Salem Part 1: The Origins of Witchcraft

Double, double toil and trouble; fire burn and cauldron bubble, my divas, because today we are unpacking the History of Witchcraft! From the ancient world right up to the events in Salem, we are unpacking the origins of the term witch, the difference between magic and miracles, the role of religion and the Church, and even taking a trip through space-time to the University of Melbourne to see a very rare copy of the Malleus Maleficarum! All this and so much more will give you the basic knowledge to understand exactly HOW the hysteria mounted in the Salem Witch trials, which we will cover in part 2! Shout out to our incredible researcher Gracie McCamish and editor Jamie Rose for pulling this together, and to the team at the University of Melbourne for hosting us. If you're wanting more Hot History you can follow along on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.instagram.com/hothistoryclub/?hl=en, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.tiktok.com/@hot.history?lang=en, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Substack⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://substack.com/@hothistoryclub, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.youtube.com/@hot.history and of course, right here! 'Til next week, Ainslie x

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• 1:00Speaker 02

  Hi guys, I am so excited to launch our very first series for you. It is all about the Salem Witch Trials. Today will be about kind of witchcraft more broadly. We're going to establish a history of the kind of magic and mythology. And then next Tuesday, which is going to be our new second release date, when we do to a series, it will come out on Tuesdays, we will get into all of the deets in Salem. But researching this has been transformative, guys. It's been a lot. It's been probably like five or six weeks worth of research to go into this. And as well as learning, of course, wonderful and hot historical facts. I've also picked up a little bit of magic myself.

• 1:42Speaker 02

  So if you are watching on video right now, you are in for a treat because three, two, one, magic. For you guys listening, the candles in like the mantle just lit themselves. So no idea how that happened. Actually, yes, I do. Fucking magic, guys. Roll the medieval whimsical tune.

• 2:15Speaker 02

  Hi guys and welcome back to Hot History, your corner of the internet where we cover all the things in history that you probably should know but don't. I'm Ainslie Harvey, your hot historian here today, ready to chat about one of the most polarizing and famous events in human history: the Salem Witch Trials. Inspiration for Arthur Miller's The Crucible and many, many modern-day iterations of witches and witchcraft, the Salem Witch Trials really are the perfect example of how religious hysteria can take hold of a community, turning neighbor against neighbor, and almost all against women. But to understand the trials in Salem and kind of the anatomy, right, behind this hysteria,

• 2:58Speaker 02

  we first have to look at exactly what a witch is, right? How did the concept of witchcraft emerge? Which means we are going to split this series into two parts. The first of which will establish all of the important context we need, the history of witchcraft more broadly. And then the second part we will drop next Tuesday, like I said, and focus on the actual events in Salem, walking you through step by step about how this small community went on to change history forever. So let's dive into the history of witchcraft today, guys, by rewinding it all the way back to 1650 BCE, where we find ourselves amongst the desert moons, rolling dunes, and pharaoh's tombs of ancient Egypt.

• 3:40Speaker 02

  And we are starting here today because there is a very important and very old inscription on an ancient tomb of this period, which features what historians believe to be one of the first masters of secrets. Featuring this inscription, as we said, alongside magicians' tools like wands and even an incantation, writer Christina Riggs confirms this tomb is a reflection of what became a relatively common practice for the time: that of the high priest slash priestess slash magicians, who the ancient Egyptians believed maintained order with their magical powers. Now, for my divas who have seen Now You See Me, you will know all about this, right?

• 4:25Speaker 02

  With the magical order of magicians and sorcerers in the film known as "The Eye," descending from the ancient depths of the Egyptian world. But you may be thinking, and you know, fair enough, like, we're not talking about magicians today, diva, we're talking about witches. And this is a fair point, but the history of witchcraft largely does begin with these ancient magicians and sorcerers, not with brooms, black cats, and pointy hats, okay? So let's start to unpick it. Magic more broadly has always been believed in, dating right back to the very first peoples in the Upper Paleolithic Age, which dates back to roughly 40,000 BCE.

• 5:05Speaker 02

  And we see this in several examples, including Germany's The Lion Man, which depicts an ivory sculpture carved from a mammoth tusk, combining a human body and lion features, which is actually one of the earliest examples of humans imagining a kind of being, right, that transcended the human/animal divide. So not necessarily like magic or magic in practice, but a magical being most certainly. We do, however, begin to see magic in practice between 35,000 to 20,000 BCE, with cave art at sites like Chevey and La Salle in France, which depict extraordinary paintings of horses, bison, lions, rhinos, and other animals, which some historians believe to be an early

• 5:49Speaker 02

  form of hunting magic, where these early peoples essentially painted the animal in this attempt to ritually control its spirit to perhaps improve their chances of killing it, for example. And while I do want to caveat, modern archaeologists of these two specific sites are more cautious that hunting magic is the sole purpose of these paintings, the widespread belief is that they are linked to mythology and magical ceremonies. So if we then jump up to 15,000 to 13,000 BCE, which is just like crazy to even imagine like the concept of time around then, it's wild. But we then see one of the earliest depictions of humans then wielding this magic, right?

• 6:30Speaker 02

  So we go from a magic kind of deity in The Lion Man to magic paintings in the cave art, and now a depiction of humans actually using this magic, or so many prehistorians believe, right? In The Sorcerer of Troyes Frères in the French Pyrenees. Here, there is a 75-centimeter-tall, partly engraved figure who is dancing with large antlers, a bearded face, human-like legs, and a long animal tail, which is largely interpreted as this hunting magic or sorcery in practice, right? Say that you wanted to like control a kangaroo, for example, you know, you kind of inhabit this tail. And while again, there are debates over this meaning, the idea of shamans and sorcerers

• 7:11Speaker 02

  and human wielders of magic begins around this time, something which then expands and becomes really communal around 9,600 to 8,200 BCE, with the Gobekli Tepe in Turkey, which is basically these huge like T-shaped pillars and carved animals built by early hunter-gatherers as communal spaces for supernatural rituals. So we go from these kind of small-scale paintings to perhaps portable objects, to now, magic and kind of the supernatural rituals being a major, fixed, and permanent part of society. Something which then continues to evolve by the fourth and third millennia BCE, when we know that the ancient Mesopotamians believed and practiced magic as part of their daily

• 7:56Speaker 02

  lives, thanks to their detailed recording of supernatural practices. For them, okay, this wasn't weird, nor was it kind of considered irrational, and it really sat comfortably alongside things like medicine, religion, and government, which again, like, I know it's really hard to even conceptualize, like 3,000 years BCE, but these are still people, right? And the one thing that we know about human beings, aside from the fact we can do really fucked up shit, is that we crave understanding and we crave assurance, and we are really willing to look to whatever we need to find it.

• 8:38Speaker 02

  Which perhaps leaves you asking, and very rightfully so, guys, there's lots of questions that come up in this series. What's the difference between magic and religion? Now, this is a sticky one, okay? Because when we come to the 16th and 17th centuries, especially in Salem next episode, religion plays the biggest part in the witch trials. But for these early societies, there often isn't a clean difference between the two. However, if we come back to Egypt, where we started, right, around that 3,000 BCE, we do start to see a separation of religion and magic, but not, and I want to like reiterate this to you guys, not as this evil or sinister force which kind of combats against religion

• 9:21Speaker 02

  and divinity, but rather a companion to it. Now, this is best described in the term "heca," which, while translating directly to the word "magic," actually has a far greater meaning for the ancient Egyptians as a kind of force that is built into the universe. So for these peoples, right, their gods were users of heca, as were their priests and priestesses, which is when the idea of these masters of magic, sorcerers, and shamans, and practical witches really starts to form. So from this period onwards, around 2,400 BCE, we see a boom in the practice of magic in things like the Egyptian pyramid texts, which reveal hundreds of ritual spells and amulets buried in royal tombs.

• 10:06Speaker 02

  We also see it in Mesopotamia with the "assu," which is what they were called, kind of these magical healers dealing specifically with illness. We also see it in Greece with the "goes," who deals specifically with matters of the dead. Now, all of these distinct things, right? Relatively benign, everyday kind of purposes, everyday kind of issues. But it's also around this period that we see the other side of magic start to evolve. That of the negative, the curse, the evil, that of dark magic. Okay, so like we said earlier, right? These ancient peoples are still just like us. They seek reassurance and meaning through things like religion and the supernatural. We get all of that.

• 10:49Speaker 02

  But the other side of that coin is that as humans, we also fear what we don't know and what we don't understand. And this really began to take hold in around 2000 BCE, with the ideas of illicit magic starting to form. Now, this was basically built upon the belief of the ancient Mesopotamians that yes, as we said, magic is real and commonly used. But they also begin to think, if this can be used for good, right? So many wicked references could be made throughout all of this piece. I'm refraining myself. If this can be used for good, it can also be used for bad. And so the idea of bewitching and cursing, right?

• 11:31Speaker 02

  Someone using magic against you began to emerge. So much so that there were actually counter-magic experts for those who were bewitched, called the asypu, which actually, and this is super interesting, translates loosely to exorcist. And while the practice, you know, of these peoples is very different from our understanding of the Christian exorcist, the asypu was specialists in combating the sinister female version of the kasaptu and the male kasapu, terms which are commonly translated as sorcerer. So now we're starting to see a common theme, right? Of these sinister practitioners starting to emerge. And I do want to note, the idea of witches being primarily women, right?

• 12:15Speaker 02

  Is not present at all in the ancient world. We see here with the Mesopotamians, for example, they had their own term for it, as do the Anglo-Saxons as well, who used both the term wicca, being male, and wiki, being female, to describe their magical practitioners around 900 BCE. Which again, another interesting fun fact, I'm just full of them. I sprinkle them throughout everything where I can, like a delicious like chicken salt flavoured seasoning. Some accounts say that this is actually where the term witch comes from, right? Wiki witch.

• 12:49Speaker 02

  But many say that it actually does translate to wise ones. Regardless though, it doesn't really matter. We are starting to, you know, see some profiling happening here, which brings us to Circe. Now, for my Davis who listened to our Odyssey series, you'll know Circe as the being who kind of traps Odysseus and holds him captive on her island. And if you're watching the Odyssey, you'll know her as Samantha Morton, who kind of manhandles people's faces. But to the ancient Greek peoples of Homer's time in the 8th century BCE, and really those sense, she has largely been identified as the first real witch. Something I will again caveat here and say, isn't technically correct.

• 13:33Speaker 02

  Homer simply says she is, quote, "of the lovely hair, a formidable goddess with a human voice." But whether he calls her a sorceress, or a witch, or a fucking janitor, right? It doesn't really matter, because it's not her title that holds meaning here. But what she actually does, her actions, right? Her practice, her power, which matters here because Circe really does go on to lay the foundations of the witch stereotype for centuries after. So what does she do?

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• 15:04Speaker 02

  Well, firstly, we have this note from Homer that she has extraordinary powers and knowledge of pharmaka, which is kind of the collective Greek term for drugs and herbs and medicines and poison, which was considered an alchemical and magical talent. Then she uses a wand slash staff to turn Odysseus' men into pigs, the obvious here also being that she like has magic to do this transformation. We also know that she chant slash sang while working, possessed supernatural knowledge of the underworld, which allowed Odysseus to actually travel there. And all in all, guys, is kind of living away from ordinary society as a sexually independent and powerful female being.

• 15:48Speaker 02

  So while Circe is still a long way from the later Christian witches, right? That we'll see in Salem, we do see a lot of the early identifiers of witches in Circe, including the fact that she does have ill intent. And while yes, she administers, you know, kind of her own counter-magic, which does link back to the Mesopotamians, her intentions are not always pure, right? Something which goes to a whole other level when we meet her niece Medea. Princess of Colchis, a kingdom on the eastern coast of the Black Sea, this diva has a lot of magical blood, including, as we said, Circe alongside Helios, the sun god, and her Kate, the goddess of ghosts, crossroads and the night.

• 16:34Speaker 02

  So she's a spooky kind of gal, right? It's in her DNA. Like, I feel like Halloween era Vanessa Hudgens would have loved Medea. We largely know about her thanks to Euripides' tragedy called Medea, which was first performed in 431 BCE, where her magic is initially used for good, after which she puts a bunch of kind of stuff in a pot and makes an elixir, which FYI, another fun fact, is where the idea of the witches' cauldron comes from. But it isn't actually an elixir. It was just a plot for these young girls to chop up their dad into pieces and throw him into this kind of stew, because it gets him out of the way so that Medea can be with this guy, but then the guy ends up leaving her.

• 17:15Speaker 02

  So then she murders her own children to get back at him, like, ugh! It's, it's, it's so drama, like, it's like an episode of The Real Housewives of Ancient Greece, right? And we're definitely dealing with some nefarious uses of magic here, something which many later writers have taken and dialed up a notch, like Ophir around the 8th century AD, who goes like totally wild with Medea's magic in this kind of nocturnal ritual to the moons. It's all very spooky, okay? So a real change in how we look at these magical practitioners in society and as a whole idea of magic around this 500 to 400 BCE era, which brings us to the Judeo Christians,

• 17:58Speaker 02

  who will pretty much be the main characters in the story from this point out, pretty much. So around this time, 600ish BCE, the Hebrew Bible makes mention of forbidden magic and stipulates this is not just a normal kind of standard belief in the supernatural, but a sinister one. Something which, mini rant inserted here, okay? It drives me fucking mad and has been so hard to wrap my head around, because all religions believe in the supernatural, right? The Christians, for example, Jesus died, he came back, um, he then kind of goes up to the sky, right? So a belief in the supernatural is the basis of all religion, which is just what's like so hypocritical and aggravating when we look at the role of religion and like in particular

• 18:43Speaker 02

  the Catholic Church in antagonising the witch trials. Because y'all all believe the same stuff. Like, you're just, it's just a matter of how it's done, you know? For example, here Exodus 22:18, which is dated to around 800 to 500 BCE, states, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." And I do want to make an important distinction here, because wording is important. This exact wording, the term witch, was published in the King James Bible around 1611. So the term witch was not what was in this original Hebrew text. It was actually mekhashapha, a feminine form understood as sorceress, which was used instead. So that's the first mention, right?

• 19:24Speaker 02

  Next is Deuteronomy 18:10 to 12, which gives us a list, basically, of the forbidden magics, including divination, sorcery, interpreting omens, casting spells, consulting mediums and seeking information from the dead. Now, all of this is important here, because it gives specific actions that are made religiously illegitimate, which was actually kind of this like genius marketing ploy with followers of the church, or you know, the, the kind of belief system, being encouraged not to seek supernatural guidance through themselves or their own actions, but through the religion and the church. So kind of like a paywar, really.

• 20:07Speaker 02

  Now, around 1000 BCE, we get one of the Bible's most famous magical women. In 1 Samuel, verse 28, where King Saul goes to see a medium known as the Witch of Endor to call up the prophet Samuel from the dead. However, a modern day pastor named John Piper describes her as evil, rebellious and abominable, basically like a full-blown necromancer. Okay? Now, I could keep going all day into every little nook and cranny of every ancient religion and culture, and if you guys want that, I definitely can do that in a later episode, but we gotta keep it moving. So what we see when we really click over into AD, right? Anadonimae, is this shift from the belief held by, say, the Egyptians and the early

• 20:52Speaker 02

  Mesopotamians, that magic is a power woven into the cosmos, to the belief that humans should not access this power. So there's no denying magic isn't real still, it's just a limitation on who and how this is used. Which brings us to probably the one big burning hot question that's living in everyone's brain. Where does the devil sit in all of this? Now, if you're like me, okay, and have Joe Huey throughout your entire algorithm, you'll know Dancing in the Woods with the Devil is essential for all things witchy. However, if you're not like me and don't have him in your algorithm, I'm gonna link him in the show notes. I am obsessed with him, guys. He's genuinely like, other than Caleb Heron, the funniest person on the fucking internet, okay?

• 21:37Speaker 02

  And he's just done a short form, like a video series on the Salem witch trials, which is hilarious, so I'll link it all. But anyway, the point here, right? Is that the whole concept of modern witchcraft is really embedded in this idea that they are Satan's representatives. Right? If you're a witch, you're doing the devil's business. However, this is actually a shockingly late addition to the witchcraft pie. For while Jewish traditions around 300 BCE to 100 AD increasingly develop ideas about demons, rebellious angels and forbidden supernatural knowledge, there's still no mention of the devil, right? Satan, Lucifer, the big looming fallen evil angel.

• 22:22Speaker 02

  In fact, post death of Jesus and pre-medieval times, the witch develops not as a servant of Satan, but as a religious heretic. And this is really important here, guys. Because from this point on, a lot of the history and the kind of, uh, how would you say it, like world building, I guess, associated with witches is deeply, deeply political versus religious. So let's get into it. Now, coming to the first to fourth centuries AD, so we're in AD now. As Christianity is spreading, we see an important distinction be made between miracles, right, which are considered an act of God, and with magic, which is considered illicit,

• 23:06Speaker 02

  something demonstrated in Acts 19, where Christian converts who had previously practised magic started publicly burning their magical books to really show this kind of turning away from the old beliefs of supernatural power. Something which really becomes defined as a gift of demons under Augustine in 400 AD, who starts talking about the demons pact that these magic wielders have signed to kind of get their powers. So now around here, right? We are starting to see some of the kind of Dancing with the Devil, Signing the Devil's Book, You're One of His Agents rhetoric emerge. Even though it's not identified as Satan, it's demons who are granting this magic.

• 23:50Speaker 02

  Now, this carried on all the way from 400 AD to the 1200s, so a long time kind of building this base of belief that witches are agents of evil. Which is really what allows the church to start making widespread claims that anyone, full stop, anyone who engages in magical practice is a heretic. Right? They are engaging with illicit forces against gods, and most importantly, against the church's will. Which is really the crux of where the active vilification and persecution of witches starts, guys. It's not, like I said, necessarily about religion and the spirits. It's about the thing the church wants most of all.

• 24:36Speaker 02

  Power through influence and control of the local community. Because while the clergy's views of these magic wielders is, you know, that they're heretical, society at large doesn't necessarily comply with this belief. Because there are everyday parts of everyday life which rely on magical elements. Namely, healers, herbalists and midwives. Now, we already spoke kind of about the role of these healers in ancient societies, right? But they also did play a role in the Middle Ages as well, with primarily women holding incredible knowledge of things like medicinal plants, uh, pregnancy, birth, fertility, and kind of just general treatments,

• 25:20Speaker 02

  which had been passed down between generations of women in towns, clans and cities alike. And these women in particular, which I do wanna pause quickly here and make note of the fact that there were male healers, but a lot of the kind of gendering of witches as females goes back to these women in their respective homes and communities, who essentially became vessels of knowledge, thanks to the passing of information from mothers to grandmothers and, you know, aunts to cousins and things like that. There's also quite a bit of exaggeration that the first accusations of witches were levelled primarily at midwives. Um, but this is an exaggeration with the idea of evil power being used to taint innocent babies kind of seen throughout this active midwifery.

• 26:03Speaker 02

  The crux here, though, is that these healers played incredibly important roles, performing certain ceremonies and administering various treatments, which did blur the boundaries between medicine, religion and magic. Something which English Protestant reformer and clergyman Thomas Beacon sums up well here, saying, quote, "When we be in trouble or sickness or lose anything, we run hither and thither to witches or sorcerers whom we call wise men, seeking aid and comfort at their hands." Which is very much, guys, what these healers and midwives are doing for their communities. Right? This kind of, um, yes administering administering of, uh, herbs and teas and treatments,

• 26:47Speaker 02

  but also an administering of hope. Right? As though there's another force or gift at play in these trying times. Which is why these people are often referred to as wise men and wise women, or as historians do tend to call them, cunning folk. And this practice, which again is centuries old and embedded in society and culture at large, really, really started to piss off the church around the 1300 mark, guys. Because ailments and death and suffering and fertility and all other kind of struggles require divine guidance and intervention. Something that people should be getting from the real authority, the church.

• 27:30Speaker 02

  Which is when our conversation about politics and power comes back up here, guys. Because yes, the religious heretic and kind of demon worshipping thing was a real belief held at the time, and let's be real, largely still is now. But the reason the church really pushed the witch angle was largely to eliminate the competition here. Take the monopoly on faith, assert total control and influence, which means there is no limit to your own power. So come this 1300 period, the church really has to do something about these wise men and women who kind of local communities are still going to and engaging with. Which is when they pull out their trump card. All right, the original A-bomb Satan.

• 28:15Speaker 02

  The great kind of, you know, peril of humanity who is really, really rising in popularity at this time, thanks to the church's toting of him as this supreme weapon in the context of witches and beyond. Something we see with the earliest European witch trial in 1324 of Alice Kaitler, an Irish woman who had outlived four husbands, leading to disputes over inheritance and wealth, which her stepchildren sought to resolve by accusing her, you know, of kind of using sorcery to kill their fathers. Something which led the local bishop, Richard de Legerie, to transform this into a case of witchcraft, right?

• 28:55Speaker 02

  Leading to her and an accomplice's trial, not just for cursing or inflicting harm here, but for specifically of rejecting Christianity to, quote, "Hold nightly conference with a spirit called Robin Artisan", which was identified by the bishop as Satan. So our first witch trial here, and a big change in how we look at magical practitioners. They're no longer just illicit or kind of dangerous heretics. They are the devil's servants, making them the biggest threat to a good Christian society. So we really see here, right? That if you slap the devil on something, people start to change their behaviour. Which played quite a prominent role also in the trial of Joan de Vauke,

• 29:39Speaker 02

  who was accused of witchcraft and while she was charged with kind of HSA, um, and wearing men's clothing versus kind of straight magical sorcery. We really see how the title of witch is starting to become a weaponized loophole. Whether it's on this large scale with Joan or a smaller scale with Alice. Simply saying these women are involved with the devil forces people to turn their backs on both them and other wise men and women in exchange for turning towards the church. Which again, guys, this is the real goal, right? They're looking for influence, they're looking for power, they're looking for control. And by the end of the 1400s, this would be turned up

• 30:23Speaker 02

  about as many notches as one can go with the publication of a single book. So let's jump up to Germany in 1483, where a man by the name of Heinrich Kramer is publishing a manuscript. And not just any old manuscript, guys, but a text which would ultimately lead to the accusation of over a hundred thousand people, 75% of whom were women and 50% of whom would wind up dead. And that book is called Malia's Malapacarum, which, if I apply some of the magical spooky kind of, you know, supernatural talent that I've learned throughout the past few weeks researching this, I can transport myself through space time and change scene.

• 31:07Speaker 02

  Ready? Three, two, one.

• 31:11Speaker 02

  To the University of Melbourne and show you guys an incredibly rare 1494 copy myself. Recently acquired by the University of Melbourne's Rare Books curator Susan Millard, I am honoured to be viewing this text, which Dr Charlotte Miller, Senior Lecturer in History here at the University of Melbourne, said, quote, "is the most important book for understanding the witch hunts of the early modern period", which, as we said, led to the torture and execution of almost 50,000 men and women in Europe and beyond. So let's talk about it. And if you're on video, then let's tour it, guys.

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• 32:48Speaker 02

  So first of all, we need to start with the big question, right? Who is this Kramer guy? Well, he was a German inquisitor elected three years earlier by Pope Innocent VIII via papal bull to investigate claims of witchcraft in Innsbruck, Austria. And this was not an unbiased man, okay? You did not want this guy passing judgment on you, because he pretty much believed that witches, one, actively lived and breathed amongst us, and two, conducted affairs with the devil, you know, basically spreading evil throughout good society, a large reason of which was diva number one, okay? We are going to meet

• 33:29Speaker 02

  her. Her name is Helena Schubrin. Now, she is an ordinary woman who is actually really well-respected in Innsbruck at the time. But Kramer heard tale of a rather strange incident where a local man named Jorg Spes fell sick and was ordered by the doctor not to visit Helena's home. For what reason, we still don't know. Maybe, you know, he was allergic to dogs or something. But basically, he dies. And hearing this, Kramer automatically jumps to, you know, not logic, not common sense, but witchcraft, calling Helena out on the street, to which she replied, "Fi on you, you bad monk. May the falling evil take you." Now Kramer, not used to being spoken to by women in such a way, saw this

• 34:14Speaker 02

  as further proof of her witchcraft, and as such, set up a witch trial for Helena and several other women in 1485, after receiving a papal bull, which is basically like an executive order, right? Which says like, yep, go ahead, from Pope Innocent VIII a year earlier. So this papal bull is what gives him this authority. So the church is backing him on this trial, which was overseen by Georg Glossa, the Bishop of Brixton. But this support would not last long, guys, because Heinrich absolutely flopped at trial, okay? Firstly, all he could focus on was Helena's sexuality and supposed immortality, even accusing her of sleeping with the devil, something which the bishop and the whole

• 34:56Speaker 02

  rest of the town felt deeply uncomfortable with. And in a moment of rare solidarity for this period, Georg is like, you know, "This is insane. You're really overzealous here. You're clearly mentally unwell. These proceedings have to be suspended." After this, Kramer, he's pretty mad, right? So there's some back and forth between the bishop and him, and he's eventually told that he's got to up and leave Innsbruck, which is where Heinrich's kind of incel witchcraft-obsessed pipeline begins, which would then end with the writing and publication of his manifesto. This very book in front of me, right now,

• 35:36Speaker 02

  The Hammer of Witches, aka Malice Malaphicarum, or as I like to call it, How to Eliminate All the Cool, Smart, Confident Baddies with One Faust Swoop, right? So what is this book? And why is it so impactful when looking at the witch trials in Europe and beyond? Well, divas, long story short, it is almost single-handedly responsible for the witch hysteria which gripped the 15th to 17th centuries, okay? It is this mass-published guide on how to spot, judge, and ultimately kill a witch, something that Kramer claimed was the greatest evil facing polite society. And it was pretty efficient here, okay? Thanks

• 36:19Speaker 02

  largely in part to this, okay? For those listening, I'm opening the Malice Malaphicarum to the second page here, okay? Now, remember when we were talking about the papal bull, right? Pope Innocent VIII, which, you know, always makes me laugh that we call these popes like innocent and pious and they're signing off on terrible things. But in this case, the papal bull in here did not sign off on the Malice Malaphicarum, but rather that initial investigation of Kramer in Innsbruck. But that didn't stop him, including it in the front couple of pages of the text here, which, you know, we can see right here, which is just insane that we can see it and show it to you guys, which basically starts by saying that reliable reports have reached the pope that in parts of Germany, Austria,

• 37:04Speaker 02

  and neighbouring regions, quote, "many persons of both sexes have abandoned themselves to devil's incubi and succubi. And these people have, again, quote, 'renounced the Catholic faith and entered into alliances with evil spirits.'" It basically, you know, continues on here, saying the pope gives authority to Kramer and another inquisitor, who also is thought to have co-authored Malice. His name is Jacob Springer, but, you know, he's really largely forgotten and it's, it's kind of thought to be a vanity credit, if you will. But again, guys, this page in here, I want to be really clear, again, I'm literally touching this page as well, is not a papal bull acknowledging, encouraging,

• 37:47Speaker 02

  or endorsing Malice Malaphicarum. But it didn't really matter, okay? By its inclusion and its mentioning of these two men in particular, it basically became the pope's stamp of approval, right? As if, you know, he himself had kind of written the foreword or like the introductory chapter, like, yep, stamp, right there, approved, which is pretty wild to be seeing, again, in front of me like this. And that one page alone carries such weight and theological justification for the actions and accusations. Again, this is just insane. So what else does the Malice Malaphicarum say then, guys? Well, as I

• 38:28Speaker 02

  said, at its heart, it is a guide for the fight against witchcraft in Europe, with 36 editions being published between 1486 and 1669, one of which is this 1494 copy, like I said. And while, no, it did not invent, you know, the idea of the witch as we know it, Raul Madrid, scholar at the University of Nibaré, said, "Its novelty lies in its systematic nature, which helps spread the issue in the collective mentality." So, you know, at the time, it's, it's racy, right? It's extreme. It fed hysteria, which in many ways, guys, is kind of like our modern version of Rage Bait, right? With Dr Charlotte Miller,

• 39:11Speaker 02

  again, Senior Lecturer in History here at the University of Melbourne, says that, quote, "Even for his time, Kramer was incredibly misogynistic, and that there are even some 15th century manosphere associations present in this book." For example, on the chapters dealing with the identification of witches, Kramer says that, quote, "all witchcraft comes from carnal lust, which in women is insatiable," also stating that, quote, "there is no venom above the venom of a woman." So from the get-go, in this first part of the book, and throughout, where the language is largely gendered with she/her, Kramer wants to be clear about the theoretical concept of witchcraft, which he says is, you know,

• 39:53Speaker 02

  absolutely real, and can be done by incantations as simple as a glance or a spell. He also, in this volume, goes on to claim that witches could create storms and sterility in men, saying they ate and sacrificed babies and could produce miscarriages, always using this kind of medieval theology mixed with folktales and philosophy to really make the point that these people were a real and present danger to Christian communities. He continues in this first part, telling us in detail the four main characteristics of witches: practising Malaphicarum, flying, attending witch covenants, and having a pact with the devil.

• 40:37Speaker 02

  Divas, am I the only one who thinks that kind of sounds fun? Like, it sounds like a gals' night, right? Like, I think he's just jealous that he can't hang out with the gals. He also continues, saying there are a few remedies to prevent witchcraft and help those affected thrown into this section as well, like using amulets of the evil eye to protect families. The final section then serves as somewhat of a legal handbook, I suppose you could kind of put it, um, for judges and inquisitors involved in witch trials specifically. So this is where we really link in with Salem in a minute. On the investigation of suspected witchcraft, Kramer actively encouraged authorities to act on suspicion rather than waiting for proof, saying, quote, "The judge must not readily

• 41:18Speaker 02

  expose to the accused the names of the witnesses, as he ultimately believed protecting accusers was more important than allowing defendants to confront the evidence against them," which is, um, it's interesting, you know, feels, can't put my finger on it, but kind of feels like it's part of our modern news cycle. Whoever really made a lot of progress in hundreds of years, kind of wild to think about. Anyway, there's also a step-by-step guide for extracting confessions, guys, and this is really one of the key points that makes the Malleus Maleficarum so infamous, so notorious, because it includes the advocacy of torture, stating, quote, "The judge must question the witch concerning all these matters and must use every effort to induce her to

• 42:03Speaker 02

  confess the truth." Again, guys, notice the "her," right? It's constantly there throughout, which continues, saying, "If a suspect refuses to confess, pressure must be escalated," which does include what many believe to be the most troubling aspect of the book, you know, like I kind of said, this real circular logic by which refusing to confess was not treated as evidence of your innocence, but rather as proof that the devil was helping you remain silent. So really, through this text, you are damned if you do and you are damned if you don't. As for the matter of trying witches, Kramer says here in the Malleus that "the crime of

• 42:43Speaker 02

  witchcraft is so great that it ought to be altogether eradicated, and therefore those convicted of witchcraft should be handed over to the secular authorities for punishment according to the law," which we'll get into what that looks like later, but it did not involve, as pop culture has largely depicted, the burning of witches at the stake. In fact, there are no pages in here which mention this at all. There are many, however, which continue on with this rhetoric, again enforcing that witchcraft and witches are the greatest threat to society, right? The living workers of the devil and as such must be cut out from any good Christian society by all means necessary, which, again, for the highly religious societies of late Middle

• 43:28Speaker 02

  Age Europe, created real tangible anxiety that over time mounted into hysteria. So this text is super influential in understanding how the witch trials, including Salem, blew out into the kind of grotesque phenomenons that they did because they did not occur in a vacuum here, okay? This text in front of me was a real inception point, and I do want to be clear here, I'm not saying, right, that this text is the cause of the trials, that is incorrect, and we'll get to kind of why shortly, but the thinking, right? This kind of radicalized rage bait, if you will, in a digestible how-to guide format was like throwing petrol on already burning tinder, aided, and this is really important

• 44:13Speaker 02

  here, guys, by the printing press, okay? Remember, Kramer first publishes The Hammer of Witches in 1486, so less than 40 years after Gutenberg's invention of movable type, around 1450, before which books were copied by hand. It was tedious, it was highly skilled, and it was highly expensive, guys, it cost big dollars, but the printing press democratized books, allowing Kramer's works to be printed by the hundreds, sold across the Holy Roman Empire and beyond, reprinted whenever demand increased, and importantly here, circulated far more easily than handwritten and manuscripts, okay?

• 44:53Speaker 02

  This, guys, is largely the reason that Malleus Maleficarum is so famous and had such an impact, because were it written even 50 years earlier, it's likely it could have been shelved as, you know, the kind of ramblings of a crazy guy, but now it could go far and wide. Again, guys, just like, you know, rage baity TikTok, you know, surfing out on the internet waves, this mass publishing also allowed a standardized idea of witchcraft, something that before the Malleus, varied enormously from village to village and region to region. So through this one text here, you do get everyone, no pun intended, on the same page, okay?

• 45:37Speaker 02

  This makes The Hammer of Witches one of the best-known books of the modern age, making its way all over Europe and the US, and, you know, now here to us, remaining in circulation for decades after its publication as the indispensable guide to conducting witch hunts, something, like I said, which ultimately resulted in around 110,000 people being put on trial as witches and anywhere from 40 to 60,000 of them being executed, 85% of whom were women, according to the Discovery Channel UK. So that's the Malleus Maleficarum, which, again, I am so honoured, albeit slightly terrified to have been able to have seen in person and shared with you guys, and is such a fabulous

• 46:20Speaker 02

  addition to the University of Melbourne's rare book collection and their team, who were kind enough to let us come in and film with it, so a huge thank you to them. But for now, let's step back through space-time to home. Okay, guys, so we've apparated back home, which means we are checking back in with our timeline. So we have the Malleus in 1483, as we said, which kind of booms in this first wave of success until around 1520, during which time the idea of what a stereotypical witch looks like really starts to develop. So if I ask you, okay, to conjure up, no pun intended, an image of a witch in your minds, I bet most of you are thinking Wicked Witch of the West, right, from The Wizard of Oz, or Elphaba in Wicked.

• 47:05Speaker 02

  Some of you may even go Sabrina the Teenage Witch or even Hermione Granger, right? All baddies, including, who comes to mind for me, Jessica Lange, an American horror story coven, okay? When I say the word witch, she comes to the front of my mind like magic. I'm obsessed with her, but 15th century Europe did not have Jessica Lange conjure in their minds when they thought of witch. Instead, the witch really became characterized around this time as an old, poor, often blind woman, thanks in part to the Malleus's success and kind of fear-mongering, but also to general misogyny of the time, which saw older women whose child-rearing days were over

• 47:46Speaker 02

  as bitter, kind of haggard members of society who enacted their revenge and pain out on the innocent. There's also direct ties in this with menopause and witchcraft, with the early modern period considering aging to be a process of, and I do quote here, guys, uh, drying out. So the loss of menstruation through menopause was really looked down upon, especially because fertility was so revered. So basically, like, um, how Leonardo DiCaprio, right, dumps his 25-year-old girlfriends, medieval Europe is dumping, like, 50-something menopausal women and branding them as witches, which, thanks to Albrecht Durer, continued to spread around 1500, because he began

• 48:31Speaker 02

  painting witches with drooping boobs, uh, shrieking faces and kind of wild hair, something that Queensland University says also highlights anxieties about sexuality, with the idea that these older women were really jealous of younger women also being a factor in why a lot of witches are actually portrayed as green, the colour of envy. But, as we know from the very kind of many iterations of witches throughout pop culture, the witch wasn't always old. I mean, friend of the pod Anne Boleyn, right, was accused of being witch and she died at 35. No, you see, to really cover all the bases and to tap back in to the fall of man, even

• 49:12Speaker 02

  the apple, Pandora and the box, kind of woman plaguing mankind thing, Albrecht also created another version of the witch, the young, alluring, siren-like seductress who he sexualized by placing a broomstick between her legs, having their mouths open and suggestively grasping goat horns, which was a sign of the devil, again implying they were kind of sexual deviance with Satan himself. So really by the 1500s, women of any age are seen as being capable of witchcraft. And while, again, women were not the only ones accused of magic and sorcery, this stereotypical witch was a demonic and disgruntled woman.

• 49:54Speaker 02

  Something which art in particular helps spread because even though the printing press allowed the Malias Malafakaram to be more accessible, most people are still illiterate, but drawings and paintings and kind of cartoons, everyone can understand, especially when there's boobies involved, okay? So basically Kramer achieves his goal, right? He has stereotyped witches so that any woman could be one, which really is, guys, a genius marketing move here, okay? Devious for sure, but genius because through this, he has provided a way for the mass elimination of a group of people. Similar, and I don't make this comparison lightly, but I do kind of want to touch on this.

• 50:38Speaker 02

  Similar in many ways to kind of the like anatomy of the Holocaust, right? With fear mongering and propaganda, kind of othering a group of people who are made to be such a huge threat to the basic everyday way of life, but they must be eliminated, as you know, the Malias says, at all costs. We see this as well, like I said, with the Jewish peoples in the 30s and 40s, who are really painted with this similar brush. The only difference really being that Hitler and Nazi Germany kind of pulled on more political and social levers than strictly religious ones. Speaking of which, what is going on with the church around this 1500 period? I feel like we haven't checked in with them in a minute. Well, a lot and none of it very good.

• 51:23Speaker 02

  You see, by this point, the early modern church is split between Protestants and Catholics because of the Reformation, which really leaves people asking, what even is Christianity? Like, what's right? Which is a fair question, guys, because now there's these different kind of sects telling us different things and no one really knows what's going on. Which, given the fact, all of these people FYI have grown up being told that like the only way to be saved is through following the real church, leaves major social anxiety. After all, guys, no one knows what to do. The Catholics, on one hand, are saying the Protestants are a sham and the Protestants are saying the Catholics are corrupt. So what side of the church you fell to during this was really important

• 52:06Speaker 02

  because it could potentially mean your ticket to heaven would be revoked. Now, this led to a long period of hostility and surveillance on people regarding their religious practices, including the 1542 Roman Inquisition, which dealt with the rise in Protestantism by looking at links to hearsay, by basically sending a bunch of inquisitors to interrogate, judge and punish anyone kind of going against the church's official doctrine. Now, this of course included Protestants and others on religious grounds, but it was also, as most things were, politically motivated with these inquisitors able to just really walk into a place, point a finger at someone, say, you're a heretic,

• 52:49Speaker 02

  and under the inquisition process, basically kind of eliminate them. Which does lay the foundation for the almost non-existent standard of proof we see in the witch trials. I feel like the way I just said standard of proof is like the most Australian thing that's ever come out of my mouth, okay? Now, I want to be clear here, guys. The Roman Inquisition was not a witch hunt. And while yes, witchcraft was considered hearsay and several people were tried for it during this period, it wasn't until the end of the 1500s and early 1600s, when the hysteria around witches by the people, remember, by the kind of everyday members of society, began to take hold.

• 53:35Speaker 02

  So at this point, Malias Malafakaram is the second most popular book to the Bible. There's still mass social anxiety over the Catholic and Protestant thing and several monarchs believe witches are directly trying to either maim or kill them, including and most notably Scotland's King James VI, who was convinced witches tried to murder him by magically creating storms at sea.

• 53:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, and that's all, right? Before we get to the fact that Europe is now dealing with the aftermath of the Black Death, which killed between, and this is astonishing, guys, one-third to a half of the entire population. So people are frisky, right? Anxiety is at an all-time high with real and present fears of moral and spiritual decline on everyone's mind. Something which, when I actually think about it now, um, is not too dissimilar to what we kind of see post-COVID. Right? This kind of recession economy, a rise in conservatism and authoritarianism, political violence as well.

• 54:36Speaker 02

  Society is rattled and by the time we hit 1550, the witch hunts are on. First, we have the Visunstik trial in 1562, which saw the execution of approximately 67 women. Then we have the Trier witch hunt from 1581 to 1593, which was amongst the largest and most brutal in European history, with 368 people in the city and over a thousand in the surrounding dioceses being executed on the grounds of suspicion. Which I also want to note, this was not like necessarily linked to witchcraft for kind of, you know, having brooms in your house or mixing up magical, you know, herbal teas,

• 55:20Speaker 02

  but for things like farming the failed harvest that year, enduring kind of a sudden illness, or just being foreign. All of which became reasons for you to be put to the interrogation room, which according to history writer J A Hernandez, was actually just a torture dungeon where various horrific tools and trials were used to force confessions from people. Something which, again, like we talk about the marketing and the kind of anatomy of hysteria behind this, it led to this domino effect of hundreds of individuals saying, yes, yes, I'm a witch. You know, just obviously to stop the pain, which reinforces this great and present fear that evil is active in reality. And given that Germany and other parts of the Holy Roman Empire

• 56:04Speaker 02

  were governed from 1530 onwards by the legal doctrine of Constituocriminalis Carolina, where a single magistrate basically, you know, held total power in accusing and prosecuting witches, more and more trials ensued, kind of growing this threat even more. In Scotland, we have the North Berwick trials from 1590 to 1592, where two and a half thousand to four thousand people were accused of witchcraft and burned alive at the stake, according to Historic UK and the BBC. An act made possible by the passing of the Scottish Witchcraft Act in 1563 by Mary, Queen of Scots, who was King James VI, the guy who, you know, thought the, the storm witches were trying to kill him, is his mother.

• 56:50Speaker 02

  So James is keen as a bean to wipe these witches out, who he alleged met at St Andrews Kirk, a small church on the seafront in North Berwick, where they held evil covenants. Now, we haven't spoken a lot about the concept of covenants covering the history of witchcraft at this point, but it is an important point to make in that history and also in the history of women. Because at this point of the Scottish witch trials, right? Witchcraft is largely considered an individualistic thing. There's kind of one evil witch who's casting spells, she's in league with the devil. But at this point, it becomes a communal engagement with a league of witches who serve an evil agenda.

• 57:32Speaker 02

  And this is significant here because gatherings of women became targets for witch hunters, breaking an essential part of communities as a whole and of these women's individual lives. Because you can't go and meet up with your friends to discuss kind of your lives and your thoughts and what you're going through and your struggles and, and kind of just, just vent and gossip and kind of live your daily lives in the context of other women. At this point, even families became dangerous with siblings and parents and aunts and uncles all being considered suspicious, which does a lot to kind of the social makeup of the people of this time and also helped this hysteria spread.

• 58:14Speaker 02

  Because one suspected witch, say, you know, your cousin or your best friend, right? Could potentially implicate an entire community of mainly women simply by association. Which is what we see in Scotland, where horrific torture devices, including the Scold's Bride, were used on accused witches. Something which King James makes mention of in his own version of Malias Malafakaram in 1597, called Demonology. Now, if you're thinking, hang on, I think I had that, like Egyptology, Dragonology, Pirateology, Demonology, you know, those pop-up books, this ain't that, okay?

• 58:53Speaker 02

  If you thought Malias Malafakaram made an impact, this was a book written by a king. A king who also became King of England in 1603, which led to the passing of the 1604 Witchcraft Act, strengthening English law and explicitly criminalizing certain dealings with, quote, evil and wicked spirits.

• 59:16Speaker 02

  By this point, guys, like after he kind of becomes king and this act is passed, the genie is well and truly out of the bottle. With witch trials popping up over the next a hundred years in England, notably the Pendle in Leicester witch trials, in Germany with the Bamberg trial, which saw lots of men accused, and the Wutzburg trial, where an estimated 600 to 900 people were executed. The Swedes also got involved in 1668 to 1760 with Sweden's Great Noise witch panic, stemming from children claiming witches transported them to the Devil's Sabbath, leading to dozens of executions. But the big one, okay, the one everyone knows, the one Sabrina's black cat is named after, and the one we're all here for, was Salem.

• 1:00:01Speaker 02

  And before we break down the nitty gritty kind of blow-by-blow of events in part two, because divas, let me tell you, we really do need a whole episode to make sense of the drama and accusations and the who's who and the, the like trick with the egg, the egg white, right? We have to understand first how this European hysteria was able to cross the Atlantic and set up camp in the USA in the first place. So it was actually thanks to the kind of witch crazy King James, who granted a royal charter to the Virginia Company, allowing English investors to establish colonies in North America in 1606, after which they founded Jamestown, named after their king. Then came the pilgrims in 1620 when the Mayflower arrived at Plymouth.

• 1:00:44Speaker 02

  But the real big event was in 1630, when a thousand Puritan settlers, led by John Winthrop, established the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Which begs the question, what the fuck is a Puritan? And it's a good one, because I also really didn't know before this. So they were the radical Protestants who wanted to purify the Church of England of practices they believed were too Catholic, and basically build a society governed by like strict biblical principles, something I like find very difficult to separate um from a cult. And perhaps we'll unpack that another day, but we do need to move on, so I'm not going to talk about it any further. Now, according to writer Richard Sheeposh, these first settlers in Virginia and Massachusetts, being British and Puritans at that,

• 1:01:29Speaker 02

  would have been very familiar with British law and the king's strict position towards witchcraft as part of that. Something which made their first encounter with the indigenous Native American peoples rather complicated, beside just like the obvious fact that, you know, the colonizers are there in the first place. Because they viewed the unfamiliar conduct of these peoples, which they described as including noises that quote "sounded like wolves or devils", to potentially be a sign of Satan. So from the get-go, these early settlers have witchcraft well and truly on their minds. But no one was actually charged as a witch in the colony until 1626, which was eventually overturned, thanks to Virginia being like a little less crazy.

• 1:02:14Speaker 02

  But Puritan-heavy Massachusetts stood out amongst its neighboring regions for its radicalism, including the town of Salem, which was established in 1626. Named after Jerusalem, meaning city of peace, Salem was founded by this guy named Richard Connan, with the town first being built in 1629, when a larger group of people began to kind of live and inhabit the area, followed by the first church of Salem, which actually remains to this day as one of the oldest churches in North America. Now, before we wrap up and get into the gossip in part two, we have to address the difference in one last thing between Salem Town and Salem Village.

• 1:02:56Speaker 02

  Because the tension between the two becomes very, very important during the trials. It's basically like the underlying political toe. So Salem Town is the more mercantile centre, and it is focused on shopkeeping and trading, which made it a bit fancier and wealthier than Salem Village, which was located about five miles outside of town. And it was more of the kind of farming and agricultural area with poorer and more radically pious members residing here. But like, I do want to be clear, while yes, the village was more kind of radical, this is still one big Puritan society, which was essentially a purpose-built religious community. Again, the difference between this and a cult, I don't know.

• 1:03:41Speaker 02

  But as the decades passed, both the town and village grew, changing the social and the power dynamics in governance, land ownership, and religion, which all reached a tipping point when Salem Village formed its own distinct church from Salem Town and appointed an extremely controversial minister. All the while, the local government is in chaos, religious factions are forming, and the power brokers in Salem Town and Village are both gearing up for a fight, which kicks off in January of 1692, when two young girls in Salem Village reported that unseen forces were causing them harm. The result of which would lead to the most famous trial in history, leaving 200 people accused of witchcraft,

• 1:04:26Speaker 02

  and the town of Salem and largely the world changed forever. Which you can hear all about next Tuesday, guys, when you come back for part two. Which brings us to the end of another episode of Hot History. Thank you so, so much for listening along. I know that sometimes like the setting of the context can be a bit like snoozy, but I found this really interesting. Um, and you know, being able to like dip into so many different cultures, especially in the ancient world, has been such a kind of joy and pleasure. So like I said, guys, make sure to mark your calendars for Tuesday next week and strap in, because we are going to get into the wild drama that be Salem. Until then, if you are looking for some more hot history,

• 1:05:10Speaker 02

  you can follow us on Instagram and Substack at Hot History Club, and on YouTube and TikTok at Hot dot history. It has been a pleasure getting down and dirty in time with you, and I will speak to you all shortly. Thanks, guys. Love you. Bye.

• 1:05:29Speaker 02

  This episode of Hot History was recorded on Darrickland, always was, always will be Aboriginal land.

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