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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Doug McCrae" data-source="post: 8007090" data-attributes="member: 21169">This post presents evidence that punishment for magic could be very severe in Europe prior to the Reformation in 1517. Many people were killed for magical offences, both legally and extra-legally, throughout this period. The peaks seem to have been in the Roman Republic in the 2nd century BCE, the Roman Empire in the 4th century, Russia in the high middle ages, and the 15th century western Alps. Legal codes from the 3rd century onward prescribed harsh penalties.According to the Roman historian Livy there were mass executions of those suspected of veneficium, which could either mean using poison or a magic potion, during the Roman Republic. In 331 BCE, 170 women were condemned to death for allegedly causing an epidemic. During another outbreak of disease 2000 people were executed in 184 BCE, and 3000 in 180 BCE. The Chronicle of the Year 354 relates that the Emperor Tiberius (reign 14-37) executed a total of 130 veneficiarii and malefici (literally evil-doers but by 354 it meant practitioners of harmful magic) over the course of his reign.In the 3rd century the influential Roman jurist, Julius Paulus Prudentissimus, wrote:Those who perform, or arrange for the performance of, impious or nocturnal rites, in order to enchant, magically bind, or restrain [magically compel] someone, shall be crucified or thrown to the beasts… It is agreed that those guilty of the magic art be inflicted with the supreme punishment, i.e. to be thrown to the beasts or crucified. Actual magicians, however, shall be burned alive. No one is permitted to have in their possession books of the magic art; and if anyone is found to have them in their possession, the books shall be publicly burnt and their property confiscated; honestiores shall be sent to an island; humiliores capitally punished. Not only the profession of this art but also its knowledge is prohibited.From 358 to 371 there were several waves of prosecutions under the emperors Constantius II, Valentinian and Valens. A number of individual cases were detailed by Ammianus Marcellinus in Roman Antiquities Book 28. In 385, Priscillian, bishop of Avila, was executed for maleficium along with five companions. Draconian legal codes of the 4th century were repeated in the Theodosian Code (438) and the early 6th century Code of Justinian. Title 18.6 of the latter stated:Many persons do not hesitate to disturb the elements by the use of magic, plot against the lives of innocent people, and, by the invocation of household gods, dare to provide means by which anyone can destroy his enemies by evil arts. Such persons shall be thrown to wild beasts, as they are of a nature different from that of ordinary mortals.There were similar laws in the medieval period. According to the historian, Ronald Hutton:Medieval law codes, starting with those of the Germanic kingdoms which supplanted the western Roman Empire, continued to prescribe penalties for the deliberate working of harmful magic. If the harm done was serious, such as murder, then the penalties were as severe as those specified for doing equivalent damage by physical means; which is logical in societies, such as those in medieval Europe, which believed in the literal potency of spells and curses.Historian of magic, Michael Bailey, describes the law of Charlemagne:Charlemagne issued a systematic and sweeping legal condemnation of magic in 789 in an Admonitio generalis (General Admonition) for his entire kingdom. Influenced perhaps by the stricter moral position of reform-minded clerics in his court, he took a harsh stance against magic reminiscent of late imperial Roman legal codes but based primarily on more literal readings of biblical condemnations of magic. The Admonitio outlawed all forms of divination and other magical practices and required all magicians or enchanters to repent their practices or be condemned to death.A nun, Gerberga, was accused of causing the illness of Emperor Louis the Pious (reign 813-840) by magic and was killed by drowning. Two people were executed for the alleged murder by magic of King Arnulf of Carinthia in 899. A late 920s legal code under King Athelstan pronounced the death penalty for killing by wiccecraeftum (witchcraft). Between 1000 and 1300 in Russia there were numerous reports of the killing of old people for supposedly causing famines. “In the first half of the eleventh century, King Ramiro I of Aragon ordered the execution of many maleficae.” (Montesano.) According to the chronicler Ademar of Chabannes, in 1028 the daughter-in-law of Count William II of Angoulême was burned at the stake, along with her co-conspirators, for causing his death by magic. Dubravius’s History of Bohemia related that in 1080, King Wratislaw II killed over a hundred for allegedly using magic to cause madness and storms and to steal victuals. During the reign of King Henry I of England the penalty for killing persons or animals by magic was death. If it was attempted but unsuccessful compensation should be paid. In Styria in 1115, thirty women were executed by burning for an unrecorded offence. Hutton considers this most likely to have been witchcraft. In 1128 a woman was burned at the stake for causing Count Dietrich of Flanders to become ill. The law code of King Alfonso X of Castille, drawn up in the 1260s and 1270s, stated that while astrology was acceptable most forms of divination, such as casting lots, and summoning spirits were punishable by death.In 1317, Pope John XXII had the bishop of Cahors, Hugues Géraud, tortured and executed for allegedly trying to murder him using sorcery. Over the next eight years he levelled similar charges against many others. Although these were politically motivated “both John and his opponents would have believed in the efficacy of many magical rites, and surely some of his enemies were not above using such means to attempt to strike out at the pope.” (Bailey)In Ireland in 1324-5 Dame Alice Kyteler and a number of her associates were accused by the Bishop of Ossory of magic and Devil worship. Kyteler’s servant, Petronella de Meath, was tortured and executed. Niccolo Consigli was burned in 1384 in Florence for necromancy and attempted murder by magic.In Western Europe, trials for magic increased from the 14th century onwards. According to historian, Brian Levack:From 1330 to 1375… there were numerous trials for sorcery… from 1375 to 1420, the number of prosecutions increased and charges of diabolism became common, mainly in Italy… During the 1420s and 1430s the full stereotype of the witch, complete with descriptions of the witches’ sabbath, emerged, most notably in trials in the western Alps.As many as one hundred were executed for witchcraft in the Valais in 1428. In the neighbouring Dauphiné region, there were 167 killings from 1428 to 1447. A trial at Arras in 1459-60 led to twelve being burned as witches.After the Reformation in 1517 there was a lull. The witch trials reached their peak in the late 16th and 17th centuries. Levack gives a figure of 45 000 deaths in Europe during the early modern period.Sources:Bailey Michael, Magic and Superstition in Europe (2006)Collins Derek, Magic in the Ancient Greek World (2008)Hutton Ronald, The Witch (2017)Kieckhefer Richard, Magic in the Middle Ages 2nd edition (2000)Levack Brian, The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe 4th edition (2016)Montesano Marina, Classical Culture and Witchcraft in Medieval and Renaissance Italy (2018)</blockquote>

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