Anonymous - European Witchcraft (6.2 MB)
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European Witchcraft is witchcraft and magic that is practised primarily in the locality of Europe. The old liberal view of European Witchcraft holds that witchcraft never existed at all, but was invented by the Catholic Church and other authorities to gain power and prestige.Margaret Murray claimed that witchcraft was a holdover of a worldwide ancient fertility cult however, modern scholars have rejected this as unfounded and due to a deliberate misinterpretation of the evidence. For more information, see her article. An... More >>>Book can be downloaded.
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European Witchcraft is witchcraft and magic that is practised primarily in the locality of Europe. The old liberal view of European Witchcraft holds that witchcraft never existed at all, but was invented by the Catholic Church and other authorities to gain power and prestige.
Margaret Murray claimed that witchcraft was a holdover of a worldwide ancient fertility cult however, modern scholars have rejected this as unfounded and due to a deliberate misinterpretation of the evidence. For more information, see her article. Another school[who?], currently the most influential[citation needed], emphasizes the social history and social patterns of witchcraft accusations. This assumes that witchcraft never existed, but blames widespread superstition rather than the Church for the craze.
Yet another school of thought emphasizes the history of ideas and argues that witchcraft is a composite of superstitions collected across the centuries of these, the most influential are Christian heresy and theology rather than actual pagan practices.Rossell Hope Robbins, among others, contends that the chief motive behind the prosecutions was the desire for the property of the condemned however, the number of confiscations overall was relatively small, and a disproportionately great number of people convicted were of small means.
About Author:
"Anonymous" of course means "without a name" and is used when the author is not known--or sometimes, when a story develops out of an oral tradition over generations with possibly many storytellers contributing to and revising the tale before it is finally written down and becomes literature.
A notable amount of ancient and medieval literature is anonymous. This is not only due to the lack of documents from a period, but also due to an interpretation of the author's role that differs considerably from the romantic interpretation of the term in use today. Ancient and Medieval authors were often overawed by the classical writers and the Church Fathers and tended to re-tell and embellish stories they had heard or read rather than invent new stories. And even when they did, they often claimed to be handing down something from an auctor instead. From this point of view, the names of the individual authors seemed much less important, and therefore many important works were never attributed to any specific person.
