Walter Map, Anti-Heretic Writer

In 1182, Walter Map wrote an anti-Semitic description of the heretics' meetings. His description was an early predecessor to the stereotypical description of witches' sabbats. Up to the end of the fifteenth century, the word "synagogue" was used to describe witches' and heretics' gatherings. After that point, they were referred to as the equally anti-Jewish "sabbat." Here is what Map wrote about heretics:

About the first watch of the night, when gates, doors, and windows have been closed, the groups sit waiting in silence in their respective synagogues, and a black cat of marvellous size climbs down a rope which hangs in their midst. On seeing it, they put out the lights. They do not sing hymns or repeat them distinctly, but hum through clenched teeth and pantingly feel their way toward the place where they see their lord. When they have found him they kiss him, each the more humbly as he is the more inflamed by frenzy--some the feet, more under the tail, most the private parts (Russell 1987 62).

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Walter Map, Anti-Heretic Writer copyrighted 1996-1998 to Shantell Powell.