Publication of the Malleus Maleficarum

Timeline

1. 1485–1486Innsbruck · TyrolKramer interrogated witches in Tyrol armed with the December 1484 bull of Innocent VIII, but was expelled in 1485 by the Bishop of Brixen and local authorities on procedural grounds. He then compiled theological arguments and interrogation procedures, sending the clean manuscript to the Speyer printer Peter Drach in autumn 1486.
2. 1486–1487Speyer · SpeyerPeter Drach set and printed the first edition of the Malleus Maleficarum in Speyer. Printing history research shows shipping records of a 'treatise on witchcraft' in December 1486, and February 1487 account books explicitly record shipments under the book's title. The first edition bore no exact year, so publication is dated to the turn of 1486–1487.
3. 1487Cologne · CologneOn 19 May 1487 an approval text in the name of the theological faculty of the University of Cologne appeared for the Malleus Maleficarum, and some printed copies also included the bull of Innocent VIII. Later scholarship considers the approval process suspicious or even forged, but at the time it was still used as authoritative endorsement, promoting reprints and circulation of the manual in Germany and Western Europe.