#compendium maleficarum

[vargamormusings]

If politicians won't believe actual transgender people, I wonder if they'll believe a which hunter's manual from 1608 when people say that they've always been there, and that is perfectly natural. (I notice this is basically all about women turning into men. I have a suspicion that this is because at the time, a man turning into a woman would upset the status quo too much)

[altar-ov-plagues]

Witches roasting and boiling infants, copy of an illustration from 'Compendium Maleticarum'

[th3leviathan666]

Witches presenting a baby to Satan - Compendium Maleficarum

[altar-ov-plagues]

[th3leviathan666]

Witches dancing with Satan - Compendium Maleficarum

[vargamormusings]

For this, the last day of Pride, I would like to discuss gender expression by presenting an excerpt of the Compendium Maleficarum, which was written by Francisco Maria Guazzo and published in Milan in 1608. Being an amateur folklorist, I have a variety of sources of ancient occult and magical practices... Unfortunately, most of these sources were recorded by people that looked down upon such beliefs. For instance, this particular text was known for being, essentially, a witch hunter's manual. I need not go into detail as to why the existence of anything that could be considered a witch hunter's manual is abhorrent, however, it sheds some interesting details on how gender expression may have been viewed as natural not too very long ago:

'Cornelius Gemma inquires into the mutation of the feminine into the masculine sex, and the masculine into the feminine, which is admitted by modern physicians to be natural.

'We read of many women who have become men. Hippocrates writes that Abdera Phaetula, the wife of Pitheus, had borne him children; but her husband was sent into exile, after a few months her menstrual courses ceased, and she was smitten with terrible pains all over her body, and acquired the physical features of a man. He says that the same thing happened to Anamisia, The wife of Gorgippud, at Thasos. Livey tells the same story in book 24 (de Spoletana muliere).

'Pliny says that it is no fable that women are changed into men. Martin delirio uses the following words (quoting from Pliny, historia naturalis, VII, 4): "I saw myself in Africa L. Colissicus, a Tisdritanian citizen, changed into a man on his wedding day."

' S. Augustine mentions heathen records of women becoming men and of hens being changed into the masculine sex, not, however, by witchcraft but naturally'

The text then continues to list several examples ranging from what currently would be described as individuals who are intersex, to the story of a woman who was mistreated by her husband and then later embraced his identity as a male and took on a wife. There is even an account that describes someone changing their name and being given the Sacrament of Confirmation by the Bishop of Soissons.

In this work, we see that people discussed situations that clearly depicted changes in gender expression and remarked upon them as being natural. in fact, it is important to note that my specific copy is the 1929 Montague Summers edition of this particular text-- Montague Summers was a clergyman.

If if a book that is renowned as a witch hunter's guide, circulated by a clergyman, can remark upon changing gender expression as natural, then surely I could theorize that transphobia is more of a modern form of degeneracy.

Trans men are men. And trans women are women. Black trans lives matter. Happy Pride.

[thepeacockangel]

The episode on the Compendium Maleficarum with some general info on the witch panic

[samoniosa]