they represented was certainly the domain of popular participation in mass
festivals (Ryan 1999). Although we do not know exactly what common peo-
ple believed, they liked it enough to celebrate it several times a year.
Class and culture are always bound together, and no less so in ancient
times. Even though the ruling class converted to Christianity, this conversion
did not much change Roman/Byzantine Imperial culture. Similarly, official
conversion to Christianity, nor in combination with extensive and persistent
Christian efforts to convert the masses did not readily alter long-held tradi-
tional beliefs and celebrations. They still maintained the old festivals and
rituals.
Beyond celebrations, evidence now suggests that natural philosophy, or
what we now know as science, was associated with pagan mysteries from
the fifth century to the Renaissance (MacMullen 1997) and thus continued in
the middle-ages as magic or other arcane art. In the witch persecutions of
1450–1650 (Trevor-Roper 1969), the people typically persecuted were primarily
unmarried or widowed women in cottage businesses, such as beer, bread,
butter making, spinning, weaving, healing and midwifery (Barstow 1994) –
all traditional roles for women. The healing/midwifery practitioners in par-
ticular were known as “wise-women,” who some now believe possessed
ancient knowledge associated with what medieval society understood as nat-
ural magic, itself a product of non-Christian, pagan mystery-cult traditions
(Kieckhefer 1989). Also persecuted were “cunning men” whose skills per-
tained to animal husbandry and crop production – traditional roles for peas-
ant men. Despite that fact that witch hunters translated the ancient practices
into Christian imagery of Satan and Evil, the practices of pre-Christian knowl-
edge and the associated class and gender roles remained from ancient times.
Thus, paganism as a cultural tradition, whether viewed positively or neg-
atively, involved many cultural practices beyond a set of beliefs. Advanced,
natural and philosophical knowledge was, even several hundred years later,
viewed as pagan (and often interpreted as anti-Christian). Conceptual and
practical knowledge, art, and joy of living were embodied as pagan, not as
Christian traditions (Comnena [1120] 1969; Hutton 1999). Whatever belief a
person may subscribe to during a crisis, these are only momentary associa-
tions, compared to their ongoing beliefs during routine times which reflect
their history and social location – the traditions of their class and culture –
the foundations of any society.
242 • George Lundskow