(After reading this article, read an in-depth analysis of the Canon Episcopi.)

In the year 892 CE, a man named Regino became the abbot of Prüm. (See the New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia article on Regino here.) He was known afterward as Regino of Prüm, even though he was expelled from the abbey in 899. Subsequently, he was employed by Archbishop Radbod of Trier¹. While in Trier, he assembled a monumental collection of Church and canon law, including various rules and regulations and lists of sins to be avoided. He titled this collection, De Ecclesiasticis Disciplinis et Religione Christiana - "On Ecclesiastical Discipline and Christian Religion." Regino's Eccl. Disc. was used as a standard and vital Christian reference work for many hundreds of years thereafter.

Chapter 364 of the second book of Regino's work came later to be known as the Canon Episcopi, or Capitulum Episcopi (often abbreviated Can. Episcopi or Cap. Episcopi; hereafter, simply "the Canon"). Roughly translated, this title means "Instruction to the Bishops." This one-page chapter is one of the most important single documents in the history of the Church's ideas about Witchcraft. The Canon is mentioned in nearly every scholarly study written in the last century about the history of the Witch trials or the Inquisition. For at least eight hundred years after Regino, theologians had to take the Canon into account, to show either how their views on Witchcraft matched this document, or why their views should be accepted in spite of differences from this document.

The normal and accepted scholarly view of history - I'll call it the "Standard School" - holds an interesting view of the Canon. It's generally seen as condemning belief in Witchcraft. That is, it does not condemn Witchcraft itself, because, the Standard School scholars say, there was no such thing, and never had been. Rather, it's seen as condemning belief in the existence of Witches and in the existence of certain related matters. According to this interpretation, if you lived in the tenth or eleventh century, and you believed there were Witches, you could be forced by the Church to do penance under the provisions of the Canon. In accord with various scholarly conventions (which will be explored in depth in other articles on this Website), the Canon Episcopi is thus often held by modern scholars to be "skeptical" and "rational" because it is thought to deny the existence of Witches.

According to the Standard School, the Church did an about-face in later centuries. It eventually began to persecute people under charges of actual Witchcraft, not merely for belief in Witchcraft. That is, the Church actually persecuted people simply because it felt like doing so, and it trumped up ridiculous charges of practicing Witchcraft in order to accomplish the persecutions. According to most scholars of the Standard School, there still weren't any real Witches; there were, however, accusations of being a Witch. And soon after that, the Church began to persecute people for denying the existence of Witches.

Scholars are of two minds as to the reasons for this alleged about-face. Some - such as Norman Cohn and H. C. Lea - say superstition grew, and the Church began to believe the vague rumors it had previously tried to stamp out. There still were no real Witches, but the Church itself began to fall into the very errors it had previously warned against.

Other scholars - such as Elliot Rose and J. B. Russell - say Witches of a sort did begin to appear, but they appeared because the Church had defined them so thoroughly. Opposition to the Church had grown in isolated areas, because of some of the actions of a few unscrupulous officials of the Church (note: opposition to the Church, supposedly, came not because of any indigenous religion or pre-existing belief of the people, but out of political, economic, or social protest). Opposition parties began to adopt some of the customs which the Church had said were those of the rumored-but-nonexistent Witches. Someone who opposes an institution might naturally adopt many of the features that institution is opposed to; therefore, some dissenters simply began doing the things the Church had condemned believing in. Most scholars would not classify these dissidents as "real witches"; they'd say these people could not have been Witches, because Magic doesn't really work, and "witches" are people who do Magic. If there's no real Magic, there can be no real Witches.

Regardless of their view of the reasons for the Church's change in policy, nearly all scholars of the Standard School are united in saying Witches could not have existed - or even have been thought to exist - before about the fourteenth century. They view Witchcraft as a parody of Christian beliefs, and say such a parody could not exist before the time when the ideas to be parodied had become a part of Christianity. Cohn, for instance, has insisted Witchcraft could only have been imagined by devout Christians². Rose said similar things; aspects were "merely blasphemy for the thrill that blasphemy can only supply when what is blasphemed is really and seriously believed in."³ Even when blatant statements of this kind are not to be found in a scholar's work, the fact that Witchcraft is invariably defined by the words of Churchmen shows this idea to be pretty much universal in the Standard School. This bears repeating, for it is of vital importance in understanding why there's such confusion over these issues: Virtually all historians view Witchcraft as a Christian parody.

The Standard School definition of Witchcraft requires tales of Sabbat orgies, pacts with the Devil, and so forth. Some of these items are claimed to not appear in Church records before about the fourteenth century; thus, those ideas are thought to have not existed before the fourteenth century, as if the first appearance of an idea in writing is the first appearance of the idea in anyone's thought. Since these ideas are seen as integral to Witchcraft, Witchcraft itself could not exist before these ideas did, and hence, not before the fourteenth century. (Surely all this rests on questionable assumptions. The first appearance of an idea in writing must mark the latest possible date for the idea's initial conception, not the earliest. The idea itself may be far older, and may have just not previously been written down.)

It's hard to see, though, how the Canon Episcopi could be condemning belief in Witchcraft, if Witchcraft couldn't even be conceived of until at least four hundred years later. And indeed, several scholars, perhaps seeing this problem, suggest the Canon originally had nothing whatever to do with Witchcraft. But it would be useful to examine what the Canon actually has to say, rather than trusting what modern scholars say about it. Below is a translation of the Canon Episcopi. The division into paragraphs, and the paragraph numbers, have been added for ease of reading and discussion. There is no division whatever in the original. It is, in fact, all one long paragraph.⁴

Regino appeared to credit the Canon to the Council of Ancyra (314 CE). It was republished in 1020 CE by Burchard of Worms, as the very first entry in a book titled, On Enchanters and Augers. (This book is part of Burchard’s vast collection of canon law, titled Ecclesiae Episcopi Decretorum, usually called the Decretum. See the New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia article on Burchard here). Burchard’s version differs slightly from Regino’s; after “Diana, the Goddess of the pagans” in Paragraph 2, Burchard has vel cum Herodiade (“or with Herodias”); and in the final sentence, after “an unbeliever beyond doubt,” et pagano deterior (“and worse than Pagan”). In nearly all authoritative versions from the mid-eleventh century onward, these additional phrases were part of the Canon.

It is difficult to overstate the importance of this document. After Burchard, the Canon Episcopi was quoted, excerpted, paraphrased, or used as an authority in an amazing number of Church manuals, listings of canon law, theological treatises, and even popular literature. The Canon, or a reference to it, appears in works by Gratian, Ivo, Thomas Aquinas, Alexander Hales, Ramon de Pennafort, Cardinal Henry of Segusio (Hostiensis), Gervaise of Tilbury, Jean de Meun (in his immensely popular extension to Guillaume de Lorris’ Romance of the Rose), John of Friburg, Bartolomaeus Pisanus, Niccolo da Osimo, the Council of Amiens, Alfonso Tostado, Juan de Torquemada, St. Antonio, Nickolas Eymeric, and Reginald Scot, to name only a few.⁵ A discussion of a portion of the Cannon even begins the very first page of Sprenger and Kramer’s infamous Malleus Maleficiarum.

Nearly all these writers attribute it, after Regino, to the Council of Ancyra (modern Ankarra). But by the seventeenth century, it was being claimed that the Canon did not appear among what were then considered to be the “genuine” Acts of that Council. Since about the 1920’s, the consensus among historical scholars is that Regino wrote it himself, even though he seems to have written little or nothing else which he compiled for his Eccl. Disc.

There is, however, some evidence of the Canon – or, at the very least, the substance of its ideas – being far older. Ginzburg says the Canon is “probably derived from an older Frankish capitular,”⁶ and Russell gives some speculation on this possibility.⁷ Julio Baroja says, according to Beluze, “it is to be found among the legal fragments of Charles the Bald dating from AD 872.”⁸ McNeill and Gamer note, “It is virtually identical with a passage in Pseudo-Augustine, De spiritu et anima (cap. 28).”⁹ The age of this Pseudo-Augustine work is unknown, but it’s old enough for it to have been confused with the genuine work of the fourth-century Augustine.

Whatever the age of the Canon, regardless of how it’s interpreted, and regardless of its author, the Canon gives us a glimpse into a fascinating and little-understood phase of Western religion. Perhaps we’re looking at the Church’s superstitions in the early tenth century; or perhaps at the Church’s limited understanding of a rival religious path; or at bits of folklore which were, for various reasons, strongly disapproved of by the Church. In any case, the Canon – or the sect and beliefs it describes – had a lasting impact on Western civilization, its folklore and imagery, even its language.

For example: the term “fly-by-night” has its roots in the Canon Episcopi – or rather, in the attitudes of the Church concerning the matters described in the Canon. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, as a noun, a fly-by-night is “One who flies by night; one addicted to nocturnal excursions. Also slang, one who defrauds his landlord or creditors by decamping in the night.” The OED gives the following quote from a dictionary dated 1796: a fly-by-night is “an ancient form of reproach to an old woman, signifying that she was a witch.” This 1796 definition says nothing about defrauding creditors, but does connect the term to Witchcraft, even as late as the closing years of the eighteenth century.

Whatever can be meant by being “addicted to nocturnal excursions”? It’s hard to say what the author of this OED definition had in mind. But evidently, “fly-by-night” came to be used as a term of disparagement, as a part of the effort to discredit Witchcraft generally.

To many historical scholars, however, the Canon says little or nothing about Witchcraft per se. Rather, its importance rests in being a source for a series of elements which later became part of the “cumulative idea of Witchcraft”: the travels by night with a Goddess; the use of Magic; the connection between these things and demonic illusion; changing shape into various animals; the importance of women in all these matters; and also some associated ideas, such as flying, the cavalcade of the Dead, and the Faerie Rout or Wild Hunt.

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Read an in-depth analysis of the Canon Episcopi.