Christian Views On Magic - Medieval Views

Medieval Views

See also: Witch trials in the Early Modern period

During the Early Middle Ages, the Church did not conduct witch trials. The Council of Paderborn in 785 explicitly outlawed the very belief in witches, and Charlemagne later confirmed the law. Among Eastern Christians belief in witchcraft was regarded as deisdemonia—superstition—and by the 9th and 10th centuries in the West, belief in witchcraft had begun to be seen as heresy.

However, towards the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Early modern period, belief in witchcraft became sanctioned by the Church, and witches were seen as directly in league with the Devil. This marked the beginning of a period of witch-hunts which lasted about 200 years, and in some countries, particularly in North-Western Europe, thousands of people were accused of witchcraft and sentenced to death.

The Inquisition had conducted trials against supposed witches in the 13th century, but these trials were to punish heresy, of which belief in witchcraft was merely one variety. Inquisitorial courts only became systematically involved in the witch-hunt during the 15th century: in the case of the Madonna Oriente, the Inquisition of Milan was not sure what to do with two women who in 1384 and in 1390 confessed to have participated in a type of white magic.

Not all Inquisitorial courts acknowledged witchcraft. For example, in 1610 as the result of a witch hunting craze the Suprema (the ruling council of the Spanish Inquisition) gave everybody an Edict of Grace (during which confessing witches were not to be punished) and put the only dissenting inquisitor, Alonso de Salazar Frías, in charge of the subsequent investigation. The results of Salazar's investigation was that the Spanish Inquisition did not bother witches ever again though they still went after heretics and Jews.