“Diana or Herodias.” This decree, which was often attributed to a General Council of Ancyra, but which is now held to be of a later date, was in any case authoritative, since it passed into the “De ecclesiasticis disciplinis” ascribed to Regino of Prum (906), and thence to the canonists S. Ivo of Chartres and Johannes Gratian. Section 364 of the Benedictine Abbot's work relates that “certain abandoned women turning aside to follow Satan, being seduced by the illusions and phantasms of demons, believe and openly profess that in the dead of night they ride upon certain beasts with the pagan goddess Dianan and a countless horde of women, and that in these silent hours they fly over vast tracks of country and obey her as their mistress, while on other nights they are sullen to pay her homage.” John of Salisbury, who died in 1180, in his “Policraticus,” I, xvii, speaks of the popular belief in a witch-queen named Herodias, who called together the sorcerers to meeting at night. In a MS., “De Sortilegis,” the following passage occurs: “We next inquire concerning certain wicked crones who believe and profess that in the night-time they ride abroad with Diana, the heathen goddess, or else with Herodias, and an innumerable host of women, upon certain beasts, and that in a silent covey at the dead of night they pass over immense distances, obeying her commands as their mistress, and that they are summoned by her on appointed nights, and they declare that they have the power to change human beings for better or for worse, ay, even to turn them into some other semblance or shape. Concerning such women I answer according to the decrees of the Council of Alexandria, that the minds of the faithful are disordered by such fantasies owing to the inspiration of no good spirit but of the devil.”