Witches as devils' concubines

The witches who began being persecuted in the 15th century must be distinguished from the sorceresses who had been operating within and without Christian culture down the ages and who used their magic powers for good or evil purposes. The authors of the famous handbook for exterminating witches, the Malleus Maleficarum or The Hammer of Witches (1487) were deeply convinced of the difference and accordingly referred to them as the “modern witches'. The inquisitors Jacobus Sprenger and Henricus Institoris said that the most pernicious heretical sect of witches only came into existence in their time. ¹ The eminent authority to whom thev appealed was their fellow Dominican, the famous Johannes Nider (died ca. 1439). He completed his influential F ormicarius ² , in which a chapter was dedicated to the sect, at the time of the Council of Basle (1431-1437). A printed edition of this appeared in Cologne no later than 1473 and was followed by many more. ³ The emphasis on women in the F ormicarius is nevertheless not as strong as in the Malleus Maleficarum. The rapid spread of the ideas from the Formicarius probably benefitted from Nider's prominent position among the councillors, who came from far and wide. Possibly the disaster of the first major European grain crisis of the 15th century which occurred just at this time (1437-1439), enhanced the credibility of Nider's argument In fact in the Formicarius it is the male sorcerers who are able to conjure up hailstorms among other things, who play an important part.