Witchcraft History
Time Line
672-735CE- Bede writes History of
English, a history of Christianity in England.
His book is referred to in the Malleus Maleficarum
775-790- Catholic church taught that
Witches did not exist. It was considered heresy to say that they were real. A capitulary from Saxony states: 'If anyone,
deceived by the Devil, believes after the manner of the Pagans that any man or woman is a witch and eats men, and if on this
account he burns [the alleged witch]... he shall be punished by capital sentence."
906- Regino of Prum, the Abbot of
Treves, wrote the Canon Episcopi. It reinforced the church's teaching that Witches did not exist. It admitted that some confused
and deluded women thought that they flew through the air with the Pagan Goddess Diana. They said that this did not happen
in reality; it was merely some form of hallucination.
circa 975 - Penalties for Witchcraft
and the use of healing magic were relatively mild. The English Confessional of Egbert said, in part: "If a woman works witchcraft
and enchantment and [uses] magical philters, she shall fast for twelve months.... If she kills anyone by her philters,
she shall fast for seven years." Fasting involved consuming only bread and water.
Circa 1012-first persecution of "heretics"
in Germany
1095- Pope Urban II proclaims First
Crusade
circa 1140- Gratian, an Italian monk,
incorporated the Canon Episcopi into canon law.
circa 1203- The Cathar movement,
a Gnostic Christian group, had become popular in the Orleans area of France
and in Italy. They were declared heretics. Pope Innocent III
approved a war of genocide against the Cathars.
1227- Pope Gregory IX established
the Inquisitional Courts to arrest, try, convict and execute heretics
1252- Pope Innocent III authorized
the use of torture during inquisitional trials. This greatly increased the conviction rate.
1258- Pope Alexander IV instructed
the Inquisition to confine their investigations to cases of heresy. They were to not investigate charges of divination or
sorcery unless heretics were also involved.
1265- Pope Clement IV reaffirms the
use of torture.
1233- First Papal ordinance directly
dealing with witchcraft- Bull by Pope Gregory IX (Ugolino, Count of Segni), to Conrad of Marburg, bidding him to proceed against
the Luciferians. In July 30 of that year, Conrad of Marburg is murdered on the highway in pursuit of his duties.
1258- Bull by Pope Alexander IV (Rinaldo
Conti), to Franciscan Inquisitors, bidding them refrain from judging any cases of witchcraft unless there was some very strong
reason to suppose that heretical practice could also be amply proved.
1321- The last known Cathar was burned
at the stake in 1321 CE.
1398-University of Paris
declares that the pact with the devil is not merely magic but heresy
1428 to 1450- Witch trials of Brianqon,
in the Dauphin6. where 167 local people are burned as witches
1431-Trial of Joan of Arc includes
allegations of witchcraft. She was burned on May 30 at Rouen
1484- December 9 The Bull of Innocent
VIII, decreeing rights to "be empowered to proceed to the just correction, imprisonment, and punishment of any persons, without
let or hindrance, in every way as if the provinces, townships, dioceses, districts, territories, yea, even the persons and
their crimes in this kind were named and particularly designated in Our letters."
1486/87- Publication of a code for
witch-hunters Malleus Maleficarum(Hammer of Witches) written by Sprenger and Kramer. Maximilian I, Emperor of Germany
and King of the Romans signs papers in Brussels giving permission to these two
to carry out duties, and commands cooperation with them.
1490 King Charles VIII issues edict
against fortunetellers, enchanters and necromancers
1493-1541Life of Paracelsus
a physician who claimed that everything he learned came from an old witch.
1515-1588 Weyer, Johan. Born in Brabant
(Belgium). German physician. Believed most witches were melancholy
mentally disturbed old women, incapable of harm. Believed that the belief in witchcraft was caused by the devil. In 1563 wrote
De Praestigiis Daemonum. Was forced out of Netherlands by
the Catholic Governor, Duke of Alba. His book was denounced by Jean Bodin.
1529-Trial at Luxeuil by the Inquisition
1530-1616- Remy, Nicholas. French
Lawyer fighting against witches. In 1595 writes Demonaltry and sites 128 cases
1532-Issue of the Carolina
Code. This code imposed torture and death for witchcraft. The code was technically adopted by the 300-odd small independent
states which then comprised the Holy Roman Empire
1542-Statute of Henry VIII against
witchcraft
1547-Repeal of statute of 1542 in
reign of Edward VI
1557-Toulouse witch trials: forty
accused witches burned
1563-Statute of Queen Elizabeth against
witchcraft
1563-Council of Trent
resolves to win back Germany from Protestantism to the Catholic
Church: intensification of religious struggles and persecutions
1566-The first Chelmsford
witch trials
1566 to 1625-King James VI of Scotland
a.k.a. James I of England and "author" of the King James Bible
1579-The Windsor witches; also the
second Chelmsford trials
1580-Jean Bodin, French judge, writes
De la Demonomanie des Sorciers . Claims that those who denied the existence of witches were themselves witches.
1582-St. Osyth Witches of Essex
(case tried at Chelmsford)
1584-Publication of Discovery of
Witchcraft, by the sceptic Reginald Scot suggesting that maybe witches don't really exist.
1589-Third Chelmsford
witch trials
1589-Fourteen accused witches at
Tours appeal to King Henry III who, is in turn, accused of protecting witches
1590-William .V begins witch hunt
in Bavaria
1590 to 1591The North Berwick Witches
tried.
1593-Warboys witches of Huntingdon
1597-Publication of Demonology by
James VI of Scotland (later James I of England)
1597-Case of the Burton
Boy (Thomas Darling) in Staffordshire
1604-James I statute against witchcraft
1608- Publication of Compendium Maleficarum,
by Francesco Maria Guazzo
1610- Execution of accused witches
in the Netherlands ceased, probably because of a book written
by Weyer's 1563
1611-The Basque Trials of 1611. They
were trials where the Spanish Inquisition wanted to burn witches as heretics, when an inquisitor by the name of Antonio
Salazar de Frias stepped in. After much deliberation and methodical research into the stories of witchcraft he decided that
the men and women charged were under a form of mass hysteria. He further found that "witches" were not harmful, merely delusional
and needed help, not condemnation.
1612-Lancashire witch trials
1616- A second witch craze broke
out in Vizcaya. Again an Edict of Silence was issued by the Inquisition. But the king overturned the Edict and 300 accused
witches were burned alive.
1618-Start of the Thirty Years War
(1618-1648) during which the witch hunt throughout Germany
was at its height
1622-Jamestown ,Virginia,
Goodwife Joan Wright arraigned, she was not clearly tried
1625-Start of general decline of
witch trials in France
1631-Friedrich Spee von Langenfield,
a Jesuit priest, wrote "Cautio criminalis" (Circumspection in Criminal Cases). He condemned the witch hunts and persecution
in Wurzburg, Germany. He wrote that the
accused confessed only because they were the victims of sadistic tortures.
1632-Death of the Prince-Bishop of
Bamberg marks the end of the terrible persecutions in this large principality
( 1609-1632)
1645-Case of the Faversham witches,
Kent Witchfinder-general Matthew Hopkins and the Chelmsford (or Manningtree) witch
trials
1645 to 1692-The New England witch
trials, including that of Margaret Jones
1646-Death of Matthew Hopkins, author
of Discovery of Witches, by tuberculosis
1647-Publication of Discovery of
Witches, Matthew Hopkins
1647-May 25th Windsor
CT, Alse Young hung. She is acknowledged as the first person executed as a witch in North
America but there is little, if any, documentation on this, however
1648-Massachusetts Bay executed its
first witch in 1648- Margaret Jones, and like Jane Hawkins and Anne Hutchinson, she was a midwife and lay healer
1649-Case of the St. Albans
Witches, Hertfordshire
1652-"Dr. Lamb's Darling"- the trial
of Anne Bodenham Trial of the Wapping Witch (Joan Peterson) near London
1655-Last execution for witchcraft
in Cologne (where persecution was less severe)
1657-March, Jennette Huart-and others
strangled and burned as witches in Sugny, Belgium
1662-The trial of Amy Denny and Rose
Cullender of Lowestoft who were tried as witches and executed at Bury St Edmunds in March 1662.
1662-The Bury St. Edmunds witch trials
1663 to 1728- Cotton Mather defends
the trials and executions in New England.
1689- Cotton Mather writes Memorable
Providence Relating to Witchcrafts and Possessions
1670-Rouen witch trials
1674-Trial of Anne Foster at Northampton
1679 to 1682- The notorious Chanibre
d'ardent~ affair- Louis XIV's star chamber investigates poison plots and hears evidence of widespread corruption and witchcraft.
More than 300 people arrested, and 36 executed. The affair ended with a royal edict which denied the reality of witchcraft
and sorcery.
1682-Trial of three Exeter Witches
1684-Last execution for witchcraft
in England (Alice Molland at Exeter)
1692-Salem Witch Trials conducted-
5 hung on July 19 - five on August19, eight on September 22 (a dog was also executed.)
1712-Jane Wenham of Walkern in Herefordshire
is last person convicted of witchcraft in England
1722-Last execution for witchcraft
in Scotland
1736-Repeal of Statute of James I
1745-Last execution for witchcraft
in France (of Father Louis Debaraz at Lyons)
1775-Last official execution for
witchcraft in Germany (of Anna Maria Schwiigel at Kempten
in Bavaria)
1782-Last witch burned in Europe.
1782-Anna Goeldi, hanged at Glaris
in Switzerland, June 17, -1782-last execution known in Switzerland
1787-All witchcraft laws in Austria
repealed
1792-Poland stops execution of witches.
Important because the last trial and judicial execution in Europe itself was probably that of two aged
beldames, Satanists, who were burned at the stake in Poland,
1793-, the year of the Second Partition, during reign of Stanislaus Augustus Poniatowski.
1830's-The church ceased the execution
of witches in South America.
1854-Birth of MacGregor Mathers
a.k.a. Samuel Lidell Mathers, Comte de Glenstrae and Chevalier MacGregor leader of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn-this
organization has probably had more influence than any other organization in the 20th century on Modern Neo-Paganism with its
rituals, grimoires and rules
1891-1946 life of Dion Fortune, the
magical name of Violet Mary Firth, a British occultist, medium and author whose books still influence modern Witchcraft and
Neo-Paganism because she concluded that hostile psychic energy can emanate both deliberately and unwittingly from certain
people and that one can mentally fend off such energy.
1863 to 1963- life of Margaret Murray
who authored The Witch Cult in Western Europe and The God of the Witches
1884-Birth of Gerald Gardner
1898-Aleister Crowley
joins Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn
1899-Aradia- Gospel of the Witches
written by Charles Leland
1900- Teacher to Crowley,
Mathers is ousted from the Golden Dawn for his autocratic ways
1902-formation of the OTO or Ordo
Templi Oreintis ( Order of the Temple of the Orient) a group devoted to sexual magic, by industrialist Karl Kellner who claimed
to have learned Tantric magic from Hindu an d India tantrists. The OTO also claims they hold the sex secrets of the Knight's
of Templars whose leaders were executed during the Middle Ages
1907-Aleister Crowley
forms the Order of the Silver Star
1912-Crowley becomes a leader of
the OTO
1912-Austrian anti-Semite Adolf Lanz
founds the Order of the New Templars based on astrology, rune magic, worship of the God Woton, Germanic paganism, and very
strangely the Kabbalah
1914-OTO centers are established
in Vancouver and Los Angeles by a
disciple of Crowley named Charles Stansfield Jones
1916-Birth of Stewart Farrar
1919-Dion Fortune joins an outer
order of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn
1920-Joan of Arc declared a saint.
1920-George Elliot "Pat" Patterson
III born-was later to found the Georgian Tradition of Witchcraft
1922-Crowley becomes head of the
OTO
1926-Publication of The European
Witch Cult by Margaret Murray
1926 to 1988 life of Alex Sanders-initiated
into Gardnerian Witchcraft and later founded Alexandrian tradition
Montague Summers writes introductions
for old books used for Inquisition praising their works.
1929- Dion Fortune left the branch
of Hermetic Order of Golden Dawn that she was part of to found her own order, the Community of the Inner Light. At first the
order was part of the Golden Dawn, but later separated from it. It continues to be based in London,
but now is known as the Society of the Inner Light. It offers techniques in the Western esoteric tradition.
1937-Gerald Gardner
returns from Ceylon and Malaya as a
rubber and tea planter and customs official with an interest in knives, nudism and the super natural.
1939-Gardner joins a Rosicruician
group call the Fellowship of Crotona through whom he purportedly meets a Witch coven
1946-Aleister Crowley
dies an impoverished heroine addict
1949-Gardner publishes High Magic's
Aid
1950- birth of Janet Owen on June 24, 1950, in Clapton, London. Later
known as Janet Farrar
1951-Witchcraft laws repealed in
England
1951- Harvey Spencer Lewis leaves
the OTO and founds the Mystic Order Rosae Crucis in San Jose after studying
Rosicruicians
1954-Garnder publishes Witchcraft
Today under the pen name Scire
1959-Gardner publishes final book
The Meaning of Witchcraft
1960-publication of The God of the
Witches by Margaret Murray
1962-Raymond Buckland moves to the
USA
1963-Gardner meets Raymond Buckland
who is visiting England and Gardner's
high priestess Monique Wilson initiates him. Buckland then introduces Gardnerian Witchcraft to the USA
1966-Formation of the First
Church of Satan by Anton LeVey in CA
1967-Alex and Maxine Sanders
are married and move to London. They are responsible for the creation of the
Alexandrian tradition of Wicca
1969-Stewart Farrar meets Alex and
Maxine Sanders when Stewart's publisher sent him to interview them for a magazine article
1970-Farrar is initiated by Sanders
on Feb. 21 in London where he meets Janet Owens who becomes his wife Janet Farrar
in 1975(legally)
1970-December-the Farrars start their
own coven
early 1970's-Georgian Tradition of
Witchcraft develops. Founded by George Elliot "Pat" Patterson III
1971-What Witches Do by Stewart Farrar
was published
1971-Issac Bonewits publishes Real
Magic
1974-October-Seleena Fox establishes
Circle Sanctuary
1975-in the spring a number of Wiccan
elders from diverse traditions, all sharing the idea of forming a religious organization for all practitioners of Witchcraft,
gathered to draft a 'covenant' among themselves. These representatives also drafted bylaws to administer this new organization
now known as the Covenant of the Goddess. At the 1975 Summer Solstice, the bylaws were ratified by thirteen member congregations
(or covens). The Covenant of the Goddess was incorporated as a nonprofit religious organization on October 31st, 1975.
1976-Farrars move to Ireland
and hive coven. They leave Susan and David Buckingham
in charge of the old coven in England
1978-Circle Sanctuary incorporated
as a legal church
1980-Georgian Church founded
1980- Dr. Lawrence Pazder and Michelle
Smith wrote "Michelle Remembers." The concept of humans in league with Satan, which had been largely dormant for decades,
was revived. Although the book has been shown to be a work of fiction, it is presented as factual, based on Michelle's recovered
memories. This book is felt to be largely responsible for triggering a new Witch/Satanist panic.
1981-Farrars publish Eight Sabbats
for Witches
1984-Farrars publish The Witches'
Way-provided the first thorough reconstruction of the evolution of the Gardnerian Book of Shadows, as it was developed by
Gardner and Doreen Valiente, including contributions by Valiente herself.
1984-Death of founder of Georgian
tradition George Elliot "Pat" Patterson III
1980 to 1995- Two types of trials
were held in North America, which repeated many of the same features of earlier Witch trials:
Staff at some pre-schools, day care facilities and Sunday schools were accused of ritual abuse of children. Evidence was based
on faulty medical diagnoses and memories of non-existent abuse implanted in the minds of very young children. Tens of thousands
of adults, victimized by Recovered Memory Therapy, developed false memories of having been abused during childhood. In about
17% of the cases, these memories escalated to recollections of Satanic Ritual Abuse. Hundreds of parents were charged with
criminal acts. Almost all of them were innocent. Most of the charges involved acts never happened.
1985- was Dettmer v. Landon. A 29
year old inmate incarcerated at the Powhatan Correctional
Center in State Farm, Virginia claimed that his First Amendment right to the free
exercise of his religion, the Church of Wicca,
was violated by prison officials when they stated that Wicca was not a religion and would not allow access to items that Dettmer
needed to practice his faith. The court found that the prison had violated Dettmer's rights and that Wicca was indeed a religion
with complex doctrines
1988-Death of Alex Sanders
1990's- Some conservative Christian
pastors continue to link two unrelated belief systems: The imaginary religion of Satan-worshipping Witches promoted
by the Church during the Renaissance, and
Wicca and other Neo-pagan religions
which are nature-based faiths and which do not recognize the existence of the Christian devil.
1999- Conservative Christian pastors
occasionally call for a renewal of the burning times, to exterminate Wiccans and other Neo-pagans. One example shows the intensity
of misinformation and hatred that fear of Witches can generate. In 1999-AUG, Rev. Jack Harvey, pastor of Tabernacle Independent
Baptist Church in Killeen, TX allegedly arranged for at least one member of his church to carry a handgun during religious
services, "in case a warlock tries to grab one of our kids...I've heard they drink blood, eat babies. They have fires, they
probably cook them..." During speeches which preceded his church's demonstration against Wiccans, Rev. Harvey allegedly stated
that Witches should be napalmed. One of the Christian's signs read "Witchcraft is an abomination" on one side and "Burn the
witches off Ft. Hood" on the other. 7
(Ft. Hood is a large army base near Killeen
TX. A Wiccan faith group is active there.)
2000-death of Stewart Farrar
