Goddess bless Ronald Hutton.
We all know the stereotypes: the Catholic Church, with its enforcer the Inquisition, burned witches, right?
Turns out that the Inquisition actually protected many people accused of witchcraft.
For some 300 years, between the 15th and 17th centuries, Christian Europe, both North and South, went wild with a massive witch-panic. One puzzling aspect of the Great European Witch-Hunt, however, has always been the huge disproportion between northern and southern Europe when it comes to executions.
The vast majority of people executed as witches in Europe during this period were executed in Northern—Protestant—Europe. Far, far fewer people were put to death as witches in the Catholic South.
In 1588, a teenaged girl brought before the Spanish Inquisition confessed to having had sex with the Devil. The previous year, a Sicilian woman confessed to having flown through the air on a billy-goat to a sabbat at which (interestingly) she worshiped a King and Queen who presided over a feast and an orgy (Hutton 200-1).
In England, such confessions would likely have merited the noose; in Germany, the stake. But the girl from Valencia, after receiving a beating, was sentenced to undergo religious instruction, and the goat-riding Siciliana was acquitted.
Why?
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When it comes to the distinction between mythic history and historic history--surely we need both--I'm strictly a Weatherwaxite:
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Well said!! (And a fantastic metaphor). And to think there are still folks in our community who believe he "destroyed" Paganism..