Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society
Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society

The Mad Monk & The Witch Hunts

August 18, 2026

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5 min read

The Mad Monk & The Witch Hunts

In 1485, a Dominican inquisitor named Heinrich Kramer was laughed out of Innsbruck after trying to put a wealthy patrician woman named Helena Schubert on trial for witchcraft. His evidence? Her sex life—which the court deemed irrelevant. Humiliated and rejected, Kramer retreated to write what would become one of the most infamous texts in European history: the Malleus Maleficarum, or "The Hammer of Witches." But as Dr. Eleanor Janega explains, this book was never the witch-hunting bible popular history makes it out to be. It was the fever dream of a sexually obsessed failure, dismissed by his contemporaries and only resurrected decades later when Europe's witch panics were already underway.

The Inquisitor Nobody Wanted

Kramer was a Dominican inquisitor working in the German lands of the Holy Roman Empire. Inquisitors were originally created as a moderating force—Franciscans and Dominicans who could step into communities and prevent mob violence against accused heretics. By the late medieval period, however, the office had become more powerful, though Kramer's career shows how limited that power actually was.

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What you'll learn

  • 1 (03:27) **The Hammer of Witches: Origins & Author** - Kate introduces the *Malleus Maleficarum* and expert Dr. Eleanor Janega to discuss its origins, author, and misogyny.
  • 2 (10:00) **Kramer's Humiliation & The Book's False Authority** - The story of Kramer's failed witch trial and the myth of papal approval for his book.
  • 3 (15:00) **From Medieval Skepticism to Kramer's Obsession** - Contrasting the medieval view of witchcraft as a minor sin with Kramer's novel, demonic framing.
  • 4 (18:00) **Why Women? Sex, Gossip, and Penis Magic** - Eleanor details the *Malleus's* core arguments for why women are more likely to be witches.
  • 5 (30:00) **The Semen Theft & The Medical Condition** - The bizarre theology of how the devil gets semen and the real-world condition behind the disappearing penis myth.
  • 6 (35:00) **A Psychotic Episode Written Down** - The book is framed as a pseudo-intellectual projection of Kramer's own sexual hangups.
  • 7 (38:00) **Confessionalization & The Spiritual Arms Race** - How the Reformation and Counter-Reformation ignited the witch panics, not the *Malleus*.

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Show Notes

Malleus Maleficarum may sound like a spell but it is actually almost the opposite. This book was nicknamed the Hammer of Witches, and today we're finding out if it really started the European witch hunts.


Kate is joined by the wonderful Eleanor Janega to talk all things Heinrich Kramer, the monk who wrote the Malleus. Where did his obsession come from? And did his colleagues in the Catholic church support his views?


This episode was edited by Natasha Hughes. The producer was Sophie Gee. The senior producer was Freddy Chick.


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All music from Epidemic Sounds.


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