"To the Fire! To the Fire! To the Fire!" The world's First S'more and Why We Really Need to Duck Tape Bernardino of Siena's Mouth Shut

Sorry, for the long title...

 I'd like to apologize to my blog group who has no choice but to read this.  I know it's a long post. I'll make it entertaining I promise!

*Note: The following comment contains language not suitable for children*

A pope, a theologian, a preacher, a lawyer, and a judge all  into a pub... I mean church... and accuse a bunch of people of witchcraft flash forward to 1692, when America's first total bitch, Ann Putnam (I do not claim credibility for this comment #ilovethe1880s) accusations led to the death of twenty people in Salem, MA. Ann Putnam, you would have made a great addition to Mean Girls.

Anyway... On to the important stuff...

As a history major and human being when I hear the word theologian I brace myself for the worst. However, most of what was covered in Chapter 4 of Witchcraft in Europe from 400-1700 wasn't as dry as I was afraid it would be. I think Kors and Peters did a fantastic job with this chapter. The introduction quickly caught my interest at the first mention of Dante Alighieri who is my favorite author/epic poet. The mention of Canto 20 of his inferno caused me to stretch my legs and grab my copy of the Divine Comedy from my bookshelf to refresh my memory on Dante's take on sorcery. For those that have not read Dante's Inferno here is a link to Canto 20: http://www.anselm.edu/homepage/dbanach/dante/chap20.html After rereading Inferno 20, I felt that I had a better grasp on this chapter. As Kors and Peters point out Dante's condemnation of sorcery and divination may "reflect general understanding at the turn of the fourteenth century" (Kors and Peters 113). So now that I had been sucked into the chapter, I again braced myself for the primary sources. Let me get something straight, I love love love primary sources. To be honest the only religious text that I have ever read and liked was Jonathan Edwards Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. Theologians just not my thing, sorry.

When Pope Gregory IX started talking about kissing frogs I was hoping that maybe this was some sort of messed up metaphor... maybe the frog represents the devil or something? As I read on I realized that I was mistaken. It wasn't a metaphor... or a simile. So after rereading the first couple sentences I then thought of fairy tales and my little knowledge of Grimm's fairy tales. Even though I haven't read them yet (so excited to though!!!) I know that unlike Disney movies, they don't end well. If you are sensitive to blasphemous language, I suggest you stop reading now and pick up after the letter. Seriously, I recommend you skip this next part. Annoyed and only slightly relevant rants make blogging more fun. I would like to take a moment and write an open letter to Disney:

Dearest Disney,

Why must you lie to children?  First off, this whole happily ever after thing is unrealistic. Also, while I loved those movies and still do, I know that people only randomly burst in to song in High School Musical (and 2 and 3), not in real life... which is kind of a bummer... but not the point! Sometimes things don't work out in life but in your movies everything always works out, what sorcery are you using? I blame you for my Shakespeare obsession. Also, you based Beauty and the beast off of a true story... you left out some very important parts of the story... but for the sake of time I will pick that up in another post. Disney... there is so much more that I wish to say to you.. but alas, time is short and it's almost 12 (noon), speaking of, why did the magic cast on Cinderella end at 12 midnight as opposed to 12 noon? Sorry, not the point. Disney this discussion is not over.

I will end this very humble and polite expression of my thoughts with this. WTF? (I apologize, that was unfeminine of me) but seriously, wtf... why? (again, my bad, I apologize). Regardless of my anger with you, I will continue to watch your movies as they are the essence of my childhood and life is stressful. Also, even though you "borrowed" (lets face it Disney had every intention of giving the ideas back...) many of the plots for your movies, they are entertaining. Rest assured this discussion is not over!

A Dear, (Yet Slightly Angered) Friend

The relevant part of this post continues here: I apologize for my rant... So yes, Pope Gregory is discussing kissing frogs and how blasphemous that is. But once I got past the similarities and very different outcomes of kissing frogs, I found that Pope Gregory was trying to invoke the wrath of God into all.

The theology faculty at the University of Paris brings up a list of 28... yes... 28, ways in which you can achieve your life's dream of becoming an "nefarious, pestiferous, and monstrous abomination." What I got out of this: rumors are running rampant around campus and some people belief that God wants them to practice arts and sorceries to "honor... and please him."  In a way makes as much sense as Martin Luther nailing his 95 point blog post (Renaissance Style- Sorry, Dr. MB) to the church door.

Bernardino of Siena... (I'll try and keep this short and censored but Bernardo got to me a little bit... though I was thoroughly entertained). First off,  Bernardino (cool name by the way), I'm going to quote you on this (yes, this has become another open letter... sorry).

Bernardino,

On page 135, you stated that following, "after I had preached, a multitude of witches and enchanters were accused." Was this reaction intended? It must have been foreseen (oh wait, don't answer that... actually please do. [If this was a trial and you admitted to that your punishment would be... penance for two years or you could call it heresy and risk execution, just saying...] I feel like you knew how these people would react to your speech. Lets do the math: People naturally do not all get a long + you explain to them that witches and enchanters exist = People think back to all the things that have happened to them or people they know + People begin thinking that perhaps my really annoying neighbor is responsible + the knowledge that hey, I can not only destroy this person's reputation but also ensure that I never have to deal with them again = A multitude of people getting accused of witchcraft after your speech. Makes sense to me. Not saying your responsible but actually, yes, I kind of do blame you. If duck tape had been invented yet then someone should have introduced you to it. Also. "Woe is me!"... seriously? You're upset because you started a witch hunt. Also, you just had to mention that " if any man or woman shall go be accused of such things and if any person shall go to their aid, the curse of God will light upon his house and he will suffer for it" (137). So, I'm guessing the whole State Farm Good Neighbor Policy is out then? I know you have no idea what I'm talking about since it doesn't exist yet, just go with me here.

Sincerely,

A Reader of your works

And now, dear, brave reader of this post...

 

I feel this is the only explanation I need for the strangeness of my post.  

Bread and Water For All

The first thing that comes to my mind as I read about the various things people were punished for is that these people were crazy. Burchard of Worms lists some crimes and their resulting punishments, and some of those punishments seem rather harsh. Spending a month consuming only bread and water would be quite bothersome; it isn't nutritious. For doing things that most people in the modern day would consider strange at worst, you would be condemned to some long lasting punishment.

That aside, I was most interested in the story of The Life of St. Justina. There is a lot of emphasis put on her virginity, and Cyprian's desire to rid her of it. I enjoyed the differences between the two: Justina was pure and devoted to her faith, and Cyprian had been left for the demons at a young age and practiced magic ever since. His desperation to make her his resulted in him consorting with all sorts of demons. Justina was too devoted for the demons to do a thing; I was interested in how perceptive she was. She was always able to figure out that she was targeted by a demon, and was subsequently able to chase it away through prayer. Even the prince of demons was unable to do Cyprian's bidding.

My favorite part though, was that they Cyprian eventually saw the error of his ways, fearing the demons, and became a man of prayer himself. He saw the powers of Christ protecting Justina and realized that there was no way to fight against them. He went from feverishly pursuing the virginity of a pure woman to making her the abbess of a monastery of virgins. And in the end they die together and are left to rot together.

I enjoyed this portion of the reading the most because it felt the most real to me. Some other pieces focused on punishments for certain deeds that seemed far too abstract to me. Thinking in some way, even if it resulted in no actions, was still punishable by the church. That baffles me. The story of Cyprian and Justina drew me in more, almost like I was reading a book in my own leisure time. The lengths he went to take her purity and the failures he was faced with made him change his ways, yet in the end he still received a painful penalty: death. But hey, at least he was beheaded alongside Justina. That's at least a little bit romantic, right?

Well I'll Be Damned

What was interesting to me was all the clerical texts on what witchcraft is and what to do if a witch is in your parish.  On the bottom of page 60 and the top of page 61 there is a quote saying, “any women, who by any maleficia of incantations says that she is able to change the men’s minds, that is from hatred into love of from love into hatred, or that she can take or damage the goods of men.  And if, they find any women who says that she belongs to a group which rides with demons transformed into likeness of women o certain beasts on certain nights,’ they are to expel them from their parish.’”  The amount of time and effort the clergy put into saying what is and isn’t witchcraft is really fascinating because it was the job of the Bishops to find any person that appeared to have been practicing any sort of witchcraft and expel them from the parish.  In those days that is a huge deal to devout followers of the church, being expelled from your parish was thought to grantee damnation.  Of course, at the time that would make sense because practicing any sort of  “art of sortilegium and maleficium, which was invented by the devil…” (pg 61 Henry Charles Lea) would imply that the person practicing this was already damned to begin with, but for those falsely accused that must be devastating to their lives.  What also surprised me was the attitude of the church.  The church found those who were taken by the devil or practiced witchcraft as “pest” (pg. 62), not as someone who needed saving.  The attitude of the church back then is much different than it is today.  Today I feel the church is more or less trying to save everyone instead of just expel those who are seen as turning away from the church. 

Witches. Witches EVERYWHERE.

I noticed a few repeating themes in this week's readings. One in particular was the subject of "night rides" in which witches perceive themselves to go traveling across vast distances, accompanied by other witches and a pagan god, usually Diana. Regino of Prum, Burchard of Worms and even Aquinas reference these night rides in almost exactly the same terms. Regino and Burchard seem to refute the possibility, saying they're illusions cast on witches by demons, but Aquinas doesn't comment on whether or not such things actually happen. These texts are only a few centuries apart, with Regino writing first. I have to wonder whether these beliefs in night rides were so widespread, and Christian theological beliefs so consistently aligned against them, that all three writers would have addressed them separately in similar terms, or if they had in fact read each other's works and were committing some kind of theological plagiarism. That said, I doubt plagiarism actually mattered much to medieval theologians - what does a little copy and paste here and there matter so long as it's the word of God?
The other major theme I noticed was impotence. Medieval thinkers spent an awful lot of time dealing with the idea that the infliction of impotence was one of the foremost uses of magic. It's very easy to look at this and think that medieval people were just incapable of accepting that they were having their own set of problems and were trying to cast blame elsewhere, but the sheer amount of thought and argument put into "proving" that it was the work of witches and sorcerers and demons and whatever else suggests to me that there was a very strong belief in these powers. It wasn't that they were casting blame for impotence onto things they invented on the spot. Rather, belief in witches was already so strong that if someone was impotent, it MUST have been a witch's fault. I think this is something totally alien to most modern readers who haven't grown up with that kind of cultural paranoia. The closest thing I can compare it to in modern memory is the Red Scare in the '50s, but I don't think even that approaches the perceived pervasiveness of witchcraft in the medieval mindset.

As a side note, I thought it was funny how light most of Burchard of Worms' suggested punishments seemed to be - when he's specific, it's mostly just bread and water for a few weeks. That said, he's not specific very often. I'd be interested to know exactly when the "appointed days" for penance are, and what exactly that penance was supposed to entail.

Help me, Lawd! Help me!

Crazy chapters, right? Some of these readings could even make one think that witch craft was and IS real.

Have you ever been skeptical of the thought of witch craft or magic? The idea has always been there, but I have never really thought it were real because I thought of magic as; wands, cauldrons, and broom sticks. As of recent, I started thinking about magic as rituals or seances. Yeah, I have seen Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, and The Wizard of Oz, but I never thought anything of it.

The fact that these readings are so in depth about what a magi, witch, or wizard has done and what their punishment should be, makes me rethink my ideas about magic being real. The one reading, specifically, that has made me rethink my ideas about magic, is the passage from Buchard of Worms. His crime and punishment passage was so in depth with what someone has done and what they should do to heal themselves and come back to Christ, it made me wonder if magic was actually real, or if these people in the 13th century were on drugs or really gullible.

Magic involved herbs and sayings in the 13th century-- also illusions and spells, but it also involved demons. To believe in demons, most people were to believe in God as well. The reason magic may not be believed in so much as in the 13th century may be that more people are too distracted to believe in something or just won't believe in something they can not see. 

God and following astrology is basically all that the people in medieval times made time for. There was not much to take up their time, but church and scripture was always there. With the fear of the wrath of Christ, there was a fear of demons deceiving and taking over the population of the earth. This caused a huge fear of evil being used and walking the earth. One passage in chapter two was a story about a resident leaving food out for "nightly visitors." The residents believed that the visitors were their neighbors, but they were demons who made the home owners think they were their neighbors. This idea scared a lot of people and made them more cautious about Magic and casting spells.

Christianity and the way times were and how the times are now, made a difference on the belief of magic, demons, and even the power or existence of God. Do you believe in magic?

"Take me to Church"

(You don’t have to read this little paragraph, it’s just for kicks)**My first blog post, how exciting!  So I read about Sorcery in Christendom and Sorcery and the Nature of Evil. Both of these chapters were quite interesting, and slightly long. A lot is going on through these pages. I tried writing everything down. My thoughts are all over the place with these two chapters. I feel like I really need to go to church. lol **
 I am going to start with chapter 3. What I got from it is it kinda disapproves that all sin is caused by the devil or by demons. This chapter really reminds me of philosophy class: stating an argument or idea, providing support, trumping that source, disproving the statement/idea and declare a new statement or opinion. Anyone else feel like that?
In this chapter, two excerpts (phrases) that really fazed me were “to tempt is a sign of ignorance. But the demons know what happens among men. Therefore the demons do not tempt.” The second is “sin dwells in the will. Since therefore the demons cannot change man’s will” (Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Second Article, pg. 98). 

So, man has free will and man is ignorant of many things. (Man=humans, mankind, womankind, etc) All this is just a thin layer of the giant cake that represents the ideas behind demons, the devil and their existence. [Note: I am writing this while I am very hungry] Man sins or commits acts of evil through his own free will and ignorance. The devil is not ignorant, and he cannot bend the will of man. Then you have God thrown in the mix. God temps man (pg. 98). He tempts us to test our faith in him or for punishment. [All this talk about God and the devil make me sound like a religious fanatic. Gosh.]

“Not all our evil thoughts are stirred up by the devil, but sometimes they arise from movement of our freewill” (Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Third Article, pg. 100).Aquinas made things pretty clear for me. I feel that through everything I just mentioned that the devil and demons alike are only as powerful as you or anyone else makes them out to be. (*shifts eyes left to right to check for any upset demons*) We have all this discussion about how the devil cannot do certain things and how God is almighty. This leads into my ideas about chapter 2.
My discussion leadership project is on this chapter so I won’t go to crazy with my ideas that I will share on Monday. Overall, the chapter makes me believe that “the power of Christ is unconquerable” (Voragine, The Life of Justina, pg 85). You have the story of Justina, for example. By the way, this story was quite funny. You have this guy, a powerful sorcerer, Cyprian who tries to win or obtain the heart of Justina. Now, this guy Cyprian is persistent for sure. He uses all his dark magic to summon demons of all sorts to bring her to him in any manner. No demon was strong enough to face Justina and her unwavering faith in Christ. This is such as ridiculous story makes you wonder if this were true. Now using this story, paired up with the things I pointed out in chapter 3, I got one clear message from it all: that the power of Christ/God/Christianity is all powerful. You don’t mess with Christ. What more can you sum up about these chapters. There is so much mentioned on detailed rituals but the fact of the matter is, you need to find your faith in God. Just from certain aspects of these excerpts, Christianity is the way to go if you don’t want anything bad to happen to you or if you want to truly be happy.  

Whether you should do penance (Spoiler: the answer is "yes")

Reading chapters 2 and 3 of the Kors/Peters book, all I could think was, "For people who condemn demons and magical practices, you saints and holy writers sure know an awful lot about the particulars of how they interact with humans."

"Hey, so how do I summon the Devil? Oh, uh, it's just to make sure no one will do it."
(Source: www.traditionalcatholicmass.com)

The evolution of discovering the prevalence of magical practices, addressing them, and universally condemning them I found particularly interesting.  Before the 14th century, magic was considered "singular and episodic, one more manifestation of Satan's usually unsuccessful attempts to tempt mankind from orthodox belief and practice." (p. 59) And yet we have a prominent figure in early(ish) Christianity, Thomas Aquinas, part of whose writings in the 13th century were meant to "explain precisely how it was possible for demons to influence human actions." (p. 88)  It seems like the clergy during this time period wanted magic and demons to be compartmentalized, dealt with, and left behind as they moved on to more important things.  If they described exactly how these "episodic" incidents happened, for example the nature of demons and the extent of how they were able to tempt man, then righteous men (I almost typed "and women" there regarding 13th century Christianity, silly me!) would rise up against any temptation, ever again, because they would know how a demon would go about tempting them.

Speaking of my "and women" comment up there - there were so many descriptions in these chapters of how women were the ones who were usually corrupted by magic, and men only occasionally, and only if they were "weak." Not cool, people. Get over your superiority (even though I know you won't for hundreds of years. If that.)

Considering the eventual acceptance of magic as a widespread (or at least, more widely noticed) event, I was very surprised to read about the penances for various sinful magical practices. It is firmly established that magic and communing with demons is a sin of varying degree based on the results of the magic, but I was expecting more "Burn the heretics at the stake!" and less "Eat bread and water for ten days or so."  In fact, in some cases using demons seems okay - even though it's a grave sin, it might be permitted to use them and then just ask for forgiveness, even if you know you're sinning. (p. 89, paragraphs 2-3) Further, according to Augustine, "all divinations are to be avoided; although physical death ought not to be inflicted without grave cause." (p.89) I wonder when the pivotal shift occurred to go from (comparatively) light punishment and repentance at this time to death by burning in the 17th century.

"Have you ever felt like you were just born in the wrong time period?"
(Source: www.whenintime.com)

Another thought:  while invoking Christ or the cross for various incantations or charms did happen in our other readings from Keickhefer, I feel like the magic in those readings was much more generally secular in nature.  One of the big themes throughout Thomas Aquinas' writing selections was that all magical things come from demons, and all demons and magics are only permitted to act by God. I thought this was an interesting rationalization or analogy for how bad things are allowed to happen to good people - everything is God's will, be it good, bad, or ugly. Whatever you have to say to make yourself feel better, Mr. A.

...was it God's will that I posted a cat video?

Attitude Adjustment

As I sat down to read chapters 2 and 3 of Kors and Peters, something struck me as completely odd and it blew my mind. Apparently when, monks, friars, nuns, and whoever else had total undeniable access to literature of questionable origin, came across notions and writings of relation to sorcery, magic, or anything of otherworldly nature, they didn’t just stop reading or writing about it or even stop teaching it. These people, these godly people, actually wrote about it, as it was big deal. This coming from many of the same people who would’ve sooner burned a proponent of witchcraft or magic. That’s insane. When I think of witchcraft of the olde (e to the end=old), I think people being burned at the stake, tortured, or having their children (if they had any) taken away in an effort to make them renounce this “evil” way of life.

As I thought further and further into the matter of such things, an idea struck me. The whole feeling towards magic and sorcery was not always what it was during the days of yore. Much earlier before that, monasteries and even the common people embraced the powers of magic towards their own ends. In many early manuscripts, questionable cures of ailments were openly written about and used. That isn’t even the strangest part: allusions to the bible and its ideas sprung out from the same pages of evil and witchery. Then, the ideas of magic and its rituals and spells were said to be a “criminal sin” if even talked about (Kors/Peters, 59). And now, in 2015, people have parades and covens based on the ancient arts and rituals of earth magic and its sub disciplines. I mean seriously people MAKE UP YOUR MINDS!!

This whole stage of acceptance afterwords all came from the translated texts of Arabic origins now made widely available due to the printing press and increased curiosity over all things natural, theological, philosophical, musical, mathematical, and supernatural and all and everything in between. The people of the far, middle, and near east, seemed to be much more open to all things both physical and spiritual. This openness to test everything for the sake of knowledge ended up rubbing off big time in their written works. These ended up translated and being more widely available than they had been in previous years and could be found nearly everywhere. That compounded with the learning people began to be getting from these Arabic texts on alchemy, astrology and the works ended up giving us that many more amateur witches and wizards and that many more people that you’d much rather not cut in front of for fear of being turned into a newt or better yet a sack of potatoes. People definitely changed their attitudes towards otherworldly matters: now if it was for better or for worse, that’s for you to decide…