View source for Summis desiderantes affectibus

{{Short description|1484 papal bull on witchcraft}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2018}}
{{Italic title}}
{{Infobox papal document
| title = Summis desiderantes affectibus
| translation = Desiring with supreme ardor
| language = Latin
| type = bull
| pope = Innocent VIII
| Papal coats of arms = C o a Inocentius VIII.svg
| date = 5 December 1484
| subject = Witchcraft
| web_la = https://la.wikisource.org/wiki/Summis_desiderantes_affectibus
| web_en = https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Summis_desiderantes
}}

'''{{lang|la|Summis desiderantes affectibus}}''' ([[Latin]] for "desiring with supreme ardor"), sometimes abbreviated to {{lang|la|Summis desiderantes}},<ref>Kors and Peters, p. 180; Burr, p. 7: Burr also refers to this document as ''The Witch-Bull of 1484''.</ref><ref name="kors"/> was a [[papal bull]] regarding [[witchcraft]] issued by [[Pope Innocent VIII]] on 5 December 1484.<ref name=":0" />

==Witches and the Church==
Belief in witchcraft is ancient. {{bibleverse||Deuteronomy|18:11–12|NAB}} in the [[Hebrew Bible]] states: "Let there not be found among you anyone who [[Death by burning|immolates]] his son or daughter in the fire, nor a [[fortune-teller]], [[Soothsaying|soothsayer]], [[Charm (magic)|charmer]], [[Diviners|diviner]], or caster of [[Spell (paranormal)|spells]], nor one who consults ghosts and spirits or seeks [[oracle]]s from the dead."

[[Pope Gregory VII]] wrote to [[Harald III of Denmark]] in 1080 forbidding witches to be put to death upon presumption of their having caused storms or failure of crops or pestilence. According to [[Herbert Thurston]], the fierce denunciation and persecution of supposed sorceresses which characterized the [[witch-hunt|witchhunts]] of a later age, were not generally found in the first thirteen hundred years of the Christian era.<ref name=Thurston>[http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15674a.htm Thurston, Herbert. "Witchcraft." The Catholic Encyclopedia] Vol. 15. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1912. 12 July 2015</ref>

According to historians such as Martin Del Rio and P.G. Maxwell-Stuart, "The early Church had set out the distinctions between [[White Magic|white]] and [[black magic|black]] magic... The penalties were restricted to [[Confession (religion)#Christianity|confession]], [[Repentance in Christianity|repentance]], and charitable work".<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=I2iCYDHYbycC&dq=Summis+desiderantes+affectibus&pg=PR7 Del Rio, Martin Antoine and Maxwell-Stuart, P. G., ''Investigations Into Magic''], Manchester University Press, 2000 {{ISBN|9780719049767}}</ref>

==Dominican Inquisition origin==
The bull was written in response to the request of [[Dominican Order|Dominican]] [[Inquisition|Inquisitor]] [[Heinrich Kramer]] for explicit authority to prosecute witchcraft in [[North Germany|Germany]], after he was refused assistance by the local ecclesiastical authorities,<ref name="kors">Kors and Peters, 2000, p. 177.</ref> who maintained that as the letter of deputation did not specifically mention where the inquisitors may operate, they could not legally exercise their functions in their areas. The bull sought to remedy this jurisdictional dispute by specifically identifying the [[Diocese#Catholic Church|dioceses]] of Mainz, Cologne, Trier, Salzburg, and Bremen.<ref name=":0">[http://legacy.fordham.edu/halsall/source/witches1.html Halsall, Paul. "Innocent VIII: BULL Summis desiderantes, Dec. 5th, 1484", ''Medieval Sourcebook'', Fordham University]</ref>

Innocent's Bull enacted nothing new. Its direct purport was to ratify the powers already conferred upon Kramer (also known as "Henry Institoris") and [[James Sprenger]] to deal with witchcraft as well as [[heresy]], and it called upon the [[Prince-Bishopric of Strasbourg|Bishop of Strasburg]] (then [[Albert of Palatinate-Mosbach]]) to lend the inquisitors all possible support.<ref name=Thurston/> Some scholars view the bull as "clearly political", motivated by jurisdictional disputes between the local German Catholic priests and clerics from the Office of the Inquisition who answered more directly to the pope.<ref>Darst, 1979, p. 298.</ref>

==Content==
The bull recognized the existence of witches:

<blockquote>Many persons of both sexes, unmindful of their own salvation and straying from the Catholic Faith, have abandoned themselves to devils, [[incubi]] and [[succubi]], and by their incantations, spells, conjurations, and other accursed charms and crafts, enormities and horrid offences, have slain infants yet in the mother's womb, as also the offspring of cattle, have blasted the produce of the earth, the grapes of the vine, the fruits of the trees, nay, men and women, [[Beasts of burden|beasts of burthen]], herd-beasts, as well as animals of other kinds, vineyards, orchards, meadows, pasture-land, corn, wheat, and all other cereals; these wretches furthermore afflict and torment men and women, beasts of burthen, herd-beasts, as well as animals of other kinds, with terrible and piteous pains and sore diseases, both internal and external; they hinder men from performing the sexual act and women from conceiving ... they blasphemously renounce that Faith which is theirs by the Sacrament of [[Baptism]], and at the instigation of the Enemy of Mankind they do not shrink from committing and perpetrating the foulest abominations and filthiest excesses to the deadly peril of their own souls ... the abominations and enormities in question remain unpunished not without open danger to the souls of many and peril of eternal damnation.<ref>Quotes from the 1928 English translation of the bull.</ref></blockquote>

It gave approval for the Inquisition to proceed "correcting, imprisoning, punishing and chastising" such persons "according to their deserts". The bull essentially repeated Kramer's view that an outbreak of witchcraft and heresy had occurred in the [[Rhine River]] valley, specifically in the bishoprics of [[Electorate of Mainz|Mainz]], [[Electorate of Cologne|Cologne]], and [[Electorate of Trier|Trier]], as well as in [[Salzburg]] and [[Bremen]], including accusations of certain acts.<ref>Black, 2003, p. 6.</ref>

The bull urged local authorities to cooperate with the inquisitors and threatened those who impeded their work with [[excommunication]].<ref>Darst, 1979, p. 299.</ref> Despite this threat, the bull failed to ensure that Kramer obtained the support he had hoped for, causing him to retire and to compile his views on witchcraft into his book ''[[Malleus Maleficarum]]'', which was published in 1487. The ''Malleus'' professed, in part fraudulently, to have been approved by the [[University of Cologne]], and it was sensational in the stigma it attached to witchcraft as a worse crime than heresy and in its notable [[Misogyny|animus against women]].<ref name=Thurston/> 

''Summis desiderantes affectibus'' was published as part of the preface of the book, implying papal approval for the work.<ref>Russell, pp. 229–231</ref>  However, the ''Malleus Maleficarum'' received an official condemnation by the Church three years later, and Kramer's claims of approval are seen by modern scholars as misleading.<ref>See [[Malleus Maleficarum#Publication|''Malleus Maleficarum'']].</ref>

The bull, which synthesized the spiritual and the secular crimes of witchcraft,<ref>This specific cultural and intellectual background that made the German witchhunts possible is explored by H. Erik Midelfort, ''Witch Hunting in Southwestern Germany, 1562–1684'',(Stanford University Press) 1972, with full bibliography.</ref> is often viewed as opening the door for the [[witchhunt]]s of the early modern period. However, its similarities to previous papal documents, emphasis on preaching, and lack of [[dogma|dogmatic pronouncement]] complicate this view.<ref name="kors"/>

== Citations ==
{{reflist|30em}}

== General references ==
{{Wikisource|Summis desiderantes|Summis desiderantes (english)}}
{{Wikisource|:la:Summis desiderantes affectibus|Summis desiderantes affectibus}}
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*Black, George F. 2003. ''Calendar of Cases of Witchcraft in Scotland 1510 to 1727''.  Kessinger Publishing; {{ISBN|0-7661-5838-1}}.
*{{cite book|last=Burr|first=George Lincoln|author-link=George Lincoln Burr|title=The witch-persecutions|year=1907|publisher=Philadelphia, Pa.|location=The Department of History of the University of Pennsylvania|url=http://www.aren.org/prison/documents/wicca/12/12.pdf}} ([http://orbis.uoregon.edu/record=b2126860 bibrec]{{Dead link|date=December 2022 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }})
:Published in the series: ''Translations and reprints from the original sources of European history''; v. 3, no. 4.
*{{cite journal|last=Darst |first=David H.|date=15 October 1979|title=Witchcraft in Spain: The Testimony of Martín de Castañega's Treatise on Superstition and Witchcraft (1529)|journal=Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society|volume=123|issue=5|pages=298–322|jstor=986592}}
*{{Cite book|last1=Kors|first1=Alan Charles|last2=Peters|first2=Edward|year=2000|title=Witchcraft in Europe, 400–1700: A Documentary History|publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press|location=Philadelphia|isbn=0-8122-1751-9|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/witchcraftineuro0000unse}} 
*{{Cite book|last=Russell|first=Jeffery Burton|title=Witchcraft in the Middles Ages|publisher=Cornell University Press|location=Ithaca, NY|year=1972}}

== External links ==
* [https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/witches1.asp Halsall, Paul. "Innocent VIII: BULL Summis desiderantes, Dec. 5th, 1484", ''Medieval Sourcebook'', Fordham University (translation of the bull)]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20080523174317/http://www.malleusmaleficarum.org/mm00e.html ''The Bull of Innocent VIII''] as published in the ''[[Malleus Maleficarum]]'' translated by [[Montague Summers]].

{{Witchcraft|state=expanded}}
{{Witch Hunt}}

[[Category:1484 works]]
[[Category:15th-century papal bulls]]
[[Category:Documents of Pope Innocent VIII]]
[[Category:European witchcraft]]
[[Category:Witch hunting]]