The bull affirmed the existence of witches: 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 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. 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
Mainz,
Cologne, and
Trier, as well as in
Salzburg and
Bremen, including accusations of certain acts. The bull urged local authorities to cooperate with the inquisitors and threatened those who impeded their work with
excommunication. 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
animus against women. However, Kramer's claims of approval are seen by modern scholars as misleading, and the
Malleus Maleficarum received an official condemnation by the Church three years later. The bull, which synthesized the spiritual and the secular crimes of witchcraft, is often viewed as opening the door for the
witchhunts of the early modern period. However, its similarities to previous papal documents, emphasis on preaching, and lack of
dogmatic pronouncement complicate this view. == Citations ==