MALLEUS MALEFICARUM

Malleus Maleficarum (mal-ee-<<schwa>>s mal-<<schwa>>-fi-kair-<<schwa>>m). [Latin

“Hammer of Witches”] Hist. An encyclopedic work about demonology and witchcraft, prepared in 1486 by two Dominican friars (Heinrich Kraemer and Johann Sprenger) as part of their efforts to eradicate witchcraft in Germany. • The Malleus Maleficarum was based largely on folk beliefs, but it was relied on as an authoritative source on how to detect, extract confessions from, and prosecute witches for several centuries after it first appeared.

[Blacks Law 8th]