Ulrich Molitor

Who was Ulrich Molitor?

Ulrich Molitor was a legal scholar. He wrote an early treatise on witchcraft, De Lamiis et Pythonicis Mulieribus, published in 1489 when he was Doctor of Laws of Padua and professor at the University of Constance. The work is written in the form of a dialogue.

Molitor was one of the sceptical or "moderate" proponents of witchcraft of his time. Although Molitor supported the death sentence for heretics and practitioners of witchcraft, from a moderate point of view for his time he considered that the Sabbaths were an illusion caused by the Devil and not a reality. He wrote the work to allay the doubts held by Archduke Sigismund of Austria regarding the topic. Sigismund had had learned of witchcraft from the Dominican inquisitors, James Sprenger and Heinrich Kramer, who had journeyed to the Tyrol to "root out witchcraft", but he was unconvinced of their claims; Sigismund in the dialogue was quick to dismiss evidence that was produced through the use of torture: "For the fear of punishments incites men to say what is contrary to the nature of the facts".

Molitor often quotes the Bible, Church Fathers and poets. Omnipresent is Molitor's conviction in the power of the devil who acts through the permission of God, to deceive mortals who are thereby culpable. He explained Merlin as a real human being and not, as many authorities commonly believed, the offspring of a devil and a woman.