9/29/98.  Malleus Maleficarum

Film Clip: Witchcraft through the Ages (Inquisitor is Bewitched)

Lecture: Definition of the Witch in the Malleus Maleficarum (1487) (cont’d)

Definition of Witch: 

Innovations of Malleus Maleficarum:           

Graphic Representations: early woodcuts & engravings focus on the sexual aspect of witchcraft emphasized by Kramer & Sprenger:

•      woodcut: woman touching genitals = maleficia:  witchcraft = located in her body

•      Hans Baldung Grien’s “Witches’ Sabbath”

Tradition of Misogyny  (cf. Aristotle, Augustine, Pauline texts)

In-Class Writing Assignment: What is it about the style & arguments  of the Malleus that might lend it credibility? (How could it have become the “Handbook” of the “Burning Times”?)

Lecture: Contrary Wives & Domineering Women: How to Identify a Witch

Contrary Wives/ Domineering Women: 

Battle of the Sexes:

ex. Hans Baldung Grien’s Phyllis riding Aristotle (1513)

Marriage: contrary wives/domineering women : woodcuts

Subversion of power structures of marriage : woodcuts

Bringing a Witch to Trial

How to identify a witch:

Hard Evidence of Witchcraft:

Questionnaire: Could You Have Been a Witch?