Bridging North and South: Inquisitorial Networks and Witchcraft Theory on the Eve of the Reformation

Abstract

Th is article reconstructs a network of Dominican inquisitors who facilitated the reception and adaptation of northern European demonological notions in the Italian peninsula. It focuses on the collaboration of Italian friars with Heinrich Kramer, the infamous Alsatian witch-hunter and author of the Malleus Malefi carum (1486). Drawing on newly-discovered archival sources as well as on published works from the early sixteenth century, it proposes that Italian inquisitors provided Kramer with information on local saintly fi gures and were, in turn, infl uenced by his views on witchcraft. Following their encounter with Kramer in 1499-1500, they came to regard witches as members of an organized diabolical sect, and were largely responsible for turning the Malleus into the focal point of the Italian debate over witch-hunting. I argue that Kramer's case attests to the important role of papal inquisitors before the Reformation in bridging the cultural and religious worlds south and north of the Alps.

Giovan Battista Codronchi’s De morbis Veneficis ac Veneficiis (1595). Medicine, Exorcism and Inquisition in Counter-Reformation Italy

“…Although skeptical voices about the witches' powers were already present at that time-and indeed, they predated belief-dissent actually encouraged the continuation of the debate between the supporters of persecution and the "witches' advocates" (Valente 2008;Machielsen 2011;Duni 2012Duni , 2016. In Italy, it was originally inquisitors-especially Dominicans, as the author of the Malleus Maleficarum had been-who led the way in confronting the problem of witchcraft in print (Tavuzzi 2007;Romeo 2008a;Herzig 2008Herzig , 2017). Yet, the second half of the sixteenth century saw a noticeable shift in authorial production, with exorcists and physicians dominating the market (Lavenia 2011).…”

Religious Life and Observant Reform in the Fifteenth Century

“…Consider the networks of Dominican inquisitors that crisscrossed the Alps from Italy to Moravia; the career of John of Capistrano, who died in Ilok after the victory at Belgrade, or James of the Marches, whose work as inquisitor and crusade preacher found him active from Italy to Hungary and Bosnia. 59 And how best to balance the particulars of so many 15th century histories, whether east or west, with their many legacies in the 16th and even 17th? Studies of the medieval heritage of the Augustinian Hermits as it shaped the Reformation; the development of an Observant missionary ideal; the links between Observant reform and preaching before and after Trent; the history of women's houses and of lesser Observant orders that emerged in the mid-16th century -all have tested the problematic of change and continuity across the Reformation divide.…”