The History of the Malleus Maleficarum - A Bibliographical Study by Jesse R Erickson (2010).pdf

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The History of the Malleus Maleficarum:
A Bibliographical Study
Jesse R. Erickson
A Senior Thesis
Submitted by student # 303-658-376
Under the Consultative Supervision of Professor Teofilo Ruiz
For the Approval of the UCLA Department of History
And the Department Chair, Edward A. Alpers
In Agreement with the Requirements
Of the Honors Program in Undergraduate Research
Signed _ Jesse R. Erickson ____________ Dated___ 3/26/10 _______
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Acknowledgments
I must extend my appreciation to all the librarians who helped me along in my research;
particularly to Teresa and Russell Johnson at the UCLA Biomedical Library for their
patience, service, and hospitality. Also, I owe much credit to the research tips given to me
by librarian Linda Rudell-Betts at the Los Angeles Central Public Library. Bruce
Whiteman at the Clark has been instrumental to me in my understanding of collation and
descriptive bibliography. However, the inspiration for the overall direction of the project
came from Teofilo Ruiz and his “Terror of History” lectures in the Great Courses home
educational series from The Teaching Company. I am grateful to have been able to
pursue this project under his supervision and guidance.
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Part 1 {- pars prima 0.1
(Internal Operatives)
~ NON SOLUS ~
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“I’ve been told that they work by totally different principles…yeah, it’s just like the
middle ages. In the end, this case goes along those lines.” 1
Reading the selection above will lead us into an important discussion of book
history. This particular snippet of a quote was extracted from the Japanese animated
drama series Witch Hunter Robin. For our purposes, the storyline of this series can be
summarized in brief. Its plot is based upon the re-instatement of full-scale witch hunts
within the framework of a fictional, yet realistic, setting in contemporary Japan. In the
story, witch hunts are executed by the Japanese division of a special-crimes investigative
unit which is run by a covert international organization called "Solomon Toukatsu
Nin'idantai" (STN). As a result of irreconcilable differences in ideology, this powerful
organization is really more of an uneasy joint venture between two separate corporate
bodies: The senior institution, “Solomon Headquarters”, is in charge of directing the
company’s rigidly dogmatic religious agenda while the subordinate division, the “STN-
J”, is chiefly responsible for the company’s research and development operations. The
individual members of the STN-J’s team of criminal investigators, the ‘hunters’, are
really just pardoned witches themselves. This is only possible because each ‘hunter’ is
specially trained in using their paranormal abilities to aid in the apprehension of
condemned fugitives that Solomon Headquarters registers as dangerous. Consequently,
each member must permanently honor their individual contracts with the STN to
maintain both their pardoned status and their occupational position. 2
The reasons for beginning an essay of serious historical research with a synopsis
of an animated series are admittedly contrivable in nature. The relevance here, and above
all, the valuable historical evidence which has been attained through the collocation of
these two items should not be immediately discernable to the reader at this point,
especially given that the items appear to be dissimilar in many respects. Unfortunately, a
satisfactory explanation as to the specific purpose behind this cryptic beginning will not
be provided until the textual contents of this animated series are examined in greater
detail. And so the remainder of this issue will be covered in the last two sections of the
second part of this paper, immediately prior to its overall conclusion. Before proceeding
with this topical standby, however, I can at least offer a parting token of consolation to
the curious by momentarily redirecting the reader’s attention back to the animated series
for a swift showcasing of an often overlooked, yet fascinating detail which heralds our
primary research subject. The detail I am referring to takes the form of a dark and
shadowy image that scrolls past with a sudden rapidity and only adds to its obscurity. It
can be found lurking in between the “fade to black” effect that marks the end of each
episode in the Witch-Hunter Robin Series . And the first image which appears in these end
credits from out of the fading darkness is an exact reproduction of the title page to the
Lyons (1669) edition of the Malleus Maleficarum .
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General Introduction I: Primary Objectives
How precisely does a seventeenth century expression of a work which was first
manufactured in the fifteenth century come to appear in the end credits of an animated
series produced at the beginning of the twenty-first century? In the course of dealing with
this intriguing query we are confronted with two ongoing academic debates. The first
issue concerns the utilitarian potential of both historical and descriptive bibliography and
their possible applications in other academic disciplines. 3 Accordingly, in confronting the
second issue, one which has received a considerable amount of attention in the field of
witchcraft studies, I shall attempt to realize the potential for bibliographic research by
applying it in my account of a book history. This is because the second issue involves a
critical assessment of the notorious fifteenth century treatise on witchcraft, the Malleus
Maleficarum . I am compelled to question the depth of its magnitude.
One of the most well researched studies on the Malleus Maleficarum was
undertaken by Christoper S. Mackay in his 2006 translation of the text. In his
introdutction he states that “the extent to which the Malleus influenced the conception of
witchcraft that formed the basis of the great persecutions of the period 1590-1630 is open
question.” 4 The extent of previous attempts to asses the importance of the Malleus has
been, in general, limited to this key question. This paper presents the history of the
Malleus from a bibliographic perspective. Basically, my intent is to better our
comprehension the work’s larger societal impact. Previous interpretations as to the extent
of this impact have been highly contrasted. Compare, for example, translator Montague
Summers lauding assessment of the book where he states, “Certain it is that the Malleus
Maleficarum is the most important work in the whole vast library of witchcraft,” 5 with
the more sober evaluation of historian Brian P. Levack who declares that “The Malleus
therefore, while not directly inspiring a frenzy of witchcraft prosecutions, nevertheless
did make an important contribution to the development of the entire witch hunt.” 6
Methods for measuring this impact have, in the past, relied heavily upon attempts to
reveal a correlative link between the book’s distribution and the fluctuation of increases
in executions that occurred regionally during the Witch Craze of the early modern period.
As Sydney Anglo notes, “Attention has accordingly been focused on trial rather than
upon literary sources…” 7 The research model for this essay challenges such an approach.
By examining the various relationships forged between the work itself, its producers and
consumers (i.e. vehicles of textual dissemination), in addition to the larger ways in which
these vehicles have impacted their individual communities, thus becoming vital
instruments of social change, it should become apparent that attempting to investigate
this disputed issue of societal impact by focusing almost exclusively on a comparison of
the trial records with relatively diminutive amounts of readership evidence is an approach
that runs the risk of resulting in rather unimpressive conclusions. 8
The principal error in approaching the question of impact in this way lies in an
almost inherent tendency for the historian to disregard separate items of the work’s
manifestations as potential sources for data. This form of historiographic myopia, which
places human to human interactions at its center, restricts one’s ability to present a more
intricate account of the work’s development. It may be that drafting historical narratives
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