Julia Tesch

Charity Urbanski
HSTAM 340
November 25, 2014
Warnings about Women and Witches: A Regime of Truth in Malleus Maleficarum
Why does Malleus Maleficarum target only women as witches? Malleus Maleficarum, a
guide to witch-hunting written by Dominican inquisitors Heinricus Institoris and Jacobus
Sprenger in 1486, served as a powerful model for Early Modern European witch-hunts and
provides insight into the conceptual foundations laid in the late Middle Ages for these hunts. 1
The work is divided into several parts, including a section of answers to questions about who can
be a witchonly a woman, of courseand the extent of a witchs power. Hans Peter Broedel,
who has produced extensive work on Malleus Maleficarum, argues that Institoris and Sprenger
define witches as women who deviate from their conceptions of correct female sexuality in order
to create a simple system of control by which general social order may be maintained.2 While
much of Broedels argument is strong, I argue instead that Institoris and Sprengers focus on
female power and male vulnerability is an attempt not simply to preserve general social order but
to specifically suppress women out of fear of losing male power. Institoris and Sprenger create a
Foucauldian Regime of Truth by identifying women as others outside of a male-dominated
society, warn against male vulnerability to women, and condemn all assertions of female power.
1

Institoris, Heinrich and Jacobus Sprenger. Malleus Maleficarum. Translated by Christopher S.

Mackay. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
2 Broedel, Hans Peter. "Witchcraft as an expression of female sexuality." In The Malleus
Maleficarum and the construction of witchcraft: Theology and popular belief,
167-188. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003.

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For the most part, Broedel presents his arguments effectively. He first attempts to answer
the question: [Is] the gender bias of texts like the Malleus descriptive or prescriptive in
nature? 3 In other words, did such texts result in the Early Modern witch-hunts only pursuing
women, or had witches always been defined as women? Broedel examines numerous sources,
observing that magic within the context of heresy was contemporarily associated equally with
both men and women, but superstition specifically and the harmful magic it included was a
primarily female vice.4 He notes that different kinds of magic tended to be attributed to each
gender; for example, love magic, or magic relating to sex, love, and relationships, was a
female realm, whereas learned magic, which required literacy and studying, was a male
realm.5 Broedel nonetheless concludes that traditional contemporary sources defined witches as
primarily female; Malleus took this one step further by defining witches and their harmful magic
as exclusively female.6 Because this does not reflect the reality of both men and women as
practitioners of magic, Broedel therefore argues that texts like Malleus, and Malleus are
prescriptive in targeting women as witches. Having answered his initial question, Broedel then
comprehensively shows how Malleus links witchcraft to sinful female sexuality and evil
female sexual deviance. 7
While his assertions are well-supported, Broedel bases much of his first argument on an
acceptance of the simplest explanation for why Institoris and Sprenger define only women as
witches: that the authors would have only encountered female witches in their experiences as
Broedel, 167.
4 Ibid., 169-172.
5 Ibid., 172-3.
6 Ibid., 168, 176.
7 Ibid., 179.
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witch-hunters since the focus of their work was on harmful, typically female magic.8 I suggest
instead that the authors targeted women by selecting only female cases of witchcraft to pursue.
Institoris and Sprenger may have intentionally singled out women, or they may have simply
thought they only encountered female magic due to overlooking cases of male sorcery.9 Either
way, it seems highly unlikely that the authors would never have encountered male witches or
practitioners of magic. Therefore, Institoris and Sprengers accusation of witches as solely
female in Malleus is an attack on women.
Through their discourse on female witches in Malleus, Institoris and Sprenger create a
Regime of Truth, as defined by French philosopher Michel Foucault. Foucault proposes that a
societys truth is constructed in part through discourse written by those in power. Those in
power can repress certain groups by identifying them as others. 10 Institoris and Sprenger are in
positions of power as educated male clerics, and they further their power by defining all women
as others, arguing that all women are prone to sin and evil behavior. By accusing all women of
being evil (other than the inimitable Virgin Mary, of course), rather than just some women,
Institoris and Sprenger place womens actions outside of what they deem as acceptable in their
society, effectively delegitimizing and disempowering women.
Institoris and Sprenger disguise their attempt to marginalize all women by providing a
small number of examples of good women and how they should behave, before contradicting

Broedel, 175.
Instances of male sorcery may have been less conspicuous because of their consistency with
standard male power. Consider that learned magic did not challenge the established gender
norm of a man being literate and educated.
10 Foucault, Michael. Truth and Power. In Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other
Writings 1972-1977, edited by Colin Gordon, 107-133. New York, Pantheon Books, 1980.
8
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these examples and declaring all women to be evil. For instance, as examples of good women,
the authors discuss both biblical women who brought faith to their husbands and virgins and
holy women who led disbelieving nations and kingdoms from the worship of idolatry to the
Christian religion.11 Institoris and Sprenger explain that women are either good when they are
ruled by a good spirit, such as the biblical women, or evil when they are ruled by an evil
spirit. Despite having mentioned a small number of good women, the authors then provide
overwhelming evidence that all women fall under this second, evil category.12, 13 Women in
general are hateful, vengeful, treacherous, vain, lyingnot only this, but if the world could only
exist without women, men would interact with the gods! 14 The authors cite Ecclesiasticus 25[:
22-23], noting that [every] evil is small compared to the evil of a woman, and all women are
more bitter than death.15 Indeed, even the etymology of the word for woman, femina,
betrays woman as lesser than man. 16 Institoris and Sprenger have thus constructed the truth
about the essence of woman as evil and shown all women to be others, thereby giving them
power over women. The authors of Malleus do this out of fear that their power as males could be
surpassed by womens power.
One way in which Institoris and Sprenger reveal this fear is through repeated examples of
and warnings against instances of male vulnerability to women. The authors argue that the

11

Institoris and Sprenger, 163.

Ibid., 160.
13 Perhaps the reasoning behind this contradiction is that the examples of good women
provided are biblical; in practice, according to the authors, no woman can achieve this status.
14 Institoris and Sprenger, 166-9.
15 Ibid., 162, 169.
16 Ibid., 165. Institoris and Sprenger break the word femina into fe and minus, showing
that woman has and keeps less [Latin minus] faith [Latin fidem].
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natural will of woman is filled with hatred and this hatred is directed at men more than anyone,
consequently rendering men particularly susceptible to women and their evil ways.17 Women
kill men through their ability to empty wallets, drain strength, and forcibly cause the loss of
God.18 Being forced implies a male loss of control or power, and to members of the clergy
like Institoris and Sprenger the possibility of being severed from God would be especially
threatening. Further, men are susceptible to being captured by womens spells; again, use of
the word captured indicates a fear of male loss of autonomy, and thereby power, to women. 19
The authors note that even such powerful men as kings can be ruined by women, as virtually all
kingdoms of the world have been overturned because of women.20 Through this, they show that
no man, regardless of the extent of his power, is impervious to the evil power of women. And
finally, Institoris and Sprenger warn against men ever allowing women any influence over them,
as men who have relinquished power to women are most likely to be subjected to evil witchcraft.
Men who serve their girlfriends at their beck and call, thereby giving these women power, will
become the victims of these womens evil sorcery if the men ever choose to reassert their power
by leav[ing] them and join[ing] themselves with other women.21 Thus, once a man has given a
woman any power, he is vulnerable to her whether or not he attempts to regain power. Through
these examples, it is clear that Institoris and Sprenger are fearful of the dangers women, and the
potential power in their actions, pose to men.

Institoris and Sprenger, 166.

18 Ibid., 169.
19 Ibid., 170.
20 Ibid., 168.
21 Ibid., 199.
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More than just describing the dangers of female power, Institoris and Sprenger explicitly
condemn any assertions of female power. The authors declare that any independence in a woman
leads to evil: When a woman thinks alone, she thinks evil thoughts.22 Institoris and Sprenger
additionally define ambition, or a womans desire to assert herself and her power, as one of three
main vices of witches.23 The authors further observe that it is both ingrained and a defect for
woman to act against mans will, citing that the original shaping of woman [ is] from a
curved rib, that is, from the rib of the chest that is twisted and contrary, so to speak, to man.24
Moreover, they observe that as a result of nature there is in [women] the fault that they are
unwilling to be ruled and instead follow their own urges without any piety!25 Institoris and
Sprenger therefore show that it is intrinsic to all women to behave independently of men, but that
this tendency is a fault and unholy. Such assertions of female power must be subdued, and
because all women naturally act contrary to men, all women must be subdued. Additionally,
Institoris and Sprenger declare that a good woman (who, of course, is a fictional construct, as
explained earlier) doubles the years of her husbands life; this good woman does the exact
opposite of asserting her power, instead following her husbands lead and mimicking his actions
to the extent that she is simply an extension of him. Institoris and Sprenger thereby show that a
woman should only ever behave under the control of men, never independently.
Contradictory to their extensive discussion about the potential dangers of female power,
the authors descriptions of female power in Malleus Maleficarum indicate their unwillingness,

22

Institoris and Sprenger, 163.

Ibid., 171.
24 Ibid. 167.
25 Ibid., 167.
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or even inability, to accept that any women could actually possess power independent of men.
The authors, careful to never challenge the ultimate power of God (who is of course described
with male pronouns and can therefore be presumed to be a male figure), assert that witches are
only able to practice sorcery on men "truly and really with God's permission. 26 In this, Institoris
and Sprenger show that even witches, who they have described as powerful, fearsome women,
are still subjected to male authority. Further, not only is the male God more powerful than female
witches, but the male Devil is as well. The authors explain that witches do not act autonomously,
but rather are simply tools of those demons, and therefore still in a subordinate role to male
power.27 Witches are also repeatedly shown to be less powerful than the Devil, such as through
their supposed ability to only make male sexual organs disappear through the illusion of
conjuring, as compared with the Devils power to really and truly effect this.28 There is
therefore a disconnect between Institoris and Sprenger's fears of female power and their beliefs
about the possible extent of independent female power.
Malleus shows Institoris and Sprengers fear of their own vulnerability to female power
and their contradictory grappling with the possible extent of female power. They create a
Regime of Truth, portraying all women as evil, an evil which manifests itself through female
practice of harmful witchcraft. In essence, Institoris and Sprenger therefore argue that all women
are suspect of being witches. Such an indiscriminate assertion may have contributed to
inquisitors in the early Modern European witch-hunts unfairly targeting women, resulting in
thousands of deaths. Could this have been prevented? Had more women been educated and
Institoris and Sprenger, 172, 188.
27 Ibid., 192.
28 Ibid., 195.
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literate, and therefore able to defend themselves against such accusations by powerful men, the
witch-hunts would have perhaps taken a different course. Similarly in modern America, if
education were more readily available to lower-income people, this marginalized group might be
more capable of advocating for its needs politically, socially, and economically. Malleus serves
not only as a fifteenth-century warning about women and witches, but as a modern-day warning
of the dangers of oppressing, controlling, and keeping a group of people uneducated, whether
these people are women in the middle ages or lower-income people in contemporary America.