Canon Episcopi
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The title canon Episcopi (or capitulum Episcopi) is conventionally given to a certain passage found in medieval
It is an important source on folk belief and surviving pagan customs in
The conventional title "canon Episcopi" is based on the text's incipit, and was current from at least the 17th century.[1]
Textual history
It is perhaps first attested in the Libri de synodalibus causis et disciplinis ecclesiasticis composed by Regino of Prüm around 906.[2] It was included in
The text was adopted in the Decretum of
The text of Regino of Prüm was edited in Patrologia Latina, volume 132; the Decretum of Burchard of Worms in volume 140. The text of Burchard's Corrector has been separately edited by Wasserschleben (1851),[4] and again by Schmitz (1898).[5]
Contents
The incipit of Gratian's text, which gave rise to the title of "canon Episcopi" reads:
- Episcopi, eorumque ministri omnibus modis elaborare studeant, ut perniciosam et a diabolo inventam sortilegam et magicam artem ex parochiis suis penitus eradicent, et si aliquem virum aut mulierem hujuscemodi sceleris sectatorem invenerint, turpiter dehonestatum de parochiis suis ejiciant.
- "The bishops and their ministers should by all means make great effort so that they may thoroughly eradicate the pernicious art of divination and magic, invented by the devil, from their parishes, and if they find any man or woman adhering to such a crime, they should eject them, turpidly dishonoured, from their parishes."
This condemnation the "pernicious art of divination and magic" (magicam being changed by Gratian from maleficam) is justified by a reference to Titus 3:10-11 on heresy. Then follows a description of the errors of "certain wicked women" (quaedam sceleratae mulieres), who deceived by Satan believe themselves to join the train of the pagan goddess Diana (to which Burchardus added: vel cum Herodiade "or with Herodias") during the hours of the night, and to cover great distances within a multitude of women riding on beasts, and during certain nights to be called to the service of their mistress. Those holding such beliefs are then condemned by the text in no uncertain terms ("that they would only perish in their perfidy without drawing others with them"), deploring the great number of people who "relapse into pagan error" by holding such beliefs. Because of this, the text instructs that all priests should teach at every possible instant that such beliefs are phantasms inspired by an evil spirit.
The following paragraph presents an account of the means by which Satan takes possession of the minds of these women by appearing to them in numerous forms, and how once he holds captive their minds, deludes them by means of
The text emphasizes that the heretical belief is to hold that these transformations occur in the body, while they are in reality dream visions inspired in the mind (Et cum solus spiritus hoc patitur, infidelis mens haec non in animo, sed in corpore evenire opinatur). The text proposes that it is perfectly normal to have nightly visions in which one sees things that are never seen while awake, but that it is a great stupidity to believe that the events experienced in the dream vision have taken place in the body. Examples are adduced, of
The text concludes by repeating that it should be publicly preached that all those holding such beliefs have lost their faith, believing not in God but in the devil, and whosoever believes that it is possible to transform themselves into a different kind of creature, is far more wavering (in his faith) than an infidel (procul dubio infidelis; to which Burchard added: "and worse than a pagan", et pagano deterior).
Reception
The Canon Episcopi has received a great deal of attention from historians of the
The position taken by the author is that these "rides of Diana" did not actually exist, that they are deceptions, dreams or phantasms. It is the belief in the reality of such deceptions which is considered a heresy worthy of excommunication.[6]
The position here is that the devil is real, creating delusions in the mind, but that the delusions do not have bodily reality. This skeptical treatment of
The proponents of these trials were aware of this problem, and the authors of the Malleus Maleficarum, a witch-hunter's manual from 1487 that played a key role in the witch craze, were forced to argue for a reinterpretation of the Canon Episcopi in order to reconcile their beliefs that witchcraft was both real and effective as with those expressed in the Canon.[8]
Burchard of Worms added the
Notes
- ^ Pedro Antonio Iofreu, Defensa del Canon Episcopi, in Pedro Cirvelo (ed.), Tratado en el qual se repruevan todas las supersticiones y hechizerias printed by Sebastian de Cormellas (1628)
- . Retrieved October 15, 2005.
- ISBN 978-0-8122-1751-3, pp. 72-77.
- ^ Wasserschleben, Die Bussordnungen der abendländischen Kirche, Halle, 1851.
- ^ H. J. Schmitz, Die Bussbücher und das kanonische Bussverfahren, vol. 2, Düsseldorf, 1898, pp. 381-467.
- ^ Newman, W. R. (2005). Promethean Ambitions: Alchemy and the Quest to Perfect Nature. United Kingdom: University of Chicago Press.
- ISBN 0-8014-9289-0.
- ^ Malleus Maleficarum, Part II: Chapters 2, 8 and 11.[clarification needed]
- ^ "Excerpt from A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages". Retrieved October 15, 2005.
- ISBN 0-500-27242-5.
References
- Henry Charles Lea, Materials Toward a History of Witchcraft (1890).
- Stephens, Walter (2002). Demon lovers: witchcraft, sex, and the crisis of belief. University of Chicago Press.
- Emil Pauls, 'Zauberwesen und Hexenwahn am Niederrhein' in: Beiträge zur Geschichte des Niederrheins, Jahrbuch des Düsseldorfer Geschichtsvereins 13 (1898), 134-242. (wikisource)
External links
- Dom Hs. 119, foll. 91v-92r Archived 2012-04-26 at the Wayback Machine