medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
I just came across a perhaps relevant passage on the topic of double belief while
reading a curious little article by George Coulton, "The Excommunication of
Caterpillars, and Kindred Matters," History Teachers Miscellany (1925), 2-7: In the
15th century, the Dominican witch-finder Sprenger distinguished carefully between
lawful and unlawful charms in the village. It is very common in parts of Suabia for
the peasant women to go out before sunrise on the first of May, weave garlands
from the woods, and hang them at the stable doors to protect the beasts for all that
year against sorcery. This (says Sprenger) is quite lawful if the woman have no
respect to sunrise or sunset, and says the Lord's prayer or the Creed while she
makes her garlands. The same distinction is to be observed with those who, on
Palm Sunday, put up a cross or blessed branches or flowers in their vineyards and
cornfields, asserting that such plots remain unharmed while hailstorms ravage the
rest around them [more examples follow] ... the Church retains many of those
ancient un-Christian rites which Brand described in his Popular Antiquities (Bohn's
ed., vol. I, pp. 31, 33, 194, 348, 506-8) [and similar survivals may be found in] P.G.
Hamerton's Round about my House in France (3rd edn, 1876, pp. 256, 344ff).
Hope that's not entirely inappropriate.
Cheers,
Jim Bugslag
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