A Pagan Timeline

 Pagan history is hard to really sum up. Because All pre-Christian religions with the exception of Judism are technically Pagan, it's hard to say this is what was believed... Because they all held different beliefs. But, we know some basics and that's where I will really focus. 

Below you will find a basic time-line of paganism and see how it progresses through the years... 

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 offense 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 mis-believing 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	The penal code Carolina decrees that sorcery throughout the German empire should be treated as a criminal offense, and if it injured any person, the witch was to be burned at the stake.
1572	The Protestant ruler of Saxony imposes the penalty of burning for witchcraft of every kind, including fortune-telling.
1580-1630	Period in which witch-hunts are most severe.
1583	121 persons are burned as witches over three months in Osnabruck, Germany.
1590	Witch trials in North Berwick, Scotland.
1609	In response to a witch panic in the Basque region, La Suprema (the ruling body of the Spanish Inquisition) issues an "Edict of Silence" forbidding all discussion of witchcraft. For, as one inquisitor noted, "There were neither witches nor bewitched until they were talked and written about."
1631	The Jesuit Friedrich von Spee publishes Cautio criminalis against the witch craze.
1647	First hanging for witchcraft in New England.
1668-76	Outbreak of witch-hunts in Sweden.
1692	Between May and October, 19 people are tried and hanged as witches in Salem, Massachusetts.
1749	The last trial for witchcraft in Germany is carried out at Würzburg.
1754	Torture is abolished in Prussia.
1782	Last known execution for witchcraft takes place in Switzerland, in the Protestant canton of Glarus.
1807	Torture is abolished in Bavaria.
1822	Torture is abolished in Hanover.
1875	Birth of Aleister Crowley, occultist who influenced Gerald Gardner.
1885	Birth of Gerald Gardner, founder of Wicca.
1890s	Aleister Crowley joins the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, of which William Butler Yeats was also a member.
1899	Charles Godfrey Leland publishes Aradia or the Goddess of the Witches.
1910	Crowley meets a leader of German Masonic order called the Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.), a combination of Masonic rites and the traditions of the Rosicrucians, the Templars, the Illuminists, and Bengali Tantrism. Crowley was soon initiated into the order and progressing through the degrees of the order.
1912	Crowley is named Grand Master of the O.T.O. for Great Britain and Ireland.
1921	Margaret Murray published The Witch-Cult in Western Europe.
1926	Birth of Alexander Sanders, founder of Alexandrian Wicca.
1929	Margaret Murray published her article “Witchcraft” in the 14th edition of Encyclopædia Britannica.
1939	The O.T.O. in Germany is effectively dissolved by the Nazis.
1939	Gardner joins the Folklore Society and presents a paper on witchcraft.
1939	The year Gerald Gardner claims he was initiated into a witch cult called the New Forest Coven, led by Dorothy Clutterbuck.
1940	Zsuzsanna Budapest, feminist writer and leader of Dianic Wicca, is born on January 30.
1940s	Gardner joins the nudist group The Fiveacres Country Club.
1946	Gardner begins work on High Magic's Aid, a fictional novel partially based on those of his Southern Coven. The witches of his coven opposed making their rituals public, which is why it was presented as fiction and filled out with rituals from other sources.
1947	Gardner and Edith Woodford-Grimes start a company called Ancient Crafts Ltd.
1947	Gardner meets Crowley at Crowley's home in Hastings for the first time on May 1, and visits him again several times during May.
1947	Gardner becomes a member of the O.T.O. in May and is authorized by Crowley to found an O.T.O. encampment and initiate new members.
1947	Crowley dies on December 1.
1947	On December 27, Gardner writes a letter claiming to have been designated as successor to Crowley as leader of the O.T.O. Karl Germer assumed leadership instead, and held it until his death in 1962.
1949	Gerald Gardner publishes High Magic's Aid under the pseudonym Scire.
1950	Gardner begins distancing himself from Crowley and the O.T.O. in favor of Wicca.
1950	Gardner states in a letter that Crowley had participated in the witch cult but left in disgust due to the leadership of the High Priestess and the nudity.
1951	Gardner founds the "Northern Coven" in London and holds a small rite at his home near the British Museum on May Eve.
1953	Doreen Valiente is initated by Gardner, and soon became High Priestess.
1954	Gardner publishes Witchcraft Today, an event which many regard as the founding of Wicca.
1957	Wicca splits into two factions, one that supports Gardner's growing publicity of the religion (led by Gardner) and one that opposes it (led by Doreen Valiente).
1959	Gardner publishes The Meaning of Witchcraft, in which he first uses the term "Wicca."
1963-64	Gardner winters in Lebanon to help his failing health.
1964	Gardner dies of heart failure on the SS Scottish Prince in the Mediterranean. His body is buried at the next port of call, Tunis.
1989	Valiente publishes The Rebirth of Witchcraft, a first-hand account of the history and development of Wicca.
1991 2007	Aiden A. Kelly publishes Crafting the Art of Magic, Book I, which aims to show that Gardner's Book of Shadows could be entirely traced to earlier sources. The U.S. Veterans Administration approves the Pentagram as a symbol permitted on headstones for fallen soldiers in military cemeteries.