Shorter Bibliographical Notices

Margaret Murray: Who Believed Her, and Why?

“…By 1933 she was claiming sweepingly (though without citing any additional evidence) that inquisitors were "unanimous" in saying such sacrific es took place, and that the trial accounts support them. On this basis she then built her notorious fantasies that Joan of Arc, Gilles de Rais, and several Kings of England plus an assortment of their wives, ministers or favourites, had all volunteered to be killed as Divine Victims in the Old Religion (Murray 1933,122-54;1954). When this theme reached its full flowering in her third book, The Divine King in Eng land (1954), even her admirers must have been embar rassed.…”