# In premodern Europe, was there any real connection between crypto-pagans and folk magicians? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 19, 2011, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-premodern-europe-was-there-any-real-connection-between-crypto-pagans-and-folk-magicians/596835 "2011-09-19T15:55:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Cheshire\_Human](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Cheshire\_Human](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheshire_Human)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2011, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-premodern-europe-was-there-any-real-connection-between-crypto-pagans-and-folk-magicians/596835/21 "2011-09-21T19:37:40Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Wikipedia has a whole article on [pointed hats,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointed_hat) but I see nothing that really answers that question. The wiki page you link to includes links to our own [**Perfect Master**](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cecil_Adams), which then links to our [**Gormless Wienie**](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Zotti). Damn. We’re famous enough for Wikipedia! :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2011, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-premodern-europe-was-there-any-real-connection-between-crypto-pagans-and-folk-magicians/596835/22 "2011-09-22T04:16:39Z")
> [@Cheshire\_Human](#): > > The wiki page you link to includes links to our own [**Perfect Master**](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cecil_Adams), which then links to our [**Gormless Wienie**](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Zotti). Damn. We’re famous enough for Wikipedia! :eek: [German Wikipedia, too!](http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cecil_Adams) ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2011, 8:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-premodern-europe-was-there-any-real-connection-between-crypto-pagans-and-folk-magicians/596835/23 "2011-09-22T08:04:49Z")
To try to answer your question, folk magic in medieval Europe was pretty much explicitly Christian, and if you asked someone who practiced it what religion he or she was, they’d say “I’m Christian”. So it wasn’t like you had a bunch of secret pagans running around practicing pagan magic. That being said, some of these magical traditions dated back to pagan traditions, and they continued as folklore, being stripped of their non-Christian elements. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2011, 10:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-premodern-europe-was-there-any-real-connection-between-crypto-pagans-and-folk-magicians/596835/24 "2011-09-22T10:37:24Z")
> [@Maastricht](#): > > [Cracked agrees with you.](http://http://www.cracked.com/article_18510_6-supposedly-ancient-traditions-that-totally-arent_p2.html) [Fixed link.](http://www.cracked.com/article_18510_6-supposedly-ancient-traditions-that-totally-arent_p2.html) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2011, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-premodern-europe-was-there-any-real-connection-between-crypto-pagans-and-folk-magicians/596835/25 "2011-09-22T13:19:22Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > To try to answer your question, folk magic in medieval Europe was pretty much explicitly Christian, and if you asked someone who practiced it what religion he or she was, they’d say “I’m Christian”. Of course, that’s exactly the answer you’d get from **anyone** in medieval Europe, including some (secretly) practicing Jews. ---
**Author:** ![Grendel\_s\_Father](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grendel\_s\_Father](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grendel_s_Father)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2011, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-premodern-europe-was-there-any-real-connection-between-crypto-pagans-and-folk-magicians/596835/26 "2011-09-22T13:37:25Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Of course, that’s exactly the answer you’d get from **anyone** in medieval Europe, including some (secretly) practicing Jews. Which is why we have to rely on corroborating evidence that Judaism was being practiced in medieval Europe. No such evidence has been uncovered for pagan survivals, with a few exceptions, such as, apparently, in Lithuania (was that actually a survival or was it largely a new religion?). ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2011, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-premodern-europe-was-there-any-real-connection-between-crypto-pagans-and-folk-magicians/596835/27 "2011-09-22T13:44:04Z")
> [@Grendel\_s\_Father](#): > > Which is why we have to rely on corroborating evidence that Judaism was being practiced in medieval Europe. No such evidence has been uncovered for pagan survivals, with a few exceptions, such as, apparently, in Lithuania (was that actually a survival or was it largely a new religion?). I think it was just the last place in Europe to be conquered/converted. Of course, except in times and places where Jews were specifically banned, everyone **knew** Judaism was being practiced, quite openly, in medieval Europe. Jews, most of the time, more or less got a pass for not being Christians. But pagans would not have, they would have had to keep it all very secret. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2011, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-premodern-europe-was-there-any-real-connection-between-crypto-pagans-and-folk-magicians/596835/28 "2011-09-22T14:03:53Z")
There was witchcraft and satanic magic practiced by some Europeans, kept active by the very fear of it in the Christian population. This is understandable enough - make a big deal about how scary black magic is, and soon enough, someone will take advantage of that (in spite of the personal danger). An example of this sort of thing among the courtiers of Louis XIV … [Affair of the Poisons - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affair_of_the_Poisons) Again, it is hard from this remove to prove that any actual threatening black magic was involved - though I’d be surprised if it wasn’t, pushed by various fakers. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2011, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-premodern-europe-was-there-any-real-connection-between-crypto-pagans-and-folk-magicians/596835/29 "2011-09-22T15:13:45Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > There was witchcraft and satanic magic practiced by some Europeans, kept active by the very fear of it in the Christian population. > > This is understandable enough - make a big deal about how scary black magic is, and soon enough, someone will take advantage of that (in spite of the personal danger). > > An example of this sort of thing among the courtiers of Louis XIV … [Affair of the Poisons - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affair_of_the_Poisons) > > Again, it is hard from this remove to prove that any actual threatening black magic was involved - though I’d be surprised if it wasn’t, pushed by various fakers. My guess is, only an aristocrat would even **think** of defying God and the Church by practicing “satanic magic.” It would never occur to a peasant, not even to one who already practices traditions the Church would call “Satanic” if it knew about them. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2011, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-premodern-europe-was-there-any-real-connection-between-crypto-pagans-and-folk-magicians/596835/30 "2011-09-22T15:31:28Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > My guess is, only an aristocrat would even **think** of defying God and the Church by practicing “satanic magic.” It would never occur to a peasant, not even to one who already practices traditions the Church would call “Satanic” if it knew about them. I dunno, it was probably considered just another (really nasty) means of doing harm to your enemies. People are willing to poision inconvenient family members, out of hate or to get an inheritance - peasants as much as aristos. Putting an evil spell on them with the help of Satan is just more of the same (in the case above, connected to it: the same folks distributing “inheritance powders” are also accused of dabbling in Satanism). As long as people are willing to work evil on others, and are superstitious enough to believe that magic works, you will have a demand for “black” witchcraft of one form or another - culturally conditioned of course. In a Christian nation, it is likely to take the form of “satanic” magic, because people are likely to believe in Satan. Where there is a demand, sooner or later there will be someone to supply it. Which is a long-winded way of saying that such stuff has no necessary connection to pre-existing paganism survivals. ---
**Author:** ![Grendel\_s\_Father](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grendel\_s\_Father](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grendel_s_Father)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2011, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-premodern-europe-was-there-any-real-connection-between-crypto-pagans-and-folk-magicians/596835/31 "2011-09-22T15:48:45Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > I dunno, it was probably considered just another (really nasty) means of doing harm to your enemies. > > People are willing to poision inconvenient family members, out of hate or to get an inheritance - peasants as much as aristos. Putting an evil spell on them with the help of Satan is just more of the same (in the case above, connected to it: the same folks distributing “inheritance powders” are also accused of dabbling in Satanism). > > As long as people are willing to work evil on others, and are superstitious enough to believe that magic works, you will have a demand for “black” witchcraft of one form or another - culturally conditioned of course. In a Christian nation, it is likely to take the form of “satanic” magic, because people are likely to believe in Satan. Where there is a demand, sooner or later there will be someone to supply it. > > Which is a long-winded way of saying that such stuff has no necessary connection to pre-existing paganism survivals. That’s all good speculation, but is there any evidence that any of this ever actually happened? It reminds me a little of the whole “satanic cult” urban legends today. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2011, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-premodern-europe-was-there-any-real-connection-between-crypto-pagans-and-folk-magicians/596835/32 "2011-09-22T15:58:23Z")
> [@Grendel\_s\_Father](#): > > That’s all good speculation, but is there any evidence that any of this ever actually happened? It reminds me a little of the whole “satanic cult” urban legends today. Well, I posted the “affair of the poisions” link in the previous post … the problem with lesser, non-aristocratic use of black magic lies in the standards of evidence used by criminal trials of the premodern era, which are somewhat lacking as “proof”. There are plenty of trials for murder, black magic and the like, but as confessions tend to be extracted by torture and the court proceedings are lacking in credibiliy, it is hard for the serious investigator these days to disentangle “actual practitioners” from “figments of the judges/prosecutor’s imagination”. Thus, the most that can be said is that it would be surprising if a widespread belief in the efficacy of black magic existed and some malfactors did _not_ attempt to capitalize on that to bamboozle the gullible. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2011, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-premodern-europe-was-there-any-real-connection-between-crypto-pagans-and-folk-magicians/596835/33 "2011-09-22T20:11:26Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Of course, that’s exactly the answer you’d get from **anyone** in medieval Europe, including some (secretly) practicing Jews. Sure, but what I mean is that the “cunning men” and other folk magic practitioners appeared to consider themselves Christian, and everybody else seemed to, also. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2011, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-premodern-europe-was-there-any-real-connection-between-crypto-pagans-and-folk-magicians/596835/34 "2011-09-23T00:15:24Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > Thus, the most that can be said is that it would be surprising if a widespread belief in the efficacy of black magic existed and some malfactors did _not_ attempt to capitalize on that to bamboozle the gullible. Or themselves. ---
**Author:** ![Toxylon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f05b48/32.png) [@Toxylon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toxylon)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2011, 11:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-premodern-europe-was-there-any-real-connection-between-crypto-pagans-and-folk-magicians/596835/35 "2011-09-24T11:14:54Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > folk magic in medieval Europe was pretty much explicitly Christian, and if you asked someone who practiced it what religion he or she was, they’d say “I’m Christian”. So it wasn’t like you had a bunch of secret pagans running around practicing pagan magic. > > That being said, some of these magical traditions dated back to pagan traditions, and they continued as folklore, being stripped of their non-Christian elements. Medieval and later European folk magic had all kinds of synchretistic layers to it with a heavy penetration of Christian elements, but there was pre-Christian stuff going on pretty much unaltered from the late-prehistoric (Iron Age ) times, too. Up until the 19th century country folk in places like Finland and the Baltic countries occasionally practiced stuff like depositing animal heads into the foundations of a new building, starting the fire in a slash-and-burn cultivation plot by prehistoric friction-fire methods, as that type of fire was “angrier” and more powerful than ordinary (the flint and steel) one, carrying offerings of new crops into stone hollows on Iron Age sacred grounds, and performing elaborate magical rituals on the winter dens of bear to succeed in the hunt. (These are off the top of my head based on a couple of comparative religion studies lectures and books, but volumes have been filled with descriptions and analysis of North European folk magic unstripped of its non-Christian elements). ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2011, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-premodern-europe-was-there-any-real-connection-between-crypto-pagans-and-folk-magicians/596835/36 "2011-09-24T12:47:32Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Or themselves. Heh true enough. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2011, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-premodern-europe-was-there-any-real-connection-between-crypto-pagans-and-folk-magicians/596835/37 "2011-09-24T12:51:31Z")
> [@Toxylon](#): > > Medieval and later European folk magic had all kinds of synchretistic layers to it with a heavy penetration of Christian elements, but there was pre-Christian stuff going on pretty much unaltered from the late-prehistoric (Iron Age ) times, too. Up until the 19th century country folk in places like Finland and the Baltic countries occasionally practiced stuff like depositing animal heads into the foundations of a new building, starting the fire in a slash-and-burn cultivation plot by prehistoric friction-fire methods, as that type of fire was “angrier” and more powerful than ordinary (the flint and steel) one, carrying offerings of new crops into stone hollows on Iron Age sacred grounds, and performing elaborate magical rituals on the winter dens of bear to succeed in the hunt. (These are off the top of my head based on a couple of comparative religion studies lectures and books, but volumes have been filled with descriptions and analysis of North European folk magic unstripped of its non-Christian elements). There are hefty syncretic elements to Christianity itself - for example, in the choice of local saints. What apparently lacks is any sort of concious survival of pre-Christian paganism as distinct from Christianity. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-premodern-europe-was-there-any-real-connection-between-crypto-pagans-and-folk-magicians/596835.md?page=1)