These "Damnable Superstitions": Legal Double Standards and Cultural Reflections of Witchcraft and Judicial Astrology, ca. 1200-ca. 1600: Part 5

Support for Astrological Practices

All was not lost for the astrologers. The historian Valerie Flint has argued that astrology survived in the Early Middle Ages (ca. 500-1000) precisely because it could be employed to combat more dangerous forms of magic. Flint essentially claims that astrology was able to survive the early medieval attacks upon it, especially from the Patristic writers, because Christianity did not have a full-fledged system with which to replace it, and that it was rehabilitated in later centuries because it was “Christianized” and used against what were perceived to be far more dangerous challenges to the Church, witchcraft among them. She offers three reasons why early medieval churchmen supported it: 1) there were mentally, socially, and spiritually far more destructive forms of “magic,” 2) supporting materials could be found for astrology if one decided it was valid, and 3) astrology properly exercised the mind to a high degree, which appealed greatly to the more ascetic life of the monasteries.[1] Astrology was then rehabilitated based on several early medieval scientific premises. Heavenly bodies influenced growth and decay, the change of the seasons and may be practically (medically and agriculturally) beneficial. The moon was commonly believed, even by detractors of astrology, to exert a great deal of influence over the “murky demon-filled air” and the dispassionate study of this could be beneficial, especially in countering more maleficent magic. Comets and falling stars were very commonly believed to be important phenomena, and their study was also viewed to be equally important.[2]

Despite the charges leveled against astrologers with the aid of the Bible, Scripture could be utilized to the advantage of Christian astrologers. The Bible certainly encouraged prophecy, and indeed, several of its passages were interpreted as being sympathetic toward astrology and prophecy. Examples include the prophecy of the Coming of Jesus in the Old Testament that a descendant of King David would become the King of the Jews and the Savior of all mankind (2 Samuel 7:12-14) as well as the belief that a virgin would give birth to the Son of God (Isaiah 7:14).[3] The gift of retrospect allowed Christians to affirm that all predictions of the future turning out to be true must certainly have been inspired by God, while those false predictions were bunk to begin with.

Those Christians who accepted astrology were quick to point out the influence of the stars on the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus. The hour of His death was supposedly marked by an eclipse as “there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour, while the sun’s light failed” (Luke 23:44), and the Second Coming would be heralded by “signs in the sun, moon, and stars and upon the earth distress of nations in perplexity at the roaring of the sea and waves” (Luke 21:25). Most famously, the calling of the three wise men, or Magi, carried astrological overtones:

Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold wise men from the East came to Jerusalem saying “Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we have seen His star in the East and come to worship Him. When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him; and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. And they told him “In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it is written by the prophet: ‘And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; from you shall come a ruler who will govern my people Israel.’” Then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained what time the star appeared; and he sent them to Bethlehem, saying “Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him bring me word, that I too may come and worship Him.” When they had heard the king they went their way; and lo, the star which they had seen in the East went before them, till it came to rest over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy; and going into the house they saw the child with Mary, His mother, and they fell down and worshipped Him. Then, opening their gifts, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. And being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their own country by another way (Matthew 2:1-12).

That the star of Bethlehem was a sign was not in doubt. The precedent for this type of stellar portent harkened all the way back to Genesis 1:14 which stated “…let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and for years.”[4]

Many believed that the star the Magi followed to Jesus in the manger was a new star created especially by God for the occasion, and this was substantiated by appearances of comets and meteors and, most spectacularly, novae in the eleventh and seventeenth centuries. Since the realm beyond the moon was thought to be unchangeable, the only thing capable of producing these effects was God himself. This is why stellar phenomena were regarded as omens and why astrologers held fast to their belief that the will of God was manifested in celestial events. Johannes Kepler (1571-1630), one of the first modern observational astronomers, meditated often on the importance of these astrological indications and made as serious a study of astrology as he did of the astronomy that went a long way to disproving Aristotelian theory.[5] His own interpretation of the events surrounding the birth of the Christian Savior depended heavily upon astrological understanding:

This effect of the great conjunctions cannot be adequately explained by nature; God himself had to arrange it in some way…This is why he decided to place the birth of His son, Christ, our Savior, at the very moment of the great conjunction of the signs of the Fish and Ram…by emphasizing this dual fact, the event that occurred on earth and the conjunction revealed in the sky through the appearance of a new star; by means of this He guided the Magi from the East to Palestine, to the important village of Bethlehem and the stable where the King of the Jews was born.[6]

By associating God’s actions temporally with stellar events, Kepler rendered the skeptics’ arguments unimportant in that if all astrologically influenced events were subject to the action of God, then there was no reason to squabble about the Christian implications of removing God from the equation, for He was always not only present but also in control. These myriad examples helped scholars of the Middle Ages to deduce that these observable influences could be applied to human relations and temperament, as always, conscious of the fact that free will must remain untouched. Apologists of astrology would use this appeal to religious tradition well into the Middle Ages. For example, Roger Bacon, alluding to the work of Abu Ma‘shar, stated that according to his records of planetary movement, all major religions had begun when certain planets had been in conjunction: Judaism, when Jupiter and Saturn aligned; Islam, with Jupiter and Venus; and even Christianity, when Jupiter and Mercury joined. Bacon believed that this conjunction was in fact the star the Magi saw in the sky above Bethlehem and that the conjoining of Jupiter with the moon would indicate the coming of Antichrist.[7]

Finally, it is important to note that the Malleus mentions astrology and some passages shed some light on Institoris’ and Sprenger’s interpretation of witchcraft. While the Malleus does not necessarily offer support for astrology, neither does it condemn it outright. Book I, Question 5, begins by asking “What is the source of the increase of works of witchcraft? Whence comes it that the practice of witchcraft hath so notably increased?”[8] The Malleus posits that some people believe that astrology may contribute to the cause of witchcraft, questioning

Is it in any way a Catholic opinion to hold that the origin and growth of the works of witchcraft proceed from the influence of the celestial bodies; or from the abundant wickedness of men, and not from the abominations of Incubi and Succubi?...But it is submitted that the true source of witchcraft is the influence of the celestial bodies, and not devils. Just as every multitude is reduced to unity, so all that is multiform is reduced to some uniform beginning. But the acts of men, both in vice and virtue, are various and multiform, therefore it seems that they may be reduced to some beginnings uniformly moved and moving. But such can only be assigned to the motion of the stars; therefore those bodies are the causes of such actions….if the stars were not the cause of human actions both good and bad, Astrologers would not so frequently foretell the truth about the result of wars and other human acts: therefore they are in some ways the cause….[9]

Institoris and Sprenger refute this by stating that

It is impossible to produce an effect without its cause; and the deeds of witches are such that they cannot be done without the help of devils…Witches are so called for the enormity of their magic spells; for they disturb the elements and confound the minds of men, and without any venomous draught, but merely by virtue of incantations, destroy souls, etc. But this sort of effects cannot be caused by the influence of the stars through the agency of man. Besides, Aristotle says in his Ethics that it is difficult to know what is the beginning of operation of thought, and shows that it must be something extrinsic. For everything that begins from the beginnings has some cause. Now a man begins to do that which he wills; and he begins to will because of some pre-suggestion; and if this is some precedent suggestion, it must either proceed from the infinite, or there is some extrinsic beginning which first brings a suggestion to a man. Unless indeed it be argued that this is a matter of chance, from which it would follow that all human actions are fortuitous, which is absurd. Therefore the beginning of good in the good is said to be God, Who is not the cause of sin. But for the wicked when a man begins to be influenced towards and wills to commit sin, there must also be some extrinsic cause of this. And this can be none other than the devil; especially in the case of witches, as is shown above, for the stars cannot influence such acts. Therefore the truth is plain.[10]

The source of witchcraft owed its origin to devils and not the course of the stars, and astrology and witchcraft are clearly demarcated by Institoris and Sprenger. It was the free will of the witch to act in concert with devils that contributed to their crimes. The Malleus answers that

…It is not possible that it originated from astromancers and casters of horoscopes and fortunetellers. For if it is asked whether the vice of witchcraft in men is caused by the influence of the stars, then in the consideration of the variety of men’s characters, and for the upholding of the true faith a distinction must be maintained…[11]

Astrology was regarded as essentially impotent in this cause since to Institoris and Sprenger, astrology had power only over general populations and not individuals:

It is also to be noted that Astronomers often foretell the truth, and that their judgments are for the most part effective on one province or one nation. And the reason is they take their judgments from the stars, which, according to the more probably view, have a greater though not inevitable, influence over the action of mankind in general, that is, over one nation or province, than over one individual person…[12]

The authors of the Malleus held to the Augustinian viewpoint that, as long as free will remained, astrological discourse was perfectly reasonable and rational, though the fatalistic determinism of some astrologers was “so heretical and contrary to the Christian religion, that the true faith cannot be maintained in such an error.”[13] This dichotomous nature of astrology was of supreme importance in both interpreting the denunciation and upholding of certain astrological practices.

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[1] See next post for an example of the early medieval use of astrology.

[2] Flint, Valerie I.J. The Rise of Magic in the Early Middle Ages. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991, p. 100-150.

[3] Isaiah 7:14 states, “Behold, a young woman will conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Immanuel (‘God is with us’).” “Young woman” comes from the Hebrew ‘almah, feminine of ‘elam, meaning “young man.” Many versions of the Bible have translated this word as “virgin.”

[4] See also Bobrick, Benson. The Fated Sky: Astrology in History. New York: Simon & Schuster Press, 2005, p. 81-84 for an interesting, if incomprehensive, survey of the astrological references in the Bible.

[5] Kepler’s three laws of planetary motion disproved the crucial Aristotelian notion that the planetary orbits were perfectly circular.

[6] Kepler, Johannes, De Vero Anno (On the Year of Truth, 1613), quoted in Couliano, Eros and Magic in the Renaissance, p. 185. Couliano writes in his notes that he received this information via Will-Erich Pueckert’s L’Astrologie: son histoire, ses doctrines.

[7] Erickson, Carolly, The Medieval Vision: Essays in History and Perception, New York: Oxford University Press (USA), 1976, p. 24.

[8] Institoris, Heinrich and Jacob Sprenger. The Malleus Maleficarum. trans. by Rev. Montague Summers. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1971, p. 31. Due to its better accuracy and more updated translation, I have referenced the Maxwell-Stuart version of the Malleus where possible. However, due to its frequent editorial abridgment, several passages relevant to my paper have been omitted or severely truncated by Maxwell-Stuart. Therefore, I have deferred to the Montague Summers translation when necessary and have noted as such.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Ibid. p. 32.

[11] Ibid.

[12] Ibid. p. 34.

[13] Ibid. p. 32.

These "Damnable Superstitions": Legal Double Standards and Cultural Reflections of Witchcraft and Judicial Astrology, ca. 1200-ca. 1600: Part 4

Biblical Admonishments on Prophecy
and St. Augustine on Astrology

How were astrology and witchcraft differentiated in legal and moral terms and to what authorities did prosecutors and inquisitors submit? Biblical verses, from the Old and New Testaments, were extremely common and effective allusions to which to appeal when proclaiming the immorality and sinfulness of astrology, witchcraft, and prophecy, and there is no dearth of Biblical quotations in support of this condemnation.[1] For example: “Thus says the Lord concerning the prophets who lead my people astray…it shall be night to you, without divination. The sun shall go down upon the prophets, and the day shall be black over them; the seers shall be disgraced, and the diviners put to shame; they shall cover their lips, for there is no answer from God” (Micah 3:5-7).[2] However, as is often the case with Biblical references, more than one meaning can be extracted. On the one hand, these verses display an obvious aversion to the conceit of those who believe they can endeavor to know the will of God, yet there is no outright disapproval of this divination because prophecy was and still is a vital element of the Judeo-Christian tradition. In other words, there is nothing wrong with the act itself, merely in those who attempt it without the inspiration or the due credit attributed to God. This may be defined as the difference between divination and revelation.

Similarly, in the midst of his great exhortation against idolatry and image worship in Deuteronomy, Moses offers this warning to those who would divert their attention from God to other matters: “And beware lest you lift your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven, you be drawn away and worship them and serve them, things which the Lord your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven”(Deuteronomy 4:19). This cause is taken up again in the Book of Zephaniah, in which the Lord proclaims that he will “sweep away…those who bow down on the roofs to the host of the heavens” (1:3-5). These verses may be in reference to the original Jewish innovation of monotheism in an age when most of the Hebrews’ cultural neighbors were polytheists, some of whom worshiped the stars and planets directly as gods and goddesses. More deeply, these quotations serve as a reminder that the Creator is not to be confused with the creation and that nature-worship is just as sinful as idol-worship. Yet, in terms of the comparison of astrology with witchcraft in relation to their reception by religious and secular authorities, one must not confound worshiping the heavens with studying the heavens. This is one way that witchcraft was specifically differentiated from astrology—the latter was viewed as a scholarly enterprise separate from Christian worship while the former was believed to derive its information directly from the worship and divination of demons. Astrology dealt with the objective study of the heavens without necessarily confounding Christian worship while witchcraft dealt directly with the antithesis to that worship. The Book of Isaiah proposes an explanation of the correlation between astrological determinism and the functioning of God in the world. It states,

Now therefore hear this, you lover of pleasures, who sit securely, who say in your heart, “I am, and there is no one besides me; I shall not sit as a widow or know the loss of children”: These two things shall come to you in a moment in one day; the loss of children and widowhood shall come upon you in full measure, in spite of your many sorceries and the great power of your enchantments. You felt secure in your wickedness, you said, “No one sees me”; your wisdom and your knowledge led you astray, and you said in your heart, “I am, and there is no one besides me.” But evil shall come upon you, for which you cannot atone; disaster shall fall upon you, which you will not be able to expiate; and ruin shall come on you suddenly, of which you know nothing. Stand fast in your enchantments and your many sorceries, with which you have labored from your youth; perhaps you may be able to succeed, perhaps you may inspire terror. You are wearied with your many counsels; let them stand forth and save you, those who divide the heavens, who gaze at the stars, who at the new moons predict what shall befall you. (Isaiah 47:8-13)[3]

The Christian writers of the first few centuries after Christ, especially the Church Fathers and in particular Augustine of Hippo (354-430), urged new Christians to abandon old pagan superstitions such as astrology in favor of free will and the option of salvation through Christ. Was it not the very free will of Christians that gave them earnest to forsake a worldly life in favor of Christ? Augustine had dabbled in many philosophies in the personal quest that would eventually lead him to Christianity, including Manichaeism and Greek skepticism, both of which were more receptive to astrology. Although the argument between faith and reason is not in the crux of this investigation, for astrology could rely on either or both depending on the practitioner, it is interesting to note that in his denunciation, Augustine appealed more to reason than to faith to counter the argument for astrology. Twins, he writes, are by definition born at a time when the stars should rule over them to a similar degree and that if astrology were a valid science then we should expect to see them live their lives with comparable personalities, statuses, and fates. However,

[The astrologers] have never been able to explain why twins are so different in what they do and achieve, in their professions and skills, in the honors they receive, and in other aspects of their lives and deaths. In all such matters, twins are often less like each other than complete strangers; yet, twins are born with practically no interval of time between their births and are conceived in precisely the same moment of a single sexual semination.[4]

Augustine had attributed the occasional success of astrologers to simple luck and had said that “that guesswork was often borne out of mere chance. If a man made a great many predictions, several of them would later prove to be true, but he could not know it at the time and would only hit upon them by chance.”[5] The more likely explanation for the similarity in the life twins, said Augustine, in reference to Hippocrates, was that they shared similar medical fates “since their parents’ condition at the time of conception could easily affect the embryos, and it would be no wonder if the twins should be born with the same kind of health, since they had developed in the same way in their mother’s womb.”[6] Another practical example was related to him by a friend, Firminus, whose father was a respectable practitioner of astrological divination. Firminus’ father discovered that one of his slaves was expected to give birth at the same time as his wife, and he decided that this would be the supreme trial of the effect of the stars on the course of human lives:

Both were delivered at the same instant; so that both were constrained to allow the same constellations, even to the minutest points, the one for his son, the other for his newborn slave. For so soon as the women began to be in labor, they each gave notice to the other what was fallen out in their houses, and had messengers ready to send to one another, so soon as they had notice of the actual birth, of which they had easily provided, each in his own province, to provide instant intelligence. Thus then the messengers of the respective parties met, he averred, at such an equal distance from either house, that neither of them could make out any difference in the position of the stars, or any other minutest points; and yet Firminus, born in a high estate in his parents’ house, ran his course through the gilded paths of life, was increased in riches, raised to honors; whereas that slave continued to serve his masters, without any relaxation of his yoke, as Firminus, who knew him, told me.[7]

Despite his unwavering dismissal of astrology as a means of obfuscating the free will of man, Augustine, like most other Christian thinkers with a classical education, affirmed that the stars could in fact have an influence on the earth and the material of the sublunar sphere and that this could affect man insomuch as man was subject to the happenings of nature. That is, man’s will was untouchable, but his body, being simply matter, was susceptible to astrological authority:

It is not absurd to say, with reference only to physical differences, that there are certain sidereal [i.e. stellar] influences. We see that seasons of the year change with the approach and the receding of the sun. And with the waxing and waning of the moon, we see certain kinds of things grow and shrink, such as sea urchins and oysters, and the marvelous tides of the ocean. But the choices of the will are not subject to the positions of the stars.[8]

Augustine had been less dismissive of the comparable concept of fate, by which he meant that which “happens without cause or rational explanation, and that fate is what is bound to happen, in spite even of the will of God or of men,”[9] but he stated that the disparity was only in the symbol used to describe those acts which seemed to happen randomly. Among those who regard such acts as the will of fate “but mean by fate the will and power of God, they should keep their conception, but change their expression.”[10]

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[1] Other important Biblical quotations concerning astrology, witchcraft, and prophecy include: Exodus 22:18 (for elaboration of Exodus, see Sir Christopher Heydon’s quote in Post 7), Deuteronomy 18:10-11 (witchcraft), Leviticus 19:26 & 31 and 20:27 (witchcraft and wizardry), 1 Samuel 25:3-25 (witchcraft), and Jeremiah 10:2-3 & 23:9-22 (see Footnote 8 in Post 7 for more information on Jeremiah). The confluence of the scientific enterprise with religion was an aspect of astrology that has been found in many separate astrological traditions (notably the Chinese and Mayan versions), but this merger did not, at first, hold up to the rigorous moral standard of the new Christian religion sweeping the Mediterranean region as it had once enjoyed with Greek paganism and philosophy. It was only when certain natural philosophers were able to reconcile this science with Christianity that it managed to reestablish itself as one of the premier faculties of study. See next post for more details.

[2] Biblical quotes come from The New Oxford Annotated Bible: Revised Standard Version: 1962 and 1973, Oxford University Press.

[3] The annotations in the Oxford edition of the Bible state that this chapter is meant to “emphasize God’s control over history and his action within it,” but the ancient historian D. Brendan Nagle goes so far as to state that this passage was included to display the Israelites’ satisfaction with the Persian conquest of Babylon and the destruction of their idolatrous temples in 539 B.C.E. as well as their satisfaction that despite all their claims to the ability of prognostication, the Babylonians were unable to foresee their own downfall, thus proving the error of astrology and the power of God in the world. See Nagle, D. Brendan, The Ancient World: A Social and Cultural History. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2002, p. 70.

[4]Augustine of Hippo. City of God. trans. by Demetrius B. Zema and Gerald G. Walsh. New York: Fathers of the Church, Inc., 1950, Book V, Chap. 1, p. 243. This is also quoted in Lindberg, David C., “Science and the Early Christian Church.” The Scientific Enterprise in Antiquity and the Middle Ages. ed. Michael H. Shank, readings from Isis (first published 1983, 74: 509-530). Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000, p. 143.

[5] Augustine of Hippo, Confessions, trans. by R.S. Pine-Coffin, New York: Penguin Books, Ltd, 1961. Book VII, Chap. 6, p. 140.

[6] Augustine, City of God, Book V, Chap. 2, p. 244.

[7] Augustine, Confessions, Book VII, Chap. 6, p. 141. Also quoted in Boorstin, Daniel J. The Discoverers: A History of Man’s Search to Know His World and Himself. New York: Vintage Books, 1983, p. 23 and 24. David C. Lindberg also mentions in his essay in Isis that the “twins” argument is not original to Augustine.

[8]Augustine of Hippo, City of God, Book V, Chap. 6, p. 251, also quoted in Lindberg, David C., The Beginnings of Western Science: The European Scientific Tradition in Philosophical, Religious, and Institutional Context, 600 B.C. to A.D. 1450. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1992, p. 277.

[9] Ibid. Book V, Chap. 1, p. 241.

[10] Ibid. p. 242.

These "Damnable Superstitions": Legal Double Standards and Cultural Reflections of Witchcraft and Judicial Astrology, ca. 1200-ca. 1600: Part 3

Modes of Astrological Discourse, ca. 1130-1600

Like witchcraft, the history of astrology is, of course, far more complex than one simple paper can attempt to contain, but it will be useful to track its basic course of development in the history of Western science. Astrology had many independent origins chronologically and geographically, but the Western vein had its foundation as an organized discipline in Chaldean Babylonia around 3000 B.C.E., was influenced by Persian Zoroastrianism, and was transmitted via the Egyptians to the Greeks by at least 500 B.C.E.[1] Generally speaking, astrology enjoyed unquestioned legitimacy in ancient times because, as a science, it grew out of the priestly tradition it had occupied in Babylon. The Babylonian religion held the sacredness of the stars and planets, and this infatuation with the heavens lent itself to meticulous study. As David C. Lindberg elucidates in his history of the origins of Western science, there were persuasive reasons for believing in astrology in terms of its being a study of celestial influences. “Nobody could doubt,” he writes,

that the heavens were the major source of light and heat in the terrestrial region; the seasons were plainly connected with the solar motion around the ecliptic; the tides were apparently connected with lunar motion; and it seemed clear, once the compass made its appearance (late in the twelfth century), that the poles of the celestial sphere exercised a magnetic influence on certain minerals.[2]

Jim Tester, in his seminal work on the history of Western astrology, argues that Mesopotamian (and through association Egyptian) astrology was “purely descriptive” and was not the scientific enterprise it evolved into by the first few centuries of the Christian era. This original version of astrology was concerned primarily with calendrical matters, and the mathematical techniques and observational precision necessary for constructing tables, nativities, and horoscopes did not exist until around the fourth century in Greece.[3] During this classical golden age, Pythagorean, Platonic, and Aristotelian thought all accommodated astrological discourse within their cosmic frameworks. As the Greek method of rational inquiry was adopted by the Romans, astrological writings flourished during the early empire, especially in Eastern scholarly centers such as Alexandria: Marcus Mailius’ Astronomicon, Dorotheus of Sidon’s didactic five-part poem the Pentateuch, Vettius Valen’s encyclopedic compilation the Anthology, and Julius Firmicus Maternus’ eight book compendium, the Mathesis to name but a few outstanding examples of the era. Towering above them all was the Tetrabiblos (“the four books”) by the Hellenized Egyptian Ptolemy (90-168 C.E.), “the cornerstone of medieval astrology.”[4]

Like much other scholarship in the Latin West following the fall of the Roman Empire, astrology lay dormant for several centuries awaiting rediscovery. A smattering of translations of astrological, medical and other scientific works occurred during the tenth and eleventh centuries, but the explosions of translations that led to the building of a truly medieval version of astrology occurred in the twelfth century. This flowering of learning, often referred to as the twelfth century renaissance, included a great many astrological works, many of which were Greek works preserved, commented upon, and improved by Arab scholars. From 1130 to the 1170s, dozens of astrological writings were translated into Latin by the likes of Abelard of Bath (Al-Khwarizmi’s Tables and several works of Euclid), Plato of Tivoli (several Arab astrological tracts by Al-Battani and Ptolemy’s Tetrabiblos), and above all Gerard of Cremona, of whose more than ninety translations, six are astrological in nature.[5] The foundation upon which medieval astrology stood was derived from relatively few works. Ptolemy’s Tetrabiblos was the one work to which all medieval astrologers seemed to defer, and in conjunction with Ptolemy’s other great work The Almagest, constituted a formidable edifice of authority.[6] The work of the Arab Abu Ma‘shar (often Latinized as Albumasar) titled Introduction to the Science of Astrology was also heavily referenced and was regarded as the most important Arab contribution to the science.[7] Both the Tetrabiblos and the Introduction to Astrology were translated from Arabic to Latin in the 1130s. Ptolemy’s works had survived in the West due to the ninth and tenth century efforts of Arab scholars, and without their preservation, his volumes may never have made their way into European hands. Within the Tetrabiblos, astrology is treated hierarchically and it begins with the general and works its way to the particular. Book I is procedural, describing the movement of the planets and stars, the use of calculations, and how to understand the results. Book II details the collective aspects of astrology that may be generally applied to large populations or nations, and Books III and IV together get to the more specific details of individual astrology, or those things which may be determined by the positions of the stars and planets at the conception, birth, and other important moments in the life of the person whose horoscope has been cast (genethlialogy).[8] Its thoroughly mathematical treatment of the subject removed it from the more legendary position it had held in the Western consciousness and set it on the path as an area of scientific study.

Perhaps the most important translations made during the twelfth century renaissance, and related directly to the rebirth in astrology, were those of Aristotle. From the fall of the Roman Empire until the twelfth century, the medieval cosmos was Biblical and heavily influenced by Platonic thought.[9] Aristotle burst onto the scene contemporaneously with these astrological translations and his view of the universe informed the new medieval astrology. Briefly, Aristotle’s universe was a sphere of dual nature, with the earth at the center and the sphere of fixed stars at the outermost reaches. Physical law acted differently depending on the position within the cosmos. The supralunar sphere, or the entire universe above the moon, was an incorruptible, unchangeable realm where all movement was perfectly circular and in general, predictable. Birth, generation, decay, and death, on the other hand, categorized the sublunar region. It was a world of transience. Many Christians believed that this validated the concept of original sin and that the fall and expulsion of Adam and Eve were evident in the disparity between the upper and lower spheres. [10] This was the same disparity involved in dividing witchcraft and astrology, since astrology, by definition, was occupied with the study of the perfect regions of the universe while witchcraft relied on the most flawed cosmic territory.

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[1]Couliano, Eros and Magic in the Renaissance, p. 25, as well as the Encarta Encyclopedia 2000 entries on “Astrology” and “History of Astronomy.”

[2] Lindberg, David C., The Beginnings of Western Science: The European Scientific Tradition in Philosophical, Religious, and Institutional Context, 600 B.C. to A.D. 1450. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1992, p. 274.

[3] Tester, Jim. A History of Western Astrology. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1987, p. 12 and 13.

[4] Ibid. p. 11-56.

[5] Ibid. p. 152. For a more complete list of scientific works translated during these three-quarters of a century, see Tester’s notes as well.

[6] Wedel, Theodore Otto. The Medieval Attitude towards Astrology. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1920. p. 65 and 67.

[7] Ibid. p. 62.

[8] Tester, A History of Western Astrology, p. 68.

[9] See note 13 in Part 6 for a more thorough description of the Platonic cosmological attitude toward astrology and it adherents in the early Renaissance.

[10] Lindberg, The Beginnings of Western Science, p. 55. The Aristotelian works most responsible for this worldview were De Caelo (On the Heavens), Physica (Physics), and most especially De Generatione et Corruptione (On Generation and Corruption). See also The Basic Works of Aristotle, edited by Richard McKeon, Chicago: Random House: Chicago, 1941.

These "Damnable Superstitions": Legal Double Standards and Cultural Reflections of Witchcraft and Judicial Astrology, ca. 1200-ca. 1600: Part 2

Tracking the Categorization and Punishment
of Witchcraft, ca. 1400-1600

In discussing witchcraft, one immediately runs into the problem of how to define such a broad, open-ended, and constantly changing term. Some general aspects of the definition are useful. Pre-medieval witchcraft was usually indiscernible from what we would more generally call sorcery or magic, and it was usually appealed to in order to institute a sense of control amidst the seemingly uncontrollable forces of nature. This practice was typically outside the conventions of mainstream religion, often paired with folk beliefs and folklore, and it differentiated itself in that rather than involving the worship of God or gods (as religion did) or the study of natural processes (as sciences, including astrology, did), it sought direct management of these affairs.[1]

Late medieval witchcraft, on the other hand, differed from the above definition in some very important ways. First of all, although records do exist of men being tried and executed early in the witch-hunts (late fifteenth through seventeenth centuries), the crime of witchcraft became regarded as primarily a female transgression by the time of the late fifteenth century Inquisition. Accusations were generally leveled against women by men of the same class, usually within the confines of a peasant community such as a feudal manor or small countryside town, and oftentimes within one’s own family.[2] Various specific motivations existed for accusations, usually related to class or economic status, temperament and age, sexual deviance, and heresy. The early fifteenth century German Dominican author Johannes Nider, though not a witch-hunter himself, wrote of seven ways in which a witch could inflict harm upon a community: “by arousing [in men] extreme love or hate; by causing impotence, sickness or insanity; by causing death; or by the destruction of property.”[3] These behaviors are related to more ancient notions of witchcraft in which rituals developed around natural happenings that could not be controlled. If, for example, a flock of sheep was unable to maintain its numbers or a crop did not produce the desired yield, women were often blamed for casting spells of infertility, and culpability could be specifically allocated rather than charging the unpunishable Nature.[4]

One feature that coalesced into a widespread belief as “proof” of witches’ misdeeds throughout the fifteenth century, and related directly to the ubiquitous medieval axiom of the existence of demons, was that of the witches’ Sabbat, sometimes called the “Black Mass.” This supposed event, as its names imply, was a sort of perversion of an actual Catholic Mass and was believed to involve a wide range of reprehensible activities. Anne Llewellyn Barstow puts it rather succinctly when she describes women being accused of “flying to the sabbat on phallic broomsticks, being seduced by demon lovers, joining in orgiastic dances, kissing the devil’s ass, copulating indiscriminately with men, other women, relatives, demons, or the devil himself, and giving birth to demon children.”[5] These events imagined to exist as physical realities, of course, did not take place, but a separate category for witchcraft based on these specific heretical acts was emerging.

This had not always been the case and in fact, some earlier documents pertaining to the legal classification of witchcraft actually discouraged if not outright forbade a trust in its existence. For example, in Charlemagne’s Capitulary for Saxony (775-790), an administrative directive for local officials to impose on the recently conquered Saxons of eastern Germany, the Carolingian attitude toward witchcraft is clear: “If anyone is deceived by the devil, and believes after the manner of pagans that some man or some woman is a witch and eats people, and if because of this he burns her or gives her flesh to someone to eat or eats it himself, let him pay the penalty of death.”[6] Legally, the Carolingian empire deemed witchcraft a pagan superstition, and acceptance of it was essentially equivalent to heresy. The language used here implies that the influence of the devil is in the deception, but the devil’s role in the actual practice of witchcraft would support the argument of later witch hunters. Similarly, the Canon Episcopi (ca. 906) of Regino of Prum, Abbot of Treves, affirmed that the deeds attributed to witches, such as those supposedly performed during the Black Mass, were little more than illusions and maintained the legal distinction of the acceptance of witchcraft as heretical:

Bishops and their officials must labor with all their strength to uproot thoroughly from their parishes the pernicious art of sorcery and malefice invented by the devil, and if they find a man or woman follower of this wickedness to eject them foully disgraced from the parishes… It is also not to be omitted that some unconstrained women, perverted by Satan, seduced by illusions and phantasms of demons, believe and openly profess that, in the dead of night, they ride upon certain beasts with the pagan goddess Diana, with a countless horde of women, and in the silence of the dead of the night to fly over vast tracts of country, and to obey her commands as their mistress, and to be summoned to her service on other nights. But it were well if they alone perished in their infidelity and did not draw so many others into the pit of their faithlessness. For an innumerable multitude, deceived by this false opinion, believe this to be true and, so believing, wander from the right faith and relapse into pagan errors when they think that there is any divinity or power except the one God… Whoever therefore believes that anything can be made, or that any creature can be changed to better or worse, or transformed into another species or likeness, except by God Himself who made everything and through whom all things were made, is beyond a doubt an infidel.[7]

It was heresy to believe in this form of witchcraft because it usurped the ultimate power of God and granted it to devils. The only power of devils, according to both the Capitulary and the Episcopi, was to deceive, and that deception was in convincing Christians that these witches engaged in these practices in the first place. Those condemned for witchcraft were not absolved of their crimes, since followers of that “wickedness” who had “relapse[d] into pagan error” were expelled from the flock, but the message from the authorities unambiguously asserts that these “illusions and phantasms” had no physical reality and to believe that they did went against the Church.

So what changed in the late fifteenth century that resurrected a belief in the dangerously real powers of witchcraft? A marked shift in the popular imagination occurred in the mid to late fifteenth century that changed the punishment of witchcraft forever. One of the main tools of persecution for witch-hunters was manuals or various books that defined the behavior of witches and displayed for the authorities what traits to look for when identifying possible witches. Johannes Nider, whom we have already discussed, penned one of the earliest of these so-called manuals, Formicarius: De Visionibus et Revelationibus (The Ant-Hill: On Visions and Revelations, 1435-37), but this book caused little stir and led to very few full-fledged witch trials, in part because at this time witchcraft was not pursued as a deadly offense unless actual harm had been done to another person.[8] This fact changed following the publication in 1486 of the Malleus Maleficarum (The Hammer of Witches) by two other German Dominicans, Heinrich Kramer (also known as Henry Institoris) and Jacob Sprenger, both professors of theology. Prefaced with a Papal Bull by Innocent VIII (r. 1484-1492) from two years prior (Summis desiderantis affectibus, 5 December, 1484), the Malleus armed witch-hunters with procedural rules and regulations for recognizing and punishing witches. After a short list of offenses witches were believed to have committed (similar to Nider’s list from nearly fifty years earlier), the ultimate religious authority in Western Europe granted to the inquisitors the power

to prevent the taint of heretical pravity and of other like evils from spreading their infection to the ruin of others who are innocent, the zeal of religion especially impelling us, in order that the provinces, cities, dioceses, [and] territories…may not be deprived of the office of inquisition which is their due, [the Pope] do[es] hereby decree, by virtue of our apostolic authority, that it shall be permitted to the said inquisitors in these regions to exercise their office of inquisition and to proceed to the correction, imprisonment, and punishment of the aforesaid persons for their said offences and crimes…[9]

Until the Malleus was published, it was the consensus among many Church and secular officials that the horrific deeds ascribed to women at these Sabbats did not exist in any physical reality at all but were rather illusion provided by devils.[10] Nider had said as much in the Formicarius, as had Charlemagne and Regino in their works. Nider’s work had been based largely on information gathered from an inquisitor who had punished a male witch. While males could still be accused of witchcraft, and though Institoris and Sprenger made numerous references to male witches, the femininity of the crime was becoming more entrenched with the Malleus. It drew from various sources to suggest that women were more likely to engage in witchcraft:

Why are there more workers of harmful magic found in the female sex, which is so frail and unstable, than among men? ...The first is that women are inclined to be credulous, and because the main aim of the Evil Spirit is to pervert and destroy the Faith, he prefers to attack them. [Quotation from Ecclesiasticus 19.4] The second reason is that the way they are made makes them naturally prone to leak, and this renders it easier for individual spirits [spiritus] to make an impression upon them by giving them revelations…. The third reason is that they have a lewd and slippery tongue and have difficulty in concealing from fellow-women those things they know by means of their evil skill; and because they do not have physical strength, they find it easy to assert themselves through harmful magic.[11]

Institoris and Sprenger argued that women were more prone to harmful magic because they were physically and morally weaker than men. They later went on to say that “[a woman] is more given to fleshly lusts than a man”[12] and that “a wicked woman waivers more quickly in her faith because of her basic character, and also denies her faith more quickly; and this denial is the foundation of acts of harmful magic.”[13] Heresy, or the denial of true faith, marked the beginning of witchcraft. Institoris and Sprenger concluded this section by stating that

one finds more women than men have been infected with the heresy of those who do works of harmful magic. Consequently, it should not be called the heresy of men who do works of harmful magic [maleficorum], but of women who do works of harmful magic [maleficarum], so that the derivation is taken from the party with the better claim to it. Blessed be the most high who continues to preserve the male sex from such a great disgrace right up to the present day. For He was willing to be born and suffer for us as a man, and therefore granted this immunity and exemption of men.[14]

Men were not recused of the crime of heresy in the matter of harmful magic but were excluded from the specific category of witchcraft. Maleficarum, as opposed to maleficorum, was a feminine offense, and the title of the work by Institoris and Sprenger indicates their concern with this subset of crimes.

The Malleus also shows a marked change in the punishment of witchcraft.[15] Assuming that no harm had actually befallen anyone, witchcraft was typically punished mildly before the publication of the Malleus Maleficarum. It most often involved penance when religious authorities were concerned or material compensation when property had been damaged or lost but little else. After the literature began instilling a fear in the lay populace over the fifteenth century, women began to be singled out more easily based on subconscious tactics of fear of groups perceived to exist on the fringe of society. This was also coupled with the fact that many Christians were beginning to perceive it as their duty to isolate and turn witches in to proper authorities. The Malleus stated, “The belief that there are such beings as witches is so essentially a part of the Catholic faith that obstinately to maintain the opposite opinion manifestly savors of heresy.”[16] Indeed, witchcraft became more than heresy, adding to the ways the accused could be prosecuted. As allegations grew more frequent and more serious, the repercussions for such crimes grew more extreme as well. By the 1460s, even before the Malleus had been published, the crime had become a crimen exceptum, or a crime that could be punished on an individual basis, regardless of precedent, based on the perceived threat to the state. As one witchcraft scholar put it, it was a “crime so dangerous to the civil community that the very accusation acted to suspend the traditional procedural protection to the defendant, and opened the way for the most ruthless and thorough kind of persecution, undertaken to protect the state from its most dangerous enemies.”[17]

Particularly female customs were especially susceptible to attack from witch hunters. Women were often accused of ritual infanticide, primarily due to the fact that childbirth was so hazardous in pre-modern times that prospective mothers or midwives were often held responsible for the deaths of newborn children.[18] Midwives were directly referenced in the Malleus and miscarriages were mentioned as possible inflictions caused by witches. Book I, Question 11, is dedicated entirely to “midwives who work harmful magic, kill fetuses in the womb in different ways, procure a miscarriage, and, when they do not do this, offer newly born children to evil spirits.”[19] The Malleus relates a story told to Institoris by an inquisitor in Como:

[The inquisitor] was invited by the inhabitants of the county of Bormio to conduct an investigation into this matter. The reason was that man had lost his child from its cradle, and, while he was searching for it, he saw some women who had gathered together during the night-time and he came to the conclusion that they were slaughtering a child, drinking its fluid, and then devouring [the flesh]…. So [these things] are not incredible. They do happen exactly as people see them. But, there is this point, too. Witch-midwives cause more serious damage in all these matters, as penitent witches have often told me and others. They say, ‘No one does more harm to the Catholic faith than midwives. When they don’t kill the children, they take babies out of the room, as thought they’re going to do something out of doors, lift them up in the air, and offer them to evil spirits.’[20]

The Malleus even differentiated between miscarriages caused by the invocation of “evil spirits,” which was within their purview and those which are caused “by using natural means such as herbs or other obstructive efforts,”[21] which was not. The existence of demons was taken for granted by most in the Middle Ages and it is easy to see why laypeople would view any deeds unfamiliar to them (such as the many folk remedies used by female healers) as unnatural in origin.

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[1] “Witchcraft”, Encarta Encyclopedia 2000.

[2] Barstow, Witchcraze, p. 16

[3] Quoted in Couliano, Ioan P., Eros and Magic in the Renaissance, trans. by Margaret Cook. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1987, p. 152.

[4] Barstow, Witchcraze, p. 113-14.

[5] Ibid. There is some evidence to support the view that some women did indeed engage in hallucinatory drug use, and the common modern conception of witches atop broomsticks has some basis in reality. One of the most popular illicit substances in use in the fifteenth century was a compound made mostly of ingredients from various plants of the nightshade family. This salve was best put into use by applying it to an object and absorbing it directly into the skin, and the most effective method was by taking a broomstick or other similarly shaped object smeared with the material and placing it under the female genitals or armpits where it would be absorbed most quickly. (See Culiano, Eros and Magic in the Renaissance, p. 153.) Women were said to have received visions from demons and spirits while in these drug-induced trances. The sexual connotations here are self-evident, and women, in the same act, were inadvertently condemning themselves to persecution related not only to sexual deviance but also demon invocation, which were beginning to become intertwined in the eyes of the persecutors during the late fifteenth century. This was due in part to the fact that sexual deviance was one of the most intolerable offenses to Christian moral authorities and that women were far more likely to be accused of sexual malpractice since they were considered the more licentious gender. See Barstow, Witchcraze, p. 136. (Barstow describes many reasons for the masculine belief in feminine inferiority. Most specifically, menstrual blood was taken to be a physical example of their “sickness.” It was commonly believed that men used all their blood whereas women had a “superfluous amount.” The retention of this blood could cause serious melancholy in women or at worst trouble in her brain leading to suicide. Monthly menstruation was thought to be the female way of ridding the body of unhealthy melancholy [or the “Saturnine influence”]). See also Dyan Elliott’s Fallen Bodies: Pollution, Sexuality, and Demonology in the Middle Ages. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999, and below, p. 8-9.

[6] Charlemagne. “Selected Capitularies.” Readings in Medieval History. ed. by Patrick J. Geary. Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press, Ltd., 1989, p. 316

[7] Regino of Prum. Canon Episcopi. http://www.personal.utulsa.edu/~marc-carlson/witch/canon.html. edited 9 June 2004.

[8] Couliano, Eros and Magic in the Renaissance, p. 152. This is also discussed briefly in Barstow’s Appendix A (p. 172) in relation to the Malleus Maleficarum.

[9]Innocent VIII, Summis desiderantis affectibus, http://www.thenazareneway.com/malleus_maleficarum.htm., University of Pennsylvania. Dept. of History: Translations and Reprints from the Original Sources of European history, published for the Dept. of History of the University of Pennsylvania., Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press [1897?-1907?]. Vol III:4, pp, 7-10 (Papal Bull), 6-7 (Nider), 10-13 (Hammer).

[10] Couliano, Eros and Magic in the Renaissance, p. 152.

[11] Institoris, Heinrich and Jacob Sprenger. The Malleus Maleficarum. trans. and ed. by P.G. Maxwell-Stuart. Manchester : Manchester University Press, 2007, p. 74 and 75.

[12] Ibid.

[13] Ibid., p. 76.

[14] Ibid. p. 77.

[15] The case has been made that the model for the persecution of medieval and early modern witches had its genesis in antiquity. As the historian Norman Cohn has argued, it was in its most basic form a continuation from ancient times of the persecution of outcast groups feared by political establishments to be insurrectionists. Long before the Christian authorities were condemning heretics and women as practitioners of witchcraft, Romans were using virtually the same tactics for the persecution, ironically, of Christians. This extreme singling out of one portion of society points toward a general fear among the dominant masculine hierarchy both in antiquity and the Middle Ages, both Roman pagan and Christian, of divisions of society thought to exhibit an inclination to undermine their power. We tend to see an evolution in thought and practice from the early persecution of Christians to the later persecution of witches. Christians were regarded early on by the pagan Roman aristocracy as a bizarre and secretive offshoot of Judaism. However, from the Roman point of view, they differed from Jews in some very important ways. Most importantly, they were not an officially recognized religion within the Empire, a benefit that Judaism enjoyed, because Romans respected the ancient roots of Hebrew tradition, of which Christianity had none. (It should be noted that Judaism and the Roman state were not always at ease with each other, and many of the Christian complaints against Rome were echoes of earlier Jewish problems, especially the sacrifice to pagan gods. The Romans brutally put down Jewish revolts in 66 and 132 C.E. and destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 C.E. Far from having a perfect relationship, Jews and Romans at least acknowledged each other with grudging respect. Christianity, which had much more in common with first and second century mystery cults [such as those of the Persian Sun god Mithras; the Egyptian goddess of the moon, nature, and fertility, Isis; the Phrygian “great mother goddess” Cybele; and Sol Invictus or the “Cult of the Unconquerable Sun”], was considered a religion without a history and thus less respectable than Greco-Roman paganism and philosophy or Judaism.) These mysterious, exclusivist, and usually misunderstood practices of Christians engendered anxiety in the Roman authorities that they were a potential threat to the status quo of the Imperial state. The principal reason that the Romans persecuted Christians was because of their unwillingness to pay homage to the Roman gods and goddesses or the Emperor, venerated as a semi-divine figure himself. The Roman religion had always been less a personal religion, as Christianity was, and more a practical application of the loyalty to the state and its ideals, which the gods embodied. Roman citizens were expected to pay reverence to the Emperor, as the pontifex maximus or “highest priest,” and protector gods and goddesses by the public ritual of burning incense, and Christians refused this act of civic patronage due to the fact that they deemed the observance blasphemous and sacrilegious. For Christians, accepting this would have been a betrayal of God, yet for the Romans their rejection was tantamount to treason. By honoring the gods with sacrifice, the citizenry was ensuring its and the state’s protection and endurance, and by refusing participation, Christians alienated themselves from the community—a dangerous action for an eschatological religion that eschewed the here and now in a society that emphasized public responsibility. As a religion that believed the end of the material world was at hand and the perfect Kingdom of God would soon replace earthly imperfection, which Rome symbolized, this act of supreme importance to Romans was inconsequential to Christians. Their god was the only God and any act that challenged that view was intolerable. In the same way, some Christian practices were misunderstood which in turn led to a demonization of the organization. The Eucharist in particular was embellished as a kind of cannibalistic orgy held in secret, where the Christian idea of the transubstantiation of the Host into the flesh of Christ metamorphosed into a wickedly depraved act. The history of the ceremony is expounded in the Bible by Paul, in which he bears witness to the words of Christ at the Last Supper that “This [bread] is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me” (I Corinthians 2:24). The official Church doctrine was to become a literal interpretation that the bread became the physical flesh of Christ, but even before the ecumenical councils, Roman aggressors against Christianity pounced on this as a form of cannibalism (a charge later leveled against witches). In short, the movement to pursue various groups of people was based less on actual behavior and more on perceived behavior, and viewed in the broader historical context it can be seen less as a serious attempt to rid society of a specific group of people and more a trend toward majority power holders to keep lower, powerless groups (Christians at first and women later) subordinate to their spiritual and economic masters. See especially Norman Cohn’s works Europe’s Inner Demons: An Inquiry Inspired by the Great Witch-hunt, New York: Basic Books, 1975 and The Pursuit of the Millennium: Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical Anarchists in the Middle Ages. New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1961.

[16] Op. cit. Note that this is precisely opposite the Church’s position in the Canon Episcopi from over five centuries prior.

[17] Quoted in Barstow, Witchcraze, p. 135. The quote comes from Edward Peters’ The Magician, the Witch, and the Law.

[18] Ibid., p. 40.

[19] Institoris, trans. and ed. by Maxwell-Stuart, Malleus Maleficarum, p. 92.

[20]Ibid. p. 92 and 93. Possibly in reference to the Malleus, a law was passed in France in 1556 that all pregnant women were required to register with local officials and have a witness present at the birth. If the baby was to die and the mother had failed to follow through with these procedural requirements, then the mother or the midwife were often accused of murder. The male influence was also minimal in the affairs of birthing and raising children, and this lack of control often led to the suspicion that women were engaging in acts not permitted by their masculine church or feudal lords, usually because folk remedies and traditional medicine were used in these cases. See also Barstow, Withccraze, p. 135.

[21] Institoris, trans. and ed. by Maxwell-Stuart, Malleus Maleficarum, p. 92.

These "Damnable Superstitions": Legal Double Standards and Cultural Reflections of Witchcraft and Judicial Astrology, ca. 1200-ca. 1600: Introduction

I think that the greatest asset I bring to the table as a soon-to-be graduate student in history is my ability in writing and researching and I said as much in my personal statement. I had decent GRE scores and a pretty good transcript, but it's definitely the writing, researching, and editing that make me a good candidate. What follows is the paper I used as my graduate writing sample, and it has an interesting history. It grew out of a much, much (much) shorter paper I wrote in a senior year class on the late plays of Shakespeare. The original was on the use of astrological discourse and depictions of witchcraft in Shakespearean plays (King Lear, Macbeth, A Winter's Tale, and Troilus and Cressida in particular) and how Shakespeare had to make the witches villainous to escape legal retribution but astrological rhetoric was perfectly acceptable, even though several laws against astrology were current in late Elizabethan England. The conclusion of that paper was that essentially, even though astrology was to some degree illegal in 16th century England, it was popular enough among its people that there was little authorities could do to curb its influence by simply passing a law, and thus it remained in tact, at least as way of speaking about and interpreting events.

For my graduate writing sample, I decided to expand upon the Shakespeare paper I had written, making it even more historically based. Essentially, what resulted was this massive paper (the original was around 8 pages, the current one is 46) that deals with the separate histories of Western witchcraft and astrology, their similar practices despite dissimilar position in the Western European consciousness, and their convergence in popular culture as evinced by writers like Shakespeare. In retrospect, the paper seems a bit too broad, and I think I focus a bit too much on their general histories, perhaps include a few too many unnecessary details, and don't tie together the separate sections of the paper--I think the last section on Shakespeare is probably the strongest section, but it seems somewhat out of place after reading the first two thirds. Many of you who read this blog have already read an earlier version of this paper. This is probably at least the tenth draft and it differers significantly from that one in some important ways: gone are some of the more general descriptions of both astrology and witchcraft as well as some of the less historically relevant literary aspects from Macbeth, and there is a greater emphasis on primary sources, especially the Malleus Maleficarum and the works of King James, Regino of Prum, Charlemagne, Augustine, and Isodore of Seville. I think it's a better paper, though still a little broad. As I mentioned, it's extraordinarily long, so I'm going to post it in seven or eight parts over the course of the next week or so. It is unaltered from the original except that I have removed the footnotes and reinserted them in quasi-MLA format throughout the text, except in the case of relatively important information which I have attempted to reintegrate into the main body. I may or may not post the bibliography later. Enjoy!

These "Damnable Superstitions":
Legal Double Standards and Cultural Reflections
of Witchraft and Judicial Astrology, ca. 1200-ca. 1600

Introduction: "Damnable Superstitions"

In 1601 the Englishman John Chamber, in his diatribe against astrology titled A Treatise Against Iudicial Astrologie, wrote, “Witchcraft…sometime findeth now and then some hard entertainment, as it well deserueth. But this damnable superstition [judicial astrology], which dishonoreth God, polluteth heauen, deceiueth and seduceth men, goeth without touch or check; the Astrologer escaping, while the Witch is punished, may not that be well said?” (Chamber, C2v) The fact that men and women were engaged in similar applications of the occult, but were regarded differently in terms of legal and social status, was oftentimes the case in Elizabethan England. Chamber’s equation with astrology and witchcraft is a fact sometimes overlooked by historians of both. While the two had separate origins and different historical paths, the parallels in practice, purpose, and their positions in popular social consciousness cannot be ignored.

Witchcraft had long been condemned both by religious and political establishments throughout medieval and early modern history, but the similarities between it and astrology have largely been overlooked due to the institutionalized place of the latter in Western scholarly society. Despite the fact that the judicial branch of astrology—that concerned with divination, horoscopy, and the foretelling of the future—was censured to various degrees throughout its history in Western civilization, it remained an edifice of scientific discourse from ancient times until well into the seventeenth century. In general, astrology was accepted because it was practiced principally by learned and noble men from the same socio-economic class as those who also created the laws governing its performance, and it is no coincidence that very similar acts committed by women were condemned, many times for no other reason than the fact that they were perpetrated by females and regarded as heretical (Barstowe, 16). The patriarchal society of Europe was maintained by excluding these works of women, however comparable they were. As we shall observe in this study, the origins of these two disciplines are poles apart in terms of their cultural and ideological geneses; however, the disapproval of both in the Later Middle Ages and early modern period is a fact we can explain when we examine what kept them apart: 1) the masculine/feminine duality rife in pre-modern Europe and the misogynation stemming from this; 2) the accommodation of astrology within Aristotelian-Ptolemaic cosmology, and its influence on the Christian attitude toward the physical universe; 3) the microcosm-macrocosm relationship; 4) the heretical nature of the late medieval interpretation of witchcraft versus astrology; 5) and the early Christian distaste for nearly all things pagan from which the mythology of witchcraft ultimately arises. This last point excluded Greco-Roman learning, into which astrology was incorporated, and Christianity was able to syncretize. This study will track the categorization and punishment of witchcraft, the modes of astrological discourse in the later Middle Ages and early modern times, their similarity in some practices despite contradictory legal standards, and the positions of both in the popular consciousness of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century as evinced by the writings of William Shakespeare in particular.