Kate Lister?

  Right.

• 9:51Speaker 01

  No, no, no, just Kramer. This is like Kramer's whole deal. He is the one who wrote this, but-

• 9:58Kate Lister?

  How does Springer get dragged into this?

• 9:59Speaker 01

  Great question because since both of them are named in Sumus desideriantis effectibus, which is like basically their license to go around inquisitoring because the Franciscans, more particularly, were trying to inquisitor in this area. There's beef with the Dominicans. They don't want to let the Dominicans in. They're like, yo, you're stepping on our toes. We're the church cops over here. We don't want the Dominicans in. And the Pope has to step in and say, no, you have to let these guys in, right?

• 10:22Kate Lister?

  Right.

• 10:23Speaker 01

  What happens is there's a term that we call traveling partners. When you're talking about manuscripts or early printing.

• 10:31Kate Lister?

  It sounds like slang for a gay man from the 1940s. No, it's just his traveling companion.

• 10:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, I just hired him to lift my luggage, et cetera.

• 10:40Kate Lister?

  But that's not what this is. Let's get back on track. Sorry.

• 10:43Speaker 01

  Basically, what happens with this is that when you are writing out a manuscript or when you are publishing early things, sometimes one document will get put in with the other one really commonly.

• 10:55Kate Lister?

  Oh, I've seen that, like in really old books, suddenly, like the Beowulf manuscript. It's like four stories all in all together.

• 11:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, like, or how the trotula, the medical manuscript started off just being an OBGYN thing. And then later on, there's like also makeup in there. That's as a result of traveling partners.

• 11:13Kate Lister?

  The Pearl Poet as well. It's got like lots of different, okay, right. So yeah, that's quite common to just go lots of stories in one book, but they're not necessarily related.

• 11:21Speaker 01

  Sumus desideriantis effectibus.

• 11:24Kate Lister?

  She's very good with that.

• 11:25Speaker 01

  It comes out and like the Pope writes this. And then like a decade or so later, we get the Malais Maleficarum and they travel together. So people start slapping Sumus desideriantis effectibus at the beginning of a manuscript. And then they put in the hammer of witches.

• 11:42Kate Lister?

  So the two aren't related?

• 11:44Speaker 01

  They aren't.

• 11:44Kate Lister?

  So we've basically got a letter from the Pope going, look, let these guys in to do some inquisiting. And then we've got this insane fever dream written by Kramer. Oh, you'd be so mad.

• 11:55Speaker 01

  Oh, my God, like poor Springer. It's like, this has nothing to do with him. He is collateral damage. This is a dry fight, right?

• 12:02Kate Lister?

  You would be so pissed off.

• 12:03Speaker 01

  And he would particularly be pissed off because I'm going to be so for real with you. Like this gets written out in 1485 and it does get kind of picked up and printed when the printing press comes out. So it gets something like 36 editions between 1486 and 1669. Nice. Where it like comes out over and over again. But fundamentally, this bonkers screed, like this ridiculous book about how to find witches, why witches exist, why witches are real, is entirely written because everyone in the late 15th century is like, wow, Kramer, you seem like an absolute psychosexual nut job.

• 12:49Speaker 01

  Like you are an obvious weirdo. What is your problem? It's an apologia.

• 12:54Kate Lister?

  Wow.

• 12:55Speaker 01

  It's not written by someone who is like considered the foremost top of his game. We really like this guy. It's written by someone who has lost multiple attempts to accuse people of witchcraft.

• 13:08Kate Lister?

  This is like a manifesto. Oh, wait a minute, just to backtrack slightly, that means as well that the Malais Maleficarum never had papal approval.

• 13:16Speaker 01

  No.

• 13:17Kate Lister?

  I've heard, I like, that's quite a common thing that I've heard people say is that it was approved by the Pope.

• 13:21Speaker 01

  You can't be approved by the Pope if the approval came out a couple of decades before you wrote the damn thing, right? Like that's like, unfortunately, linear time does exist, right?

• 13:30Kate Lister?

  Wow, okay. So that would blow that one out of the water.

• 13:32Speaker 01

  It is fake.

• 13:33Kate Lister?

  Never approved by the Pope.

• 13:34Speaker 01

  It was never approved by the Pope. This, my man is off piece.

• 13:37Kate Lister?

  Okay.

• 13:38Speaker 01

  Over here.

• 13:38Kate Lister?

  And that takes a lot for you to say that because I know that you don't like Popes very much.

• 13:42Speaker 01

  I don't.

• 13:43Kate Lister?

  No, but this one is in the clear.

• 13:45Speaker 01

  But this one is in the clear. It's not his fault, like Kramer did all this. So like-

• 13:49Kate Lister?

  Describe to me who he is and before we get into the, what exactly the Malais, what exactly it is and what exactly it says. So he was an inquisitor. He was walking around checking people were doing heresy or not doing heresy. How do we, like, what does he do that people go, oh, my God, you're such a creep. Get out of here.

• 14:08Speaker 01

  Okay, so he shows up in a town to do some inquisitoring and he's not popular with the locals. And there is-

• 14:17Kate Lister?

  You wouldn't be, would you? Like if you're just turning up to go, hello, I'm here to check on anyone doing some heresy.

• 14:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's like anybody, like, have we got any witches? And in the first place, medieval people are like-

• 14:26Kate Lister?

  It's like Ofsted turning up when you're teaching. It's just, just pretend I'm not here.

• 14:29Speaker 01

  And fundamentally, like, he's like, I'm out here checking for witches. And in the medieval period, there is a concept like they're like, maybe a witch could exist. But for the most part, if we're looking at medieval period and the attitude to witches, if you look at things like, you know, your friend and mine, Bouchard of Worms.

• 14:46Kate Lister?

  I like him.

• 14:47Speaker 01

  He writes in his, his particular guidebook for people who are doing confessions. He says, do you believe that you are a witch? And it's like, and what he says is like, because you're not. And you have to do penance if you think you're a witch because witches aren't real, girl. You cannot possibly be going out at night, like going to the Sabbath. Like in a particular way, they're like, that's not real. And it's actually heresy for you to think it's real. You can't possibly be doing it.

• 15:15Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 15:15Speaker 01

  Fast forward 700 years and Heinrich Kramer is like, no, that's real. That's real, they be doing it.

• 15:22Kate Lister?

  Belief in witches, like it's very easy to think that they just turned up with the witch trials, but they go way back. I mean, the Romans executed people for witchcraft, lots and lots of them. But by the time you're in the medieval period, it's more like the view witchcraft is almost like a hobby. It's like, just try not to.

• 15:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:38Kate Lister?

  Like try not to be a witch, please. That would be great if, and if you get caught, the punishment is like, like sit in the corner for five minutes. It's not like burn everybody.

• 15:47Speaker 01

  Completely. And it's like for them, they don't think that like being a witch in that Roman way is real. And it's one of the things that they do to differentiate themselves from pagans before. They're like, you can't possibly, like God wouldn't allow that to happen.

• 15:59Kate Lister?

  Yeah, there wasn't any witches.

• 16:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, like, how are you going to get the power in order to do this? Which is a big thing the Malais covers. It's like, there's no way that you're going to get the power in order to do this. So that's kind of weird of you to think that, like, God wouldn't allow this to happen. So one of the big things about the medieval period is they're like, absolutely not. Now, magic might exist. There are ways to kind of use what they consider to be natural magic in order to bend things to your will.

• 16:23Kate Lister?

  And curses, they believed in curses.

• 16:25Speaker 01

  And they do believe in curses and they do believe in love spells, but they don't believe in the figure of the witch in the same way.

• 16:31Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 16:32Speaker 01

  Because for them, it's just like, a girl be for real.

• 16:34Kate Lister?

  Yeah, I mean, you can find references to witches, but it's not, it's not going to result in mass executions of people.

• 16:40Speaker 01

  Very occasionally, like a person is executed. But it's just like, it's just not a medieval thing. They're not into it, but Heinrich Kramer is into it.

• 16:49Kate Lister?

  I wonder why? I wonder like what, I mean, we'll never know this because we can't sit him down, can we? And just go, what the fuck?

• 16:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, like, how is it? How have we got it?

• 16:56Kate Lister?

  Where is this coming from? Do you think he's like maybe like trying to make a name for himself?

• 17:00Speaker 01

  I think there is, you know, a part of that. It is certainly true that in Sumus desideriantis effectibus, they do say, well, you're allowed to kind of look for witches up here. So it seems like-

• 17:09Kate Lister?

  Something's shifting.

• 17:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, something is shifting. And I mean, I think that it's kind of part of this classic medieval to early modern turn. We see a huge crackdown on women and their freedoms at this point in time, possibly because women have got too uppity. You know, women are commanding more power and they are getting more able to participate in society more fully. And so it can be, I think, initially tagged on to that. But then when we have this explosion of the witch panics in the early modern period, that has a lot to do with the, what we call the process of confessionalization. So when we invent Protestants.

• 17:45Kate Lister?

  In the papal bull thing, it's interesting that witchcraft would even be brought into that when they're looking for heresy because that seems like a new turn. Because prior to that, it's all, it's just like, if you're a witch, but it's not heresy. It's like, just try not to do that, please.

• 17:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, and this is the thing is that it is one of the issues where like even, you know, when Bouchard of Worms writes about it, he's like, girl, it's not right. You aren't a witch. It's kind of heretical that you think you might be.

• 18:11Kate Lister?

  It's like shoplifting. It's like, try your best not to.

• 18:13Speaker 01

  That was bad.

• 18:14Kate Lister?

  Don't do that.

• 18:15Speaker 01

  Knock it off, you know, kind of a thing. And by this point in time, you know, also to be fair, you know, they, they're going through a lot in the 15th century. There's a lot of wars. The plague is now endemic. You have, you know, the bubonic plague coming up all the time. You know, there is a kind of a feeling of scarcity around in the area. And, you know, people are a little freaked out. People are a little freaked out.

• 18:38Kate Lister?

  Looking for someone to blame.

• 18:39Speaker 01

  Exactly. And so we see in particular, when Heinrich Kramer comes to town, he shows up and he's like-

• 18:46Kate Lister?

  The town of Innsbruck.

• 18:47Speaker 01

  Innsbruck, yeah. And he shows up and he focuses in on a particular patrician woman who, shout out Helena Schubert. Okay, like she's, she is a real cool chick and she's this very wealthy patrician, right? So, you know, one of these women who's like too up herself.

• 19:04Kate Lister?

  What's a patrician?

• 19:05Speaker 01

  A patrician is someone who is really high up in the urban circles.

• 19:12Kate Lister?

  Okay, so like a socialite.

• 19:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. So she's, so she's like, she's a rich, wealthy woman. She's a businesswoman. She commands a lot of respect. She has political connections.

• 19:22Kate Lister?

  Okay, okay. Not the best target for this, Kramer, but continue.

• 19:27Speaker 01

  And so he's showing up and he's like, I'm here to look for witches. And apparently she, at a point in time, spits on him and says like, fi on you, you foul monk. Like, get the hell out of here. And like, if he shows up in masses, she and all her homegirls leave.

• 19:39Kate Lister?

  Wow.

• 19:40Speaker 01

  Like they, they all hate him, right? Because they just think he sucks and he's obviously a weirdo, right?

• 19:45Kate Lister?

  Yeah, he's just insane. This maniacs turned up, started talking about witches.

• 19:48Speaker 01

  Yep. And so he's like, I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to put this woman on trial for witchcraft.

• 19:53Kate Lister?

  Of course, that makes perfect sense.

• 19:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, so he puts her on trial for witchcraft and he's like banging on in particular, what we'll get into about like what he believes her sexual exploits to be.

• 20:04Kate Lister?

  Yeah, he really goes to it, doesn't he?

• 20:06Speaker 01

  Oh, he goes in because like the best thing about the Hammer of Witches is it's all about like how he thinks that like shagging is in a very important part of being a witch. So he's like, I think she's a big slut.

• 20:18Kate Lister?

  And don't they have like an argument about, because maybe I've imagined it, but they have an argument, like the court is actually saying like you, this isn't relevant, this isn't.

• 20:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, a hundred percent. And like.

• 20:27Kate Lister?

  It feels quite modern that they're doing that of like you could, this isn't like the fact.

• 20:31Speaker 01

  This has nothing to do with anything.

• 20:32Kate Lister?

  Nothing to do with anything.

• 20:33Speaker 01

  And that's basically what it ends up being. Like after the whole trial, she is let off completely and the court says you have, you have said much that you were unable to prove. The court is like, what is this, bro? Like, get the hell out of here. And he's basically laughed out of town.

• 20:48Kate Lister?

  Because he's got this woman who seems to have been very popular, very powerful, decided she's a witch. And then the only evidence that he can possibly produce is her sex life, which he's not allowed to talk about and has nothing to do with anything anyway. And like, how would he even know about it?

• 21:01Speaker 01

  A hundred percent. And so it's just like, everyone is like, wow, it seems like you're sexually obsessed with Helena.

• 21:06Kate Lister?

  Yes.

• 21:07Speaker 01

  It just seems like, bro, you can't stop thinking about her in sexual situations. That's what it seems like to us. And he basically has to leave Innsbruck.

• 21:16Kate Lister?

  There are letters written to him, aren't there? By like, like the mayor of the town or something. And like, they're getting increasingly more just like, dude, you need to go now. But they start off, it's almost like that office talk where you're like, how do I tell someone to fuck off in corporate? And it's like, they're trying to like, just very gently go like, oh, I noticed that you're still here. And then it progresses to just, you have been told.

• 21:38Speaker 01

  And like a hundred percent, it's like the meme, it's like Heinrich Kramer makes worst court case ever, asked to leave Innsbruck. Like, that's, that's what happens, right? And so he is eventually shoveled off. For some reason, he makes it Czech's problem. I don't know what we did.

• 21:53Kate Lister?

  He went to.

• 21:54Speaker 01

  But he gets shuffled off to Moravia.

• 21:55Kate Lister?

  Oh, right, okay.

• 21:56Speaker 01

  And not that Moravia isn't important. Shout out, Moravia. Burnout, burnout, um, et cetera. But he kind of gets moved away to places where it's kind of like a consider that he is going to cause less of a ruckus. So when he is moved off, he's like, oh, I'm gonna prove you all wrong. Witches are real. I'll tell you what sexuality has to do with this. Sexuality is the, oh, I'll tell you why all witches are sluts. And that's what the Malia's is.

• 22:21Kate Lister?

  And it's just the, it's like an insane fever dream. It's the ravings of like the most rejected man on the planet.

• 22:30Speaker 01

  Hundred percent, hundred percent. And when it gets written, as a result of the fact that that's clearly what this is, everyone is like, wow, you seem to have a lot of personal problems.

• 22:43Kate Lister?

  It wasn't a bestseller, was it?

• 22:45Speaker 01

  No, it wasn't. Not in, not in the medieval, but like, they're like, what the fuck is that? You know, like this is.

• 22:50Kate Lister?

  Quite right, as well.

• 22:51Speaker 01

  How, how are you meant to deal with this? Because it is, if you read it, it is bonkers.

• 22:57Kate Lister?

  It is, it is. Like even by the standards of the time, even taking into account, uh, different belief factors, even taking into account like cultural differences, it's still insane.

• 23:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:07Kate Lister?

  And they, and they recognized that at the time.

• 23:09Speaker 01

  They were like, these are the ravings of a madman.

• 23:11Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 23:11Speaker 01

  Uh, who clearly has some sexual hangups, right?

• 23:14Kate Lister?

  I mean, it's like, tell us some of the stuff that's in it.

• 23:16Speaker 01

  Okay. So you have to understand that from Heinrich's standpoint, the issue is like, first, the, the whole beginning of it is a little bit boring. It's a little bit philosophical. But first, he argues the fact that witches are real.

• 23:28Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 23:29Speaker 01

  And you have to understand that he's needing to make this argument because a lot of people don't think witches are real, right? He's like, and he tries to make this whole big argument that you have to believe that witches are real if you are a Christian and the two things are necessary and you have, you have to believe both, according to him.

• 23:46Kate Lister?

  Yeah, he doesn't go into this being like, obviously you all know about witches. He spends a good chunk of it trying to convince you that they're real.

• 23:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. And he's like, it's a Christian proposition to imagine that they are real because his idea and argument is that they are real because what God has done is he's allowed witches to be real in order to essentially test faith. So it's sort of like, it, it's like one of these things where like, oh yeah, God is letting it happen just to like trap a bunch of women because like he's, he's testing your ability to resist.

• 24:17Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 24:17Speaker 01

  Resist being a witch. Um, and also he's doing it because it's like, oh, if you're a good person and you're persecuted by witches, he thinks it's like a whole sort of like Job thing.

• 24:27Kate Lister?

  Right.

• 24:27Speaker 01

  So it's like, it's one of these things where it's, he tries to argue that it's kind of free will thing.

• 24:33Kate Lister?

  Yep, okay.

• 24:34Speaker 01

  Um, and so the, and the, but this is a very important point because you wouldn't have to have this argument if everyone was like, yeah, witches are definitely real, dog.

• 24:43Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 24:43Speaker 01

  Like you have to, you have to do this if people don't think they necessarily are. So there's a big chunk of that.

• 24:53Speaker 01

  I'll be back with Eleanor and the witches after this short break.

• 25:00Speaker 01

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• 26:33Speaker 02

  Hi there. I'm Dan, host of Dan Snow's History Podcast. And I can imagine on these dark winter nights, all you're gonna do is curl up with a cup of tea and get lost in an amazing story. Well, I can help you with that. Twice a week, I tell you the most dramatic and extraordinary stories from history with details I can guarantee you've never heard before. Feel the frostbite of that grisly failed American invasion of Canada in the dead of winter. Imagine every clash and blow at the Battle of Bosworth. Follow Eleanor of Accretain, one of the most powerful women in the medieval world, as she goes on crusade to the Holy Land with 300 handmaidens in tow.

• 27:12Speaker 01

  She leads her own army. Everyone goes gaga for Eleanor.

• 27:15Speaker 02

  And trace the voyage of the first Vikings as they arrive on Iceland's lonely shores. For the best historical stories to get lost in, check out Dan Snow's History.

• 27:43Kate Lister?

  He does acknowledge that men can be witches too. He does say that.

• 27:47Speaker 01

  And yeah, and he does say that, that they are, but there's a whole.

• 27:50Kate Lister?

  Let me say that, like, that's some kind of like win for equality.

• 27:52Speaker 01

  I know, right? I know. But he's got a whole chunk of it, which is like a very, right up at the beginning where he's like, well, why is it that women chiefly, women chiefly, uh, become witches?

• 28:04Kate Lister?

  Okay.

• 28:04Speaker 01

  And the argument is sexual. Uh, because as far as he's concerned, the way that one becomes a witch is you shag the devil.

• 28:13Kate Lister?

  Obviously, obviously. Yeah. You can't apply for this on a school careers day.

• 28:18Speaker 01

  No, it's like one of these things where you have, you have to have sex with the devil.

• 28:22Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 28:22Speaker 01

  And then that is what gets you into the club.

• 28:25Kate Lister?

  Okay.

• 28:26Speaker 01

  Right? And so obviously, women chiefly, uh, fall to the superstition of wishes because they love sex, right?

• 28:36Kate Lister?

  Yeah, because he flat out says it's because they, they are the weaker sex and more liable to give in to temptation.

• 28:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. And so the first thing is because women are so sexy and love sex and can't be stopped from having sex, they, they would shag the devil if they had to.

• 28:50Kate Lister?

  Of course.

• 28:50Speaker 01

  So that's number one. Number two is women be gossiping.

• 28:54Kate Lister?

  Oh, I didn't know that. But yeah, okay. What's gossiping got to do with it?

• 28:57Speaker 01

  Well, because you're just like, girl, can I tell you something? Shag the devil last night.

• 29:05Kate Lister?

  I would tell everyone.

• 29:06Speaker 01

  I'm a witch now. And then they're like, oh, girl, can I shag the devil? And they're like, girl, yeah, we could all shag the devil and be witches. And, and it's going to get you the ability to blight crops, like whatever. But he also said that one of the big reasons women become witches is because, you know, we're constantly mad about our thwarted love affairs. And so we want the magical ability to curse dicks.

• 29:28Kate Lister?

  See, that's a leap, isn't it? That, that you can almost follow the logic until we get to, right? Okay, explain this to me.

• 29:36Speaker 01

  As you and I both know, um, we're constantly bitter about our exes.

• 29:40Kate Lister?

  Yes.

• 29:40Speaker 01

  And, uh, the thing that we would like to do about our exes is obviously curse their boners.

• 29:45Kate Lister?

  Yes.

• 29:46Speaker 01

  Yeah? Okay. You're, you're with me so far. So one of the chief forms of magic that witches do, according to him, there's like a lot of penis magic. Like, there's just so much penis magic, which is great.

• 29:57Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 29:57Speaker 01

  Um, and so one of the first ones is you could just do good old fashioned, uh, anti-boner magic.

• 30:03Kate Lister?

  Right, okay.

• 30:04Speaker 01

  Homie just can't get it up now.

• 30:05Kate Lister?

  Okay.

• 30:06Speaker 01

  R I P to your boner.

• 30:07Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 30:07Speaker 01

  Uh, the other one that you can do though, is you can magic dudes dicks so that they are no longer there. All right?

• 30:18Kate Lister?

  Right.

• 30:19Speaker 01

  Obviously.

• 30:19Kate Lister?

  Obviously.

• 30:20Speaker 01

  And then you're like, well, what are you gonna do with all the dicks that aren't there?

• 30:22Kate Lister?

  Well, you're gonna put them.

• 30:24Speaker 01

  Obviously, you're gonna put them in a nest, Kate.

• 30:26Kate Lister?

  Of course.

• 30:27Speaker 01

  You're gonna put them into the nest, Kate, and you're gonna feed them oats. Like they're little birds. Cause they're little birds.

• 30:35Speaker 01

  Cause they're little birds.

• 30:36Kate Lister?

  He's not a well man. Just drained.

• 30:39Speaker 01

  And he's like, and, and I, and I went into the tree and I saw the nest of penises and the penises looked at me. Like that's, that's what, that's what's up, right? And now the obvious argument to this would be like, bro, no one's dick is getting magicked off. And he goes, ha, ha. I see that you have, uh, made this argument. However, the thing that happens, he tells a story about a guy who thinks his dick is magicked off, right? And so he goes to his priest, is like, father, father, help, a witch stole my penis. And the priest is like, well, may I see it? And the guy drops trout and the, and the priest is like, sir, clearly you have a penis.

• 31:17Kate Lister?

  It's fine.

• 31:17Speaker 01

  I'm looking directly at your penis. And so even though a priest is like, dog, that did not happen. Heinrich Kramer goes, ha, ha.

• 31:24Kate Lister?

  Wait a minute.

• 31:25Speaker 01

  It's because the man has a glamour on him. So he thinks his penis isn't there. So to him, he thinks he's looking like a Ken doll. But everyone, but so it's actually witchcraft? Like, no, no, no. The, and it's like, bro, everyone can see the penis.

• 31:40Kate Lister?

  Do you know, that's an actual medical phenomenon, a proper recognized medical condition. It's called koro, K O R O, which is a Malaysian term and it means turtle, right? And, and it's, it's where, and it normally appears as mass hysteria, is where men suddenly panic that their penis has been spirited away or is going to fall off or is, and, and you can find it all over the place. Like it was most recent in, there's an outbreak of it in Nigeria in 2023, when men thought that a guy was going around shaking their hands and making their penises disappear. And there was, it happened again in Malaysia, I think it was 1967, when rumor got out that infected pork meat, if you ate it, your penis would vanish. And the hospitals were flooded with men holding their penises down going, please don't let it disappear. And the government had to make announcements.

• 32:25Speaker 01

  We'll see.

• 32:25Kate Lister?

  See, but so it's the whole thing, right?

• 32:27Speaker 01

  It's a whole thing. Like, yeah.

• 32:28Kate Lister?

  And that's what this is.

• 32:29Speaker 01

  And it's like writing it down and to a certain extent encouraging it, like encouraging the, encouraging this particular belief, right? So there's this whole line in penis magic. Um, there's also a lot of discussing the fact that witches are shagging the devil, right? And there is just like, there are chapters devoted to, well, where does the devil get the semen from?

• 32:49Kate Lister?

  I've read those chapters. He's given a lot of thought to this.

• 32:52Speaker 01

  Because obviously the devil, the devil can't have semen, right?

• 32:54Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 32:55Speaker 01

  Because the devil, there's also a lot of, of argument about what the devil can and cannot do, how it is the devil gets the power to interact with witches. And well, obviously if the devil has sex with the witch, he's gonna have to just like jizz right up in there.

• 33:06Kate Lister?

  Yep.

• 33:07Speaker 01

  Right? Obviously. Right. But the devil can't possibly have semen because the devil can't create anything.

• 33:14Kate Lister?

  Okay.

• 33:15Speaker 01

  Okay. So the, the devil is not able to ever create anything out of whole cloth, something that already exists. He can pervert, but he can't make things, right? Like that is the theological idea here. So, so where does the semen come from? I'll tell you. So the semen comes from succubuses. So devils can be a succubus or even an incubus, they, they exist as well. And they can kind of shape shift between the two. And so what a succubus does is a succubus goes and she shags a dude while he is asleep and she steals his precious semen.

• 33:50Kate Lister?

  Oh, yeah.

• 33:51Speaker 01

  And then she.

• 33:52Kate Lister?

  That's what we all want.

• 33:53Speaker 01

  She then gives the semen to the devil. And then the devil uses that semen as his own. And so there's a lot of also discussing the fact that the semen is cold.

• 34:02Kate Lister?

  I've, I've heard that one.

• 34:03Speaker 01

  Yeah. So they're, they have to talk about how the semen is cold. And then there's this, but there's this knock on effect then, right? Because they're like, well, what happens? What happens then if a witch gets knocked up by the semen that was stolen from this man? Is he the actual father? Is he liable like to be the father of this? And they're like, no.

• 34:22Kate Lister?

  No, that's surely no.

• 34:24Speaker 01

  No, no, cause the semen got stolen and he didn't even know. And there's like a whole bit about how like a witch could be having sex with the devil right now and he wouldn't know because they're invisible. So any, the, the devil's invisible. So anytime a witch is just standing there, she might be having sex right now, right in front of you and you wouldn't know. And so like, say you were a woman who is like having an illicit affair and you fall pregnant with a guy. He in theory could be like, uh, maybe, maybe much is was stolen. Was stolen. I don't know what she's talking about. But I mean, again, I can't stress this enough. At the time, everyone is like, wow, Heinrich, it seems like you're making a weird case.

• 35:04Kate Lister?

  Well, yeah, because it is like the, the level of detail that he's gone into. And this is clearly all projection. He's fallen into the trap of because I find something erotic, therefore it must be erotic. Because I hate something, therefore it must be hateful. And this is just a massive projection, but with a lot of weird theology for, this is basically just a psychotic episode written down.

• 35:27Speaker 01

  Oh, completely. And the, and the thing about it is, you know, it, it's kind of pseudo-intellectual is the thing. As I say, you know, if, if you go through it, his citations do not always lead back to where he claims they lead. Um, they are also, you know, kind of stilted, he will, you know, for example, St. Augustine does sort of say that magic might exist or sorcerers might exist, particularly because he's working in the late antique period.

• 35:53Kate Lister?

  He has very little to say about penises and trees.

• 35:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, very little, which is odd because he's got a lot to say about penises more generally. Like, I mean, St. Augustine is constantly writing about penises. So, you know, he, he doesn't, he doesn't find that particularly compelling. He does think that magic might exist and people might use it for malevolent reasons. But he is kind of writing more in this late antique style where he's sort of like talking about hangovers from the pagan era, um, such as it is. You know, he's living in Egypt. It's very, it is, it is what it is. So we're taking these things that are kind of happening a thousand years or a thousand years earlier, give or take, you know, and, and trying to, to strap it on there.

• 36:30Kate Lister?

  Hey.

• 36:30Speaker 01

  See? Uh, so, you know, i- i- it's kind of like these constant twists and turns in order to get back to this argument that he's making over and over again. And fundamentally, medieval people are like.

• 36:47Kate Lister?

  I beg your very finest pardon.

• 36:48Speaker 01

  Exactly. And, and it, it's just sort of like, okay, well, good job, Heinrich, you wrote a book.

• 36:55Kate Lister?

  If you met him in the pub and he was talking like that, you would just.

• 36:58Speaker 01

  You'd be, you'd be out.

• 36:58Kate Lister?

  Yeah. You'd just be like.

• 37:00Speaker 01

  That's why they had to send him to Moravia. They're like, send him around a bunch of Czech speakers. Then no one will know what he's talking about. It won't be so embarrassing.

• 37:05Kate Lister?

  So he publishes this, this book in all of its demented glory, 1485, was it?

• 37:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, 1486.

• 37:13Kate Lister?

  1486. What happens to him after that? Do we know?

• 37:19Speaker 01

  I mean, he continues his career out in Moravia. He does like some, he doesn't really do much more witch trialing. You know, he does like some.

• 37:26Kate Lister?

  This is like a one and done. This is like.

• 37:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's like, he, he, yeah. And it's like, he doesn't really manage to prosecute any.

• 37:33Kate Lister?

  Never prosecutes a witch with this.

• 37:34Speaker 01

  Like not particularly successfully, no. And so he just dies and like, that's fine. But.

• 37:40Kate Lister?

  And it should have just been a mad book.

• 37:43Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 37:43Kate Lister?

  That maybe like people would turn to once in a while to go, it's just so funny. This crazy shit. But unfortunately, that's not what happened.

• 37:52Speaker 01

  Unfortunately, that's not what happens because unfortunately we decide we're gonna do confessionalization. Unfortunately, we invent Protestants.

• 37:59Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 37:59Speaker 01

  Right? And the way to think about this era and the process of confessionalization is it's essentially like a spiritual arms race, right?

• 38:10Kate Lister?

  Explain, explain to the lovely listeners, what do you mean by spiritual arms race?

• 38:14Speaker 01

  So basically Protestants are like Catholics are not very holy. We're all holy ones and that's why we're, that's why we have to be Protestants. And Catholics are like, no, you shut up. No.

• 38:25Kate Lister?

  We're the holy.

• 38:26Speaker 01

  No, we're the holy one. And actually you're not very holy and I don't like it. And that it's in this context that like everything really blows up. You've got the reformation and you've got the counter reformation at the same time. So the reformation is when Protestants are doing it. Counter reformation is when Catholics are doing it. And they both get into essentially this argument about who can be the most holy. And as a part of that, they are also saying who can be the most austere.

• 38:52Kate Lister?

  Mm hmm.

• 38:52Speaker 01

  Right? So you have a big crackdown on like, um, having the fun churches that have like cool murals, having like, uh, nice and cool religious statues in your church. Um, you have a crackdown on women. Huh. Uh, so like women shouldn't be around in society because what if they were sexy? Um, certainly both you and I see that in terms of whether sex work is legal, there's huge crackdown on legal sex work. You know, like we get rid of, for example, like municipal brothels. So there's like this big closing in of society. There is an increased and quite severe reaction to sexuality, to decoration, to anything that is considered frivolous. And also as a part of this, we have the witch panics.

• 39:37Kate Lister?

  That just get ignited in amongst all of this, like a lot of fear, because we need to remember is what they weren't burning each other and executing each other.

• 39:45Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, and there is more, uh, burning of witches. Um, ordinarily, most places witches are hung. Um, and it's because in the German lands, they are treating witches as heretics.

• 39:58Kate Lister?

  It's that link again, isn't it?

• 39:59Speaker 01

  And, and you burn, and you burn heretics because you don't want anyone to make relics, which is like taking their body parts after the fact and turning them into saints. So for example, in England, during the witch panics, you're gonna hang the witches. In the German lands, it's more likely that you will burn them. But on the whole, more people are hung than are burnt. But in the German lands, they are gonna burn you. But it's because they're using. Things like this. So it's an interesting one because the Malais is fairly influential in some circles. So for example, we know one of our nuttier kings here in England, James I, is fairly influenced by it. And he writes his own frankly bonkers text, The Demonarium, which I do recommend people read.

• 40:44Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 40:44Speaker 01

  Because it is similarly outrageous.

• 40:48Kate Lister?

  But not quite as demented. I love that James is really trying to give it like a scientific spin.

• 40:54Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 40:54Kate Lister?

  But it is, yeah, it's mad.

• 40:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's bad. It's just like, he, he a lot more believes in actual demons.

• 41:00Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 41:01Speaker 01

  Which is what's fun about The Demonarium. But he also believes that like witches are trying to sink his boat or something. It's like, babe, you're not that special. No, they're not.

• 41:07Kate Lister?

  But he thought he was.

• 41:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, he really believed that to be so, right? And so you do see at the very high levels of society, super high echelons, that is true. Certainly, it's influential in the German lands because Heinrich Kramer was German, right? So we do see it kind of traveling around more often. And two things are true. So it's interesting because Catholics who are doing it at the time will sort of be like, oh, yeah, well, we have this good old fashioned Catholic guy. Remember when people took witchcraft seriously? And it's like, no one took this seriously, dog.

• 41:37Kate Lister?

  Seriously.

• 41:38Speaker 01

  And the Protestants similarly look at it and they go, aha, see, like, we can have that because it's before the process of confessionalization. It came out before we invented Protestants. And if the Catholics had taken this guy seriously, we wouldn't be in this problem to begin with. And so they have a look at it. But also, I'm going to be so for real with you, like Matthew Hopkins, the witch finder general up here in England, he didn't read this.

• 42:00Kate Lister?

  No, I think that the far more influential texts around, around these parts, the British Isles, would have been King James's work.

• 42:08Speaker 01

  King James's, yeah.

• 42:08Kate Lister?

  Because a big part of that is people wanting to impress the king. I've read your book. Look, I found witches too.

• 42:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, and they're, and they're like, oh, yeah, they've got, there's much more like interest in, for example, like, having your demon familiar and things like that. There is still a sexual slant to it.

• 42:24Kate Lister?

  And witches marks.

• 42:26Speaker 01

  And the witches marks have a very goodly sexual slant as well.

• 42:28Kate Lister?

  Yeah, definitely.

• 42:29Speaker 01

  But the Hammer of Witches is just about, it's almost exclusively about sex.

• 42:33Kate Lister?

  Yeah, it is. But it's, it's interesting that you say that because another sort of narrative that you see emerging around this is that the Malais Malafacarum kicked off the witch hunts. That like, it was published and then everyone lost their goddamn mind. And that isn't true.

• 42:48Speaker 01

  No, like, nothing could be further from the truth. I mean, the witch panics in particular, they don't really kick off for like a good 80, 90 years.

• 42:57Kate Lister?

  And probably would have happened even if that text hadn't existed.

• 43:00Speaker 01

  Oh, completely, completely. Like, it is, this is sort of like a fan favorite. Like, I mean, you have to be like in the know with this. And fundamentally, people read this when it comes out in the medieval period and they're like, this is not right. Like, like you, there seems like there's something wrong here. And, and they just don't believe it. They just don't believe it. And it kind of comes back out of the woodwork as a result of the witch panics.

• 43:24Kate Lister?

  Yeah, they're already doing it.

• 43:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're already doing it and they're looking for something to justify it. And so they go get.

• 43:32Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 43:32Speaker 01

  The Malais.

• 43:33Kate Lister?

  And there were many witch hunting guides, not just King James and the Malais. There was, Matthew Hopkins knocked one out, one of his mates did the same thing. And it's basically repeating the same stuff over and over again. But it's not like the Malais was the absolute headline act of all this stuff.

• 43:49Speaker 01

  No, absolutely. And you can definitely see, for example, even though this is like a nominally Catholic text or something like that, you know, we've talked about this before. When we have the witch panics, they're more likely to get a witch panic in places where Catholics and Protestants are living next to each other, where there's kind of like an uneasy process of confessionalization. Because like, three people are killed in Ireland. Because they're like, yeah, we're Catholic. And so like, you could show them the Malais all you wanted during the witch panics in Ireland and they're like, okay, okay, I don't know, I don't know who that's for, you know? But in the German lands, where you've got a lot of Catholics and Protestants living cheek by jowl to each other, because

• 44:30Speaker 01

  some states stay as Catholics, some states become Protestant, and it's like, sort of down to what your principle is, that they get to sort of choose what the flavor is. So there's a lot more worry about witchcraft there, because there's a lot more worry about someone being a Protestant or Catholic. And we do tend to see people who, for example, seem to be acting a little too Catholic in Protestant areas accused of witchcraft and vice versa. So that's, that's kind of the problem there. So, you know, we just do not see that at the time, even amidst a lot of the witch panics, that the Malais does anything. And, and that's an important point, right? Because I think that there is this tendency when we talk about history, or when we talk

• 45:14Speaker 01

  about indeed, like, gender history or anything like that, people look at history as though it's like one process of just things getting better and people getting more rights. And what we see with the witch panics and belief in witchcraft is actually the opposite. So it's something that people don't like actually digging into because they want to believe that in the early modern period, they're like, oh, it's the Renaissance.

• 45:35Kate Lister?

  Yeah, Shakespeare's here.

• 45:36Speaker 01

  And so, actually, everything's just got more scientific.

• 45:39Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 45:39Speaker 01

  Right? Things get more scientific when we get to the Renaissance. You see the opposite happening.

• 45:44Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 45:44Speaker 01

  You know, medieval people are like, this is stupid and there's no way that this exists. Whereas early modern people are like, absolutely real, witch came from a dick. Right? And it, it goes against this easy story that we like to tell.

• 45:59Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 45:59Speaker 01

  About, about the Renaissance, about even the Enlightenment. And indeed, like, the Enlightenment does kind of put paid to a lot of these things, but it sticks around. Like, I mean, certainly the Salem witch trials are happening at the same time as the Enlightenment.

• 46:12Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 46:12Speaker 01

  So, you know, it's not one of those things where you can't just say, well, we invented science, so nobody believes in witchcraft anymore. Exact opposite.

• 46:19Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 46:19Speaker 01

  We get way more into witchcraft as a society when we're inventing science. So, you know, it's, it's not an easy narrative. It's not easy to teach in schools.

• 46:30Kate Lister?

  I think that's the thing about the Malais, though, is it, it become, I mean, first of all, it's fun to read. It is, it's, and as a historical document, it's bat crap crazy. And it's deeply misogynistic and it's completely out there. But it does provide a very easy narrative for going, that was published, that hates women, that's where the witch trials happened. And it's just not that neat. Because one of the things that I've learned about the witch trials is it resists easy definition. And every time you think you've got a handle on what was happening, there's always a counterpoint. Always.

• 47:01Speaker 01

  There's always Estonia, there's always Iceland, there's always, you know, these places where more men are killed. You know, there are, there are always all these moving parts.

• 47:09Kate Lister?

  You think it's about older women and then you realize, well, actually, they're chucking kids on the bonfire in Germany.

• 47:14Speaker 01

  Oh, completely. Oh, God, in Sweden, they just kill whole towns. It's just like everyone, all of them.

• 47:18Kate Lister?

  Oh, wow. They didn't mess around, did they?

• 47:21Speaker 01

  So, you know, it is one of those things where people want it to be.

• 47:25Kate Lister?

  Easy.

• 47:26Speaker 01

  And I think also, to a certain extent, people like the, the story of like, the pure misogyny.

• 47:32Kate Lister?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 47:33Speaker 01

  And, you know, don't get me wrong, this is an entirely misogynist text. It is absolutely disgusting.

• 47:37Kate Lister?

  Irredeemable.

• 47:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, like, there's, there's, the only thing that's good about it is.

• 47:41Kate Lister?

  Nobody's doing a revision of this text.

• 47:42Speaker 01

  No, like, it's, it's just bad. But I think that it makes it easier to talk about the witch panics. If you're like, yeah, it just had to do with older women. And if you look at the Malais, that will reconfirm those priors, right? And that isn't what we actually see about the witch panics more generally. And it's also not what we see about the circulation of the Malais and how it's received. You know, the Malais becomes much more popular later on.

• 48:06Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 48:07Speaker 01

  And it's just, and it's just something where you can be like, and the Malais, you know, when you're writing your own nonsense, right?

• 48:13Kate Lister?

  Oh, Eleanor, you have been fabulous to talk to once again. I would never throw you on a bonfire. I would never do that to you.

• 48:19Speaker 01

  That's so, that's the nicest thing that anyone's ever said to me.

• 48:22Kate Lister?

  You're welcome. And I mean it as well. But if people want to know more about you and your work, where can they find you?

• 48:26Speaker 01

  So you can come check out my podcast, obviously, Gone Medieval, also on History Hit, where all good history podcasts can be found. You can check me out on the socials on Instagram, I'm at Dr. Eleanor Yanaga. And on Blue Sky, I'm at Going Medieval.

• 48:43Kate Lister?

  Will you come back again to talk more historical madness?

• 48:46Speaker 01

  Babe, I would be so delighted.

• 48:48Kate Lister?

  Yay. I'll see you soon.

• 48:50Speaker 01

  Thanks, sweetheart.

• 48:53Kate Lister?

  Thank you for listening. And thank you so much to Eleanor for joining us. And if you like what you heard, don't forget to like, review and follow along, wherever it is that you get your podcasts. And if you want us to explore a subject, or perhaps you just wanted to say hello, or perhaps you wanted to let us know that you've found a nest of penises in your garden, then you can email us at [email protected]. This podcast was edited by Natasha Hughes and produced by Sophie G. The senior producer was Freddy Chick. Join me again, Betwixt the Sheets, The History of Sex, Scandal and Society, a podcast by History Hit. This podcast contains music from Epidemic Sound.