The ecclesiastical literature from the first half of the Middle Ages does not leave us without significant hints apparently corroborating this opinion. St. Egidius, who died in 659 A. D., speaks frequently against the _fire-worship_, practiced during midsummer nights, which as inherited from pagan forefathers was accompanied with dancing, and against the invocation of the sun and moon (which he calls "the demons Hercules and Diana"), and against worshipping in groves and by trees, springs and crossroads. The apostle of the Allemans, St. Firminus, who died in 754 A. D., preaches against the same customs, and especially dwells on the pertinacity with which old women adhere to the infernal festivals with their magical songs and dances. Modern authors on the subject in question speak of a _synodal decree_ which is said to date back to the council of Ancyra in 314 A. D., and which enjoins the bishops especially to watch the godless women who, deceived by the delusions of the demons, imagine that they traverse in the night, in the company of Diana and Herodias and riding on certain animals, wide tracts of country, and are required to assemble for a certain number of nights by the command of their mistress. But although this synodal decree is spurious and belongs to a far later period and a different locality (it is referred to for the first time in the ninth century, in a work composed by the Abbot Regino[44]), it is old enough to deserve our attention here. To the decree is appended a number of questions which the bishops must put to such women in confession. Among them are the following, which connect immediately the witch-journey with heathen traditions:-- "Have you followed the practice inherited from the heathen of considering the course of the stars, the moon and the eclipses of the new moon? And have you imagined that by the exclamation 'Conquer, moon' (_vince, Luna_), you could reproduce its light? When you wished to pray, have you resorted to other places than the church, as, for instance, to springs, stones, trees or crossroads? Have you there kindled fires and sacrificed bread or aught else?" John of Salisbury, who died A. D. 1182, writes of women who, led by a "night-queen," assemble and celebrate banquets at which they most relish children stolen from their cradles. He still supposed that this may not really be a fact, but only demoniacal illusions, phantasmagorial tricks played by the devil, and empty dreams, especially as such things happen among women, and not among men, who possess a stronger reason. The same view of the case is held by William of Auvergne, bishop of Paris (died A. D. 1248). But already during the life of this prelate the belief in the reality of witch-feasts was sanctioned by the authority of Pope Gregory IX., and every doubt in regard to it was declared to be heresy.