[SCA-AS] [Fwd: TMR 08.04.27 Mackay, Malleus Maleficarum (Broedel)]

Tue Apr 29 10:29:07 CDT 2008

I heard MacKay speak at Kalamazoo last year. This is an amazing update to
the field.

---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: TMR 08.04.27 Mackay, Malleus Maleficarum (Broedel)
From:    "The Medieval Review" <tmrl at indiana.edu>
Date:    Tue, April 29, 2008 10:13 am
To:      tmr-l at indiana.edu
         bmr-l at brynmawr.edu
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mackay, Christopher S., ed. and trans. Henricus Institoris and
Jacobus Sprenger, Malleus Maleficarum. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press 2006. Pp. 1344. $285.00. ISBN: 9780521859776 (hb).

   Reviewed by Hans Peter Broedel
        University of North Dakota
        hans.broedel at und.nodak.edu

The Malleus Maleficarum is one of those supposedly paradigmatic
medieval texts, far more often quoted than actually read. Indeed,
given the countless jeering citations of its ridiculous etymology of
the Latin femina (from fe and minus, "because she
has and keeps less faith"), the Malleus must be one of the most
quoted of all medieval texts. [1] Indeed, many assume that the views
of the Dominican authors, Henricus Institoris (known commonly as
Heinrich Kramer) and Jacobus Sprenger, were typical of late medieval
attitudes towards women, witchcraft, the devil, and of scholasticism
in general. This is mostly unfair, since the Malleus is, in
the first place, an idiosyncratic text, and, in the second, simply
bad: its arguments are often logically flawed, its scholarship
frequently shoddy, it is poorly edited and organized, and, from our
perspective, the vindictive zeal of its authors to punish an imaginary
crime is appalling. Yet at the same time the subject matter of the
Malleus, the scope of its arguments, and its wealth of personal
anecdote are undeniably fascinating. All of which makes the lack of a
modern edition of the Latin text or an acceptable English translation
more than surprising. Until recently, English speakers had to make do
with Montague Summer's justly reviled translation, while the original
Latin was available only in rare book rooms, on microfilm, or in
facsimile. Christopher Mackay has filled this void with two splendid
volumes, the first containing a lengthy introduction and a polished
edition of the Latin text, the second, an accurate translation into
English.

Mackay's Latin text is a pleasure to work with. As Mackay observes,
the ready availability of two recent facsimiles of the first edition
of the Malleus eliminates the need for exact correspondence
with the original, and so his edition is instead, "an interpretation
of the text...that will allow a reasonably competent reader of Latin
to follow the text readily" (1:173). [2] To this end, Mackay expands
the authors' numerous abbreviations and corrects errors of spelling,
typography and grammar--although in many cases the original is
retained in footnotes. He also adds modern punctuation and
paragraphing consistent with the sense of the Latin, and this alone
will provide incalculable assistance to the average reader. The net
result is an editorial interpretation of the original text that anyone
with even a modicum of Latin can use profitably, particularly in
conjunction with the English translation. Cross-referencing is
simple, since both English and Latin texts carry the clear but non-
traditional Arabic pagination of Schnyder's facsimile. Two series of
extensive notes accompany the text, the first dealing with textual and
editorial matters, and the second referring mainly to the authors'
innumerable borrowings from other writers. When, as was often the
case, the authors adapt, modify, or misremember their sources,
Mackay's notes provide the relevant original text as well. This
painstaking editorial apparatus is not only welcome, but even
essential to any proper understanding of the Malleus.

For most readers, Mackay's accurate English translation will be even
more appreciated.  This is sorely needed and long overdue, not only
because of the importance of the text, but also because of the
popularity and availability of Montague Summer's defective 1928
translation.  Consider, as an example, Institoris' account of the
interrogation of Anna of Mindelheim, a suspected witch.  Under "very
light" torture, Anna maintains her innocence:  Institoris comments,
"et licet maleficium taciturnitas indubie penes se habuisset, de quo
et semper iudicibus timendum est, eo quod in primo aggressu non iam
muliebri sed virili animo se innoxiam affirmabat..." (1:480).  Summers
"translates" this, as "and although she was undoubtedly well provided
with that evil gift of silence which is the constant bane of judges,
and at the first trial affirmed that she was innocent of any crime
against man or woman..." [3]  This is worse than misleading, as
Mackay's translation illustrates: "Without a doubt, she had on her
person the sorcery of silence (which judges must always be aware of),
since she asserted her innocence during the first onslaught with the
spirit not of a woman but of a man" (2:336).

Mackay strives for literal accuracy in his translations, which results
in a text that is wordy, dull, and often confusing, but in this simply
reflects the original. To a degree, this sets off Mackay's
translation from P. G. Maxwell-Stuart's rather breezier rendition.
Again, an example may be useful: here are Maxwell-Stuart's and
Mackay's translations of a moderately technical passage from the third
and final part of the Malleus, dealing with legal procedures.
Institoris recommends that a suspected witch should always be asked
what wrong was done to her to prompt her threats, and then explains,
in Maxwell-Stuart's words,

     Note that this question is necessary so that one may get at the
     basis of the enmity--because when it comes down to it, the
     accused woman will plead guilty.  But when this is not deadly
     [enmity], but one which has been stirred up the way women do, it
     is not an impediment [to the progress of legal proceedings].  It
     is peculiar to witches, you see, to inflame feelings against
     themselves by the use of either injurious words or actions; for
     example, she asks to be given something, otherwise she [will do]
     damage to his garden--things such as that--her intention being
     to seize the opportunity [to be unpleasant].  They reveal
     themselves in what they say and what they do, and they are
     obliged to reveal themselves at the insistence of evil spirits so
     that in this way the sins of the judges may be made worse as long
     as [the women] remain unpunished.  Note that [witches] do not do
     such things in the presence of other people, so that if the
     person bringing evidence against them wanted to produce
     witnesses, he could not.  Note too that they are stirred up by
     evil spirits... [4]

Mackay renders the same lines as follows:

     Note that this line of questioning is necessary in order to reach
     the foundation of the enmity, because in the end the denounced
     woman will allege enmity.  But when the enmity is not mortal but
     merely the kind stirred up in the female fashion, it forms no
     hindrance, since it is characteristic of sorceresses to stir up
     such enmity against themselves either by pointless words or by
     deeds.  For instance, she asks to have something given to her as
     a present or inflicts some harm on the other woman in her garden
     and similar acts, for the purpose of gaining an opportunity.
     They manifest themselves in word or work, being obliged to make
     this manifestation at the insistence of the demons, in order that
     in this way the sins of the judges will be aggravated when the
     sorceresses remain unpunished.  Note also that they are egged on
     by demons... (2:472). [5]

Maxwell-Stuart's translation is certainly more immediately
comprehensible, but this is because he has resolved the ambiguities
and complexities inherent in the original Latin, which Mackay largely
retains. Thus, Maxwell-Stuart renders verbis inutilibus as
"injurious words," while Mackay retains the correct but potentially
confusing, "pointless words"; further, where Maxwell-Stuart completes
the ambiguous meaning of occasionem with the helpful editorial
addition, "to be unpleasant," Mackay leaves the meaning unresolved.
[6] Mackay's translation would have to be preferred, then, were it not
for an unfortunate and serious editorial lapse: Mackay's translation
omits an entire sentence (the Latin text beginning "Nota etiam quod
talia faciunt..."). Doubtless, the repeated nota etiam/"note
also" confused someone at some point of the editorial process, but
mistakes of this sort seriously compromise the value of the volumes as
a scholarly resource.

Nonetheless, Mackay's English translation of the Malleus will
certainly become the academic standard, but one peculiarity of his
practice deserves mention. Throughout, he translates
malefica/maleficus/maleficium as sorceress/sorcerer/sorcery,
instead of the expected witch/wizard (or warlock)/witchcraft. Mackay
explains that he does this mainly because the English word "witch" has
no "natural male equivalent," since words such as "warlock" properly
refer to learned magicians (2:7). Mackay argues further that
"witchcraft" "seems to be a "female-oriented word, and so a gender-
neutral term for practicing malevolent magic was called for."
Mackay's concern is certainly reasonable, but one wonders if he has
not pushed his language a bit too far: in the traditional usage of
"sorcerer/sorceress," one would commonly assume that the unmarked
masculine "sorcerer" is the normative form. The authors of the
Malleus, though, are absolutely clear that witchcraft is a
crime of women, and that the malefica is the paradigmatic
member of Satan's diabolic sect. For this reason, I would have
preferred to retain the more usual "witch/witchcraft," or perhaps to
leave these terms in Latin.

The final component of Mackay's treatment of the Malleus is a
long (188 page) introduction, divided into six distinct parts. The
introduction's goals, Mackay explains, are twofold: first, to
familiarize the general reader with the authors, their institutional
and intellectual environment, and their unstated assumptions; second,
to illuminate some particular problems associated with the
Malleus' composition and publication (1:1-2). These goals are
not easily compatible, and they give the introduction a noticeably
split personality. At times, Mackay delves into abstruse problems of
philology and Latinity; at others, he rehearses very basic ground
indeed. One wonders, for example, how many of his readers will need
to be informed that Cicero was "the most famous orator of ancient
Rome," or that St. Jerome was "a dyspeptic Christian ascetic" (1:161,
163)? On the other hand, the introduction is not intended to be read
straight through; Mackay has divided his text "outline style" so that
the reader can refer rapidly to those sections that are of particular
interest, and avoid those that are not.

The first three parts of Mackay's introduction cover the
ecclesiastical, intellectual and legal background to the
Malleus. Among subjects covered are the nature of heresy and
the inquisition, inquisitorial procedure and canon law, medieval
universities, scholasticism, medieval cosmology, misogyny, magic, and
Satanism. Throughout, Mackay presents the Malleus as in many
respects a typical of late medieval academic scholasticism, and he
effectively introduces his readers to some of the chief peculiarities
of this now very alien worldview. He stresses particularly the extent
to which the Malleus is a derivative work, in which the authors
create new meaning less through clear original statements than through
the juxtaposition and blending of quotations, borrowed phrases, and
personal anecdotes. In Mackay's overview, the Malleus emerges
as a kind of creative adaptation and synthesis of previous texts,
rather than a work of original scholarship in the modern sense (1:25-
27). One of Mackay's most intriguing suggestions is that much of the
authors' theoretical groundwork, may possibly be attributed to "some
previous (and now unknown) work that argued for the theoretical
existence of witchcraft" (1:154, 155 n. 310).

Mackay's treatment of magic and witchcraft is less original, but
remains competent and informative. For Mackay, "the fundamental basis
of witchcraft as laid out in the Malleus" is "Satanism"--by
which he means the imaginary demonolatrous heresy of witches,
consisting of the diabolic pact, sex with the devil, night flying, the
Sabbat, black magic, and infanticide (1:8, 46-47). This Mackay
identifies with the "elaborated concept of witchcraft"--a notion
rooted in the work of Hanson, Keickhefer and Cohn--and this in turn
guides his discussion of witchcraft's development. [7] In this
interpretation, the development of notions of witchcraft require
description, rather than explanation, since the concept evolves
"naturally" as a function of basic modes of thought. Thus, in
Mackay's analysis, as heretics were demonized, "it was natural to view
them" as apostates, and, similarly, since Satan lurked behind deviance
of any kind, "it was natural to imagine" heretics doing the worst of
crimes (1:50-51). Mackay concludes that "since the propensity of
orthodox thought to foist the most heinous crimes upon its opponents
is manifest and widespread, the elaborated conception of witchcraft is
simply an example of this tendency run amok" (1:51). This mode of
analysis, though, tends to minimize the originality of the
Malleus, which becomes simply one stage in an almost inevitable
evolutionary progression. Differences between witchcraft treatises,
which in other contexts might seem quite considerable, are reduced
instead to mere "regional variation" (1.51). Mackay's tendency to
minimize the idiosyncrasy of the Malleus is particularly
apparent in his brief, almost dismissive treatment of the authors'
misogyny, which he treats in two short paragraphs: the first argues
that, in a narrow sense, the Malleus is not misogynist at all,
the second, that much that seems misogynist is in any case borrowed
from other sources (1:35-36). These observations are reasonable,
given that the misogyny of the Malleus has been often
overstated, but still, in light of the authors' unique insistence that
witchcraft is a feminine crime rooted in feminine sexual depravity, a
fuller discussion seems warranted.

In the second half of the introduction, Mackay turns to a series of
far more technical problems associated with the Malleus and its
authors. Reading these sections, one is struck both by Mackay's
considerable erudition, and his efforts to revise earlier scholarship.
Mackay raises at least four distinct issues--Institoris' character and
career, his witch-hunting in Innsbruck, the authorship of the
Malleus, and the authenticity of the approbation of the Cologne
faculty--and in each case he finds prevailing academic opinion in
error. These arguments are often quite technical, but (at the risk of
egregious over-simplification) most hinge upon whether one accepts the
evidence of the Malleus itself, or, in view of Institoris'
allegedly shady character and a varying quantity of circumstantial
evidence, one rejects it. For example, although most scholars today
consider Institoris the sole author of the Malleus, the
question boils down to whether some near-contemporary but second-hand
testimony, combined with Institoris' erratic use of pronouns and a
general perception of Sprenger's good character, outweigh the evidence
of the text's own attribution of two authors. Mackay convincingly
argues to the contrary that the evidence for Institoris' sole
authorship has been overstated, and that the burden of proof must rest
with those who would deny the claims of the text itself; nonetheless,
given the necessarily subjective assessment of the evidence, this will
not be the last word (1:103-121). For most readers, though, the
answers to these questions will not affect their understanding of the
text at all; in the case of the dispute over authorship, regardless of
whether Sprenger was involved in the production of text, Institoris
was certainly the primary author, and the text is his in a way that it
is certainly not Sprenger's. [8]

Mackay has given us a thorough treatment of the Malleus that is
also distinctively "his." The introduction, Latin text and
translation are all clearly the product of Mackay's personal vision of
what a modern edition of the Malleus ought to be, one that
would be of equal service to the scholarly community and to general
readers. On the whole, he has succeeded brilliantly.

NOTES

[1] Mackay notes (1:36) that this derision is not entirely justified,
since Institoris and Sprenger cribbed the derivation from the
Summa of Antoninus of Florence.

[2] The facsimiles in question are G&#252;nter Jerouschek, Malleus
Maleficarum 1487 von Heinrich Kramer (Institoris)... (Hildesheim:
Georg Olms Verlag, 1992), and Andr&#232; Schnyder, Malleus Maleficarum
von Heinrich Institoris (alias Kramer)... (G&#246;ppingen: K&#252;mmerle
Verlag, 1991).

[3] Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger, The Malleus
Maleficarum, trans. Montague Summers (1928, rp. New York: Dover,
1971), 148.

[4]  P. G. Maxwell-Stuart, trans., <i>The Malleus Maleficarum</i>
(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007), 216.

[5]  The Latin reads, "Et nota quod hec interrogatio est necessaria vt
deueniatur ad fundamentum inimicicie, quia in fine delata allegabit
inimiciciam.  Sed vbi non est capitalis sed modo muliebri concitata,
non impedit.  Hoc enim est maleficarum proprium concitare aduersum se
vel verbis inutilibus aut factis, puta quia petit sibi prestari
aliquid aut infert ei damnum aliquod in orto et similia, ad hoc vt
occasionem recipiant, et se manifestant in verbo vel in opere, quam
manifestationem habent facere ad instantiam demonum, vt sic peccata
aggrauentur iudicum dum manent impunita.  Nota etiam quod talia
faciunt non in aliorum presentia, vt, si deponens vellet testes
producere, non haberet.  Nota etiam quod incitantur a demonibus..."
(1:595).

[6]  At times, too, Maxwell-Stuart's apparent desire for clarity,
seems to lead him into outright mistakes; here he translates
<i>allegabit inimiciciam</i>, as "will plead guilty," instead of
Mackay's perfectly reasonable, "will allege enmity."

[7] For influential examples of the development of the "cumulative"
or "elaborated" conception of witchcraft, see Joseph Hanson,
Zauberwahn, Inquisition und Hexenprozess im Mittelalter
(Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 1900); Norman Cohn, Europe's Inner
Demons (New York: Basic Books, 1975); Richard Kieckhefer,
European Witch Trials (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1976).

[8] Mackay would almost certainly agree, although he proposes (1:119)
that Sprenger may have been largely responsible for the theological
and theoretical argumentation of Part One of the Malleus.

-- 
-- Jenne Heise / Jadwiga Zajaczkowa
jenne at fiedlerfamily.net

-- 
-- Jenne Heise / Jadwiga Zajaczkowa
jenne at fiedlerfamily.net