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.