The Male Witch

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Pact with the devil. Francesco Maria Guazzo, Compendium maleficarum (Milan, 1608)

Witchcraft in the late medieval and early modern European world was a highly gendered crime. The majority of victims were women but a significant percentage were men – and in some regions, men made up the majority of the accused. The male witch appeared wherever there were witchcraft accusations – he was known as a maleficius, a wicca, a sorcier, or hexenmeister … just don’t call him a warlock.

Podcaster: Kristin

Further Reading

Lara Apps and Andrew Gow, Male Witches in Early Modern Europe, Manchester University Press, (2003). 

Lyndal Roper, Oedipus and the Devil: Witchcraft, Sexuality, and Religion in Early Modern Europe, Routledge (1994, 1995, 1997, 2003). 

Witchcraft and Masculinities in Early Modern Europe, ed. Alison Rowlands, Palgrave Macmillan, (2009). 

The Malleus Maleficarum of Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger, Full text of Rev. Montague Summers 1928 publication. (Also includes a blog and a Malleus Shop)

Images

​Pact with the devil. Francesco Maria Guazzo, Compendium maleficarum (Milan, 1608).

Male witch stepping on a cross. Francesco Maria Guazzo, Compendium maleficarum (Milan, 1608). ​

Music: "Evening Melodrama" by Kevin Macleod (www.incompetech.com)

Male witch stepping on a cross. Francesco Maria Guazzo, Compendium maleficarum (Milan, 1608).