The Malleus Maleficarum, commonly translated as the “Hammer of the Witches,” is an infamous late medieval treatise and guidebook for the identification and punishment of alleged witches. Written by the German Catholic clergyman and inquisitor Heinrich Kramer, the book is a compendium of literature on demonology as it was understood at the time of publication. The text’s significance lies in its role as the foundational text that fueled the European witch-hunting craze of the late medieval and early modern periods. In early modern Europe, roughly between 1400 and 1700, there was widespread belief that malignant Satanic witches were a clandestine threat, bent on undermining Christianity. This belief, which was buttressed by the publication of Kramer’s text, had disastrous implications for European women. Witch hunting happened all throughout Europe but was conducted with special zeal in Central Europe. Collectively, this hysteria resulted in the trial, torture, humiliation, and execution of tens of thousands of victims, about three-quarters of whom were women.