The Priscillian Heresy and the Scilly Isles

Scilly was one of the last holdouts of the Priscillian heresy. It was linked to Manicheanism, sorcery and astrological demons. A covenant of Criamon astrologers disappeared from the islands after a great magical event. These things seem to be connected. Let’s look at the history of the heretical community.

In this post, I’ll be using what was believed about Priscillain in 1220. This is almost entirely based on the claims of his enemies, particularly St Augustine. Augustine was a convert from Manicheanism, and claimed that Priscillian was a Gnostic Manichean. In 1886 a researcher discovered a series of letters by Priscillian that had been preserved in the Univeristy of Wurzburg. These have not been translated into an English edition, but they make clear that Priscillain wasn’t a Gnostic or a Manichean. He liked Manichean austerities, like fasting, but anathematised their beliefs. I’ll revisit what Priscillain actually believed, in the real world, when I’ve accessed and digested new research materials, while flagging that he seems like a sort of proto-Protestant.

Priscillain was bishop of Avila, in what’s now Spain. He was part of a group of bishops who followed a series of doctrines which created a split in the Church. His accusers, unable to bring him to heel, involved the Emperor, but after a period of imprisonment, Pricillian and his fellow bishops were restored to their sees. After a while, the imperial mantle changed hands, and his accusers tried again with the new man, Magnus Maximus.

Magnus Maximus may sound like the sort of made-up name you see in movies, because it means, “Great, really hugely great”. That being said, you’ve met him before if you’re interested in British folklore. In Welsh he’s called Mascen Wledig, where Wledig is a title that means he’s the ruler. He’s the emperor who withdrew Roman troops from Britain, leaving the field clear for Arthur’s ancestors to sort things out. He’s the ancestor of various Welsh kings, his troops founded Brittany, and he was, himself, Galician, and so fortified that little bit of Spain, which was why it never fell to the Moors. Essentially, he’s a folk hero and ancestor figure to a heap of Celts.

Priscillian was charged with heresy, which was none of the emperor’s business. He was, however, also charged with sorcery. That’s a mundane crime, and the punishment at the time was beheading. After Priscillian was put to death, the Pope chucked a fit, because this was the first time a heretic had been killed by a Christian emperor and he wanted to establish the right of clergy to be tried only be ecclesiastical courts. Priscillian’s body was returned to Avila where he was treated as a martyr, and it was turned into a relic. His sect continued in Iberia for a few centuries, before Leo I called time on it at a synod in 563. He did this on the grounds that Priscillains thought people had a direct connection with God and sot hey didn;’t feel any particular need for the papacy.

At Priscillian’s execution, one, or perhaps two, of his fellow bishops were banished to Scilly by the Emporer. The best-attested follower was Bishop Instantius, who presumably led this little church. In 995 a viking raider, and future king, or Norway, named Olaf Tryggvason, was converted by a Christian seer on the islands. It’s not clear if this seer was part of a remnant group of Priscillians, or St Lide, who was active in the area at the time.

Priscillian, according to his detractors, had weird ideas about cosmology. In the beginning there were a Kingdom of Darkness and a Kingdom of Light. When the Darkness attacked the Light, God created human souls to fight back and destroy it. They failed, and were imprisoned in matter. Humans, therefore, contain both the light and darkness. The Twelve Patriarchs, angelic figures which are representative of human virtues, tried to rescue human souls from embodiment, but failed due to the opposition of the Twelve Archons of Matter, who are the spirits of the Zodiac. God then sent his son, in the semblance of a man, to allow the humans to return to the Kingdom of Light. This is pretty basic Manicheanism. Augustine took this one step further in Contra Mendacium “(Against Lying”) where he claimed that Priscillians believed that they were allowed to lie to less spiritual people, provided it was for a good cause.

Plot Hooks: What happened to Stellasper?

The New Star

In 1220, people think that supernovae are meteorological events. The person who disproved this was Tycho Brahe, whose remarkable prosthetic noses, I mentioned back in Microepisode Week. The stars are permanent. This group of Criamon, though, did not agree. There are been three visible supernovae in the time of the Order, and one of them left the Zodiac weakened. The Criamon used that to break out of the world. Let’s review the candidates.

In 1006 was the brightest supernova in recorded history: a quarter as bright as the full moon and two or three times the size of Venus. A star died in the constellation of Centarus. In modern times, the star would have been in Lupus, but in 1220 Lupus was thought of as an animal running from, or dying on the tip of, the Centaur’s spear. Don’t be confused by the similarity to Sagittarius. These constellations are deep in the southern sky now, but were higher then – visible from central Europe. The nova was one quarter as bright as the moon. If a constellation killed a star, might this have let the magi see that it was possible?

In 1054 a star just above the horn of Taurus died (note, the ancients don’t know there’s travelling time for light). This may have weakened the Archon of the Sign, or it may have, again, suggested that stars could die.

In 1181, a star in Cassiopeia died. This may have been aided by the Criamon, because the folklore around this constellation states that it is a punishment and a prison for the Queen of the Ethiopians. Cassiopeia boasted her daughter was more beautiful than the sea nymphs, so she has been placed on a spinning throne that wheels about the Pole Star, forced to hang upside down for six months of the year, being ducked into the sea from a Greek observer’s perspective. She reaches out her arms toward Andromeda, her daughter, similarly tortured.

If she’s a punished mortal, she has no desire to be in the Heavens. If she’s an evil astral spirit, she’s Vanity, and she’s probably willing to cut a deal to betray the others, because she will not be mocked. The W shape of stars across her breast is called “the Key” or “the door” by Aratus and it is here the supernova appeared.

To Arab astrologers, the constellation is not a woman, it’s a tattooed hand, marked with diagrams of henna. That’s where we get the modern name for Beta Cassiopeiae from (Caph: “stained hand”). The link between the tatooed hand and the Criamon is obvious.

Oddly, the next major supernova, SN 1572, was also in Cassiopeia. It was probably the one observed by Tycho Brahe. There was a later supernova in 1602, in Ophiuchus (who was, to the Romans, Asclepius, killed by Zeus with lightning, to stop him making humans immortal, and wrestling a snake forever) observed by Kepler, and then perhaps a brief one seen either in 1620 or 1680, in Cassiopeia again. That’s it: there have been none, within our galaxy, visible to the naked eye from Earth since. Does it seem odd that there are 48 constellations, but three of the last four supernovae have been in Cassiopeia?

The Old Star

Of course, it’s possible that the didn’t passively wait for a star to die. They may have murdered it. How do you murder a star? Is the weapon they used still available? Is the destruction of a star, like the destruction of the physical form of a demon, a purely temporary measure, such that the creature can return to seek vengeance?

A lovely bit of text from the Atlas Games Forum

Ken gave a different interpretation of what’s going on here, and it’s beautifully written. See here.