The fifteenth century, the century of the burning of Joan of Arc, of Bluebeard, and Dracula, of the pictures of danses macabres everywhere, saw a sharp increase in fears in general and in fear of witchcraft in particular.36 The outcome can be read at firsthand in the Malleus Maleficarum, or Hammer of Witches, written by the inquisitors Kramer and Sprenger in 1487.
