2. Several Discourses and various sermons against the four errors which have newly arisen with regard to the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist, now collected and brought together by the Professor of Scripture of the Church of Salzburg, Brother Henry Kramer, of the Order of Preachers, General Inquisitor of heretical pravity. Published at Nuremburg by Antony Koberger, 4to, 1496. This work is divided into three parts:
The First Part. “A Tractate against the errors of the preacher who taught that Christ was only to be conditionally worshipped in the Blessed Sacrament: A Reply to the objection raised by this preacher, and XI sermons on the Blessed Sacrament.”
The Second Part. “XIX Sermons on the Blessed Sacrament.”
The Third Part.
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Further “Six Sermons” on the Sacrament.
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“Advice and cautels for priests.”
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“A little Treatise concerning the miraculous Host and the species of Blood which have been reserved for the space of 300 years at Augsburg, or a sharp confutation of the error which asserts that the miraculous Sacrament of the Eucharist, whilst there is the appearance in the Host of Blood or Human Flesh or the form of a Figure, is not truly the Blessed Sacrament, with the promulgation of the Ban of Excommunication against all and sundry who dare to entertain this opinion.” A copy of this book may be found at Paris in the library of our monastery of S. Honorat.84
It was about the same time, 1497–98, that certain refractory and unruly spirits took great exception against the censure which the Bishop of Trèves,85 who was a legatus de latere from the Apostolic See, and the Patriarch of Venice had pronounced on Antonio degli Roselli of Arezzo and his book De Monarchia siue de potestate imperatoris, and since these rash men openly averred that the censure and condemnation of this work had not been brought about in any just or legal way, Fr. Henry was requested by Don Antoni de’ Pizamanni, a patrician of Venice, who was also a Doctor of Sacred Theology, to write a tractate impugning this said book of Antonio degli Roselli. Accordingly Fr. Kramer composed his opuscule with the following title:
3. Here beginneth a Tractate confuting the errors of Master Antonio degli Roselli of Padua, jurisconsult, concerning the plenary power of the Supreme Pontiff and the power of a temporal monarch. The conclusion is as follows: “Here endeth the Reply of the Inquisitor-General of Germany, Fr. Henry Kramer, in answer to the erroneous and mistaken opinions of Antonio degli Roselli.” Printed at Venice, at the Press of Giacomo de Lencho, at the charge of Peter Liechtenstein, 27 July, 1499.
4. The Shield of Defence of the Holy Roman Church against the Picards86 and Waldenses. This was published when Fr. Kramer was acting as Censor of the Faith under Alexander VI87 in Bohemia and Moldavia. This work is praised by the famous Dominican writer Noel Alexandre88 in his Selecta historiae ecclesiasticae capita et in loca eiusdem insignia dissertationes historicae, criticae, dogmaticae. In dealing with the fifteenth century he quotes passages from this work. The bibliographer Beugheim catalogues an edition of this work among those Incunabula the exact date of which cannot be traced. Georg Simpler, who was Rector of the University of Pforzheim, and afterwards Professor of Jurisprudence of Tübingen in the early decades of the sixteenth century, also mentions this work with commendation. Odorico Rinaldi89 quotes from this work in his Annales under the year 1500. The Sermons of 1496 are highly praised by Antony of Siena, O.P.90 Antonius Possevinus, S.J., speaks of a treatise Against the Errors of Witches. This I have never seen, but I feel very well assured that it is no other work than the Malleus Maleficarum, which was written in collaboration with Fr. James Sprenger, and which we have spoken above in some detail.
In what year Fr. Henry Kramer died and to what house of the Order he was then attached is not recorded, but it seems certain that he was living at least as late as 1500.
Thus Quétif-Echard, but we may not impertinently add a few, from several, formal references which occur in Dominican registers and archives. James Sprenger was born at Basel (he is called “de Basilea” in a MS. belonging to the Library of Basel), probably about 1436–38, and he was admitted as a Dominican novice in 1452 at the convent of his native town. An extract “ex monumentis conuent. Coloniens.” says that Sprenger “beatus anno 1495 obiit Argentinae ad S. Nicolaum in Undis in conuentu sororum ordinis nostri.” Another account relates that he did not die at Strasburg on 6 December, 1495, but at Verona, 3 February, 1503, and certainly Jacobus Magdalius in his Stichologia has “In mortem magistri Iacobi Sprenger, sacri ordinis praedicatorii per Theutoniam prouincialis, Elegia,” which commences:
O utinam patrio recubassent ossa sepulchro
Quae modo Zenonis91 urbe sepulta iacent.
Henry Kramer, who appears in the Dominican registers as “Fr. Henricus Institoris de Sletstat,” was born about 1430. His later years were distinguished by the fervour of his apostolic missions in Bohemia, where he died in 1505.
Although, as
