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In his Small Catechism, he taught that witchcraft was a sin against the second commandment [12] and prescribed the Biblical penalty for it in a "table talk": On 25 August 1538 there was much discussion about witches and sorceresses who poisoned chicken eggs in the nests, or poisoned milk and butter.
Witchcraft had long been forbidden by the Church, whose viewpoint on the subject was explained in the Canon Episcopi written in about AD 900. It stated that witchcraft and magic were delusions and that those who believed in such things "had been seduced by the Devil in dreams and visions". [12]
Until 1330 the trials were linked to prominent figures in the church or politics, as victims or as accused suspects, and more than half took place in France, where it was the usual way of explaining royal deaths in the direct Capetian line. The papacy of John XXII was another engine for witchcraft accusations. There were also a significant ...
However, it was around the 15th century that the Christian church deemed witches "willing disciples" of the devil, launching a campaign of hunting and executing presumed witches in Europe and ...
The bull recognized the existence of witches: Many persons of both sexes, unmindful of their own salvation and straying from the Catholic Faith, have abandoned themselves to devils, incubi and succubi, and by their incantations, spells, conjurations, and other accursed charms and crafts, enormities and horrid offences, have slain infants yet in the mother's womb, as also the offspring of ...
Witches were sometimes said to have communed with demons or with the Devil, though anthropologist Jean La Fontaine notes that such accusations were mainly made against perceived "enemies of the Church". [7] It was thought witchcraft could be thwarted by white magic, provided by 'cunning folk' or 'wise people'. Suspected witches were often ...
After Christianization, the medieval Catholic Church began to see witchcraft (maleficium) as a blend of black magic and apostasy involving a pact with the Devil. During the early modern period, witch hunts became widespread in Europe, partly fueled by religious tensions, societal anxieties, and economic upheaval.
The witch-cult hypothesis states that such stories are based upon a real-life pagan cult that revered a horned god. The witch-cult hypothesis is a discredited theory that the witch trials of the Early Modern period were an attempt to suppress a pagan religion that had survived the Christianization of Europe. According to its proponents, accused ...