The Witch Trials Of Early Modern Europe and America

The Burning Times

In the beginning, God was Female. Creatrix and Mother. Fertility was evidenced by the rounding of Her great belly, symbolized by the fullness in the moon. She had a male counterpart, but unlike Her, he waxed and waned with the seasons. But as man grew and changed, so did the myths and legends of people, and the Great Mother begins to take on a secondary role to the God. Modern day pagans and witches believe this.

As Christianity grew out of its tiny beginnings, the Church needed to convert as many to its cause as possible. As quickly as possible. It had begun to consolidate its power in Nicaea, with standardization of the Bible, Creed and Sacraments. Witch hunts and trials were a secondary consideration of the Church's Inquisition, in spite of what the re-writers of pagan and feminist history will tell you.

The sad truth is, very few witches died during what is now called the Burning Times. Who died? Poor unfortunate Christians, caught up in times and places not of their own doing.

St. Augustine of Hippo in 400AD said "a heretic is one who either devises or follows false and new opinions, for the sake of some temporal profit "which became canon law. In 785AD the Council of Paderborn outlawed even the belief in the existence of witches and which Charlemagne of France confirmed into law. The first "witch trials" recorded were in the 13^th century, but witchcraft and the hunting of witches became a side issue, as the hunt for heretics became the main focus of the Church.

True witch hunting began in earnest in the wake of the Council of Basel in 1450 when their ideas came to the wider attention of the known world. This was not a Church sponsored attack on paganism or on "witches", but a case of mass hysteria, and in fact was a secular attack on the morally corrupt.

The greatest "guide" to finding and identifying witches, the Malleus Maleifcarum (Hammer of the Witches), was not even sanctioned by the Church, even condemned by the Church in 1490; it was reprinted in 29 editions, dating from 1487 to 1669. These reprints also mark the peak of the witch craze in Europe, which covered the Holy Roman Empire and adjacent areas and Scotland.