Christ Transformed into a Virgin Woman: Lucia Brocadelli, Heinrich Institoris, and the Defense of the Faith

In 1501, the Alsatian inquisitor and witch-hunter Heinrich Institoris (Kramer) was pursuing Hussites in Moravia. As part of his anti-heretical campaign, he published a pamphlet exalting the stigmatization of Lucia Brocadelli of Narni. In this pamphlet, he also praised the mystical experiences of other contemporary Italian women mystics. The present volume explores the story of this pamphlet – the motivations for its publication, its contents, its circulation, and its influence – and provides the first critical edition of its intriguing text. The intersection of female sanctity and the anxiety over diabolic witchcraft, Christian heterodoxy, Jewish obstinacy, and the growing Turkish threat provides the pamphlet’s compelling backstory. Thus, this book argues that the pamphlet crystallized some of the major religious, cultural, and politico-military concerns that prevailed in Europe shortly before the breakup of Western Christendom.-