European witchcraft - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

European Witchcraft is witchcraft

Witchcraft

Witchcraft, in historical, anthropological, religious, and mythological contexts, is the alleged use of supernatural or magical powers. A witch is a practitioner of witchcraft...

and magic

Magic (paranormal)

Magic is the claimed art of manipulating aspects of reality either by supernatural means or through knowledge of occult laws unknown to science. It is in contrast to science, in that science does not accept anything not subject to either direct or indirect observation, and subject to logical...

that is practised primarily in the locality of Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

Antiquity

Instances of persecution of witchcraft are documented from Classical Antiquity

Classical antiquity

Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, collectively known as the Greco-Roman world...

, paralleling evidence from the Ancient Near East and the Old Testament

Witchcraft and divination in the Bible

Various forms of witchcraft and divination are mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, generally with a disapproving tone. The masoretic text of the torah forbids:*nahash; as a noun, nahash translates as snake, and as a verb it literally translates as hissing...

.

In Ancient Greece

Ancient Greece

Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...

, for example, Theoris, a woman of Lemnos, who is denounced by Demosthenes

Demosthenes

Demosthenes was a prominent Greek statesman and orator of ancient Athens. His orations constitute a significant expression of contemporary Athenian intellectual prowess and provide an insight into the politics and culture of ancient Greece during the 4th century BC. Demosthenes learned rhetoric by...

, was publicly tried at Athens and burned for her necromancy. Lemnos was sacred to Hephaestus

Hephaestus

Hephaestus was a Greek god whose Roman equivalent was Vulcan. He is the son of Zeus and Hera, the King and Queen of the Gods - or else, according to some accounts, of Hera alone. He was the god of technology, blacksmiths, craftsmen, artisans, sculptors, metals, metallurgy, fire and volcanoes...

, who is said to have fallen here when hurled by Zeus from Olympus. The workshops of the Smith-God in ancient legend were supposed to be on the island, although recent geologists deny that this area was ever volcanic, and the fires which are spoken of as issuing from it must be considered gaseous. Later the officinae of Hephaestus were placed in Sicily and the Lipari Islands, particularly Hiera.

In Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

black magic was punished as a capital offence by the Law of the Twelve Tables, which are to be assigned to the 5th century BC, and, as Livy

Livy

Titus Livius — known as Livy in English — was a Roman historian who wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people. Ab Urbe Condita Libri, "Chapters from the Foundation of the City," covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome well before the traditional foundation in 753 BC...

records, from time to time Draconian statutes were directed against those who attempted to blight crops and vineyards or to spread disease amongst flocks and cattle.
The terms of the frequent references in Horace

Horace

Quintus Horatius Flaccus , known in the English-speaking world as Horace, was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus.-Life:...

to Canidia illustrate the odium in which sorceresses were held.

Under the Empire, in the third century, the punishment of burning alive was enacted by the State against witches who compassed another person's death through their enchantments.
Nevertheless, all the while normal legislation utterly condemned witchcraft and its works, whilst the laws were not merely carried out to their very letter, but reinforced by such emperors as Claudius, Vitelius, and Vespasian.

In the imperial period, it is evident from many Latin authors and from the historians that Rome swarmed with occultists and diviners, many of whom in spite of the Lex Cornelia almost openly traded in poisons, and not infrequently in assassination to boot.
Paradoxical as it may appear, such emperors as Augustus

Augustus

Augustus ;23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14) is considered the first emperor of the Roman Empire, which he ruled alone from 27 BC until his death in 14 AD.The dates of his rule are contemporary dates; Augustus lived under two calendars, the Roman Republican until 45 BC, and the Julian...

, Tiberius

Tiberius

Tiberius , was Roman Emperor from 14 AD to 37 AD. Tiberius was by birth a Claudian, son of Tiberius Claudius Nero and Livia Drusilla. His mother divorced Nero and married Augustus in 39 BC, making him a step-son of Octavian...

, and Septimius Severus

Septimius Severus

Septimius Severus , also known as Severus, was Roman Emperor from 193 to 211. Severus was born in Leptis Magna in the province of Africa. As a young man he advanced through the customary succession of offices under the reigns of Marcus Aurelius and Commodus. Severus seized power after the death of...

, whilst banishing from their realms all seers and necromancers, and putting them to death, in private entertained astrologers and wizards among their retinue, consulting their art upon each important occasion, and often even in the everyday and ordinary affairs of life.
These prosecutions are significant, as they establish that and the prohibition under severest penalties, the sentence of death itself of witchcraft was demonstrably not a product of Christianity, but had long and necessarily been employed in the heathen world and among pagan peoples and among polytheistic societies.

The ecclesiastical legislation followed a similar but milder course. The Council of Elvira (306), Canon 6, refused the holy Viaticum to those who had killed a man by a "per maleficium", translated as "visible effect of malicious intention" and adds the reason that such a crime could not be effected "without idolatry"; which probably means without the aid of the Devil, devil-worship and idolatry being then convertible terms. Similarly canon 24 of the Council of Ancyra (314) imposes five years of penance upon those who consult magicians, and here again the offence is treated as being a practical participation in paganism. This legislation represented the mind of the Church for many centuries. Similar penalties were enacted at the Eastern council in Trullo (692), while certain early Irish canons in the far West treated sorcery as a crime to be visited with excommunication until adequate penance had been performed.

The early legal codes of most European nations contain laws directed against witchcraft. Thus, for example, the oldest document of Frankish legislation, the Salic Law

Salic law

Salic law was a body of traditional law codified for governing the Salian Franks in the early Middle Ages during the reign of King Clovis I in the 6th century...

, which was reduced to a written form and promulgated under Clovis

Clovis I

Clovis Leuthwig was the first King of the Franks to unite all the Frankish tribes under one ruler, changing the leadership from a group of royal chieftains, to rule by kings, ensuring that the kingship was held by his heirs. He was also the first Catholic King to rule over Gaul . He was the son...

, who died 27 November, 511, punishes those who practice magic with various fines, especially when it could be proven that the accused launched a deadly curse, or had tied the Witch's Knot. The laws of the Visigoths, which were to some extent founded upon the Roman law

Roman law

Roman law is the legal system of ancient Rome, and the legal developments which occurred before the 7th century AD — when the Roman–Byzantine state adopted Greek as the language of government. The development of Roman law comprises more than a thousand years of jurisprudence — from the Twelve...

, punished witches who had killed any person by their spells with death; whilst long-continued and obstinate witchcraft, if fully proven, was visited with such severe sentences as slavery for life.

Christianization and Early Middle Ages

The Pactus Legis Alamannorum (early 7th century) lists witchcraft as a punishable crime on equal terms with poisoning. If a free man accuses a free woman of witchcraft or poisoning, the accused may be disculpated either by twelve people swearing an oath on her innocence, or by one of her relatives defending her in a trial by combat

Trial by combat

Trial by combat was a method of Germanic law to settle accusations in the absence of witnesses or a confession, in which two parties in dispute fought in single combat; the winner of the fight was proclaimed to be right. In essence, it is a judicially sanctioned duel...

. In this case, the accuser is required to pay a fine (Pactus Legis Alamannorum 13).

With Christianization, belief in witchcraft came to be seen as superstition

Superstition

Superstition is a belief in supernatural causality: that one event leads to the cause of another without any process in the physical world linking the two events....

.
The Council of Leptinnes in 744 drew up a "List of Superstitions" which prohibited sacrifice to saints and created a baptism

Baptism

In Christianity, baptism is for the majority the rite of admission , almost invariably with the use of water, into the Christian Church generally and also membership of a particular church tradition...

al formula that required one to renounce works of demons, specifically naming Thor

Thor

In Norse mythology, Thor is a hammer-wielding god associated with thunder, lightning, storms, oak trees, strength, the protection of mankind, and also hallowing, healing, and fertility...

and Odin

Odin

Odin is a major god in Norse mythology and the ruler of Asgard. Homologous with the Anglo-Saxon "Wōden" and the Old High German "Wotan", the name is descended from Proto-Germanic "*Wodanaz" or "*Wōđanaz"....

. Persecution of witchcraft nevertheless persisted throughout most of the Early Middle Ages

Early Middle Ages

The Early Middle Ages was the period of European history lasting from the 5th century to approximately 1000. The Early Middle Ages followed the decline of the Western Roman Empire and preceded the High Middle Ages...

, into the 10th century.

When Charlemagne

Charlemagne

Charlemagne was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800...

imposed Christianity upon the people of Saxony

Saxony

The Free State of Saxony is a landlocked state of Germany, contingent with Brandenburg, Saxony Anhalt, Thuringia, Bavaria, the Czech Republic and Poland. It is the tenth-largest German state in area, with of Germany's sixteen states....

in 789, he proclaimed:
Similarly, the Lombard code of 643 states:
This conforms to the teachings of the Canon Episcopi

Canon Episcopi

The Canon Episcopi is an important document in the history of witchcraft. It is first attested in the Libri de synodalibus causis et disciplinis ecclesiasticis composed by Regino of Prüm around 906, but Regino considered it an older text; he, and later scholars following him, believed it to be from...

of circa 900 AD (alleged to date from 314 AD), following the thoughts of Augustine of Hippo

Augustine of Hippo

Augustine of Hippo , also known as Augustine, St. Augustine, St. Austin, St. Augoustinos, Blessed Augustine, or St. Augustine the Blessed, was Bishop of Hippo Regius . He was a Latin-speaking philosopher and theologian who lived in the Roman Africa Province...

which stated that witchcraft did not exist and that to believe in it was heretical. The Church of the time, rather than opposing witchcraft, opposed what it saw as the foolish and backward belief in witchcraft. To believe that witchcraft could possibly have any power was to deny the supreme power of God

God

God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....

.

In 814, Louis the Pious

Louis the Pious

Louis the Pious , also called the Fair, and the Debonaire, was the King of Aquitaine from 781. He was also King of the Franks and co-Emperor with his father, Charlemagne, from 813...

upon his accession to the throne began to take very active measures against all sorcerers and necromancers, and it was owing to his influence and authority that the Council of Paris

Council of Paris

The Council of Paris is the deliberative body responsible for the governing of Paris, the capital of France. It possesses simultaneously the powers of a Paris City Council and those of a General Council for the Département de Paris, as defined by the so-called PLM Law of 1982 that redefined the...

in 829 appealed to the secular courts to carry out any such sentences as the Bishops might pronounce. The consequence was that from this time forward the penalty of witchcraft was death, and there is evidence that if the constituted authority, either ecclesiastical or civil, seemed to slacken in their efforts the populace took the law into their own hands with far more fearful results.

In England the early Penitentials are greatly concerned with the repression of pagan ceremonies, which under the cover of Christian festivities were very largely practised at Christmas and on New Year's Day. These rites were closely connected with witchcraft, and especially do S. Theodore, S. Aldhelm, Ecgberht of York, and other prelates prohibit the masquerade as a horned animal, a stag, or a bull, which S. Caesarius of Arles had denounced as a “foul tradition,” an “evil custom,” a “most heinous abomination.”
The laws of King Athelstan (924-40), corresponsive with the early French laws, punished any person casting a spell which resulted in death by extracting the extreme penalty.

Among the laws attributed to King Kenneth I of Scotland (ruled 844 to 860), under whom the Scots of Dalriada and the Pictish peoples may be said to have been united in one kingdom, is an important statute which enacts that all sorcerers and witches, and such as invoke spirits, “and use to seek upon them for helpe, let them be burned to death.” Even then this was obviously no new penalty, but the statutory confirmation of a long-established punishment. So the witches of Forres who attempted the life of King Duffus in the year 968 by the old bane of slowly melting a wax image, when discovered, were according to the law burned at the stake.

The conversion of Germany to Christianity was late and very slow, for as late as the 8th century, in spite of the heroic efforts of S. Columbanus, S. Fridolin, S. Gall, S. Rupert, S. Willibrod, the great S. Boniface, and many others, in spite of the headway that had been made, various districts were always relapsing into paganism.

In 900, the Canon Episcopi was written:

High Middle Ages

During the European Middle Ages, the centuries following Christianization of the continent,
the Church focussed on the persecution of heresy

Heresy

Heresy is a controversial or novel change to a system of beliefs, especially a religion, that conflicts with established dogma. It is distinct from apostasy, which is the formal denunciation of one's religion, principles or cause, and blasphemy, which is irreverence toward religion...

in order to maintain unity of doctrine. Practitioners of folk magic were left unmolested by the authorities.

During the eleventh and twelfth centuries there are few cases of witchcraft in England, and such accusations as were made appeared to have been brought before the ecclesiastical court.

Early modern witch hunts

The origins of the accusations against witches in the later Middle Ages are all present in earlier trials against heretics, especially the claims of secret meetings, orgies, and the consumption of babies. From the 17th century, the idea of a pact became important—one could be possessed by the Devil and not responsible for one's actions, but to be a witch, one had to sign a pact with the Devil

Pact with the Devil

A deal with the Devil, pact with the Devil, or Faustian bargain is a cultural motif widespread in the West, best exemplified by the legend of Faust and the figure of Mephistopheles, but elemental to many Christian folktales...

, often to worship him, which was heresy and meant damnation.
By 1300, the elements were in place for a witch hunt, and for the next century and a half fear of witches spread gradually throughout Europe. At the end of the Middle Ages (about 1450), the fear became a craze which lasted more than 200 years. As the notion spread that all magic involved a pact with the Devil, legal sanctions against witchcraft grew harsher. Each new conviction reinforced the beliefs in the methods (torture and pointed interrogation) being used to solicit confessions and in the list of accusations to which these "witches" confessed. The rise of the witch-craze was concurrent with the rise of Renaissance magic

Renaissance magic

Renaissance humanism saw a resurgence in hermeticism and Neo-Platonic varieties of ceremonial magic.The Renaissance and the Industrial Revolution, on the other hand, saw the rise of scientism, in such forms as the substitution of chemistry for alchemy, the dethronement of the Ptolemaic theory of...

in the great humanists

Renaissance humanism

Renaissance humanism was an activity of cultural and educational reform engaged by scholars, writers, and civic leaders who are today known as Renaissance humanists. It developed during the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth centuries, and was a response to the challenge of Mediæval...

of the time (this was called High Magic, and the Neoplatonists and Aristotelian

Aristotelianism

Aristotelianism is a tradition of philosophy that takes its defining inspiration from the work of Aristotle. The works of Aristotle were initially defended by the members of the Peripatetic school, and, later on, by the Neoplatonists, who produced many commentaries on Aristotle's writings...

s that practised it took pains to insist that it was wise and benevolent and nothing like Witchcraft), which helped abet the rise of the craze. Witchcraft was held to be the worst of heresies, and early skepticism slowly faded from view almost entirely.

In the early 14th century, many accusations were brought against clergymen and other learned people who were capable of reading and writing magic; Pope Boniface VIII

Pope Boniface VIII

Pope Boniface VIII , born Benedetto Gaetani, was Pope of the Catholic Church from 1294 to 1303. Today, Boniface VIII is probably best remembered for his feuds with Dante, who placed him in the Eighth circle of Hell in his Divina Commedia, among the Simonists.- Biography :Gaetani was born in 1235 in...

(d. 1303) was posthumously tried for apostasy, murder, and sodomy, in addition to allegedly entering into a pact with the Devil (while popes had been accused of crimes before, the demonolotry charge was new). The Templars were also tried as Devil-invoking heretics in 1305–14. The middle years of the 14th century were quieter, but towards the end of the century, accusations increased and were brought against ordinary people more frequently. In 1398, the University of Paris declared that the demonic pact could be implicit; no document need be signed, as the mere act of summoning a demon constituted an implied pact. Tens of thousands of trials continued through Europe generation after generation; the famous witches in Macbeth were committed to paper during the reign of James I

James I of England

James VI and I was King of Scots as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the English and Scottish crowns on 24 March 1603...

, who hanged more witches than any other English monarch.

The craze took on new strength in the 15th century, and in 1486, Heinrich Kramer

Heinrich Kramer

Heinrich Kramer also known under the Latinized name Henricus Institoris, was a German churchman and inquisitor....

, a member of the Dominican Order

Dominican Order

The Order of Preachers , after the 15th century more commonly known as the Dominican Order or Dominicans, is a Catholic religious order founded by Saint Dominic and approved by Pope Honorius III on 22 December 1216 in France...

, published the Malleus Maleficarum
Malleus Maleficarum
The Malleus Maleficarum is an infamous treatise on witches, written in 1486 by Heinrich Kramer, an Inquisitor of the Catholic Church, and was first published in Germany in 1487...

(the 'Hammer against the Witches'). Although this book was banned by the Church in 1490, it was nevertheless reprinted in 14 editions by 1520 and became one of the most influential books used by secular witch-hunting courts.

Persecution continued through the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century, and the Protestants and Catholics both continued witch trials with varying numbers of executions from one period to the next. The "Caroline Code", the basic law code of the Holy Roman Empire (1532) imposed heavy penalties on witchcraft. As society became more literate (due mostly to the invention of the Printing Press in the 1440s), increasing numbers of books and tracts fueled the witch fears.

The craze reached its height between 1560 and 1660. After 1580, the Jesuits replaced the Dominicans as the chief Catholic witch-hunters, and the Catholic Rudolf II (1576–1612) presided over a long persecution in Austria. Interestingly enough, the Jura Mountains in southern Germany provided a small respite from the insanity; there, torture was imposed only within the precise limits of the Caroline Code of 1532, little attention was paid to the accusations of or by children, and charges had to be brought openly before a suspect could be arrested. These limitations contained the mania in that area.

The nuns of Loudun

Loudun Possessions

The Loudun possessions were a group of supposed demonic possessions which took place in Loudun, France, in 1634. This case involved the Ursuline nuns of Loudun who were allegedly visited and possessed by demons: Father Urbain Grandier was convicted of the crimes of sorcery, evil spells, and the...

(1630), novelized by Aldous Huxley and made into a film by Ken Russell, provide an interesting example of the craze during this time. The nuns had conspired to accuse Father Urbain Grandier of witchcraft by faking symptoms of possession and torment; they feigned convulsions, rolled and gibbered on the ground, and accused Grandier of indecencies. Grandier was convicted and burned; however, after the plot succeeded, the symptoms of the nuns only grew worse, and they became more and more sexual in nature. This attests to the degree of mania and insanity present in such witch trials.

In 1687, Louis XIV issued an edict against witchcraft that was rather moderate compared to former ones; it ignored black cats and other lurid fantasies of the witch mania. After 1700, the number of witches accused and condemned fell rapidly.

Modern theories and criticism

The old liberal view of European Witchcraft holds that witchcraft never existed at all, but was invented by the Catholic Church and other authorities to gain power and prestige.

Margaret Murray

Margaret Murray

Margaret Alice Murray was a prominent British Egyptologist and anthropologist. Primarily known for her work in Egyptology, which was "the core of her academic career," she is also known for her propagation of the Witch-cult hypothesis, the theory that the witch trials in the Early Modern period of...

claimed that witchcraft was a holdover of a worldwide ancient fertility cult; however, modern scholars have rejected this as unfounded due to a "deliberate misinterpretation of the evidence".

Another school , currently the most influential , emphasizes the social history and social patterns of witchcraft accusations. This assumes that witchcraft never existed, but blames widespread superstition rather than the Church for the craze.

Yet another school of thought emphasizes the history of ideas and argues that witchcraft is a composite of superstitions collected across the centuries; of these, the most influential are Christian heresy and theology rather than actual pagan practices.

Rossell Hope Robbins, among others, contends that the chief motive behind the prosecutions was the desire for the property of the condemned; however, the number of confiscations overall was relatively small, and a disproportionately great number of people convicted were of small means.

For more information, see the extensive discussion under witchhunts.

Recognition

A number of modern researchers have recognized the importance of hallucinogenic plants in the practice of European witchcraft; among them, anthropologists Edward B. Taylor, Bernard Barnett, Michael J. Harner and Julio C. Baroja and pharmacologists Louis Lewin

Louis Lewin

Louis Lewin was a German pharmacologist. In 1886, he published the first methodical analysis of the Peyote cactus, which was originally named in his honor Anhalonium lewinii.He received his education at the gymnasium and the University of Berlin...

and Erich Hesse. Many medieval writers also comment on the use of hallucinogenic plants in witches' ointments

Flying ointment

Flying ointment, also known as witches' flying ointment, green ointment, magic salve and lycanthropic ointment, is a hallucinogenic ointment said to be used by witches in the Early Modern period .- Composition :The ointment contains a fatty base and various herbal extracts, usually including...

, including Joseph Glanvil, Jordanes de Bergamo, Sieur de Beauvoys de Chauvincourt, Martin Del Rio

Martín del Río

Martín del Río is a municipality located in the province of Teruel, Aragon, Spain. According to the 2010 census the municipality has a population of 469 inhabitants.Road N-211 crosses the eastern side of Martín del Río....

, Raphael Holinshed

Raphael Holinshed

Raphael Holinshed was an English chronicler, whose work, commonly known as Holinshed's Chronicles, was one of the major sources used by William Shakespeare for a number of his plays....

, Andrés Laguna

Andrés Laguna

Andrés Laguna de Segovia was a Spanish humanist physician, pharmacologist, and botanist.-Biography:Laguna was born in Segovia, according to Diego de Colmenares and other historians, to a converted Jewish doctor. He studied the arts for two years in Salamanca, then moved to Paris in 1530, where he...

, Johannes Nider

Johannes Nider

Johannes Nider was a German theologian,Nider was born in Swabia. He entered the Order of Preachers at Colmar and after profession was sent to Vienna for his philosophical studies, which he finished at Cologne, where he was ordained. He gained a wide reputation in Germany as a preacher and was...

, Sieur Jean de Nynald, Henry Boguet

Henry Boguet

Henry Boguet was a well known jurist and judge of Saint-Claude in the County of Burgundy. His renown is to a large degree based on his fame as a demonologist for his Discours exécrable des Sorciers which was reprinted twelve times in twenty years....

, Giovanni Porta

Giovanni Porta

Giovanni Porta was an Italian opera composer.One of the masters of early 18th-century opera and one of the leading Venetian musicians, Porta made his way from Rome, to Vicenza, to Verona, then London where his opera Numitore was performed in 1720 by the Royal Academy of Music , and eventually back...

, Nicholas Remy

Nicholas Remy

Nicholas Remy was a French magistrate who became famous as a hunter of witches comparable to Jean Bodin and De Lancre. After studying law at the University of Toulouse, Remy practiced in Paris from 1563 to 1570...

, Bartolommeo Spina

Bartolommeo Spina

Bartolomeo Spina was an Italian Dominican theologian and scholastic philosopher.-Life:He joined the Dominican Order at Pisa in 1494...

, Richard Verstegan, Johann Vincent and Pedro Ciruelo.

Much of our knowledge of herbalism

Herbalism

Herbalism is a traditional medicinal or folk medicine practice based on the use of plants and plant extracts. Herbalism is also known as botanical medicine, medical herbalism, herbal medicine, herbology, herblore, and phytotherapy...

in European witchcraft comes from the Spanish Inquisitors

Inquisition

The Inquisition, Inquisitio Haereticae Pravitatis , was the "fight against heretics" by several institutions within the justice-system of the Roman Catholic Church. It started in the 12th century, with the introduction of torture in the persecution of heresy...

and other authorities, who occasionally recognized the psychological nature of the "witches’ flight", but more often considered the effects of witches’ ointments to be demonic or satanic

Satanism

Satanism is a group of religions that is composed of a diverse number of ideological and philosophical beliefs and social phenomena. Their shared feature include symbolic association with, admiration for the character of, and even veneration of Satan or similar rebellious, promethean, and...

Use patterns

Decoction

Decoction is a method of extraction, by boiling, of dissolved chemicals, or herbal or plant material, which may include stems, roots, bark and rhizomes. Decoction involves first mashing, and then boiling in water to extract oils, volatile organic compounds, and other chemical substances...

s of hallucinogenic plants such as henbane

Henbane

Henbane , also known as stinking nightshade or black henbane, is a plant of the family Solanaceae that originated in Eurasia, though it is now globally distributed.-Toxicity and historical usage:...

, belladonna, mandrake

Mandrake (plant)

Mandrake is the common name for members of the plant genus Mandragora, particularly the species Mandragora officinarum, belonging to the nightshades family...

, datura

Datura

Datura is a genus of nine species of vespertine flowering plants belonging to the family Solanaceae. Its precise and natural distribution is uncertain, owing to its extensive cultivation and naturalization throughout the temperate and tropical regions of the globe...

, and other plants of the Solanaceae

Solanaceae

Solanaceae are a family of flowering plants that include a number of important agricultural crops as well as many toxic plants. The name of the family comes from the Latin Solanum "the nightshade plant", but the further etymology of that word is unclear...

Family were central to European witchcraft. All of these plants contain hallucinogenic alkaloids of the tropane

Tropane

Tropane is a nitrogenous bicyclic organic compound. It is mainly known for a group of alkaloids derived from it , which include, among others, atropine and cocaine. Both alkaloids contain tropinone from which tropane is a derivate...

family, including hyoscyamine

Hyoscyamine

Hyoscyamine is a tropane alkaloid. It is a secondary metabolite found in certain plants of the Solanaceae family, including henbane , mandrake , jimsonweed , tomato and deadly nightshade...

, scopolamine

Scopolamine

Scopolamine, also known as levo-duboisine, and hyoscine, is a tropane alkaloid drug with muscarinic antagonist effects. It is among the secondary metabolites of plants from Solanaceae family of plants, such as henbane, jimson weed and Angel's Trumpets , and corkwood...

, and atropine

Atropine

Atropine is a naturally occurring tropane alkaloid extracted from deadly nightshade , Jimson weed , mandrake and other plants of the family Solanaceae. It is a secondary metabolite of these plants and serves as a drug with a wide variety of effects...

—the last of which is unusual in that it can be absorbed through the skin. These concoctions are described in the literature variously as brews

Brewing (cooking)

Brewing is an important technique in cookery and may involve boiling or simmering. Steeping of Tea and the Drip brew of Coffee preparation are two methods of brewing...

, salves, ointments, philtres

Potion

A potion is a consumable medicine or poison.In mythology and literature, a potion is usually made by a magician, sorcerer, dragon, fairy or witch and has magical properties. It might be used to heal, bewitch or poison people...

, oils, and unguent

Unguent

An unguent is a soothing preparation spread on wounds, burns, rashes, abrasions or other topical injuries . It is similar to an ointment, though typically an unguent is less viscous and more oily....

s. Ointments were mainly applied by rubbing on the skin, especially in sensitive areas—underarms, the pubic region, the forehead, the mucous membranes of the vagina and anus, or on areas rubbed raw ahead of time. They were often first applied to a "vehicle" to be "ridden" (an object such as a broom, pitchfork, basket, or animal skin which was rubbed against sensitive skin). All of these concoctions were made and used for the purpose of giving the witch special abilities to commune with spirits, transform into animals (lycanthropy

Lycanthropy

Lycanthropy is the professed ability or power of a human being to undergo transformation into a werewolf, or to gain wolf-like characteristics. The term comes from Greek Lykànthropos : λύκος, lykos + άνθρωπος, ànthrōpos...

), gain love, harm enemies, experience euphoria and sexual pleasure, and—importantly—to "fly to the witches' Sabbath".

Position of the church

Witches were not localised Christian distortions of pagans but people alleged to have both the ability and the will to employ supernatural effects for malignant ends. This belief is familiar from other cultures, and was partly inherited from paganism. The belief that witches were originally purely benign does not derive from any early textual source. The earliest written reference to witches as such, from Aelfric's

Ælfric of Eynsham

Ælfric of Eynsham was an English abbot, as well as a consummate, prolific writer in Old English of hagiography, homilies, biblical commentaries, and other genres. He is also known variously as Ælfric the Grammarian , Ælfric of Cerne, and Ælfric the Homilist...

homilies, portrays them as malign. The tendency to perceive them as healers begins only in the 19th century, with Jules Michelet

Jules Michelet

Jules Michelet was a French historian. He was born in Paris to a family with Huguenot traditions.-Early life:His father was a master printer, not very prosperous, and Jules assisted him in the actual work of the press...

whose novel La Sorcière

Satanism and Witchcraft

Satanism And Witchcraft is a book by Jules Michelet on the history of witchcraft, published, originally in French, in 1862. The first English translation was published in London in 1863. According to Michelet, medieval witchcraft was an act of popular rebellion against the oppression of feudalism...

, published in 1862, first postulated a benign witch.

It was in the Church's interest, as it expanded, to suppress all competing Pagan methodologies of magic. This could be done only by presenting a cosmology in which Christian miracles were legitimate and credible, whereas non-Christian ones were "of the devil". Hence the following law:
While the common people were aware of the difference between witches, who they considered willing to undertake evil actions, such as cursing, and cunning folk

Cunning folk

The cunning folk in Britain were professional or semi-professional practitioners of magic active from the Medieval period through to the early twentieth century. As cunning folk, they practised folk magic – also known as "low magic" – although often combined with elements of "high" or ceremonial...

who avoided involvement in such activities, the Church attempted to blot out the distinction. In much the same way that culturally distinct non-Christian religions were all lumped together and termed merely "Pagan", so too was all magic lumped together as equally sinful and abhorrent. The Demonologie of James I

James I of England

James VI and I was King of Scots as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the English and Scottish crowns on 24 March 1603...

explicitly condemns all magic-workers as equally guilty of the same crime against God.

Typical accusations

The characterization of the witch in Europe is not derived from a single source. Popular neopagan beliefs suggest that witches were female shamans who were made into malicious figures by Christian

Christian

A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...

propaganda. This is an erroneous oversimplification and presumes that a recognizable folklore figure must derive from a single historical precedent (a female, maligned magic-worker). The familiar witch of folklore and popular superstition is a combination of numerous influences.

At the end of the Middle Ages, the recurring beliefs about witches were:

The Malleus Maleficarum

Malleus Maleficarum

The Malleus Maleficarum is an infamous treatise on witches, written in 1486 by Heinrich Kramer, an Inquisitor of the Catholic Church, and was first published in Germany in 1487...

(1486) declared that the four essential points of witchcraft were renunciation of the Catholic faith, devotion of body and soul to evil, offering up unbaptized children to the Devil, and engaging in orgies which included intercourse with the Devil; in addition, witches were accused of shifting their shapes, flying through the air, abusing Christian sacraments, and confecting magical ointments.

Witches were credited with a variety of magical powers. These fall into two broad categories: those that explain the occurrence of misfortune and are thus grounded in real events, and those that are wholly fantastic.

The first category includes the powers to cause impotence, to turn milk sour, to strike people dead, to cause diseases, to raise storms, to cause infants to be stillborn, to prevent cows from giving milk, to prevent hens from laying and to blight crops. The second includes the power to fly in the air, to change form into a hare, to suckle familiar spirit

Familiar spirit

In European folklore and folk-belief of the Medieval and Early Modern periods, familiar spirits were supernatural entities believed to assist witches and cunning folk in their practice of magic...

s from warts, to sail on a single plank and perhaps most absurd of all, to go to sea in an eggshell.

Witches were often believed to fly on broomsticks or distaffs, or occasionally upon unwilling human beings, who would be called 'hag-ridden'. Horses found sweating in their stalls in the morning were also said to be hag-ridden.

The accused witch Isobel Gowdie

Isobel Gowdie

Isobel Gowdie was a Scottish woman who was tried for witchcraft in 1662. Her detailed confession, apparently achieved without the use of torture, offers one of the most detailed looks at European witchcraft folklore at the end of the era of witch-hunts....

gave the following charm as her means of transmuting herself into a hare:
Accusations against witches were almost identical to those levelled by 3rd-century pagans against early Christians:

The concept of diabolism

Witchcraft did not always involve the Devil. Theories of diabolism were introduced into the concept of maleficium

Maleficium (sorcery)

Maleficium is a Latin term meaning "wrongdoing" or "mischief" and is used to describe malevolent, dangerous, or harmful magic, "evildoing" or "malevolent sorcery"...

in the early modern period. From the perceptions of common folk, most magic was closely tied to pagan folk traditions that had simply survived into their popular culture. It was the treatise of the elites that can claim the majority of this responsibility. such as the writings of Thomas Aquinas

Thomas Aquinas

Thomas Aquinas, O.P. , also Thomas of Aquin or Aquino, was an Italian Dominican priest of the Catholic Church, and an immensely influential philosopher and theologian in the tradition of scholasticism, known as Doctor Angelicus, Doctor Communis, or Doctor Universalis...

that made further associations of witchcraft with the demonic pact, and human association with demons, much like that of Augustine.

Wise woman and cunning man

Traditionally, a white witch

White witch

White witch and good witch are qualifying terms in English used to distinguish practitioners of folk magic for benevolent purposes from practitioners of malevolent witchcraft...

was a cunning man or wise woman, who sold magical services to ward off or reverse the effects of witchcraft.

Witches in popular culture

Especially in media aimed at children (such as fairy tale

Fairy tale

A fairy tale is a type of short story that typically features such folkloric characters, such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, dwarves, giants or gnomes, and usually magic or enchantments. However, only a small number of the stories refer to fairies...

s), witches are often depicted as wicked old women with wrinkled skin and pointy hat

Pointy hat

Pointed hats have been a distinctive item of headgear of a wide range of cultures throughout history. Though often suggesting an ancient Indo-European tradition, they were also traditionally worn by women of Lapland, the Japanese, the Mi'kmaq people of Atlantic Canada, and the Huastecs of Veracruz...

s, clothed in black or purple, with wart

Wart

A wart is generally a small, rough growth, typically on a human’s hands or feet but often other locations, that can resemble a cauliflower or a solid blister. They are caused by a viral infection, specifically by human papillomavirus 2 and 7. There are as many as 10 varieties of warts, the most...

s on their noses and sometimes long claw

Claw

A claw is a curved, pointed appendage, found at the end of a toe or finger in most mammals, birds, and some reptiles. However, the word "claw" is also often used in reference to an invertebrate. Somewhat similar fine hooked structures are found in arthropods such as beetles and spiders, at the end...

-like fingernails. Like the Three Witches

Three Witches

The Three Witches or Weird Sisters are characters in William Shakespeare's play Macbeth . Their origin lies in Holinshed's Chronicles , a history of England, Scotland and Ireland...

from Macbeth
Macbeth
The Tragedy of Macbeth is a play by William Shakespeare about a regicide and its aftermath. It is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy and is believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1607...

, they are often portrayed as concocting potions in large cauldrons. Witches typically ride through the air on a broomstick as in the Harry Potter

Harry Potter

Harry Potter is a series of seven fantasy novels written by the British author J. K. Rowling. The books chronicle the adventures of the adolescent wizard Harry Potter and his best friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, all of whom are students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry...

universe or in more modern spoof versions, a vacuum cleaner

Vacuum cleaner

A vacuum cleaner, commonly referred to as a "vacuum," is a device that uses an air pump to create a partial vacuum to suck up dust and dirt, usually from floors, and optionally from other surfaces as well. The dirt is collected by either a dustbag or a cyclone for later disposal...

as in the Hocus Pocus universe. They are often accompanied by black cats

Black Cats

Black Cats may refer to:*Black Cat Commandos, an elite counter terrorism unit in India*The Black Cats, the official nickname of Sunderland A.F.C.*The Royal Navy Helicopter Display Team, the Black Cats*Black Cats, an Iranian pop band...

. One of the most famous modern depictions is the Wicked Witch of the West

Wicked Witch of the West

The Wicked Witch of the West is a fictional character and the most significant antagonist in L. Frank Baum's children's book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz...

, in L. Frank Baum

L. Frank Baum

Lyman Frank Baum was an American author of children's books, best known for writing The Wonderful Wizard of Oz...

's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is a children's novel written by L. Frank Baum and illustrated by W. W. Denslow. Originally published by the George M. Hill Company in Chicago on May 17, 1900, it has since been reprinted numerous times, most often under the name The Wizard of Oz, which is the name of...

.

Witches also appear as villains in many 19th- and 20th-century fairy tale

Fairy tale

s, folk tales

Folklore

Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...

and children's stories, such as "Snow White

Snow White

"Snow White" is a fairy tale known from many countries in Europe, the best known version being the German one collected by the Brothers Grimm...

", "Hansel and Gretel

Hansel and Gretel

"Hansel and Gretel" is a well-known fairy tale of German origin, recorded by the Brothers Grimm and published in 1812. Hansel and Gretel are a young brother and sister threatened by a cannibalistic hag living deep in the forest in a house constructed of cake and confectionery. The two children...

", "Sleeping Beauty

Sleeping Beauty

Sleeping Beauty by Charles Perrault or Little Briar Rose by the Brothers Grimm is a classic fairytale involving a beautiful princess, enchantment, and a handsome prince...

", and many other stories recorded by the Brothers Grimm

Brothers Grimm

The Brothers Grimm , Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm , were German academics, linguists, cultural researchers, and authors who collected folklore and published several collections of it as Grimm's Fairy Tales, which became very popular...

. Such folktales typically portray witches as either remarkably ugly hags or remarkably beautiful young women.

In the novel by Fernando de Rojas

Fernando de Rojas

Fernando de Rojas was a Spanish author about whom little information is known. He possibly attended the University of Salamanca. Although his family was of Jewish ancestry, they were conversos, or Jews who had converted to Christianity under pressure from the Spanish crown...

, Celestina

La Celestina

La Celestina , actually called Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea or Comedia de Calisto y Melibea, in English Tragicomedy of Calisto and Melibea), is a work composed entirely in dialogue published by Fernando de Rojas in 1499...

is an old prostitute who commits pimping and witchcraft

Witchcraft

Witchcraft, in historical, anthropological, religious, and mythological contexts, is the alleged use of supernatural or magical powers. A witch is a practitioner of witchcraft...

in order to arrange sexual relationships.

Witches may also be depicted as essentially good, as in Terry Pratchett's

Terry Pratchett

Sir Terence David John "Terry" Pratchett, OBE is an English novelist, known for his frequently comical work in the fantasy genre. He is best known for his popular and long-running Discworld series of comic fantasy novels...

Discworld
Discworld
Discworld is a comic fantasy book series by English author Sir Terry Pratchett, set on the Discworld, a flat world balanced on the backs of four elephants which, in turn, stand on the back of a giant turtle, Great A'Tuin. The books frequently parody, or at least take inspiration from, J. R. R....

novels, in Hayao Miyazaki

Hayao Miyazaki

is a Japanese manga artist and prominent film director and animator of many popular anime feature films. Through a career that has spanned nearly fifty years, Miyazaki has attained international acclaim as a maker of animated feature films and, along with Isao Takahata, co-founded Studio Ghibli,...

's 1989 film Kiki's Delivery Service

Kiki's Delivery Service

is a 1989 Japanese animated fantasy film produced, written, and directed by Hayao Miyazaki. It was the fourth theatrically released Studio Ghibli film.The film won the Animage Anime Grand Prix prize in 1989...

, or the television series Charmed

Charmed

Charmed is an American television series that originally aired from October 7, 1998, until May 21, 2006, on the now defunct The WB Television Network. The series was created in 1998 by writer Constance M...

(1998–2006). Following the movie The Craft
The Craft (film)
The Craft is a 1996 American supernatural teen horror film directed by Andrew Fleming and starring Robin Tunney, Rachel True, Fairuza Balk and Neve Campbell. The film's plot centers on a group of four teenage girls who pursue witchcraft and use it for their own gain...

, popular fictional depictions of witchcraft have increasingly drawn from Wicca

Wicca

Wicca , is a modern Pagan religious movement. Developing in England in the first half of the 20th century, Wicca was popularised in the 1950s and early 1960s by a Wiccan High Priest named Gerald Gardner, who at the time called it the "witch cult" and "witchcraft," and its adherents "the Wica."...

n practices, portraying witchcraft as having a religious basis and witches as humans of normal appearance.