CLASSIC: The Malleus Maleficarum: A Real-life Witch Hunter's Bible

Ridiculous History

iHeartPodcasts

History, Society & Culture

4.3 • 4.4K Ratings

🗓️ 27 September 2025

⏱️ 39 minutes

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Summary

During Europe's period of witchcraft hysteria, one enterprising (and failed) witch hunter sought to bolster his reputation by creating an authoritative text on the existence, discovery and persecution of witches. While it may seem silly now, the Malleus Maleficarum was a runaway success, with thousands of copies inundating European society even while various officials warned against treating it as a reliable source. Join Ben, Noel and Casey as they learn more about The Hammer of the Witches.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	So fellow ridiculous historians, as you know, nobody fact-checked this.
0:04.2	We used to be witches and witch hunters before we started podcasting.
0:08.7	That's how we met.
0:09.9	Yeah, we're a regular Van Helsing.
0:12.3	Between the two of us, we create one whole Van Helsing.
0:16.1	Exactly, yes.
0:18.1	And this is a classic episode as we're moving toward the autumnal Halloween season that we wanted to share with you.
0:26.1	It is about one of the most famous books about hunting witches.
0:33.0	And as you might imagine, it has an incredible name.
0:37.1	The Malius Melaficara. The Malius Malifakara.
0:39.4	The hammer of the witches. Hell yeah. Let's get to it. This is an I-Heart podcast.
0:50.9	The murder of an 18-year-old girl in Graves County, Kentucky, went unsolved for years,
0:58.0	until a local housewife, a journalist, and a handful of girls came forward with a story.
1:04.9	America, y'all better work the hell up.
1:06.9	Bad things happens to good people in small towns.
1:16.4	Listen to Graves County on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.
1:22.8	And to binge the entire season, ad free, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.
1:32.3	Ridiculous History is a production of IHeart Radio. Let's cut straight to the chase with some fairly terrifying numbers.
2:04.5	During the early modern period of European history, that stretches from around 1450 to 1750.
2:13.0	Somewhere in the neighborhood of 100,000 people, the overwhelming majority of them being women, were tried for the crime of witchcraft, and about half of these folks, 50,000 were executed usually by being burned alive.
2:27.7	But why, Ben? Why?
2:29.3	Because they were suspected of being witches, Noel.
	...

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