Note 39 — Front matter

The statement, made by nearly all authorities on this subject, that the “Witch-Hammer” was first printed in 1489, is a manifest error. True, its first dated edition is of that year. But Hain (“Repertorium Bibliographicum,” Nos. 9238-9241) chronicles no less than four undated (and presumably earlier) editions. All of these I have examined. One alone—that to which Hain wisely gives the first place—lacks both the Cologne theological faculty’s approval of May, 1487, and the commendatory letters of Maximilian of Austria, of 6 Nov., 1486, both of which appear in all other editions, and were not likely to be omitted when once obtained. The first impression can hardly, therefore, be of later date than 1486. That it is not earlier is clear from the evidence of the book itself. It begins with a commentary on the bull of 5 Dec., 1484 (the bull itself is not printed in this first edition), which must have required a little time to make. That the book was not completed in the year of its beginning may perhaps be inferred from the phrase “anno eodem quo hic liber est inchoatus,” used to date a certain anecdote. That at least a part of it was written in 1486 is sure from the fact that an incident (the burning of forty-one witches in a single year by the inquisitor Cumanus) is in one place (pars I., qu. 11) said to have happened “last year,” in another (pars II., qu. 1, cap. ii.) “in the year 1485,” and still again (pars III., qu. 15) “anno elapso, qui fuit 1485.” 1486, then, was almost unquestionably the year of its publication. The suggestion of Stanonik (“Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie,” s. v. Krämer) that it may have appeared in the same year with the bull is therefore untenable (the edition mentioned by Quétif and Échard, following Fontana, as of “Lugduni, Juntarum, 1484,” was probably printed in 1584); and 1486 was, almost unquestionably, the year of its publication. The copy of the editio princeps examined by me is in the City Library of Trier; the White Library has what seems the second (Hain, 9239).