Henricus Institoris and Jacobus Sprenger: Malleus maleficarum

About the Author

Henricus Institoris was born Heinrich Kraemer but preferred the Latin version of his name, by which he is now known. He was born about 1430 in the town of Schlettstadt in southwestern Germany (now part of France and named S?lestat). By 1458 he joined the Order of Preachers, also known as the Dominican Order, a mendicant monastic order founded by Saint Dominic in 1216. Institoris played a role in fighting against the supporters of the condemned heretic Jan Hus, called the Hussites, in Bohemia from 1468 to 1470. By 1478 he was university educated and had been appointed by Pope Sixtus IV as lead inquisitor of Upper Germany. In March 1482 he was arrested and brought to Rome on charges of theft. The incident had no lasting effect on his career, for in September of that same year he was appointed inquisitor of the diocese of Basel, and in 1484 he was confirmed, along with Jacobus Sprenger, as head inquisitor for all of Germany east of the Elbe River. In 1485 Institoris was involved in a witch trial in Innsbruck. The Innsbruck bishop’s reluctance to take the accusations of harmful magic seriously perhaps persuaded Institoris to begin writing the Malleus maleficarum, which was published in 1486. His subsequent career was not illustrious. Institoris seems to have become embroiled in secular politics, which led to his being transferred from place to place. He wrote a few subsequent treatises, none of which was influential. He died in 1505 fighting the Hussites in Bohemia, the place where he had started his career combating heresy.

Jacobus Sprenger was from the town of Basel, born sometime between 1436 and 1438. Basel at the time was part of the Holy Roman Empire but ruled locally by the bishop, who had both secular and sacred authority. Sprenger joined the Dominicans as a young man. He went to obtain his doctorate in theology at the University of Cologne, becoming prior, or lead administrator, of the Dominicans in that town in 1471. In 1481 he became the inquisitor for the dioceses of Mainz, Trier, and Cologne in Germany. Sprenger was confirmed, along with Institoris, as lead inquisitor of eastern Germany in 1484. While the two men certainly would have known each other at this point and were engaged in the same mission, scholars think Sprenger was much less invested in the eradication of heresy than his colleague. Sprenger was more concerned with internal church reform and the promotion of the rosary, marked by prayers that use beads as a memory and counting device. While his name is on the Malleus maleficarum, it is generally believed that he was not a coauthor and only minimally edited parts of the work. He died in 1495 in Cologne, where he had retained some administrative and university positions during his tenure as inquisitor.