Summis desiderantes affectibus
Summis desiderantes affectibus (Latin for "desiring with supreme ardor"), sometimes abbreviated to Summis desiderantes,[1][2] was a papal bull regarding witchcraft issued by Pope Innocent VIII on 5 December 1484.[3]
Witches and the Church
Belief in witchcraft is ancient. Deuteronomy 18:11–12 in the
According to historians such as Martin Del Rio and P.G. Maxwell-Stuart, "The early Church had set out the distinctions between
Dominican Inquisition origin
The bull was written in response to the request of
Innocent's Bull enacted nothing new. Its direct purport was to ratify the powers already conferred upon Kramer (also known as "Henry Institoris") and
Content
The bull recognized the existence of witches:
Many persons of both sexes, unmindful of their own salvation and straying from the Catholic Faith, have abandoned themselves to devils, incubi and succubi, and by their incantations, spells, conjurations, and other accursed charms and crafts, enormities and horrid offences, have slain infants yet in the mother's womb, as also the offspring of cattle, have blasted the produce of the earth, the grapes of the vine, the fruits of the trees, nay, men and women, beasts of burthen, herd-beasts, as well as animals of other kinds, vineyards, orchards, meadows, pasture-land, corn, wheat, and all other cereals; these wretches furthermore afflict and torment men and women, beasts of burthen, herd-beasts, as well as animals of other kinds, with terrible and piteous pains and sore diseases, both internal and external; they hinder men from performing the sexual act and women from conceiving ... they blasphemously renounce that Faith which is theirs by the Sacrament of Baptism, and at the instigation of the Enemy of Mankind they do not shrink from committing and perpetrating the foulest abominations and filthiest excesses to the deadly peril of their own souls ... the abominations and enormities in question remain unpunished not without open danger to the souls of many and peril of eternal damnation.[7]
It gave approval for the Inquisition to proceed "correcting, imprisoning, punishing and chastising" such persons "according to their deserts". The bull essentially repeated Kramer's view that an outbreak of witchcraft and heresy had occurred in the
The bull urged local authorities to cooperate with the inquisitors and threatened those who impeded their work with excommunication.[9] Despite this threat, the bull failed to ensure that Kramer obtained the support he had hoped for, causing him to retire and to compile his views on witchcraft into his book Malleus Maleficarum, which was published in 1487. The Malleus professed, in part fraudulently, to have been approved by the University of Cologne, and it was sensational in the stigma it attached to witchcraft as a worse crime than heresy and in its notable animus against women.[4]
Summis desiderantes affectibus was published as part of the preface of the book, implying papal approval for the work.[10] However, the Malleus Maleficarum received an official condemnation by the Church three years later, and Kramer's claims of approval are seen by modern scholars as misleading.[11]
The bull, which synthesized the spiritual and the secular crimes of witchcraft,
Citations
- ^ Kors and Peters, p. 180; Burr, p. 7: Burr also refers to this document as The Witch-Bull of 1484.
- ^ a b c Kors and Peters, 2000, p. 177.
- ^ a b Halsall, Paul. "Innocent VIII: BULL Summis desiderantes, Dec. 5th, 1484", Medieval Sourcebook, Fordham University
- ^ a b c Thurston, Herbert. "Witchcraft." The Catholic Encyclopedia Vol. 15. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1912. 12 July 2015
- ISBN 9780719049767
- ^ Darst, 1979, p. 298.
- ^ Quotes from the 1928 English translation of the bull.
- ^ Black, 2003, p. 6.
- ^ Darst, 1979, p. 299.
- ^ Russell, pp. 229–231
- ^ See Malleus Maleficarum.
- ^ This specific cultural and intellectual background that made the German witchhunts possible is explored by H. Erik Midelfort, Witch Hunting in Southwestern Germany, 1562–1684,(Stanford University Press) 1972, with full bibliography.
General references
- Black, George F. 2003. Calendar of Cases of Witchcraft in Scotland 1510 to 1727. Kessinger Publishing; ISBN 0-7661-5838-1.
- Burr, George Lincoln (1907). The witch-persecutions (PDF). The Department of History of the University of Pennsylvania: Philadelphia, Pa. (bibrec[permanent dead link])
- Published in the series: Translations and reprints from the original sources of European history; v. 3, no. 4.
- Darst, David H. (15 October 1979). "Witchcraft in Spain: The Testimony of Martín de Castañega's Treatise on Superstition and Witchcraft (1529)". Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society. 123 (5): 298–322. JSTOR 986592.
- Kors, Alan Charles; Peters, Edward (2000). Witchcraft in Europe, 400–1700: A Documentary History. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 0-8122-1751-9.
- Russell, Jeffery Burton (1972). Witchcraft in the Middles Ages. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
External links
- Halsall, Paul. "Innocent VIII: BULL Summis desiderantes, Dec. 5th, 1484", Medieval Sourcebook, Fordham University (translation of the bull)
- The Bull of Innocent VIII as published in the Malleus Maleficarum translated by Montague Summers.
{Witch Hunt}