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2006 Origins of the Witch Hunts Michael D. Bailey Iowa State University, [email protected]

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Abstract The first true witch hunts began in western Europe in the early fifteenth century. The ae rliest series of trials took place in Italy and in French- and German-speaking regions around the western Alps. Of course, concern about harmful sorcery had deep roots in medieval Europe, and both officially sanctioned prosecution and popular persecution had been brought to bear on its supposed practitioners long before. But only in the fifteenth century did the full stereotype of diabolical witchcraft develop, which would endure throughout the period of the major witch hunts in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Disciplines Cultural History | European History | History of Religion | Medieval History | Other History

Comments Encyclopedia of Witchcraft: The eW stern Tradition edited by Richard M. Golden. Copyright 2006 by ABC- CLIO. All rights reserved. Reproduced with permission of ABC-CLIO, LLC, Santa Barbara, CA.

This book chapter is available at Iowa State University Digital Repository: http://lib.dr.iastate.edu/history_pubs/57 In 1484, Pope Innocent VIII still had to forbid Duke Muller-Bergstrom. 1927. "Gottesurteil." Pp. 994-1064 in Sigismund of Tyrol to allow ordeals in cases of witch­ Handwiirterbuch des deutschen Aberglaubens. Vol. 3. Berlin: de craft. The Malleus Maleficarum (The Hammer of Gruyter. Witches, 1486) mentioned that the ordeal of the red­ Nottarp, Hermann. 1956. Gottesurteilstudien. Munich: Kosel. hot iron was used in Furstenberg in the Black Forest in "Ordeal." 1917. Pp. 507-533 in Encyclopaedia ofReligion and Ethics. Edited by James Hastings. Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark. 1485, when a woman suspected of sorcery offered her­ self for compurgation with a red-hot iron and thereby won her case. But Heinrich Kramer, the author of this ORIGINS OF THE WITCH HUNTS famous manual, opposed this method of proof and The first true witch hunts began in western Europe in explicitly preferred torture. The judge, however, should the early fifteenth century. The earliest series of trials propose the possibility of an ordeal, because the witch took place in Italy and in French- and German-speak­ usually would agree, certain to be protected against ing regions around the western Alps. Of course, con­ harm by her demon. Her willingness to undergo an cern about harmful sorcery had deep roots in medieval ordeal would betray her all the more (Malleus 3.17£). Europe, and both officially sanctioned prosecution and In order to eliminate any help from the Devil, another popular persecution had been brought to bear on its popular juridical manual, the Layenspiegel (1509) by supposed practitioners long before. But only in the fif­ Ulrich Tengler, similarly did not accept the ordeal for teenth century did the full stereotype of diabolical witches, and the same position could be found in many witchcraft develop, which would endure throughout later juridical texts. the period of the major witch hunts in the sixteenth Nonetheless, from the second half of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. century onward, the swimming test seems to have Of particular importance for the ensuing hunts was been used quite frequently in several parts of Europe the clear development, in the stereotype, of cultic and to discover witches. Oudewater in Holland was conspiratorial aspects of witchcraft. That is, witches famous for its witch ordeal scales, seemingly a were held to be members of organized groups engaging postmedieval invention: if an accused person was in a diabolically directed plot to undermine and destroy lighter than expected, he or she was declared guilty. Christian communities and ultimately Christian civi­ However, other types of ordeal fell into disuse after lization. Although individual trials for witchcraft might the sixteenth-century Reformations. resemble earlier trials for harmful sorcery, full-fledged Beyond Europe, in parts of Mrica and Madagascar, witch hunts were possible only after the notion that the poison ordeal was and is applied often at the witches operated as part of an organized, conspiratorial suspicion of sorcery. If the substance (made from the cult began to become established. A hunt would devel­ fruit of the tanghin-tree) given by the witch doctor to op out of a single trial or a relatively contained group of the suspected person causes vomiting, he is innocent, if trials, either when authorities became convinced of the it produces vertigo or trance, his guilt is considered existence of large numbers of witches operating in a giv­ proved. en area or when convicted witches would accuse, or be forced to accuse, others of membership in their sect. PETER DINZELBACHER Ultimately, witch hunts arose due to the confluence of particular aspects of western European legal procedure, See also: COURTS, SECULAR; INNOCENT VIII, POPE; KRAMER, certain notions of demonic power and activity drawn HEINRICH; LAWS ON WITCHCRAFT (MEDIEVAL); LAYENSPIEGEL; from standard Christian demonology, and the wide­ MALLEUS MALEFICARUM; SWIMMING TEST; TORTURE. References and further reading: spread belief in the real efficacy of harmful magic or Baldwin, John. 1994. "The Crisis of the Ordeal." journal of maleficium. Medieval and Renaissance Studies 24: 327-353. Conce~n over harmful sorcery and official sanctions Barthelemy, Domenique. 1988. "Diversite des ordalies medie­ against such magic were longstanding in medieval vales." Revue historique 280: 3-25. Europe, and legislation against what were perceived to Bartlett, Robert. 1986. Trial by Fire and ~ter. Oxford: be malevolent forms of magic existed in classical antiq­ Clarendon. uity as well. In Christian Europe, condemnation and Browe, Peter. 1932-1933. De ordalibus. 2 vols. Rome: Apud aedes attempts to repress such magic arose from two distinct Pont. Universitatis Gregorianae. traditions, the religious and the secular. From the Gaudemet, Jean. 1965. "Les ordalies au moyen age." Recueil de la earliest days of Christianity, clerical authorities were Societe jean Bodin 17, no. 2: 99-145. convinced that much, if not most, supposed magical Glitsch, Heinrich. 1913. Gottesurteile. Leipzig: Voigtlander. Grimm, Jacob. 1983. Deutsche Rechtsaltertii.mer. Vol. 2. Reprint, activity in the world was actually the result of demonic Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 563-604. forces. Magicians who claimed to manipulate natural, if Lea, Henry Charles. 1971. Superstition and Force: Essays on the occult, forces were suspected instead of invoking and W'llger ofLaw, the W'llger ofBattle, the Ordeal, Torture. 4th ed., supplicating demons. Early Church Fathers such as rev. New York: B. BJorn. St. Augustine condemned the practice of supposedly

856 ORIGINS OF THE WITCH HUNTS demonic magic as a serious crime against the Christian sorcery and would have made difficult the sort of panic faith, and early Church legal codes condemned magic and chain-reaction accusations that typified later witch for this same reason. Throughout the Early Middle hunts. Beginning around the twelfth century, however, Ages, Christian penitentials, handbooks of penance and continuing through the fourteenth and fifteenth used by priests in confession, contained condemnations centuries, European courts, both ecclesiastical and of magic. The penalties prescribed for such practices, secular, increasingly moved away from accusatorial pro­ however, were by later standards relatively light. cedure and instead adopted inquisitorial procedure as Christians who performed magic were to be made to their basic method of operation. recognize and confess their sins and do penance. In cas­ In contrast to accusatorial procedure, under inquisi­ es of extreme recalcitrance, excommunication might be torial procedure, the onus of proving guilt or innocence required. Such penalties generally held force through for a suspected crime fell on officials of the court rather the twelfth century. Thereafter, the Church's greater than on the person who brought the initial accusation. concern over heresy and the perceived need to combat In addition, the court could initiate an investigation or heretics more actively began to feed into an increasing­ trial, even if no accusation of a crime had been made. In ly severe response to magic. many ways, courts operating under inquisitorial proce­ In addition to clerical concerns and ecclesiastical leg­ dure functioned in a more sophisticated way than those islation against magic, there was also a substantial body under accusatorial procedure in terms of the collection of secular legislation in the early medieval period. By no and evaluation of evidence. Yet in cases of suspected means were secular concerns distinct from ecclesiastical sorcery, still a highly secretive crime, visible evidence or ones. Lay rulers generally accepted the clerical associa­ eyewitnesses were almost always rare. In such cases, the tion of magic with demonic invocation and attempted best means of obtaining a conviction was through the to enforce Christian morality in their legal codes. confession of the suspected party. Because it was recog­ Nevertheless, in the most general sense, it can be said nized that people would seldom willingly convict them­ that, although clerical concerns focused on the suppos­ selves of a serious crime, the use of torture was pre­ edly demonic nature of much magic, secular legislation scribed in order to extract the truth from suspects. was more concerned with the harmful effects to which Limitations and controls on the application of torture magic could supposedly be put. Secular law codes were were established, but they could easily be ignored by therefore more narrowly concerned with the crime of overzealous magistrates eager for convictions. Especially maleficium, or harmful sorcery. Many of these law codes in situations in which the nature of the crime aroused prescribed execution as a potential punishment in cases widespread anxiety or panic, as was the case with witch involving malevolent magic. Such condemnation hunts, judicial controls on the use of torture were fre­ stemmed both from traditional Germanic laws against quently set aside. Unrestricted torture allowed magis­ harmful sorcery and from the relatively stringent late­ trates to extract confessions and to secure convictions imperial legal codes against magic and magicians. for virtually any crime that they might suggest to the Despite the existence of such legislation, however, accused. The widespread use of inquisitorial procedure prosecutions for harmful magic remained limited and of torture in the courts of western Europe therefore throughout the early medieval period. A key factor was provided a necessary basis for the later functioning of the use of accusatorial procedure in most European witch hunts. courts prior to the twelfth or thirteenth centuries. The existence of a legal and procedural basis alone, Under accusatorial procedure, an aggrieved parry however, did not give rise directly to witch hunting. would initiate a case by making an accusation of a Rather, the basic level of concern over supposed magical crime. This person then also assumed the responsibility activities had to increase among both religious and sec­ of proving the guilt of the person or persons accused. If ular authorities, as did the conviction that practitioners the accused was judged innocent, however, then the of harmful sorcery were members of heretical and con­ accuser was subject to punishment. This procedure spiratorial demonic cults. Initial signs of a new level of served to limit the number of entirely specious accusa­ concern in these areas become evident in the early four­ tions. With crimes that supposedly involved the use of teenth century. The trial of Lady Alice Kyteler of magic, which was secretive by its very nature, clear Kilkenny, Ireland, is often seen as a sort of proto-witch proof of guilt was often impossible to attain. In these hunt from this period. Lady Alice had married a succes­ cases, the accused might be forced to undergo a judicial sion of wealthy men. Her first three husbands died ordeal. In theory, this practice placed the determination under mysterious circumstances, and when her fourth of guilt or innocence in the hands of God. In fact, the husband began to sicken, she was accused of bewitch­ practice was highly subjective, and certainly no accuser ing these men and then murdering them through could be sure of ultimate vindication by these means. In sorcery. In 1324, Bishop Richard Ledrede took up the sum, aspects of accusatorial procedure tended to stifle case, and ultimately Alice and a group of suspected the potential for widespread accusations of harmful accomplices were convicted not just of using harmful

ORIGINS OF THE WITCH HUNTS 857 magic but also of renouncing the Christian faith and demons, and in 1326 he formally excommunicated any gathering together as a cult to worship and offer sacri­ Christian found guilty of practicing sorcery that fices to demons. Although one member of this group involved invoking demons. was burned at the stake, Alice escaped punishment by Concerns about the demonic, heretical, and ultimately fleeing to England, and her trial did not trigger any cultic nature of much magical activity were rising among similar accusations in Ireland at the time. Nevertheless, clerical authorities throughout the fourteenth century. In the case revealed a connection being made between the early part of the century, the inquisitor Bernard Gui harmful sorcery and demonic invocation as well as the evinced a clear but still relatively slight concern over sor­ cultic worship of a demon. cery. In his inquisitorial handbook Practica inquisitionis A similar foreshadowing of later aspects of witch heretice pravitatis (The Practice of the Inquisition of hunts can be seen in the trial of the Knights Templar for Heretical Depravity), written around 1324, Gui devoted heresy, sodomy, and idolatry and the ultimate suppres­ only a small section to a discussion of sorcery, and, sion of the Templars as a military and religious order. In although he considered sorcery to be an aspect of heresy, actuality, the case was politically motivated. In 1307, did not discuss the nature of heretical sorcery in detail. officials of King Philip IV of France brought a range of Fifty years later, however, the inquisitor Nicolas Eymeric, charges against the Templars so that the royal govern­ in his handbook Directorium inquisitorum (Directory of ment could seize the tremendous wealth and property Inquisitors), written in 1376, presented an extended controlled by the knights. Several key Templar leaders argument about the necessarily heretical nature of were arrested and questioned under severe torture. demonic magic. The very act of invoking a demon, Ultimately, most confessed to a range of charges involv­ Eymeric argued, constituted an act of worship even if no ing heretical beliefs and renunciation of the Christian other overt signs of worship were present. Hence, all acts faith, homosexual practices, and the worship of a of demonic magic automatically entailed idolatry and demon in the figure of a head known as Baphomet. therefore were evidence of heresy. Eymeric's arguments Succumbing to French pressure, Pope Clement V offi­ proved definitive for many clerical authorities who came cially suppressed the order in 1312, and in 1314 the after him and provided the basis for inquisitorial action Templar grand master, Jacques de Molay, and other against suspected sorcerers throughout the entire period leaders were burned at the stake. Although charges of of the witch hunts. sorcery did not figure significantly in the trial of the Once the practice of supposedly demonic magic was Templars, the case nevertheless serves as an example of firmly established as entailing the worship of demons procedures that would later characterize witch hunts­ and thus as a form of heresy, it was perhaps natural that extreme and unfounded accusations and false confes­ suspected practitioners of sorcery should have become sions secured through the use of torture (many suspected also of operating in organized cults just as Templars recanted their initial confessions, but this other supposed heretical groups were thought to do. only exposed them to the charge of being relapsed Throughout the later fourteenth century and on into heretics). the fifteenth, the number of trials for harmful sorcery The cases of the Templars and of Alice Kyteler also rose significantly, and critically, in the course of these revealed another important aspect of the rise of eventu­ trials, elements of diabolical heresy were grafted onto al witch hunts in western Europe, namely, that in the charges of simple malejicium. These elements of dia­ early fourteenth century, charges of harmful sorcery bolism included the notion that witches were members and the cultic worship of demons were being brought of demonically organized cults that met secretly to against relatively high-status defendants. Charges of the feast, dance, and worship demons or the Devil. They use of sorcery at princely courts occurred throughout also supposedly engaged in sexual orgies with each oth­ the Middle Ages, but the number of clearly political er, with demons, or with the Devil, and they performed sorcery trials seems to have risen in the early fourteenth a number of other horrific acts, such as murdering and century, thereby heightening concerns about the poten­ eating babies or small children and desecrating the cross tial threat posed by harmful sorcery among powerful and the Eucharist. classes across Europe. Not even the papal court was The reasons for the rise in the number of trials dur­ immune. In 1258, Pope Alexander N had ordered all ing this period are uncertain. To some extent, the papal inquisitors to refrain from involving themselves apparent rise may be a result of better survival of in cases of sorcery, unless the sorcery clearly entailed sources from this era. However, contemporary authori­ some form of heresy. In 1320, however, Pope John ties clearly believed that sorcery and witchcraft were a XXII, deeply concerned over matters of sorcery at least growing threat in the world, which seems to have been in part because he feared his own political enemies were reflected in an actual increase in the numbers of accusa­ using magic against him, ordered inquisitors to extend tions and prosecutions. Many studies have revealed that their investigations to include all matters of sorcery that accusations of witchcraft and witch hunts often seemed to involve the invocation and worship of originated in economic or social disruptions at the local

858 ORIGINS OF THE WITCH HUNTS level: agrarian failures; persistent inclement weather; trials ofWaldensian heretics, and the mechanisms used new economic or commercial patterns in a region; or by authorities to uncover and root out heretics were disputes between neighbors over property, social stand­ taken over and applied to witches as well. In particular, ing, or any number of issues. An overall rise in trials close cooperation between secular and ecclesiastical might be explained by a generalized economic or social authorities seems to have typified many early witch crisis that exacerbated such local conflicts. Attempts to hunts. At the same time, some of the first sources to link particular rises in prosecutions for witchcraft to describe the notion of cultic, conspiratorial witchcraft more generalized crises of this nature, however, have were being written in these regions. The Lucerne civic revealed disjunctures as often as they have uncovered chronicler Hans Friind described the supposed activi­ clear connections. ties of a cult of witches in Valais in 1428. Around 1436, Another general factor underlying growing concern the French secular judge Claude Tholosan produced a over witchcraft in this period was the drive for religious treatise on witchcraft based on his experience conduct­ reform originating in the Church. Many clerical ing witchcraft trials in Dauphine. Probably also in the authorities were convinced that Christian faith was middle of the decade, an anonymous clerical author, declining in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth cen­ most likely an inquisitor, penned the Errores turies, and that a general moral and spiritual rejuvena­ Gazariorum (Errors of the Gazars or Gazarii; i.e., tion was needed throughout Christian society. Cathars, a common term for heretics and later witches), Extremely popular preachers such as Vincent Ferrer and describing the errors of that heretical sect of witches, Bernardino of Siena carried this reformist message to and in 1437 and 1438, the Dominican theologian the people through the medium of popular sermons. Johannes Nider wrote extensive accounts of witchcraft, The threat posed by witches to Christian society was a largely based on trials conducted by the secular judge key theme employed by such men. Not surprisingly, a Peter of Bern in the Simme valley of the Bernese number of early witchcraft trials occurred in Dauphine Oberland, a mountainous region south of the city. and western Switzerland in the wake of Ferrer's journeys Nider collected many of his accounts of witchcraft through these regions, and Bernardino was associated while at the Council of Basel, a great ecumenical coun­ with several witchcraft trials in Italy. cil of the Church that met from 1431 until 1449 in the Most witchcraft trials in this period began with accu­ city of Basel, just to the north of the regions where the sations of simple male.ficium without any hint of other greatest early witch-hunting activity took place. This heretical or diabolical elements. Accusations were usu­ council, which drew clerics from across Europe, served ally made by people against their close acquaintances or as a sort of clearinghouse for ideas and concerns about neighbors, in other words, people with whom they witchcraft and helped to spread the initially fairly local­ would have come into social or economic conflict, and ized concern over cults of witches and the dynamics of these sorts of tensions generally underlay initial charges witch hunting to other regions of Europe. Once the of male.ficium. Once a case was brought to court, how­ idea of conspiratorial cults of witches became widely ever, trained judges, ecclesiastical or secular but equally established across Europe, witch hunts could and did familiar with concepts of demonic magic and heresy, occur in almost every region of the Continent. would introduce notions of diabolism. Once these MICHAEL D. BAILEY notions were fully overlaid onto the supposed practice of harmful sorcery, the stereotype of witchcraft See also: ACCUSATIONS; ACCUSATORIAL PROCEDURE; BAPHOMET; BASEL, COUNCIL OF; BERNARDINO OF SIENA; CHRONOLOGY OF emerged, and actual witch hunts were possible. Thanks WITCHCRAFT TRIALS; DAUPHINE, WITCHCRAFT TRIALS IN; to the notion of witches operating as members of ERRORES GAZARJORUM; EYMERIC, NICOLAS; FROND, HANS; demonically organized, conspiratorial cults, accusations GUI, BERNARD; HERESY; IDOLATRY; INQUISITION, MEDIEVAL; and trials could now originate not froin individual con­ INQUISITORIAL PROCEDURE; ITALY; JOHN XXII, POPE; KYTELER, flicts, but from a general sense of threat to the commu­ ALICE; LAUSANNE, DIOCESE OF; LAWS ON WITCHCRAFT nity. A single accusation might fuel many more, and (MEDIEVAL); MOUNTAINS AND THE ORIGINS OF WITCHCRAFT; individual suspects could be expected, under torture or NIDER, JOHANNES; ORDEAL; PETER OF BERN; SAVOY, DUCHY OF; threat of torture, to name fellow members of the large SWITZERLAND; TEMPLARS; THOLOSAN, CLAUDE; TORTURE; cult of witches that authorities or the entire community TRIALS; VALAIS; VAUD, PAYS DE; VAUDOIS (WALDENSIANS); might suspect was operating in a region. WITCH HUNTS. The earliest series of witchcraft trials and witch hunts References and further reading: Bailey, Michael D. 1996. "The Medieval Concept of the Witches' took place in the early fifteenth century in regions of Sabbath." Exempl4ria 8: 419-439. Italy; in Savoy and Dauphine; in the territories of the --. 2001. "From Sorcery to Witchcraft: Clerical Conceptions Swiss cities of Bern, Fribourg, and Lucerne; and in the of Magic in the Later Middle Ages." Speculum 76: 960-990. diocese of Lausanne and Sion (roughly the present --. 2003. Battling Demom: Witchcraft, Heresy, and Reform in Swiss cantons ofVaud and Valais). In many of these the Late Middle Ages. University Park: Pennsylvania State regions, witchcraft trials grew directly out of earlier University Press.

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Blauert, Andreas. 1989. Friihe Hexenverfolgungen: Ketzer-, other external cultural influences from Byzantium, Zauberei- und Hexenprozesse des 15. ]ahrhunderts. Hamburg: including the magical and divinatory beliefs and prac­ Junius. tices that were a notable feature of Byzantine popular --, ed. 1990. Ketzer, Zauberer, Hexen: Die Anfonge der culture but excluding, for the most part, the intellectu­ europiiischen Hexenverfolgungen. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. al interest in magic of such Byzantine philosophers as Borst, Arno. 1992. "The Origins of the Witch-Craze in the Alps." Pp. 10 1-122 in Medieval Worlds: Barbarians, Heretics, and Michael Psellus (1018-ca. 1078). At the level of popu­ Artists. By Arno Borst. Translated by Eric Hansen. Chicago: lar belief, Orthodox Christians had a good deal in com­ University of Chicago Press. mon with Latin Christians, although the details of Cohn, Norman. 2000. Europe's Inner Demons: The Demonization indigenous pagan survival differed. Literary evidence ofChristians in Medieval Christendom. Rev. ed. Chicago: suggests that both in Byzantium and Russia, magic was University of Chicago Press. usually regarded as demonic, and the notion of the pact Kieckhefer, Richard. 1976. European Witch Trials: Their with the Devil was familiar. At a more official level, the Foundations in Learned and Popular Culture, 1300-1500. teaching of the Orthodox Church before the schism Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. with Rome was essentially the same in matters of witch­ ---. 1989. Magic in the Middle Ages. Cambridge: Cambridge craft and magic as that of the Latin Church. University Press. Insofar as there was an official attitude, it derived Klaits, Joseph. 1985. Servants ofSatan: The Age ofthe Witch Hunts. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. from the opinions of the early Church Fathers and acts Levack, Brian P. 1995. The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe. of the various early councils and synods, which tended 2nd ed. London and New York: Longman. to equate witchcraft with paganism. Reflecting the Peters, Edward. 1978. The Magician, the Witch, and the Law. ambivalence of Jewish attitudes toward magic, divina­ Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. tion, and witchcraft expressed in Scripture, the Church ---. 2002. "The Medieval Church and State on Superstition, Fathers were not unanimous concerning the reality of Magic, and Witchcra&: From Augustine to the Sixteenth witchcraft. Jewish views ranged from the outright con­ Century." Pp. 173-245 in The Middle Ages. Vol. 3 of The demnation of Exodus 22: 18 (22: 17; "Thou shalt not Athlone History ofWitchcraft and Magic in Europe. Edited by suffer a witch to live") and the "abominations" listed in Bengt Ankarloo and Stuart Clark. London and Philadelphia: Deuteronomy 18:10-14 to the frequent references to Athlone and University of Pennsylvania Press. magical practices and belief in their efficacy. Patristic Russell, Jeffrey Burton. 1972. Witchcraft in the Middle Ages. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. opinion did, however, agree in condemning magical practices and was supported in this by the tradition of Roman law. Among the early theologians who did ORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY appear to believe in the reality of witchcraft, St. Nearly all early modern witchcraft trials occurred in Augustine of Hippo, with his extensive knowledge of European and American regions where Roman the magic as well as the philosophy of the ancient Catholicism or Protestant denominations prevailed; world, did most to elaborate a theological view; but as a state- or church-sanctioned witchcraft trials were less Latin, his writings had less influence in the East (where frequent in Orthodox Christian areas. he was sometimes regarded with suspicion) than in the Orthodox churches are those Christian churches of West. Augustine's works were unknown in Russia until the East and of eastern and southeastern Europe that relatively modern times. accepted the primacy of Constantinople rather than The teaching of the early Church relating to magic Rome after the schism of the eleventh century. Slavic and witchcraft, often found as condemnations in patris­ Orthodox churches, plus Moldavia and Wallachia, were tic sources (e.g., St. Basil and St. John Chrysostom) or founded by the missionary activity of the Greek expressed as prohibitions (especially to the clergy) in Church from the ninth century onwatd. The Russian early collections of ecclesiastical law, was summarized at Church in Muscovy became the largest, and, after the Constantinople in the acts of the Trullan Synod (692), fall of Constantinople in 1453, also the only substantial which formalized the work of the fifth and sixth ecu­ national Orthodox Church in an independent country. menical councils (Constantinople II and III) but was It was effectively autocephalous after its rejection of the later rejected by the Latin Church. This synod regulat­ reunion of the Orthodox churches with the Latin west­ ed marriage and sexual behavior. It also forbade associa­ ern Church that had been agreed in a Decree of Union tion with Jews; mixed bathing; attending horse races, at the Council of Florence in 1439, but was thereafter mimes, or animal shows; theatrical dancing; consulting largely repudiated in most Orthodox areas. The Russian diviners, sorcerers, cloud-chasers, or purveyors of Church elected a metropolitan of Moscow in 1448 amulets; celebrating the Calends, Vota, and Brumalia without reference to Constantinople and established (Greek festivals in honor of Pan and Dionysius); wear­ the Patriarchate of Moscow in 1589. ing comic, satiric, or tragic masks; or jumping over fires The establishment of the Russian and southeastern at the beginning of the month. One cannot be sure how European Orthodox churches was accompanied by far this list represented genuine current concerns, but

860 ORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY