Re: Executioners and such (wa...

[GaryH2018@aol.com]

Meli scripsit

>The other theory, advanced in _The Divine King in England_ by---uhh, by--
erg, 
>can't remember, (noted British Occultist--I'll remember at some point & post

>it, the book is really hard to find but makes fascinating reading for people

>interested in the SCA periods!) 
> (much deletia)

The author is Margret Murray; who would, I suspect, wince at being called an
occultist.  Murray was (IMHO) a good Egyptologist and a lousy medievalist
(her other major medieval works are _The_Witch_Cult_in_Medieval_Europe_ and
_The_God_of_the_Witches_).  The reaction of most mainstream medieval scholars
to her work can be summed in a quote from Ronald Hutton's
_The_Pagan_Religions_of_the_Ancient_British_Isles_ concerning
_The_Divine_King_:

    "What the book did prove, beyond any reasonable scholarly doubt, was that
Dr. Murray knew nothing about the political history of medieval and early
modern England."

Ranulf.