The Manipulus florum, Johannes Nider’s Formicarius, and Late Medieval Misogyny in the Construction of Witches prior to the Malleus maleficarum

Authors

• Christopher L. Nighman, Wilfrid Laurier UniversityFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-2014

Department

History

Abstract

This article demonstrates and analyses Johannes Nider’s reception of Thomas of Ireland’s Manipulus florum, a popular early fourteenth-century florilegium, in composing the fifth book of his Formicarius, a very influential text for the development of the gendered witch stereotype in the fifteenth century. It also examines the lemmata “Mulier” and “Coniugium” in the Manipulus, arguing that Thomas of Ireland’s construction of those topics was essentially misogamous, rather than misogynous, though its reception by Nider was informed by misogyny.

Comments

This is an open access chapter distributed under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International License originally published in The Journal of Medieval Latin.

Recommended Citation

Nighman, Chris. 2014. “The Manipulus Florum, Johannes Nider’s Formicarius, and Late Medieval Misogyny in the Construction of Witches Prior to the Malleus Maleficarum.” In The Journal of Medieval Latin, vol. 24. no. 1. Brepols Publishers. https://doi.org/10.1484/J.JML.5.103279.