The book was condemned by top theologians of the Inquisition at the Faculty of Cologne for recommending illegal procedures, and for being inconsistent with Roman Catholic doctrines of demonology.

The same day Sprenger became successor to Jacob Strubach as provincial superior (October 19, 1487), he obtained permission from his general, Joaquino Turriani, to lash out adversus m[agistrum] Henricum Institoris inquisitorem (English: against Master Heinrich Kramer, inquisitor).

"[22] The book became the handbook for secular courts throughout Renaissance Europe, but was not used by the Inquisition, which "denied any authority to the Malleus" in the words of historian Wolfgang Behringer.

[37] The Malleus Maleficarum consists of the following parts:[38] In this part it is briefly explained that prevalence of sorcery which is a method of Satan's final assault motivated authors to write the Malleus Maleficarum:[39] [...] [ Lucifer ] attacks through these heresies at that time in particular, when the evening of the world declines towards its setting and the evil of men swells up, since he knows in great anger, as John bears witness in the Book of Apocalypse [12:12], that he has little time remaining.

[...] In the midst of these evils, we Inquisitors, Jacobus Sprenger together with the very dear associate [Institoris] delegated by the Apostolic See for the extermination of so destructive a heresy [...] we will bring everything to the desired conclusion.

[...] naming the treatise the "Hammer for Sorceresses," we are undertaking the task of compiling the work for an associate [presumably, an ecclesiastic] [...][40]Copies of the Malleus Maleficarum contain a reproduction of a papal bull known as Summis desiderantes affectibus that is addressed to Heinrich Institoris and Jakob Sprenger.

Instead, its inclusion implicitly legitimizes the handbook by providing general confirmation of the reality of witchcraft and full authority to Sprenger and Institoris in their preachings and proceedings:[42][43] And they shall also have full and entire liberty to propound and preach to the faithful Word of God, as often as it shall seem to them fitting and proper, in each and all of the parish churches in the said provinces, and to do all things necessary and suitable under the aforesaid circumstances, and likewise freely and fully to carry them out.

[48] Text of approbation mentions that during proceedings Institoris had a letter from Maximilian, the newly crowned King of the Romans and son of Emperor Frederick III, which is summarized in the approbation: "[... Maximilian I] takes these Inquisitors under his complete protection, ordering and commanding each and every subject of the Roman Empire to render all favor and assistance to these Inquisitors and otherwise to act in the manner that is more fully contained and included in the letter.

Let all those who will read, see or hear the present public document know that in the year since the Birth of Our Lord 1487, in the fifth indiction, on Saturday, the nineteenth day of May, at five in the afternoon or thereabouts, in the third year of the Pontificate of Our Lord, the Most Holy Father in Christ, Lord Innocent VIII, by Divine Providence Pope, in the presence of my notary public and of the witnesses written below who had been specifically summoned and asked for this purpose, the venerable and religious Brother Henricus Institoris, Professor of Holy Theology and member of the Order of Preachers, who was appointed as Inquisitor into Heretical Depravity by the Holy See along with his colleague, the venerable and religious Brother Jacobus Sprenger, also a Professor of Holy Theology and Prior of the Convent of Preachers in Cologne[...][53] Then, signatories complain that "Some curates of souls and preachers of the Word of God feel no shame at claiming and affirming in their sermons to the congregation that sorceresses do not exist"[54] and notice that the intention of the authors of the Malleus Maleficarum is not primarily to alleviate this ignorance but rather "toil to exterminate the sorceresses by explaining the appropriate methods of sentencing and punishing them in accordance with the text of the aforementioned Bull and the regulations of the Holy Canons, thereby achieving their extermination";[54] finally, signatories explain why they are providing their expertise: It is consonant with reason that those things that are done on behalf of the common good should also be confirmed through the common approval of the Doctors, and therefore, lest the aforementioned poorly educated curates and preachers think, in their ignorance of Holy Scripture, that the aforesaid treatise, which was composed in the manner mentioned above, is poorly supported by the determinations and pronouncements of the Doctors, they offered it for examination and comparison against Scripture to the illustrious University of Cologne or rather to certain Professors of Holy Theology, in order that if any things were found to be worthy of censure or incompatible with the Catholic Truth, they should be refuted by the judgment of those Professors, and that those things found to be compatible with the Catholic Truth should be approved.

[60] Signatories attest that: 1) The Masters of Holy Theology written below commend the Inquisitors into Heretical Depravity appointed by the authority of the Apostolic See in conformity with the Canons, and urge that they think it right to carry out their office zealously.2) The proposition that acts of sorcery can happen with God's permission through sorcerers or sorceresses when the Devil works with them is not contrary to the Catholic Faith, but consonant with the statements of Holy Scripture.

[63] Specifically it addresses the question of whether witchcraft is a real phenomenon or imaginary, perhaps "deluding phantasms of the devil, or simply the fantasies of overwrought human minds".

[69][71] Pope Innocent VIII in the papal bull Summis desiderantes affectibus refers to them both as "beloved sons" and "professors of theology";[72] also authorizes them to extirpate witchcraft.

This text codified the folklore and beliefs of the Alpine peasants as ‘witchcraft’ and was conceptually dedicated to the implementation of Exodus 22:18: "You shall not permit a sorceress to live.”Kramer and Sprenger were the first to raise harmful sorcery to the criminal status of heresy.

The Malleus urges them to adopt torture, leading questions, the admission of denunciation as valid evidence, and other Inquisitorial practices to achieve swift results.

They maintain that the lesser penalty of banishment prescribed by Canon Episcopi for those convicted of harmful sorcery does not apply to the new breed of witches, whose unprecedented evil justifies capital punishment.

[74]The first section of the book's main text is written using the scholastic methodology of Thomas Aquinas characterized by a mode of disputed questions most notably used in his Summa Theologica.

[81] Michael Bailey claims that most of the women accused as witches had strong personalities and were known to defy convention by overstepping the lines of proper female decorum.

[86] The Malleus Maleficarum accuses witches of infanticide, cannibalism and casting evil spells to harm their enemies as well as having the power to steal a man's penis.

[87]Although authors give many examples of male witchery in the second part of the handbook, those witchcraft trials that are independently confirmed and that were led by Kramer himself are related to persecution of women almost exclusively.

[92] Kramer and Sprenger use a metaphor of a world turned upside down by women of which concubines are the most wicked, followed by midwives and then by wives who dominate their husbands.

Authors warn of imminent arrival of the apocalypse foretold in the Bible and that men risk bewitchment that leads to impotence and sensation of castration.

In the 19th century, Joseph Hansen, a historian who was appalled by the witch-craze and those who carried it out, first proposed that coauthorship by Sprenger was a falsehood presented by Institoris (Kramer) and that approbation is partially a forgery.

[102]In addition, Mackay points out that allegations raised in support of this theory that supposedly two of the signatories had not in fact signed the approbation are unsubstantiated.

[103] Encyclopædia Britannica and The Encyclopedia of Witches, Witchcraft and Wicca ignore completely Hansen's theory and list Sprenger and Kramer as co-authors.

[17] Jenny Gibbons, a Neo-Pagan and a historian, writes: "Actually the Inquisition immediately rejected the legal procedures Kramer recommended and censured the inquisitor himself just a few years after the Malleus was published.

It directed Bishop of Strasburg (then Albert of Palatinate-Mosbach) to accept the authority of Heinrich Kramer as an Inquisitor, although the motivation of the papal bull was likely political.

[116] Sex-specific theory developed in the Malleus Maleficarum laid the foundations for widespread consensus in early modern Germany on the evil nature of witches as women.

[119][120][121] According to MacCulloch, the Malleus Maleficarum was one of several key factors contributing to the witch craze, along with popular superstition, and tensions created by the Reformation.

[18] However, according to Encyclopædia Britannica: The Malleus went through 28 editions between 1486 and 1600 and was accepted by Roman Catholics and Protestants alike as an authoritative source of information concerning Satanism and as a guide to Christian defence [against acts of Satan].The Malleus Maleficarum was able to spread throughout Europe rapidly in the late 15th and at the beginning of the 16th century due to the innovation of the printing press in the middle of the 15th century by Johannes Gutenberg.

The Malleus Maleficarum and the witch craze that ensued took advantage of the increasing intolerance of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation in Europe, where the Protestant and Catholic camps respectively, pitted against one another, each zealously strove to maintain what they each deemed to be the purity of faith.