Ulrich Molitor's De Lamiis Et Pythonicis Mulieribus

Download or read book Ulrich Molitor's De Lamiis Et Pythonicis Mulieribus written by Amy Ghilieri and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Inquisitorial and secular witchcraft handbooks during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were largely dynamic texts, depending on the intended audience and publication date. The most significant of these was certainly the Malleus Maleficarum , published in 1487 by Jacob Sprenger and Heinrich Institoris. This vade mecum of procedure and ideology was the basis for many other texts of this nature, including the De Lamiis et Pythonicis Mulierihus ( Concerning Witches and Demons ), written by Ulrich Molitor in 1489, only three years after the initial publication of the Malleus Maleficarum (Witches' Hammer) . In sharp contrast to the frequently studied Malleus , Ulrich Molitor's work has received little attention from scholars, allowing room for speculation as to why the book gained such popularity. There are many reasons why such a work would be published, but the similarity in scope, argument, and publication date between these texts make these reasons unclear. Ultimately, it will be argued that while the De Lamiis was published at the request of Sigismund the Archduke of Austria in order to further explain the "witchcraft problem" during his reign, the book's popularity resulted from the marketing techniques used in its publication. Publishers of the work employed literary methods that became popular during the fifteenth century, namely, the use of didactic dialogue in the vernacular. What is more, the type of illustrations used throughout the text appealed to unsophisticated readers, some of whom were only marginally literate. This emphasis on vernacular literature was furthered by the changes that took place in publishing and the marketing of texts during the fifteenth century, including the smaller format and use of less dense text blocks of the De Lamiiss . The timing for the publication of Molitor's work immediately after the publication of the Malleus was ideal given the contextual environment of fifteenth century Germany. It followed the perfect "trend" of the time, the witchcraft movement, and was marketed perfectly within that trend, which allowed it to remain popular for centuries.