Heinrich Kramer

[5] Despite being granted episcopal jurisdiction to conduct trials by Georg Golser, bishop of Brixen, the latter eventually acquired a distaste for Kramer's alleged scandals.

Helena herself, married to a prosperous burgher named Sebastian, was described as an "aggressive, independent woman who was not afraid to speak her mind".

[5] Right after Kramer had arrived in the city, she had passed him in the street, spat and cursed him publicly: "Fie on you, you bad monk, may the falling evil take you".

[6] In response to the Bishop's criticism, Kramer began to write a treatise on witchcraft that later became the Malleus Maleficarum (commonly translated as "The Hammer of Witches").

The bull Summis desiderantes, which gave him the authority of prosecuting and investigating cases of sorcery, was included in the forefront of the book, first published in 1487.

Kramer failed in his attempt to obtain endorsement for this work from the top theologians of the Inquisition at the Faculty of Cologne, and they condemned the book as recommending unethical and illegal procedures, as well as being inconsistent to what they perceived as the orthodox Catholic doctrines of demonology.