In the reign of Charlemagne
the penalty for the belief in witchcraft was death. At all times man has
exhibited a tendency to see in woman either a celestial or an infernal
being, and nowhere was this tendency more strongly developed than in the
soul of the mediaeval dualist: he created the beloved and adored Queen
of Heaven, the mediator between God and humanity and, as her counterpart
the witch, the despised and dreaded seducer, a being between man and
devil. Powerless to effect a reconciliation between spiritual love and
sensuous pleasure, he required two distinct female types as
personifications of the two directions of his desire; love and the
pleasure of the senses could have nothing in common, and once the
highest value was realised in the spiritual love of woman, pleasure
could not appear otherwise than degraded, sinful and diabolical. In this
respect, also, woman submitted without a murmur to the dictates of male
will.
Mary and the devil became more and more the real hostile powers of the
thirteenth century; the classical time of woman-worship was also the
climax of the fear of the devil and witchcraft.
Pages:
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461
462
463
464
465
466
467
468
469
470
471
472
473
474