The Malleus Maleficarum is the best known and the most important treatise on witchcraft. It was written by the Catholic clergyman Heinrich Kramer and first published in 1487. It was a bestseller, second only to the Bible in terms of sales for almost 200 years. The top theologians of the Inquisition ...

The Malleus Maleficarum is the best known and the most important treatise on witchcraft. It was written by the Catholic clergyman Heinrich Kramer and first published in 1487. It was a bestseller, second only to the Bible in terms of sales for almost 200 years. The top theologians of the Inquisition at the Faculty of Cologne condemned the book as recommending unethical and illegal procedures, as well as being inconsistent with Catholic doctrines of demonology.