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(Before reading this article,
read an introduction to the Canon Episcopi.)

On first examination, with the questionable benefit of a modern outlook, the Canon Episcopi seems to be full of Christian symbolism and demonology, and to be condemning belief in Magic, and in women who claim to fly by night with Diana. The whole thing – Magic, flights, Diana, demons, and so on – is an illusion, a dream, and no more than the stuff of dreams.

The biblical quotes and the references to demons, even to arts invented by demons, to the devil, and to Ezekiel and John and Paul, all cast a distinctly Christian flavor to the document. Perhaps the Canon is talking about some odd Christian breakaway sect, or a group of heretics of some sort. Indeed, the very first paragraph explicitly mentions "heretics" (Latin haereticum), and heretics are unorthodox Christians. If the Canon is describing Witches, then Witches are presented as Christian heretics.

But first impressions may mislead; the current understanding of the Canon is the product of a millennium of re-interpretation. Is the Canon really proclaiming everything to be a dream? It seems to be claiming there really are people who have such dreams. The Canon claims there are people (mostly women, apparently) who do have these dreams themselves – or at least, they "believe and profess" that they do. Further, these "wicked women" even believe these dreams to be real, to be things actually and physically done. What the Canon tells us is not: You shouldn't imagine there are people who believe this of themselves. No, what it says is: There are people who believe this of themselves – though, it also claims, they are dangerously mistaken.

The scholars who insist the Canon to be a "skeptical" document fail to distinguish adequately between the ideas of the Canon's author and the ideas of the people whom the author is describing, the common folk who were the target of the denunciations. If we point to the Canon's "skepticism" as proof Witchcraft was not believed in at the beginning of the tenth century, we have to be sure to say who was doing the not-believing. It may be that the author of the Canon (whoever that was) disbelieved in Witchcraft. But the document was obviously written in an effort to help bishops deal with people who did so believe, and the Canon itself claims (in our Paragraph 3) that there are an "innumerable multitude" of these.

But more importantly, the Canon does not merely claim there were people who believed others were Witches. If the Canon is to be taken at face value, then there were people who believed that they, themselves, went out at night, physically and actually, with Diana, the Pagan Goddess. They claimed to ride upon animals, and to travel long distances and see many things and many people. They were summoned on fixed nights, which implies a calendar of festivals or of rituals. And they viewed themselves as being subject to the laws and commands of the Lady Diana. The word used, translated here in our Paragraph 2 as "Lady," is domina, to be contrasted with dominum nostrum, "our Lord," in the final paragraph.

This leads to a number of important realizations, a number of related details which emerge from this document. The Canon takes great pains to point out how only Yhvh can create things or change the form or shape or species of a thing. Paragraph 3 goes so far as to remind us there is "nothing of divinity or divine will beyond the one God," as if somebody held the matter to be in some doubt. The Canon insists that priests must preach the truth, "with all insistence," as if people would otherwise be tempted to believe something else. These points were insisted upon by the Canon because the author of the Canon was convinced there were people who believed otherwise.

If this is a sect of Christian heretics, it is a very strange one, undocumented elsewhere. No known Christian heresy worshipped Diana under a title, domina, comparable to that of Yhvh, dominus. No known Christian sect believed Diana to be able to change the form or species of animals. No known Christian heretics believed they themselves rode by night upon animals, or were summoned to obey the commands of a Pagan Goddess. In fact, nowhere does the Canon claim these people to be Christians. Quite the contrary, they are identified as being "caught in the errors of the Pagans." The only passages which seem to imply they were Christians are the reference to heretics and the fact that priests, bishops, and other Church ministers felt free to preach to them, eject them from their parishes, and so on. Yet certainly, the Church has a long history of preaching to non-Christians, and of attempting to teach the tenets of Christianity to non-Christians.

Of course, simply because some early tenth century abbot claims there to have been people who believed these things, that doesn't mean there actually were such. He may well have made the whole thing up. But there seems little reason for him to have done so. And indeed, the rest of the rules and laws in Regino's book have to do with real acts and crimes committed by actual people: murder, sexual violations, theft, larceny, sacrilege, and so on. Since people really did all these things, it makes no sense to maintain that no one did what Regino is describing here – that is, believe they went off at night with Diana. Why should he make up this thing?

It isn't necessary to postulate there were people who actually did ride upon certain beasts at night, in order to theorize there were people who thought they did so. At the very least, it's pretty obvious Regino thought there were people who believed this of themselves. It's also clear that Regino thought they viewed these matters in ways other than how Regino himself viewed them.

Further, the whole thing seems related somehow to Magic, for the Canon begins with a condemnation of this "pernicious and devil-invented" art. As early as the opening years of the tenth century, at the very latest, Churchmen associated "sorcery and malefic arts" – sortilegam et maleficam artem – with demons, with heresy, and with riding by night with Diana. Yet Standard School scholars insist Witchcraft would not be invented by the Church for at least another four hundred years.

Indeed, there's quite a lot here which might lead one to question the conclusions of the Standard School.

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Scholars often say it's impossible to guess what it is that accused Witches actually believed about themselves. Perhaps this is so, but we can say quite a lot about what Church writers thought the Witches believed. It would be useful to go through the Canon line by line, and see what is there claimed about the beliefs of the people described. These beliefs can then be compared to what we know of actual belief systems, ancient and modern, Christian and Pagan, to see whether the claimed beliefs are consistent with anything else of which we were already aware. If so, this would be good evidence – though admittedly not sure proof – of what kind of sect was actually being described.

A few assumptions will be made for the time being, for ease of language and to provide a baseline for theorizing. These assumptions will all be questioned later, and reassessed if necessary. The first assumption is that it isn't clearly known who wrote the Canon. But whoever it was, he honestly attempted to describe what he thought was really going on. In addition to describing some sect, the Canon also contains reactions to that sect. It describes not only what its author thought the sect believed, but also what he thought about those beliefs. For the time being, the issue of whether there actually were any such people at all, or whether the Canon's author made them up, will be temporarily sidestepped. For ease of language, it will for now merely be assumed that these people existed, and the Canon describes them accurately, if with a biased and unflattering pen.

In analyzing the Canon, it will be vital to distinguish between the reported ideas of the sect itself on the one hand, and, on the other, the interpretation of those ideas in the mind of the Canon's author. The exercise will be similar to reading a description of Judaism in the words of a Nazi propagandist. It's obviously important to separate the bigoted opinions of the author from whatever realities may underlie the author's descriptions.

And finally, for the time being, the issues involving the definition of the word "Witch" will be simply put aside, as will the question of whether the Canon is describing Witches at all, or some other sect. Instead, though comparison will occasionally be made to Medieval conceptions of Witchcraft, this discussion will simply refer to "the sect described by the Canon," or "the Canon sect," until it's more clear who and what is actually being discussed.

So, begin with the opening lines of the Canon. (And keep in mind, the division into paragraphs is mine, and is done simply for ease of discussion. The actual Canon is all one long paragraph.)

From Paragraph 1, the Canon sect can be seen to have used Magic. This being so, it would be safe to assume they believed Magic to actually work, since otherwise there'd be no reason to use it. The Canon's author claims these arts were "devil-invented" (diabolo inventam), but this is his belief, not necessarily that of the Canon sect.

The Latin language has no equivalent for the English articles "a" or "the," so it's difficult to say whether the Canon is meant to imply Magic to have been invented by a devil or The Devil – especially since "devil," diabolo, is not capitalized there. The present translation, therefore, leaves this ambiguous.

The Canon actually does not contain the Latin term for Magic, magice or ars magica, the "magic arts." Two other terms are used, which are here translated as "sorcery" and "malefic arts," sortilegam and maleficam artem. The first of these is from sortilege, which comes from the idea of sorting lots, and specifically has to do with divination. The second term literally means "harmful arts." By Regino's time, Magic was already referred to as ars, "the Art," and this usage, in fact, goes back to pre-Christian writers, and is still in use in esoteric and Magical literature today. Maleficam artem could thus be translated as "harmful Magic," and an argument could be made for the Canon to only be condemning those forms of Magic which were used for harmful purposes, and leaving helpful or neutral Magic (other than divination) out of the discussion altogether.

The central idea of this first paragraph is that the Canon disapproves of sortilegam and maleficam artem, and wants these things to be "uprooted" entirely from Christian parishes. To that end, any man or woman who is a member of this sect – that is, a sectarian, sectatorem – must be ejected. Presumably, if all users of Magic are expelled, the use of Magic will cease – at least, within the borders of the parish.

This provision clearly condemns the practice of "the pernicious and devil-invented sorcery and malefic arts." It says nothing about the belief in Magic, but rather condemns the practice of Magic – as if Magic could be practiced, was being practiced, and could have real and "pernicious" effects. One can assume the Canon's author believed Magic to be effective. This paragraph certainly does not claim otherwise, and since the Canon is objecting to the practice of Magic, not to the belief in Magic, it seems reasonable to conclude the author thought Magic would work – or, at the least, that it was being tried.

The Canon quotes Paul's letter to Titus (3:10-11): "Avoid a heretic after the first and second warning, knowing he is subverted who is of that kind," which implies the people of this sect are to be viewed as heretics. This is one of the places where the actual age of the Canon Episcopi may be important, for the word "heretic" underwent a change in meaning. The word did not mean to the earliest Christians what it came to mean in the late Middle Ages or what it means today. It's from a Greek word which means to choose, and it actually refers to any religious sect at all, since whatever sect a person belongs to is that person's choice. It originally had no pejorative connotations, and no connotation of unorthodoxy.¹ In pre-Christian times, the word was a virtual synonym for such modern terms as "sect" or "denomination," and this was true even for the first several centuries of Christianity; to the earliest Christians, it referred to people of a sect other than Christianity.

When Paul wrote of "heretics," therefore, he meant "non-Christians," people who were not members of the specific tiny Jewish sect which was, at that time, Christianity. This word rapidly did gain pejorative connotations to Christians, because they believed all non-Christian sects were not simply different, but false; and, further, even Christians sects other than one's own favorite flavor were also false. The point is that, depending upon the actual age of the Canon Episcopi, the reference here to "heretics" might actually have been intended to mean "non-Christians" – that is, Pagans – rather than Christians who were schismatic or unorthodox.

To finish off the first paragraph, the Canon explains why the practice of Magic is objectionable. The people of the sect are claimed to "curry support" (suffragia quaerunt) from the Devil – or from a devil. Again, since Latin has no definite or indefinite articles, it's impossible to say whether support is coming from some run-of-the mill demon, or from the Chief of Demons. In an attempt to imply this ambiguity, the present translation has "the devil," uncapitalized, matching the lack of capitalization in the original.

The word translated here as "support," suffragia, contains the same root as the modern English "suffrage," and has to do with favor, approval, and supporting votes in a political sense. Quaere is to seek or search for something, sometimes to gain or to get it. There is thus no implication here that the seeking is necessarily in vain; the quest for suffrage might well be successful, and the devil might well actually agree to grant favor to the party of the Canon. Thus, the sect described is one which seeks (and perhaps receives) support from some entity whom the author of the Canon views as diabolic. The sect described might or might not have viewed its own benefactor as diabolic; but in either case, the document's author believes the people of that sect belong to this diabolic entity, and not to Yhvh.

The Canon Episcopi is thus objecting to the practice of Magic because it is the invention of the (or a) devil, and these users of Magic are seeking the aid and support of a diabolic power. At least, this is the Canon's view of what's going on. The sect itself might well have had a different view of the source of its Magical power.

The "cumulative idea of Witchcraft," which the Standard School claims to have not been fully assembled until the fourteenth century, includes such images as using Magic and making a pact with the Devil. This pact was an agreement, a contract in which a human being gives himself or herself over to Satan in exchange for Magical powers or other favors. As explained elsewhere, many scholars see the pact as the essential and central concept within the Church's view of Witchcraft. The pact between the Witch and the Devil – not the harm done by malefic Magic – was the reason and justification for the Church's persecution of Witches. Paragraph 1 of the Canon Episcopi comes very, very close to this idea. The association between the devil and the users of Magic – not any harmful effect of the Magic itself – is the reason given for ejecting members of this sect from one's parish.

In summary then, the first paragraph claims the people of the Canon sect to use and to believe in the effectiveness of both divinatory and manipulative Magic (sortilegam and maleficam artem), and to seek the aid and support of some non-human agency. The Canon Episcopi claims these forms of Magic to have been invented by the Devil (or by a devil), and believes the sect's non-human patron to be the Devil (or a devil). The Canon calls the people of this sect "heretics," though it's not certain exactly what's meant by that term, and says they should be ejected from Christian parishes, in order to stop the use of Magic within those parishes.

Nowhere does the Canon claim Magic to be ineffective. Nowhere does this paragraph condemn belief in Magic. Indeed, part of the Canon's concern seems to be an honest worry about the harm actually done by Magic, since it specifically complains about harmful Magic, maleficam artem. The Canon's author appears to believe in the reality and effectiveness of Magic just as much as do the sectarians he is describing.

But the greater part of the Canon's concern lies somewhere other than in the harm done by malefic Magic. The Canon also states the sectarians who use Magic are "leaving their creator," and thus "are held captive by the devil." The phrase "leaving their creator" implies they do not perform worship and homage to Yhvh, the Christian god. The repeated references to "devil" (diabolos) implies they are Satanists – or at least, this is what the Canon wants its readers to believe them to be.

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Scholars tend to hurry past the first section of the Canon Episcopi, and to concentrate on the "wicked women" who ride by night with Diana. Indeed, there seems to be the feeling that these are two unrelated pieces, and the use of Magic – and the condemnation of it – is not really associated with the night-rides. Yet the Canon itself makes no such distinctions. Do recall that the division here into separate paragraphs is entirely for ease of discussion in this book. The Canon itself is one long paragraph, with no internal divisions at all. There is some justification for considering these two parts separately, as will be seen later, but the relationship between them is deep and complex.

The beginning of this passage – "This also is not to be omitted" – implies the first part about Magic to be the more important consideration, and what is to follow is nearly an afterthought, though one which must not be forgotten. There is some possible justification for such a view, for Paragraph 1 demands the rather serious punishment of exile for practitioners of Magic, and the remainder of the text does not speak of any punishment at all. Still, the Canon spends far more time on the idea to follow than on Magic per se, though the idea it's about to describe is certainly a Magical one.

If the Canon is taken at face value and the whole thing is considered to be describing one single sect, it now speaks of "certain wicked women" – presumably, a sub-set of the men and women whom the first paragraph calls "sectarians of this wickedness" – who "believe and profess" something very odd and unusual. They claim to ride on certain beasts with Diana, the Goddess of the Pagans – Burchard says, "or with Herodias." (Burchard's version adds, vel cum Herodiade. The Latin vel is somewhere between "or" and "and," so in Burchard they claim to ride with Diana, or with Herodias, or with both.)

Significantly, these women "believe" and "profess" this of themselves; that is, according to the Canon, the women themselves make this claim. This is not a claim being made about them by someone else. The Canon does not say we shouldn't believe there are such women. No; it says there are such women, and they themselves claim to ride out at night with Diana.

Even if the Canon Episcopi is to be dated as late as Regino's time in the early tenth century, this was long before the Church began torturing people in an effort to get them to admit to Witchcraft. Not only is there no evidence of torture or the threat of torture here, there is no possibility of torture or the threat of torture. The Canon says certain claims are made by people about themselves, and there is no chance of these claims having been imposed upon the people through the use of torture. Whatever is being talked about here, the Canon is not talking about forced confessions, nor about ecclesiastical theorizing dictated into the public mind by the use of torture.

There also here is the first hint as to whom the sectarians think is the non-human agency which the Canon claims to be diabolic. The women (and, by extension, all members of the Canon sect) think they are calling upon Diana, the Goddess of the Pagans. Diana was a Goddess associated with the Moon, with hunting, with wild places, cows, hinds, wolves and hunting-dogs, and with Magic. She is most commonly thought of as a Roman Goddess, but she is much older. The river Don is named after her, as is Europe's most major river, the Danube. She seems to be related to the Irish mother-Goddess Danu, after whom the Gods of Ireland – the Tuatha de Dannan, "Children of Danu" – are named. Diana was closely linked to another very ancient Goddess, Hecate, also a lunar Goddess, also associated since ancient times with Witches, and referred to as a Goddess of crossroads. According to Geoffrey of Monmouth (see his The History of the Kings of Britian), the first king of Britain – a man named Brutus – had Diana as his patron; therefore, Diana became the patron Goddess of all England.

Now, Christians – even unorthodox Christians – do not claim to obey the commands of the Pagan Goddess Diana as their Lady (domina). This strongly implies the Canon sect to be Pagans. In fact, there really is no justification for claiming anything different, if the descriptions are taken as being accurate.

Yet the Canon claims these women are "turned back toward Satan," retro post Satanam conversae. It is equating Diana with Satan. To the author of the Canon, Satan and Diana are the same thing. But there is no reason whatever to imagine they were the same thing in the minds of the members of the sect. Indeed, it can be said quite otherwise; they viewed Diana as their Lady, not as the demonic Christian embodiment of evil. By extension, then, some of the uncertainties raised by the first paragraph can now be approached. Though the Canon views Magic as coming from a diabolic source, and views the sect's patron as diabolic, the sect itself most certainly did not view its patron that way. Though the Canon presents the sectarians as Satanists, they viewed themselves as followers of Diana.

But why are they said to be "turned back toward Satan"? The answer comes from a variety of old Church councils, going all the way to the Council of Ancyra in the early fourth century, which dealt with newly-converted Christians who were relapsing to old Pagan ways.² These people were called, appropriately enough, relapsi. The implication here is that the Church viewed all old Pagan customs, gods, and beliefs as diabolic and as having been inspired by the (or a) devil. The women in the Canon are said to be turning back to ways they had followed previously. The tenets described here are ones which the author of the Canon believes to be pre-Christian, though he still insists they also are Satanic.

There is a very similar phrase which shows up in the New Testament. In 1 Timothy, Paul writes about who should be admitted into Christian communities. He is hesitant about younger women, who, he says, tend to be wanton and lustful, "For some are already turned aside after Satan [1 Tim 5:15]." The Canon author might, therefore, have intended a veiled reference to these younger and sexually active women. This would be in contrast to the stereotype of a Witch as an ugly old hag, though 1 Tim 5 also talks extensively about widows. All this also implies a disapproval of sexual matters, which will figure large in the Medieval Church's imagery of Witchcraft.

The Canon talks about "demonic illusions and phantasms" by which these women have been "seduced." The root of the Latin word seductae has to do with being turned aside from an intended path (compare to 1 Tim 5:15, above), and thus may relate to having been retro post Satanam conversae, "turned back toward Satan." In the eyes of the Canon's author, some (unspecified) illusions, engineered by demonic forces, are responsible for these sectarians' relapse into Paganism.

The women "believe and profess" that they can travel great distances while riding on "certain beasts" with Diana. They also believe they are called to come "on fixed nights," which, as previously mentioned, implies a schedule or calendar of feasts, customs, or observances of some kind. They see themselves as subject to Diana's laws, "called to her service," which fully justifies the previous claim of them "belonging" to Diana (whom the Canon views as Satan). The Canon does not specify exactly what these "laws" are, or what the sectarians do on their travels on these "fixed nights," so this is a question which will have to be addressed in some other way. But it's obvious something happens there, some "service" is performed, some "laws" are obeyed.

According to modern scholars of the Standard School, whatever is going on, it is not a Witches' Sabbat, because a) the full conception of a Sabbat, as Cohn described it (see here), would not exist for several centuries, and b) orgies, worshipping goats, baby-eating, and other horrific obscenities are not mentioned here, and if they were thought to have happened, they would have been described. The Canon does not describe a Sabbat, the Standard School says, but rather mentions a number of themes which will later become elements of the Sabbat - or, to be more accurate, elements of the Church's fantasy of a Sabbat. If the women riding with Diana were actually getting anywhere and doing anything – were actually having a Sabbat – the Standard School says the Canon would tell us so. It doesn't, so the idea of a Sabbat hadn't occurred to anyone yet.

Still, the Canon's author must be assumed to have thought something was going on, some "service" was being performed, "laws" were being obeyed, and according to some fixed schedule - on "certain nights". If this is not a Sabbat in the sense of Medieval diabolism, it is at any rate strongly reminiscent of a Sabbat in the sense of the modern religion of Witchcraft.

The women do not claim they do this alone. They claim there to be an "innumerable multitude" who go with them. This is worded rather oddly. "Certain wicked women" – members of the sect – go riding with Diana, and they claim an "innumerable multitude" of others also go. Who are these "others"? One possibility will be presented shortly. But at any rate, there seems to be a claim of lots and lots of people being involved in the night-rides, not merely a small handful. According to the Canon, this is the claim of the sect itself. This doesn't mean there were lots and lots of people involved, only that the sect claimed there were.

This travel upon beasts seems rather Magical. Indeed, it's hard to see it in any other way. If the women believe "of themselves" to ride out at night with Diana, then they must believe they themselves participate in some form of Magic. This implies a linkage to the sortilegam and maleficam artem of the first paragraph, and argues against the scholars who hold there to be no particular association between the women who ride with Diana and the men and women who practice Magic.

There isn't any explicit mention here of flight – the Canon says they claim to ride, rather than saying they claim to fly – and some scholars suggest the idea of flight was added later. The women could have been traveling on the ground. The Standard School, which holds the "cumulative idea of Witchcraft" to have not been fully assembled until the fourteenth century, seizes on the lack of explicit mention of flight to imply the sectarians of Diana were not seen as flying in Regino's time – as if the author of the Canon would have tried to cram everything which was known about the sect into a single condemnatory statement.

Paragraph 2 says the "wicked women" claim there to be an "innumerable multitude" who ride with them. The Cannon says this is a claim made by the women themselves, and is not necessarily the view of the Canon's author. But here, the Canon itself claims there to be an "innumerable multitude" who are being handed over to ruin through being "deceived by this false opinion." That is, great numbers of people are beginning to believe the theological tenets of the Canon sect, and the Canon's author thinks this is a terrible thing.

It is probably significant that the identical phrase – innumera multitudo – is used both here and in connection with those who ride along with the "wicked women" of Paragraph 2. Perhaps only a relatively small group of people have these visions of themselves riding with Diana, though a much larger group accept it as real and perhaps even believe they ride along without having actual memory of doing so. The situation described is not that different from native Shamans who tell of visions and dream-journeys they themselves have been on. Though the majority of people do not have such visions, others do believe the visions to be true, and some are occasionally seen by the Shamans on their journeys.

Perhaps the claims of the sectarians are beginning to affect the beliefs of Christian parishioners. Those who are being "hand[ed] over," this "innumerable multitude," are perhaps Christians who are considering conversion to the sect of the Canon – they are potential relapsi. If so, this explains quite well the Canon's concern, along with the political implications of suffragia quaerunt, "seeking suffrage", in the first paragraph. Some forces, which the Canon considers to be diabolic, are being marshaled behind the sect to advance its cause, and that sect is winning over an "innumerable multitude." Another piece of the "cumulative idea of Witchcraft" is the image of a secret sect, opposed to Christianity, which is working toward Christianity's downfall. Once again, we are here quite close to that idea.

In 1 Cor 12, Paul talks about the gifts of the Spirit, and among those are such things as prophesy and visions. Some Christians, upon hearing of the visions and experiences of the sectarians described in the Canon Episcopi, might have been tempted to think these visions were also given from a divine source. But no, the Canon wants to make this quite clear: it is not a divine spirit which is responsible for these particular visions, but a "malignant" one.

The sectarians think it's Diana who is providing suffrage, though the Canon's author claims to know better. Paragraph 3 is directed against this idea of Diana being a Goddess. The "errors of the Pagans" rest in believing "there to be anything of divinity or divine will beyond the one God." This is, in fact, a good definition of the word Pagan; a Pagan is one who believes in the divinity of a God or Goddess other than the god of the Bible. The Canon says the beliefs of the sect are "phantasms," which are "imposed on the minds of the unfaithful." Priests are therefore advised to preach very forcefully – as if the matter would otherwise be in some doubt in the minds of the people – that Diana is not a Goddess, but is, rather, a "malignant spirit." The "false opinion" referred to here is the belief that Diana holds "anything of divinity or divine will." In the light of the claims of the sect, people are coming to believe in the divinity of Diana – and this belief must be eradicated.

It is difficult to imagine a more obvious and clear confirmation of the Canon sect as being Pagan, and as worshipping Diana rather than either Yhvh or Satan. The Canon's author is here confirming, in the clearest words possible, that the sect viewed itself as worshipping a Pagan Goddess, and did not consider itself either Christian or Satanic. He is also implying that the sect is beginning to steal away parishioners, an "innumerable multitude" who are being handed over to "ruin"; they are beginning to believe there is "divinity and divine will" in Diana.

Further: the author of the Canon himself also believes Diana actually exists. But he sees Diana as being Satan in disguise, rather than as a Goddess. This is important: Diana herself is not a illusion, not a dream or fantasy. Diana is an actual entity, but a diabolic one, rather than being a divine one as believed by the sect.

So, in Paragraphs 2 and 3, there are further clear statements of what the sect supposedly believed, and of how the Canon's author viewed those beliefs. The Canon says the people of this sect themselves claimed to ride at night with the Pagan Goddess Diana and/or (in Burchard) Herodias, along with a huge crowd of others. They ride on certain animals, and travel great spaces, on fixed nights – perhaps following a regular schedule of observances. The sectarians are subject to Diana's commands as their Lady, and are called to her service. They worship her as their Goddess, and do not see themselves as worshipping either Yhvh or Satan.

But the Canon Episcopi presents Diana as actually being Satan. The beliefs of the sect are viewed as being false and pre-Christian, and the sectarians themselves are categorized – inaccurately – as Satanists. The sectarians were relapsi, returning to old Pagan customs, having been convinced to do so by some demonic illusions (which are not described). There were also, in the author's view, an "innumerable multitude" who were being deceived by the false opinions of the women who claimed to ride by night with Diana. And so priests must preach, "with all insistence," so parishioners will know the tenets of the Canon sect "to be lies in every way."

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According to the Canon, the sectarians believe these visions actually and physically happen; "not in the soul [anima], but in the body." In their travels, they see joyful and mournful things, and known and unknown persons. This is an excellent description of Shamanic visions and journeys. Native peoples all over the world report identical journeys. The Canon says the sectarians are "deluded in sleep." Shamans go into trance, and modern psychologists often claim the Shamans have psychotic (or drug-induced) dreams and hallucinations. Rather than argue here about what "really" happens in such cases, it's enough to note this imagery to be common worldwide. The belief in actual flight in a trance state is not at all uncommon, and it indicates the presence of practices, techniques, and beliefs associated with Shamanic ecstasy.³

Satan – that is, Diana – appears to the members of the sect as an "angel of light," angelum lucis. It seems likely for this to have been an image reported by the members of the sect. The Canon's author wants to explain how the vision of a bright, shining being can be something other than a divine image. He does it by claiming this to be a disguise of Satan.

The phrase "angel of light" appears in Paul's Second Letter to the Corinthians. He talks there about people spreading false ideas about Jesus, people who appear to be apostles but aren't. He says such a false appearance isn't all that hard to create, "for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light [2 Cor 11:15]," so how much easier would it be for a human to present a false face? That is, even Satan can appear divine rather than diabolic. Therefore, Satan's appearance as Diana is explainable, in the mind of the Canon Episcopi's author.

Indeed, he goes on to claim that all the people whom the sectarians think they see on their travels are also actually disguises of Satan, who transforms his appearance. The word species had, in addition to its modern meaning, a connotation simply of "type" or "shape." Satan changes his shape into that of various persons. Species could also indicate a phantasm or vision, and is related to such modern words as spectacle, speculate, and spy; that is, it's something seen.

This, then, is the Canon Episcopi's explanation for the visions of the sectarians: Satan takes on various forms, and those forms are what the "unfaithful" person sees. The author obviously believed the sectarians actually had visions, otherwise he wouldn't need to explain them. The Canon also seems to claim the mind actually does travel, the spirit (spiritu) being led "through deserted places." There would be no need for Satan to transform himself into anything, if these were simple insubstantial dreams. No, the author of the Canon Episcopi believes absolutely that the awareness of the sectarians travels out, away from their bodies. This is virtually identical to modern ideas of "astral travel," and is very different from the modern notion of dreaming.

The Canon itself maintains that the minds of the sectarians really go somewhere, and they actually see something; but what it is they see is a construction of Satan's, and not the actual objects and people they think they're seeing. The author, then, believes absolutely in the existence of Satan, and even believes in the details of reports of the sectarians. But he attributes a different explanation to those reports than the sectarians themselves do.

Many modern scholars have pointed to the Canon as being an extremely "skeptical" document, condemning belief in Witches. Actually, it condemns disbelief; saying unfaithfulness and incredulity – infidelitatem and incredulitatem – are what lead one to become subjugated, held captive, by Satan. Modern scholars of the Standard School extol the virtues of "skepticism" and ridicule "credulity," but the Canon itself praises "faith" and condemns "incredulity," insisting upon the actual existence of demons (or at least, of Satan) who can take the spirit on travels through deserted places. It would be difficult to imagine a document more at odds with modern notions of physical reality. The categorization of the Canon Episcopi as "skeptical" and "rational" in the modern sense can only be made by someone who has not understood it.

The first sentence and a half of this portion is really the source of scholars' depiction of the Canon Episcopi as a "rational" and "skeptical" document. In a careless reading, it seems to be declaring everything to be mere dreams, dreams which are believed only by those who are "stupid and foolish." All of us moderns know that dreams are mere imaginings, and have no external reality. Since this portion of the Canon claims the visions to be seen only "in sleep and at night," scholars believe it to be claiming the visions to be no more than the modern idea of a dream.

Yet for people of the tenth century and before, dreams were something quite other than what they are to the modern scholar. As this paragraph says, one can be "summoned to visions outside of himself." Just as implied in Paragraph 4, this is intensely non-rational astral travel. This paragraph, far from proclaiming the whole thing to have no existence at all, is insisting the spirit actually does travel – and it does this apart from the body. Indeed, this passage might be interpreted as specifically denying the modern notion of simple dream. Rationalist scholars would say dreams do happen "in the body," that is, the awareness of the person stays right where it always is, within the head of the dreamer. But the Canon specifically states otherwise: "Who truly has not, in sleep and at night, been summoned to visions outside of himself?" These are not mere dreams in the modern sense. These are actual journeys of the spirit or the soul.

Further, the visions of the Canon sectarians are here compared directly to the visions of Ezekiel, John, and Paul – a prophet of the Old Testament, a man who was one of the closest friends of Jesus, and the greatest Church reformer of the first century. Ezekiel 3:14 says, "So the spirit lifted me up, and took me away, and I went in bitterness, in the heat of my spirit [emphasis added]," a clear admission that spirits can carry humans – or at least, they can carry the spirits of humans, for Ezekiel is traveling "in the heat of my spirit." The reference in the Canon to "John the Apostle" is to the visions John had of the Apocalypse, as described in the book of Revelations, visions in which his awareness is most definitely said to have left his body. This idea of one's spirit being carried off by a demon or angel is exactly what's referred to in the final sentence of this paragraph, Paul being "snatched away." On the road to Damascus, Paul claimed to have had a vision, being lifted, "snatched away," from his body.

According to the Canon, all three of these men had visions of exactly the same type as those of the sectarians. The only real difference, the Canon says, is that the visions of Ezekiel, John, and Paul were provided by Yhvh; the visions of this sect, however, come (Paragraph 3) "not from a divine, but from a malignant spirit." The relationship between Yhvh and the biblical characters is exactly the same as the relationship between Diana and the Canon sectarians. All of the people involved receive visions of substantially the same type from the non-human entities to whose service they are called.

But there is a major difference in the way the sectarians and the Canon's author each view these visions. According to the Canon, the sectarians insist they travel bodily rather than traveling "in spirit." The Canon says the sectarians' interpretation cannot be true – not because of some modern notion of the physical impossibility of such a journey, but because Ezekiel and John and Paul traveled only in spirit. In other words, if we were to believe that the women who ride by night with Diana actually went "in the body," they'd be doing something which even the Prophets and followers of Jesus were unable to do. What the Canon is objecting to is the idea of Diana's Magic being greater and stronger and more powerful than Yhvh's. But, as the Canon says, even "Paul does not dare to declare he was snatched away in the body."

This is worth stressing: the visions of the sectarians are compared to the visions of three important biblical visionaries. If the visions of the sectarians were to be dismissed as "mere" dreams, then we'd also have to dismiss the visions of Ezekiel and John and Paul as "mere" dreams. No orthodox Christian could possibly do such a thing. The Canon is not saying that the visions have no reality at all. Yet this is the interpretation most often put upon the Canon Episcopi by modern scholars. This passage proves, beyond any doubt, that the visions of the sectarians were actually thought to happen, and were given quite a lot of weight, and were worrisome to the author of the Canon Episcopi – and therefore, one could assume, to the Church as a whole.

This passage in the Canon Episcopi is incredibly embarrassing to scholars of the Standard School, so embarrassing they often resort to questionable tactics to avoid its implications. It's hard for them to insist the Canon claims the night-rides had no reality at all, when the rides are so directly compared to the experiences of Paul and Ezekiel and John. In fact, this passage is so embarrassing, many scholars refuse even to acknowledge its existence. Norman Cohn's influential study includes a discussion of the Canon – but omits this passage, without comment, and without admitting it's there.⁴ (Cohn does this, even while violently criticizing Murray for omitting passages from trial transcripts which he feels would damage her case!) Likewise, Elliot Rose also silently censors this passage.⁵

Those silent excisions are bad enough. One scholar goes further. J. B. Russell gives a translation of the Canon, but omits the second half of Paragraph 5 and most of Paragraph 6, hiding the omission under a simple ellipsis. He introduces his edited text with the comment, "The following are the essential passages of the Canon."⁶ Elsewhere, he gives the original Latin text, as it appears in Regino and again in Burchard. But he truncates it, again omitting these portions, with the comment, "The rest of the Canon is a web of scriptural passages and of no great relevance[!]"⁷ It is very difficult to understand why Russell would drop this short passage in favor of a disparaging comment. He seems anxious to insist the omitted passage is completely unimportant – so anxious, he didn't want any possibility of his readers forming their own opinions of it.

So, according to the Canon, visions are given by Pagan gods to Pagan peoples in just the way divine revelations are given to members of the biblical tradition by the biblical god. This is violently at odds with the Standard School, which claims the Canon sees it all as mere dreams. But the Canon actually says the women themselves claim to ride by night; the Canon further claims they actually perform the same sort of activities as the prophets and apostles did, and have the same sorts of relationships with "Diana, the Goddess of the Pagans" as the prophets and apostles had with Yhvh. The Canon's only disagreements with the sect on these points have to do with whether the rides happen in the body or in the spirit, and whether Diana is a Goddess or is Satan disguised.

Just as the implied connection between Magic and the night-rides in Paragraph 2 served to link Paragraph 1 to the rest of the Canon Episcopi, so does the opening sentence here reinforce that link. The first paragraph said practitioners of Magic seek suffrage from a devil, and so belong to him rather than to Yhvh. This paragraph tells us, in very similar words, that anyone who agrees with the theological positions of the Canon sect does not have the correct faith, and is not Yhvh's, but is the devil's. The similarity in language implies a unity in thought between these passages.

The most important theological disagreements are those stated first in Paragraph 3 – "judging there to be anything of divinity or divine will beyond the one God" – and expanded upon here: believing "anything can be made, or any creature can be changed to better or worse, or transformed into another species or resemblance – except by the Creator himself who made all things, and by whom all things are made." (The biblical reference is to John 1:3, and is a direct quote.) In other words, there are certain powers which the Church reserves to Yhvh alone. Looking at these powers, it makes sense to see them as powers which can only be wielded by an entity with a claim to divinity. Anyone who believes Diana has such divine powers – that is, anyone who believes Diana to be a Goddess – "is an unbeliever beyond doubt." An "unbeliever," of course, is one who does not believe Christian tenets, one who is not of the Christian faith.

Regino's version of the Canon Episcopi prescribes no punishment for believing in the divinity of Diana; rather, it simply exhorts the priests to forcefully teach the falseness of this concept. A hundred years later, however, there was a punishment prescribed.

Burchard of Worms published two copies of the Canon Episcopi. The first one contains the differences noted earlier (adding Herodias, and declaring the "unbelievers" to be "worse than Pagans"). The second one carries the heading, Item de arte magica, "Also On Magic Arts." It's in the form of a penitential – that is, it seeks to identify a specific sin, and then to prescribe a penance for it. Item de arte magica begins by asking, "Have you believed, or participated in sharing this unbelief…?" and goes on to describe the night-flights with Diana. It omits Paragraph 1 of the Canon, and shortens Paragraph 6, ending after the biblical quotes. It finishes with the required punishment: "If you believe these vanities, do penance for two years on designated fast-days." Other than these differences and some minor scribal errors, these two copies in Burchard match Regino.

This is the reason Burchard provides two slightly varying copies of the Canon Episcopi: The first, nearly identical to Regino's, mandates exile for the users of Magic, the "sectarians" who seek the suffrage of Diana / Satan. The second version omits the opening condemnation of Magic, but instead requires a punishment of two years of penance for merely believing in the divinity of Diana.

There are two different sins involved, related but separate, and so Burchard presents them separately. A clear distinction is drawn between, on the one hand, those who use Magic and claim to ride by night, and, on the other, the "innumerable multitude" who are being handed over to ruin. The former are "sectarians of this wickedness," who must be exiled, "dishonorably disgraced." The latter are members of the priests' congregations. These must be preached to, "with all insistence," so as to prevent them falling into the "errors of the Pagans," which includes believing as the sectarians do. These parishioners are subject to "two years' penance on legal feast days" if they believe these "vanities," for doing so means they have lost the "straight faith" in Yhvh. They are, according to Burchard, "worse than Pagan," because, unlike the Pagans, they should know better.

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Both Regino and Burchard also include summaries of the Canon Episcopi. These summaries are in the form of penitentials, and they serve to further strengthen the association of the Canon sect with Magic, as well as to further reinforce this distinction between actual members of the sect and potential relapsi who are beginning to give credit to the beliefs of the sect. The first of these summaries appears in both books:⁸

Lea notes, "Observe here is no question of illusion; it is treated as a crime punishable by exile. Nor is there any allusion to Diana, and the women are assumed to be demons in disguise."⁹ Since this provision exists, both in Regino and in Burchard – in both cases, in the same book as full copies of the Canon Episcopi – it seems unreasonable for Lea to question whether there was an association here with Diana. Lea has a tendency to imply that if a detail is not mentioned, then it wasn't known, or wasn't thought to relate – as if all associated concepts could be combined into every individual legal or ecclesiastical provision. At any rate, one important concept which is here, and which echoes the Canon, is that the provision is talking about the beliefs of the women themselves. It is not saying, "Do you believe there are women who can do such and so?" It is asking, "Are you one of those who believe you yourself can do such and so?"

Here, the penalty – ejection from the parish – is identical to that prescribed by Paragraph 1 of the Canon Episcopi proper, and the linkage of Magic use to night-rides is explicit; the night-riders also use Magic. Additionally, some of the effects of Magic are vividly described: the members of the sect claim to be able to instill love and hate, and to destroy or to steal goods. These are actual members of the sect, Magic-workers and night-riders, and they are to be ejected from the parish.

The idea of converting people from the Christian faith is also made explicit by the title of this passage: the sectarians, the users of Magic – maleficos – "hope to be able to destroy the minds of men," that is, to instill false doctrines. Their own minds are already "corrupt," as Paragraph 1 of the Canon claimed them to be "subverted."

Another summary of the Canon is included in Burchard, and it adds some further fascinating details.¹⁰

This paragraph is the twelfth question in a section titled De arte magica. Note the similarity of this title to the title of Burchard's penitential version of the Canon – Item de arte magica. There was a similarity of concept here, in Burchard's understanding of what was going on.

Here a third name is added to Diana and Herodias, and that is Holda, a Germanic Goddess. As Diana is usually considered to be Greco-Roman, and Herodias is usually thought of as being the daughter of the biblical Herod the Great, most scholars see Holda as more likely to be a name actually used by the sect itself, with the other names having been interpretations added by scholastic syncretism. Holda appears also in many of the Medieval trial transcripts, along with similar names such as Herzog, Habunde, and Abundia. The presence here of the name Holda provides a strong argument for the Canon sect to have not been an ecclesiastic invention, but rather to have been an actual indigenous sect.

As indicated, in some manuscripts, Holda is called striga Holda, Holda the Witch. Regardless of whether Regino intended the Canon to apply to Witches, certainly by the time of Burchard, a hundred years later, this connection was explicit. The sect of the Canon is a sect of strigae, Witches.

This provision asks if you believe there is someone who does something odd: "Have you believed there is some female, whom the stupid vulgar call Holda, who is able to do a certain thing…?" This text seems to be denying the existence of Holda, or perhaps denying she can do what is claimed about her. But do note what it is that's being denied. De arte magica is not denying the existence of women who claim to ride by night. It is denying that they are following a Goddess. Indeed, it states there are those who "affirm themselves" to ride with her.

What is objected to here is "participation in this unbelief," which may imply believing as the sectarians do, or may imply attending some of their rites or other observances, or may imply having had experiences of the night-rides similar to theirs. In any case, anyone who has so participated is required to do a year of penance. The sin here is belief in the tenets of the sect, rather than membership in the sect itself. This penalty is imposed not upon those who do Magic, but upon those who are beginning to accept the beliefs of those who do Magic. These are relapsi, not to be ejected as the actual Magic-users are, but to be penanced and preached to.

As Lea noted for the previous passage, De illis maleficis, the "innumerable multitude" from the Canon Episcopi who are said to ride with the "wicked women" are here held to be a "crowd of demons" in disguise. Just as the Canon itself claims Satan to have taken on various disguises, here various other demons are involved in the charade. This is the explanation given for why the "wicked women" think they see others come along, who are not members of the sect; those others actually are demons "transformed into the likeness of women." Again, we're obviously not talking about the modern notion of a dream, for if all this were just insubstantial imaginings taking place in a dreamer's head, there'd be no reason for demons to transform themselves into anything. No, these passages are claiming these things are actually seen. Note that it is not necessary for us to believe these things were actually seen. The point is that the author of these provisions so believed; and, furthermore, he insisted that the women he was writing about also so believed, and actively claimed this of themselves.

This passage also reveals more of the beliefs of the sect – or at least, more of what its author claims as the beliefs of the sect. De arte magica stresses being "required" to go on the night-rides, "by necessity and by command," an echo of the Canon's reference to being "subject to" the "laws" of Diana as domina. The Christian writers saw such "commands" as pronouncements of destiny or predestination, which they saw as a violation of the Christian principle of free will. This is very similar to the ability to alter minds from love to hate or back again, as in the De illis maleficis above. In both passages, what the Christian writers saw was a manipulation of the minds of humans.

De arte magica is calling belief in such abilities an "unbelief" – that is, a non-Christian belief – and is prescribing punishment for holding this belief, a punishment similar to, but lighter than, the punishment in Item de arte magica, Burchard's penitential version of the Canon Episcopi. The sin being stressed here is not the belief in Holda as a Goddess, though De arte magica is certainly denying that as well. The sin here is disagreeing with a particular tenet of the Church, which holds it to be impossible for anyone to cancel out free will. No one – not even a Pagan Goddess – can declare someone's destiny.

Thus: Regino's version of the Canon, repeated by Burchard, mandated ejection for actual users of Magic, and a good talking-to for people who are beginning to believe as the sectarians do. In a summary of the Canon (De illis maleficis), both Regino and Burchard repeat the order of expulsion for the sectarians, and they describe some of the Magic which the sectarians claim to be able to do. Then, in a penitential version of the Canon (Item de arte magica), Burchard requires, in addition to the preaching, two years' penance for people tempted to believe Diana has the powers of a Goddess. In another summary (De arte magica), he prescribes one year of penance for a similar sin, believing in Holda and her ability to impose a predestination or compulsion to go on the night-rides. In short, the punishment of expulsion for sectarians has held constant from Regino's time to Burchard's; but potential relapsi are subject to a stiffer consequence at the beginning of the eleventh century than they were in the opening years of the tenth – the penalty changing from mere lectures to one or two years of penance.

All this gives a clear picture of a non-Christian sect, with well-defined beliefs and imagery, a sect which worked Magic, worshipped Diana, and possibly had a regular calendar of observances (since they would "on fixed nights be called to her service"). The author of the Canon Episcopi objected to the ideas of this sect, and advised bishops and priests on ways to combat those ideas: eject the sectarians from their parishes, and preach to everyone else, "with all insistence," that these ideas are "lies in every way." Furthermore, the Canon's author admits Diana is real, in a sense, for she is Satan disguised. That is, there really is an entity which claims to be Diana, and which the sectarians believe to be Diana. This entity really does grant visions to the sectarians, visions which are comparable to those of the most important of the Old Testament prophets and New Testament visionaries. This entity even has invented Magical arts – such as the ability to alter the thoughts and emotions of others, or to steal their goods – and has taught these arts to his or her followers. And the author of the Canon apparently believes at least some of this Magic to be effective and dangerous.

Elsewhere, I discuss J. B. Russell's "scale of skepticism", a sort of gauge of how rational a given theory about the history of Witchcraft might be. (Read about it here.) The historical interpretation he called "Level 2" held there to have been people, including Christian theorists, who believed in the existence of Witches. The Canon is obviously at that Level, if not higher. Level 3 held there to have been people who believed themselves to be Witches. If the sectarians described here are viewed as "witches," then if the sect actually existed, there were, obviously, people who viewed themselves as Witches. Russell's Level 4 suggested that some of what the self-believing Witches practiced and believed was real, in the sense of them actually attempting to do spells and some personal observances. These elements were derived from old Pagan survivals, folklore, sorcery, and various heresies. Again, if the sect existed, this, too, seems obviously so, for both Regino and Burchard say the people described were making such claims for themselves. Level 5 suggested that at least some of the contemporary ecclesiastical sources were accurate, at least in part, when it came to describing the beliefs and practices of the Witches. There seems no reason to doubt the basic accuracy of the Canon Episcopi in describing this Dianist sect – and indeed, many scholars will admit the sect described there probably did actually exist.

Russell's Level 5 seems to be the minimum level which adequately accounts for the data provided by the Canon Episcopi and these related paragraphs from Burchard and Regino. Any historical theory scoring lower on Russell's scale would unjustifiably deny the evidence which has been considered so far.

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¹ O'Grady, Joan. Early Christian Heresies. Barnes & Noble, New York, 1994, p4-5.

² The Nicene and Post- Nicene Fathers, Series II. Fourteen volumes. Edited by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson. T & T Clark, Edinburg, 1885, vol 14.

³ Eliade, Mircea. Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1965, passim.

⁴ Cohn, Norman Rufus Colin. Europe's Inner Demons. Basic Books, New York, 1975, p212.

⁵ Rose, Elliot. A Razor for a Goat: A Discussion of Certain Problems in the History of Witchcraft and Diabolism. University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 1989 (reprint), p106.

⁶ Russell, Jeffrey Burton. Witchcraft in the Middle Ages. Cornell University Press, Cornell, 1972, p76-77.

⁷ Russell, ibid., p291-293.

⁸ Regino of Prόm; Excerpt from De incantatoribus et sortilegis from Book II, ch 5, paragraph 45 of De Eccl. Disc. (Migne, P.L., vol 132 p284). Also, Burchard of Worms; Eccl. Epi. Dec, Book 10: De Incantatoribus et Auguribus [On Enchanters and Diviners], Cap. 29 (Migne, P.L., vol 140, p837); attributed to the Council of Agatha, cap. 4. In Burchard, the prior chapter, Cap. 28, has the title indicated here. Cap. 29 actually bears the title, De eadem re, “About the Same Thing”.

⁹ Lea, Henry C.; Arthur Howland, ed. Materials Toward a History of Witchcraft. Introduction by George Lincoln Burr. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 1939, p182.

¹⁰ Burchard of Worms; Eccl. Epi. Dec; Book 19, the Corrector, Chapter 5, Question 70 (Migne, P.L., vol 140, p962).

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