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In the Gesta Regum, an account written by William of Malmsbury, a reference was made to a witch living in Berkeley. Discussing the death of Pope Gregory VI, which occurred in 1046, he digressed to discuss the death of a witch that occurred at about the same time. According to William's account, she was "well-versed in witchcraft, who was not ...
[a] The number of witch trials in Europe known to have ended in executions is around 12,000. [87] There were an estimated 110,000 witchcraft trials in Europe between 1450 and 1750, with half of the cases seeing the accused being executed. [88] Witch hunts began to increase first in southern France and Switzerland, during the 14th and 15th ...
Daemonologie—in full Dæmonologie, In Forme of a Dialogue, Divided into three Books: By the High and Mightie Prince, James &c.—was first published in 1597 [1] by King James VI of Scotland (later also James I of England) as a philosophical dissertation on contemporary necromancy and the historical relationships between the various methods of divination used from ancient black magic.
Witchcraft is the use of alleged supernatural powers of magic.A witch is a practitioner of witchcraft. Traditionally, "witchcraft" means the use of magic or supernatural powers to inflict harm or misfortune on others, and this remains the most common and widespread meaning. [1]
In 1954, Gardner published a non-fiction book, Witchcraft Today, containing a preface by Margaret Murray, who had published her discredited theory of 'witchcraft' being a surviving pagan religion in her 1921 book, The Witch-Cult in Western Europe. In his book, Gardner not only espoused Murray's theory, but also his theory that a belief in ...
The Meaning of Witchcraft is a non-fiction book written by Gerald Gardner. Gardner, known to many in the modern sense as the "Father of Wicca", based the book around his experiences with the religion of Wicca and the New Forest Coven. It was first published in 1959, only after the British Parliament repealed the Witchcraft Act 1735 (9 Geo. 2. c.
This is the point in history where "witchcraft constituted an independent antireligion". The witch lost her powerful position vis-a-vis the deities; the ability to force the deities to comply with her wishes was replaced by a total subordination to the devil. In short, "[t]he witch became Satan's puppet."
It was this statute that was enforced by Matthew Hopkins, the self-styled Witch-Finder General. The Acts of Elizabeth and James changed the law of witchcraft by making it a felony, thus removing the accused from the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts to the courts of common law. This provided, at least, that the accused persons ...