The Witch-cult in Western Europe | Page 8

of King Athelstan,[13] 924-940.
'We have ordained respecting witchcrafts, and lyblacs, and morthdaeds:
if anyone should be thereby killed, and he could not deny it, that he be
liable in his life. But if he will deny it, and at the threefold ordeal shall
be guilty; that he be cxx days in prison.'
Ecclesiastical canons of King Edgar,[14] 959.
'We enjoin, that every priest zealously promote Christianity, and totally

extinguish every heathenism; and forbid well worshipings, and
necromancies, and divinations, and enchantments, and man
worshipings, and the vain practices which are carried on with various
spells, and with "frithsplots",[15] and with elders, and also with various
other trees, and with stones, and with many various delusions, with
which men do much of what they should not.--And we enjoin, that
every Christian man zealously accustom his children to Christianity,
and teach them the Paternoster and the Creed. And we enjoin, that on
feast days heathen songs and devil's games be abstained from.'
Laws of King Ethelred,[16] 978-1016.
'Let every Christian man do as is needful to him; let him strictly keep
his Christianity.... Let us zealously venerate right Christianity, and
totally despise every heathenism.'
11th cent. Laws of King Cnut,[17] 1017-1035.
'We earnestly forbid every heathenism: heathenism is, that men
worship idols; that is, that they worship heathen gods, and the sun or
the moon, fire or rivers, water-wells or stones, or forest trees of any
kind; or love witchcraft, or promote morth-work in any wise.'
13th cent. Witchcraft made into a sect and heresy by the Church. The
priest of Inverkeithing presented before the bishop in 1282 for leading a
fertility dance at Easter round the phallic figure of a god; he was
allowed to retain his benefice.[18]
14th cent. In 1303 the Bishop of Coventry was accused before the Pope
for doing homage to the Devil.[19]
Trial of Dame Alice Kyteler, 1324.
Tried for both operative and ritual witchcraft, and found guilty.
Nider's Formicarius, 1337.
A detailed account of witches and their proceedings in Berne, which

had been infested by them for more than sixty years.
15th cent. Joan of Arc burnt as a witch, 1431. Gilles de Rais executed
as a witch, 1440.
Bernardo di Bosco, 1457.
Sent by Pope Calixtus III to suppress the witches in Brescia and its
neighbourhood.
Bull of Pope Innocent VIII, 1484.
'It has come to our ears that numbers of both sexes do not avoid to have
intercourse with demons, Incubi and Succubi; and that by their
sorceries, and by their incantations, charms, and conjurations, they
suffocate, extinguish, and cause to perish the births of women, the
increase of animals, the corn of the ground, the grapes of the vineyard
and the fruit of the trees, as well as men, women, flocks, herds, and
other various kinds of animals, vines and apple trees, grass, corn and
other fruits of the earth; making and procuring that men and women,
flocks and herds and other animals shall suffer and be tormented both
from within and without, so that men beget not, nor women conceive;
and they impede the conjugal action of men and women.'
It will be seen by the foregoing that so far from the Bull of Pope
Innocent VIII being the beginning of the 'outbreak of witchcraft', as so
many modern writers consider, it is only one of many ordinances
against the practices of an earlier cult. It takes no account of the effect
of these practices on the morals of the people who believed in them, but
lays stress only on their power over fertility; the fertility of human
beings, animals, and crops. In short it is exactly the pronouncement
which one would expect from a Christian against a heathen form of
religion in which the worship of a god of fertility was the central idea.
It shows therefore that the witches were considered to deal with fertility
only.
Looked upon in the light of a fertility cult, the ritual of the witches
becomes comprehensible. Originally for the promotion of fertility, it

became gradually degraded into a method for blasting fertility, and thus
the witches who had been once the means of bringing prosperity to the
people and the land by driving out all evil influences, in process of time
were looked upon as being themselves the evil influences, and were
held in horror accordingly.
The actual feelings of the witches towards their religion have been
recorded in very few cases, but they can be inferred from the few
records which remain. The earliest example is from Lorraine in 1408,
'lequel méfait les susdites dames disoient et confessoient avoir enduré à
leur contentement et saoulement de plaisir que n'avoient eu onc de leur
vie en tel pourchas'.[20] De Lancre took a certain amount of trouble to
obtain the opinions of the witches, whereby he