User talk:Jojohurst

Angéle de la Barthe was a prosperous woman of Toulouse, France, who was supposedly tried for witchcraft and condemned to death by the Inquisition in 1275. She has been popularly portrayed as the first person to be put to death for heretical sorcery during the medieval witch trials.

Born around 1230, a noblewoman of Toulouse, France, de la Barthe was an adherent of Catharism, a Gnostic Christian sect deemed heretical by the Catholic Church. She was allegedly accused in 1275 by Inquisitor Hugo de Beniols of having sexual intercourse with the Devil (or an incubus) and giving birth to a flesh-eating monster with a wolf's head and a serpent's tail, whose sole food consisted of babies and young children. De la Barthe was accused of having either kidnapped and killed these children or of digging them up from graves, and was held responsible for the disappearance of many infants over the previous two years. Under torture, she confessed to having had sexual relations with Satan, and she was found guilty and burned alive.

Contemporary scholars have cast doubt on the truth of the Angèle de la Barthe story since there is no mention of her trial in the Toulouse records of the time and congress with demons was not yet a crime in 1275, and the 15th Century chronicle from which her story derives is now considered spurious.

Witches and witchcraft are among us since thousands of years. Times came and went; many of them were killed, but the amount of women who died as witches while actually innocent is overwhelming. Witches exist in all folklores around the world. They are fascinating ladies, sometimes seductive, sometimes as ugly as the Devil himself. Even though today we have some clues about the lives of the most famous witches in the world, we may never know for sure who had real occult powers and who was merely an ordinarily lady. Take a look and decide for yourself:

1. The Witch Of Endor In The Old Testament, the Witch of Endor is mentioned in chapter 28, verses 3-25. Apparently, she owned a talisman which helped her make contact with the prophet Samuel (who, at that time, had just died). The Biblical verses which mention the Witch of Endor are very intriguing and caused much controversy especially in the Middle Ages, when theologians could not accept as true the fact that it was possible to call the ghost of saints by means of magic. They were rather eager to believe that he who the Witch of Endor had summoned was actually a demon taking the shape of Samuel.

2. Cassandra Cassandra is a renowned character from the Greek mythology. She was the daughter of king Priam of Troy and was apparently both blessed and cursed by Apollo who loved her but was not loved by Cassandra in return: blessed with the gift of clairvoyance and cursed so that her prophecies would never be believed. She had a sad fate as she was raped and became the concubine of the victorious Agamemnon. Upon their arrival in Athens, the king and Cassandra were both killed by Clytemnenstra, Agamemnon’s wife, and her secret lover.

3. Morgan Le Fay she is among the most famous witches in the world. Always portrayed as the enemy of King Arthur, Morgan is an important figure of the Arthurian tale. She was a powerful sorceress, Arthur’s half sister  (from their mother’s side) and a student of Merlin’s in the art of witchcraft. The first mention of her name comes from the 12 century when Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote the story called “Vita Merlini”. Here, we encounter Morgan (called Morgen) as the leader of the 9 magical sisters from the Island of Apples who took care of Merlin who had been badly wounded.

4. Angéle De La Barthe (1230-1275) A wealthy and noble woman of Toulouse, Angéle lived in the 13th century. She was an adept of Catharism, a sect which was considered heretic by the church. Angéle de la Barthe is supposedly the first to ever been executed for witchcraft as part of the Medieval Witch Hunt. She was accused of having sex with the Devil and she supposedly gave birth to his son, a baby eating monster. This accusation came after many babies had disappeared in the area that same period. In order to “encourage” her to confess these sins, she was severely tortured by the Inquisition. Later, de la Barthe was found guilty of being a witch and executed. No record of her trial exists however and many people doubt that she ever existed.