With burning zeal and a red-hot pen he writes the Malleus Maleficarum – the demonological work also known as The Hammer of Witches.
In 1486, following a dispute with a German bishop, the Dominican monk Heinrich Kramer sits down in spite to write his famous book on witches and witchcraft. Heinrich is a theologian. He’s convinced that reason why the world is currently suffering under the Devil’s attacks has to do with the nature of women. Besides their physical and mental inferiority to men, their inherent and insatiable sexual appetites drive them to witchery, he believes. The Devil, he claims, takes advantage of the lust, seduces them and makes them sell their life and soul to him. The most belligerent and vindictive women in a village are usually the ones who have made this pact with the Devil – their hot tempers give them away.
Many learned people vehemently disagree with Heinrich’s ideas, but the book – which is the first work on demonology to benefit from the invention of the printing press – is immensely popular and gets published in 30 editions.