The Witch-cult in Western Europe: A Study in AnthropologyMurray, Margaret Alice
Religion
The Witch-cult in Western Europe: A Study in Anthropology
Murray, Margaret Alice
Ethnology; Witchcraft -- Great Britain
The questions asked by the judges at Joan's trial show that they were well
aware of an underlying organization of which they stood in some dread. The
judges were ecclesiastics, and the accusation against the prisoner was on
points of Christian faith and doctrine and ecclesiastical observance. It
was the first great trial of strength between the old and the new
religions, and the political conditions gave the victory to the new, which
was triumphant accordingly. 'We have caught her now', said the Bishop of
Beauvais, and she was burned without even the formality of handing her over
to the secular authorities. After the execution, the judges and counsellors
who had sat in judgement on Joan received letters of indemnity from the
Great Council; the Chancellor of England sent letters to the Emperor, to
the kings and princes of Christendom, to all the nobles and towns of
France, explaining that King Henry and his Counsellors had put Joan to
death through zeal for the Christian Faith; and the University of Paris
sent similar letters to the Pope, the Emperor, and the College of
Cardinals. Such action can hardly be explained had Joan been an ordinary
heretic or an ordinary political prisoner. But if she were in the eyes of
the great mass of the population not merely a religious leader but actually
the incarnate God, then it was only natural for the authorities, who had
compassed her death, to shelter themselves behind the bulwark of their zeal
for the Christian religion, and to explain to the heads of that religion
their reasons for the execution. On the other hand, the belief that Joan
was God Incarnate will account, as nothing else can, for the extraordinary
supineness of the French, who never lifted a finger to ransom or rescue
Joan from the hands of either the Burgundians or the English. As God
himself or his voluntary substitute she was doomed to suffer as the
sacrifice for the people, and no one of those people could attempt to save
her.
In comparing the facts elicited at the trial with the Dianic Cult as set
out in the previous chapters, the coincidences are too numerous to be
merely accidental. I do not propose to enter into a detailed discussion of
the trial, I only wish to draw attention to a few points in this connexion.
The questions put to Joan on the subject of fairies appear to the modern
reader to be entirely irrelevant, though much importance was evidently
attached to her answers by the Court. She could not disprove, though she
denied, the popular rumour that 'Joan received her mission at the tree of
the Fairy-ladies' (Iohanna ceperat factum suum apud arborem Dominarum
Fatalium), and she was finally forced to admit that she had first met the
'Voices' near that spot. Connexion with the fairies was as damning in the
eyes of the Bishop of Beauvais and his colleagues as it was later in the
eyes of the judges who tried John Walsh and Aleson Peirson.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account