A Dark Secret of Leftism

Tuesday, 11 March 2003

Unless you're one of those weirdos who likes delving through second hand book-stores searching out crackpot books, it's unlikely that you will have heard of the Rev Montague Summers, author of this passage:

Immediately upon the receipt of the Bull, Summis desiderantes affectibus, in 1485, Fr Henry Kramer commenced his crusade against witches at Innsbruck, but he was opposed on certain technical grounds by the Bishop of Brixen, nor was Duke Sigismund so ready to help the inquisitors with the civil arm. In fact the prosecutions were, if not actually directed, at least largely controlled by the episcopal authority; nor did the ordinary courts, as is so often supposed, invariably carry out the full sentence of the Holy Office. Not so very many years later the civil power took full cognizance of any charges of witchcraft, and it was then that far more blood was spilled and far more fires blazed than ever in the days when Kramer and Sprenger were directing the trials. It should be borne in mind too that frequent disturbances conspiracies of anarchists and nascent Bolshevism showed that the district was rotten to the core, and the severities of Kramer and Sprenger were by no means so unwarranted as is generally supposed. [My emphasis]

It's from the Rev Summers 1928 introduction to the Malleus Maleficarum of Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger and will no doubt be ridiculed by those who believe that the roots of leftism are in the 18th century Enlightment and the French Revolution. Still, I'm sure that there's someone out there who will seize on the Rev Summers' link between anarchism, Bolshevism and witchcraft as further evidence that leftists are basically evil, regardless of their protestations of good intent. If so, they can find it on-line here. This section, on 15th century feminism should prove especially fascinating.