00:02Other European legal systems also punished witchcraft harshly.
00:08The laws of the Visigoths declared that anyone who killed another person through magical spells must be executed.
00:16In less severe cases, proven witches could be sentenced to lifelong slavery.
00:22In the year 578, when the young son of Fredegund, Queen of the Franks, died mysteriously,
00:29several witches were accused of causing his death through magic.
00:34They were executed.
00:36Later, in the year 814, the Emperor Louis the Pious began enforcing strong laws against sorcerers and necromancers.
00:46His influence led to an important church meeting called the Council of Paris in the year 829.
00:54At that meeting, church leaders asked secular courts to carry out death sentences against convicted witches.
01:01From that point forward, the punishment for witchcraft in many parts of Europe became death.
01:07And whenever authorities seemed slow to act, frightened crowds sometimes took justice into their own hands with even more terrible
01:15consequences.
01:18That was the world people believed they were living in.
01:21A world where witchcraft was seen as a hidden enemy.
01:24A world where law, religion and fear combined to hunt down those accused of dark magic.
01:31And in that world, the fires of the witch hunts were only beginning to rise.
01:36During those same centuries, strange and troubling practices were being reported in England.
01:42Church writings from that time, called penitentials books that described sins and how people should repent,
01:49spent a great deal of attention warning against pagan ceremonies that people were secretly performing.
01:55These rituals were not done openly, instead they were hidden inside Christian celebrations, especially during Christmas and New Year's Day.
02:05People would pretend they were celebrating Christian festivals, but beneath the surface something older and darker was sometimes taking place.
02:12One of the most disturbing customs involved people dressing up as animals.
02:18Men would disguise themselves as horned creatures, wearing the forms of stags, bulls or other horned beasts.
02:24These masquerades were not simple entertainment.
02:28Important church leaders strongly condemned them.
02:32Among those who spoke against these practices were St. Theodore, St. Aldhelm and Egbert of York, along with many other
02:38bishops and church leaders.
02:39They warned that these strange disguises were closely connected with witchcraft and pagan ritual.
02:45Even earlier, St. Caesarius of Arles had spoken about the same custom.
02:50He did not describe it as harmless fun.
02:52Instead, he called it a foul tradition, an evil custom and a most terrible abomination.
02:58Such strong words were not used lightly.
03:01The church leaders believed that beneath the foolish appearance of these masquerades something dark and secretive might be hidden.
03:07To ordinary people watching from the outside, it might have looked like nothing more than strange costumes and noisy celebration.
03:15But the authorities believed the rituals may have carried a deeper and more disturbing meaning that was not visible on
03:21the surface.
03:23Because of fears like these, the laws of the time treated witchcraft very seriously.
03:27In England, King Athilstan, who ruled from 924 to 940, issued laws similar to those already found in parts of
03:36France.
03:37According to these laws, if someone cast a spell that caused another person's death, the punishment was the most severe
03:43penalty available death.
03:45However, during the 11th and 12th centuries, records of witchcraft accusations in England became relatively rare.
03:53When accusations did appear, they were usually handled not by royal courts, but by church courts, also known as ecclesiastical
04:00courts.
04:01Meanwhile, further north in Scotland, the law was even more direct.
04:05Among the laws attributed to King Kenneth I of Scotland, who ruled from 844 to 860, there was a statute
04:13declaring that any sorcerer witch or anyone who called upon spirits for help should be burned to death.
04:18Even at that time, this punishment was not considered new.
04:22It was simply the official confirmation of a punishment that had already existed for many years.
04:28One story from Scotland illustrates how these beliefs were taken seriously.
04:33In the year 968, a group of witches from the town of Forz were accused of trying to kill King
04:38Duffus.
04:39Their method was an old magical practice. They created a wax image representing the king.
04:44Then, slowly and deliberately, they began melting the wax figure over a fire, believing that as the image melted, the
04:51king himself would grow weaker and eventually die.
04:54When this plot was discovered, the accused witches were punished according to the law.
04:59They were burned at the stake.
05:09They had not decorated in the war.
05:10They did not even need to kill him at the war.
05:13They really did not know that he could make aš.
05:14They were wounded on his defense of the law.
05:14They were wounded on him, and they studied on him.
05:19They were wounded on him.
05:19They had to be wounded on him at the moment.
05:20They thought, were up to take aš.
05:20The other people had killed him, he worked.
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