![]() The parish church or cathedral altar, at which the priest stood to celebrate the mass and transform the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, was far removed from the congregation of onlookers. The problem, though, was that the rites of the Church did not resonate with a congregation like folk belief. Rituals involving certain incantations and spells, eating or displaying certain types of vegetables, performing certain acts or wearing a certain type of charm – all pagan practices with a long history – continued to be observed alongside going to Church, veneration of the saints, Christian prayer, confession, and acts of contrition.Ī central concern of the Church, however, was right practice which reflected right belief, and the authorities struggled constantly to bring the population of Europe to this understanding. The belief in fairies, sprites, and ghosts (defined as spirits of the once-living) was so deeply embedded that parish priests allowed members of their congregations to continue practices of appeasement even though the Church instructed them to make clear such entities were demonic and not to be trifled with. ![]() One would no more go out of one's way to offend a water sprite than poison one's own well. In Britain, Scotland, and Ireland, especially, a belief in the “wee folk”, fairies, earth and water spirits, was regarded as simple common sense on how the world worked. The belief in fairies, sprites, & ghosts was so deeply embedded that parish priests allowed to continue practices of appeasement.Įven though there is ample evidence of Europeans in the Early Middle Ages accepting the basics of Christian doctrine, most definitely the existence of hell, a different paradigm of life on earth and the afterlife was so deeply ingrained in the communal consciousness that it could not easily just be set aside.
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