Heinrich Kramer

Heinrich Kramer (c. 1430–1505), Latinized as Henricus Institoris, was a German Dominican friar and inquisitor born at Schlettstadt in Alsace. Before 1474 he was made inquisitor for the Tyrol and Salzburg.

Pope Innocent VIII's bull of 1484 affirmed his authority to prosecute witches, but his witch trial at Innsbruck in 1485 was halted by the bishop of Brixen, who expelled him.

In Cologne he wrote the Malleus Maleficarum, first printed in 1487; condemned by the Cologne theological faculty, it yet became the most influential text of the European witch trials. In 1500 Pope Alexander VI assigned him to Bohemia and Moravia.