Lesson 3-- the history of the craft: The Dark Ages and the Inquisition.

This lesson continues the history of Witchcraft from the rise of Christianity into
the Middle Ages. It's a popular misconception among some young Witches that the
pre-
Christian world was an idyllic, goddess-oriented nirvana where the women ruled,
everyone was a Witch, and the world was at peace. Then men arrived with their
swords and Penises and their patriarchy and messed everything up.
Another misconception is that
the Witchcraft that began there has followed a direct matriarchal lineage down
through
the centuries. Sadly there was no ancient lesbian paradise nor a direct lineage of
Witches through history, but there was a patriarchy. Well, you can't have
everything...

The Rise of Monotheism and the Patriarchy

As early as 4000 BCE, a paradigm shift began to occur in societies around the
Mediterranean. Where social roles and structure had been more egalitarian, an
interesting change began to occur. As more and more people congregated in growing
communities, towns and cities.developed, and with them came finance, housing, and
law enforcement. The men, long the protectors of the community, took it upon
themselves to organize and defend the growing towns. Their roles changed from
protectors of family and clan to protectors of the community, regional defenders,
and, finally, to leaders of the cities. Laws were written, intricate political
structures grew, and taxation and regulation became more prominent. The male role
had changed from hunter and protector to soldier and
politician.
Under male law, however, the role of the female was greatly reduced to family
caregiver, cook, and baby maker. She became a second-class citizen. Along with the
decline
in the status of women, the seers and wisewomen gradually lost importance in
metropolitan areas, and in some cases, they were banished altogether.
Men continued to give themselves more power. The concept of a single male ruler,
such as a king or emperor, appeased the desire for power, and after a single male
ruler,
the next logical step was a single male deity. Consider the Egyptians: around 1340
BCE,
Pharaoh Akhenaton abandoned polytheism and declared that Aten-the Sun-was the
only deity. The Pharaoh Tutankhamen later reversed that declaration, but such
concepts
were the foundation of monotheism, which was revived later when the early Abraha-
mic faiths, Christianity and Judaism, become prominent. Islam is the third
Abrahamic
faith, but it wasn't created until much later.

The Fall and Rise (and Fall) of the Roman Empire

In lesson 2, we saw how Athenian philosophy and politics influenced much of the
Mediterranean world. This was most evident in Rome, where they adopted not only
Athenian politics but their gods as well. Zeus became Jupiter, Athena became
Minerva, and Ares became Mars, just to name a few. Rome was adept at incorporating
elements of other
cultures into their own to become a stronger, more viable force. They took the
religion
and politics of Athens, the fighting fury of the Huns, and the military strategy of
the
Turks and grew into the strongest empire the world had seen thus far. From roughly
700 BCE to 350 CE, the Roman Empire held the world in its grasp. It conquered
nations,
built roads, and carried Roman rule and culture as far as northern Germany, the
coast of Ireland, and the southern tip of Africa.
A by-product of war and colonization is the spread of religion, and the Roman gods
saw altars erected in many areas that Roman legions traveled. There were temples to
Minerva in England, sacred groves to Bacchus in France, and altars to Jupiter along
the Euphrates, some of which can still be seen today. The Roman Empire controlled
the
ancient world for centuries. By about 150 CE, the light of Rome covered almost a
quarter
of the earth's surface.

As we have seen, religions, forms of worship, and even gods change over time; the
rise of monotheism was no different. It wasn't that someone just woke up one day
with a new idea. From polytheism, the worship of many gods, grew henotheism, the
idea that while there are many gods-all equally valid―the believer reserves their
devotion for a single deity, and from henotheism grew monotheism, the denial of the
existence of any other gods but the one.
Within the walls and council chambers of Rome, greed and corruption were eating
away at the empire's foundation. The Pagan Roman Empire was crumbling, and a new
faith was emerging. Led by the Priests of this new monotheistic faith, the people
of Rome revolted against the ancient, now corrupt regime.
The tide was slowly beginning to turn. By 200 CE many Roman citizens, tired of the
endless greed and depravity of the emperors, followed the will of the new Priests
and joined in the worship of a single deity,
spurred on by the promise of change. Early Christianity, which had started as an
offshoot of Judaism, promoted a single deity and his chosen avatar in human form.
Naturally, though, many different people took the idea and ran with it, so by 200
CE there were hundreds of different sects and cults all calling themselves
Christian but with different ideas about doctrine, the nature
of Jesus's divinity, and the methodology of worship. The First Council of Nicaea,
held in
325 CE and overseen by Emperor Constantine the Great, was an ecumenical conference
designed to bring all the different Christian sects into one agreement. They wrote
and adopted the Nicene Creed, which laid out the fundamental concepts of
Christianity as they are understood today.
Constantine never condemned Paganism; he had been born Pagan and maintained a
policy of henotheism even as the spread of Christianity widened and he himself was
baptized. He died in 337 CE, and the subsequent rulers of the Empire were less
forgiving as the religion grew in scope and influence.

Paganism and the Rise of Christianity

In 380 CE Theodosius I passed the Edict of Thessalonica, which declared

Christianity the "official" religion of the Empire. In direct opposition to the
henotheistic nature of Constantine, Theodosius used his position to actively banish
Paganism. He tore down Pagan temples across the Empire and declared Pagan worship
illegal.

By 429 CE the Codex Theodosianus, a book compiling Theodosius's laws and edicts,
was being used as justification for the persecution of Pagans and, indeed, of
anyone
guilty of heresy.
This wave of conversion was met with resistance, and many Pagan gods were
"rebranded" as Christian figures. Now people could still worship as they had, but
the
church could still claim dominance. This is evident in the date on which the birth
of
Christ is honoured. In Pagan Rome, December 25 marked the date of Sol Invictus, or
the "Unconquerable Sun." Constantine had declared that December 25 was, what a
surprise, also the date of the birth of Jesus Christ.
During the time of Pope Gregory I, 590 to 604 CE, it was ordered that "the caverns,
grottoes, crags and glens that had once been used for worship of the Pagan gods
(be) now appropriated by Christianity: Let altars be built and relics be placed
there, so the
Pagans have to change from the worship of their demons to the one true God."
Pagan shrines and temples were either destroyed outright, rebranded, or built over
to force people to adopt the new faith. Anyone who resisted was labeled a heretic
and punished. This became a handy tool to convince people to convert; the
punishment for heresy was often death.
In 1198 Pope Innocent III stated that the pope is God in flesh. Therefore, any act
against God was an act against the pope and thus an act of treason.
In the thirteenth century, things got a little uglier. Two key figures in the
church's
stance on Witchcraft were the Dominican friars Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aqui-
nas. Magnus, the more lenient of the two, read Aristotle and Plato and studied
zool-
ogy, botany, astrology, astronomy, medicine, and philosophy. He had declared that
Witches fell into one of two categories. Either they practiced harmful magick, for
which
the penalty was death, or they were experiencing "spiritual apostasy." Apostasy is
the intentional denial or renunciation of a religion, and spiritual apostasy is the
idea that
this denial exists because the person has been deceived by spiritual or diabolical
forces.
These Witches, Magnus had reasoned, had no power of their own and had merely been
deceived by demons. They simply needed salvation.
Thomas Aquinas, however, combined the two arguments, saying that Witches performed
harmful magick and were under the influence of diabolical forces. He said that
Witches were guilty of causing harm to members of the church, which was heresy and
punishable by death, and that apostasy was blasphemy, which was also punishable by
death.
The writings of Thomas Aquinas were frequently used as an argument against anyone
who the church decided was "inconvenient." Consider the fate of the Knights
Templar. Originally created in 1119, the Knights were given the divine purpose of
liberating the Holy Land, the alleged birthplace of Christ, from the Muslims, and
making it a Christian land. The Crusades raged for years, during which time the
Templars faced mounting accusations of becoming rich, corrupt, and greedy. Their
greed and their growing reputation of corruption put them in conflict with the
interests of the church, so Pope Clement V, King Philip IV of France, and King
Edward II of England collaborated to have the Templars defamed. They were accused
of Witchcraft, and in a mock trial, they were found guilty of diabolism, perverse
acts of Witchery, and making pacts with Baphomet. In 1314 the Knights Templar were
executed en masse. They actually had nothing to do with Witchcraft, but it was a
convenient accusation, and it added fuel the notion that Witchcraft was synonymous
with devil worship.

The Inquisition

The Inquisition was never handled by a single, central authority, and it was not
created specifically to hunt Witches. It began in 1184 with the Episcopal
Inquisition in
Languedoc, France, with the intention of weeding out heretics and apostates within
the
Catholic church. The Spanish Inquisition was created in 1478, and the Roman
Inquisi-
tion soon followed in 1542. Heretics and apostates were the first to be tried, but
the scope soon widened to include bigamists, Jews, Muslims, blasphemers,
adulterers, homosexuals, and eventually Pagans and those thought to be practicing
Witchcraft, and when anyone was found guilty, their property suddenly belonged to
the church. Handy, that.

In 1484 Pope Innocent VIII issued the papal bull entitled Summis desiderantes
affectibus, or "Wishings of the utmost concern," which gave full papal support to
the Witch hunt, and commanded that an organized inquisition be established. Witches
were regarded as heretics to Christianity, which became the greatest of their
crimes and sins. Within continental and Roman law, Witchcraft was crimen exceptum,
a crime so foul that all normal legal procedures were superseded. Because the devil
himself was not going to confess, it was necessary to gain a confession from his
human agents.

In 1486 two German scholars, Heinrich Kraemer and James Sprenger, wrote a book
called the Malleus Maleficarum, or "Hammer of Witches." Endorsed by the Roman Cath-
olic Church, the Malleus gave "evidence and testimony" that Witches were in league
with
the devil and that their mission was to destroy all that is good and holy in the
world.
It listed detailed instructions for the trial, judgment, and punishment of Witches,
and for
almost two centuries, it was used as the "instruction manual" for the Inquisition.
Judges, Witchfinders, and inquisitors used a wide range of torture methods to prove
a Witch's allegiance to the devil or to drive evil spirits out of the accused.
Here are a few examples of methods used:
• The accused was "swum," or bound so they were unable to move and thrown into a
pond. If the accused floated, it proved that the devil was causing them to behave
unnaturally, and they were given further tortures. If the accused sank (and
drowned) then they were saved.
• A "boot," or a hard wooden frame with holes for spikes, was placed around the
leg. During questioning, iron spikes were pounded through the holes and into the
accused's leg, crushing bone and muscle beyond repair.
• Red-hot pincers were often used to tear and shed flesh from bone.
• A "pear," or a metal, pear-shaped device with segments that unfolded like flower
petals when unscrewed, was used. Inserted into the mouth, anus, or vagina, it would
rend and destroy internal tissues.
• The use of the "Judas cradle" was particularly cruel. This torture device was
simply a large wooden spike. The victim was hoisted up and lowered onto it, and the
accused's own body weight would drive the spike deeper into their body.

The inquisitors believed that their actions were valid. Their justification for
these gruesome acts was that if you were possessed, Satan would depart, not wanting
a ruined body, and your soul would be saved. If you were guilty, they could force a
confession out of you, and your soul would be saved. And if you were innocent, you
would, of course, comply with the will of the church, and your soul would be saved.
More often than not, the tortures resulted in death-either immediately or in
lingering agony.
Of course, hanging was always popular, as was being burned at the stake, and the
exact number of people tortured and executed during the Inquisition can never be
known. Some sources say as many as nine million died, but it was probably closer to
forty
or sixty thousand.
We know the sequence of events within the church that led to the Inquisition, but
do we know anything about the victims of persecution or what they actually
practiced?
Most were very likely not Witches at all. Quite a few names and trial records
exist, along
with their accusations or confessions.
Just to give you an idea, here is a very short list of some of the victims who were
executed for the crime of Witchcraft.

Page 33

In the year 1611, a new English translation of the Bible was published. It wasn't
the first English version, nor did King James I commission it himself. It only
later became
known as the "King James Version" because it happened during his reign. However, he
did authorize some edits of his own in the final manuscript. Among these was
changing
Exodus 22:18 to read: "Thou shalt not suffer a Witch to live."
The Old Testament, which Exodus is part of, was originally written in several
languages, including Hebrew and Greek, and had been rewritten many times by many
differ-
ent scholars over the centuries. In the original version, Exodus 22:18 said that a
kashaph
(Hebrew for sorcerer) who interfered with local affairs must be put to death. A lot
of Old
Testament laws demanded executions. Latin scholars had translated kashaph to
maleficos
(meaning "evil person"; i.e., a sorcerer, criminal, or political dissident). By the
time the
Bible got to King James, he saw an opportunity to secure his place in history. By
changing maleficos to Witch, he had ordered a death sentence against all alleged or
accused Witches, Druids, magicians, peasant midwives, and wisewomen. This new
version of the Word of God fanned the flames of the anti-Witch craze.
By the year 1600, accused Witches had been hunted, tried, and persecuted for more
than four centuries, and the Inquisition had ravaged Europe for many decades
People were known to accuse their enemies of Witchcraft just to get them out of the
way. Old, homeless women were often suspect, and any strangers, physically disabled
people, or unpopular people were often marked as Witches and killed too.

The Politics of Witch-Hunting and the Decline of the Inquisition

In March of 1644, Matthew Hopkins of England became "Witchfinder General." This

was largely a self-appointed title, although he claimed to have been appointed by
Parliament. He would ride into town with a list of accusations against Witches and
charge the local council a hefty sum while he examined the accused. The trials were
held not by any religious authority but by the local justices of the peace. He only
served as Witchfinder for three years before dying of tuberculosis at age twenty-
eight, but in those three years, more women were hanged for Witchcraft than in the
entire previous century.
Hopkin's 1647 book, The Discovery of Witches, proved very popular with similarly
minded people in the New World, including Puritan ministers Increase Mather and his
son Cotton, in Salem, Massachusetts, some forty-five years later.

The events of the Salem Witch trials are well known, but here's a very quick
summary:
In Salem Village in January 1692, two young girls, Betty Parris and Abigail
Williams,
began acting strangely, screaming, thrashing about, and tearing at their clothes.
They
claimed to have been pinched and pricked by unseen forces. Why they behaved this is
still unknown. Some say it was just to get attention. Others say that they had
eaten contaminated bread. But other girls mimicked their behavior, and people
suspected Witchcraft. Three people were quickly accused, including Tituba, an
enslaved woman from Barbados who was owned by the Parris family, who used to tell
the girls stories from home.
She confessed to the accusations and named others as Witches. As more and more
people
Were named, horror and confusion gripped the town. Among the accused were Sarah
Good, a woman who was named a Witch simply because she rebuked Puritan values,
and Giles Corey, a churchgoing man who proclaimed his innocence even while he was
sentenced to death. Tituba later admitted that her owner, Samuel Parris, had
coached her on what to say during her trial.
By the time the panic ended a year later, more than two hundred people had been
accused and nineteen were executed.

The hysteria caused by the Salem Witch trials—and indeed by Matthew Hopkin's
methods in England--undermined the authority held by Witch trials and inquisitions
on both sides of the Atlantic. People questioned the methods and validity of
torture and examination, and the Inquisition finally began to lose favor.
By the early 1800s, after the execution of tens of thousands of people, the
Inquisition was all but ended. Witches were still despised and exiled but not
always murdered.
Meanwhile, people still practiced folkways or village traditions, including dancing
the
maypole, blessing the first grains and harvest loaf, Yule logs, and the Mari Lwyd.
Pagan
traditions with centuries of history were still relevant, even as the church's
persecution of
Witches was losing steam.
Between the rift between Protestants and Catholics and the advances in science and
medicine, such as the smallpox vaccination in the early 1800s, the church was
losing its
dominion over people's everyday lives. The Inquisition was becoming little more
than
posturing, and the Spanish Inquisition was finally abolished in 1834.

THE RISE OF MONOTHEISM AND THE PATRIARCHY

• explain how the roles of men and women changed so radically as civilization
became more complex.
• Why do you suppose Ramses wanted to proclaim himself "Ra Incarnate"?

THE RISE (AND FALL) OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE

• explain the difference between monotheism and henotheism
• Why did people take to the new faith? What did it offer?

PAGANISM AND THE RISE OF CHRISTIANITY

• what was the purpose of the council of Nicaea?
• What compromise did the church make to ensure that they were not rivaled by other
gods?

THE INQUISITION
• who were the Knights Templar and why were they accused of Witchcraft?
• Explain the Roman catholic churches justification on arresting non-christians.

THE POLITICS OF WITCH-HUNTING AND THE DECLINE OF THE INQUISITION

• what changes were made to the King James Version of the Bible?
• What triggered the Salem Witch Trials?

Lesson 3 Recommended reading

• A history of witchcraft: sorcerers, heretics, and Pagans, by Jeffery B. Russell
and brooks Alexander
• Witchcraft: a new history of the European Witch hunts by Anne Llewellyn Barstow