text: what are the origins of wicca?   2000 bc   babylon's code of hammurabi instructs, "if a man has laid a charge of witchcraft and has not justified it, he upon whom the witchcraft is laid shall go to the holy river; he shall plunge into the holy river and if the holy river overcome him, he who accused him shall take to himself his house."    3rd cent. ad   under the pre-christian roman empire, punishment of burning alive was enacted by the state against witches who brought about another person's death through their enchantments.    306 ad   the christian council of elvira (canon 6) refuses last rites to those who had killed a man by a magical spell because such a crime could not be effected "without idolatry" (i.e. the help of the devil).    313   conversion of emperor constantine; christianity is granted official toleration by the roman empire.    314   canon 24 of the council of ancyra imposes five years of penance upon those who consult magicians. here, the offence lies in participation in paganism.    785   the council of paderborn rules that sorcerers are to be reduced to serfdom and made over to the service of the church.    906   the document de ecclesiasticis disciplinis ascribed to regino of prüm describes popular notions of witchcraft and states it is the duty of priests to "instruct the people that these things are absolutely untrue and that such imaginings are planted in the minds of misbelieving folk, not by a divine spirit, but by the spirit of evil."    1080   pope gregory vii writes a letter to king harold of denmark forbidding witches to be put to death upon presumption of their having caused storms, failure of crops or pestilence.    1225   in germany, the secular law code "sachsenspiegel" designated death by fire as the proper punishment for witchcraft.    1258   pope alexander iv instructs, "the inquisitors, deputed to investigate heresy, must not intrude into investigations of divination or sorcery without knowledge of manifest heresy involved." "manifest heresy" is defined as: "praying at the altars of idols, to offer sacrifices, to consult demons, to elicit responses from them... or associate themselves publicly with heretics."    1275   the first "witch" is burned to death after judicial sentence of an inquisitor, in toulouse, france. her name was hugues de baniol and she "confessed" to having given birth to a monster after intercourse with an evil spirit and to having nourished it with babies' flesh which she procured in her nocturnal expeditions.    1300-30   beginning of the witch trials in europe.    1334   large-scale witch trial in toulouse, france, in which 63 persons were accused. of these, eight were handed over to the state to be burned and the rest were imprisoned.    1374   pope gregory xi declares that all magic is done with the aid of demons and thus is open to prosecution for heresy.    1400   peter de gruyères, a secular judge, carries out large-scale witch trials in bern, switzerland.    1435-50   number of witch trails rises sharply.    1484   pope innocent viii publishes the bull summis desiderantes affectibus ("desiring with the greatest ardor") condemning witchcraft as satanism, the worst of all possible heresies. the bull also officially grants heinrich krämer and james sprenger, dominican inquisitors, the right to prosecute persons of any class or any form of crime.    1486   heinrich krämer and jacob sprenger publish malleus maleficarum ("the hammer of witches"), a learned but misogynistic book blaming witchcraft chiefly on women. it was reprinted many times thanks to the newly-invented printing press and was a major influence on the witch-hunt hysteria of the next two centuries. it was regarded as the standard handbook on witchcraft until well into the 18th century.    1530s   prosecutions for witchcraft begin in mexico.    1532   t