The Routledge History of Medieval Magic

Sophie Page, Catherine Rider

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781317042754
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Histoire
• Subtopic: Histoire du monde

The Routledge History of Medieval Magic brings together the work of scholars from across Europe and North America to provide extensive insights into recent developments in the study of medieval magic between c.1100 and c.1500.

This book covers a wide range of topics, including the magical texts which circulated in medieval Europe, the attitudes of intellectuals and churchmen to magic, the ways in which magic intersected with other aspects of medieval culture, and the early witch trials of the fifteenth century. In doing so, it offers the reader a detailed look at the impact that magic had within medieval society, such as its relationship to gender roles, natural philosophy, and courtly culture. This is furthered by the book's interdisciplinary approach, containing chapters dedicated to archaeology, literature, music, and visual culture, as well as texts and manuscripts.

The Routledge History of Medieval Magic also outlines how research on this subject could develop in the future, highlighting under-explored subjects, unpublished sources, and new approaches to the topic. It is the ideal book for both established scholars and students of medieval magic.

PART I

Conceptualizing magic

1

Rethinking how to define magic

Richard Kieckhefer

What is magic? We know perfectly well what it is if no one asks us, but when someone asks and we try to define it, we are confused. Or perhaps we give definitions adequate to some forms of magic but not others. Or we have definitions that make sense to us but not to others around us, who, when pressed, come to the table with rather different notions. We tell people, “When I speak of magic, what I mean by it is …”, but then we should not be surprised if they tune out our abstractions and understand us in terms of their own vague preconceptions. Defining magic is notoriously tricky business. And one reason for that is, I wish to argue, that we try to make the word “magic” accomplish what it is ill equipped to do. It is the wrong kind of term for what we want to do with it.¹

A comparison may help. It has long seemed to me useful to think of mysticism – another difficult concept – not as a single phenomenon but rather as a cluster of phenomena that may at times be distinct but tend to become intertwined.² There is mystical prayer, mystical relationship and mystical consciousness. The Cloud of Unknowing is a guide to contemplative prayer: fervent and intense, highly concentrated, focused prayer, cultivated within the setting of the contemplative or monastic life.³ One might call it apophatic prayer, because it requires the simplest forms of praying and the simplest perception of the God to whom one prays. It entails disciplined attention to that God, and the realization that one’s own effort of attention is ultimately not one’s own effort at all, but the fruit of grace. The contemplative prayer of The Cloud is one classic manifestation of mysticism. Quite different is the mysticism of, say, Bernard of Clairvaux or the German sister books that are deeply steeped in “theoerotic” relationship, intensely amorous relationship with Christ.⁴ They borrow the language and the narrative of the Song of Songs to tell what it is like to burn with love for the God-man. Different again are the vernacular sermons of Meister Eckhart, who wants his hearers or readers to gain a lively awareness of God’s presence within herself – within her every cell, in the depths of her soul, within that mysterious inner chamber to which he gives many different names – and of her own true and eternal presence within God.⁵ If The Cloud teaches mystical prayer, and Bernard advocates mystical relationship, Eckhart seeks to heighten mystical consciousness. Yet, we cannot really speak here of different forms or types of mysticism, because there is no reason in principle why they cannot be combined, and in writers such as Teresa of Ávila they very much are intertwined.⁶ They represent distinguishable elements of Christian mysticism, not three different types.

The situation with magic is, I propose, similar. There are distinguishable practices that have long been called magical. If they have anything to do with each other – and they often do – it is not because they are different forms of one clearly definable thing, but for other reasons that we need to explore. Like “mysticism”, so too “magic” is what I will call an aggregating term. The same can probably also be said for “sainthood”, “authority” and numerous other terms, surely including “religion”, all of which I would class as aggregating. They are difficult to define, because they encompass diverse elements that may or may not be combined with each other. The different elements may not share any common defining feature that brings them under the umbrella of the aggregating term; they are not linked by a shared essence. They may not even have shifting combinations of shared features; they are not necessarily bound by family resemblance. Mystical prayer, mystical relationship and mystical consciousness may or may not involve ecstatic experiences, and in any case it is not such experiences that qualify them as mystical. Even if they share no common features, they may be mutually supportive, and for that reason they may be cultivated jointly, which is sufficient reason to think of them as elements of something which is perhaps loosely called mysticism. But it is the type of intense prayer, or the type of fervently erotic relationship, or the depth of awareness that constitutes each of these phenomena as mystical. Mystical prayer may begin with intense focus on a single word and lead towards an experience of divinely infused prayer based on neither words nor concepts. Mystical relationship may involve a cycle of courtship, teasing withdrawal and erotic union with one’s divine lover. Mystical consciousness typically involves a keen awareness of God always present within oneself, and of one’s own true self as eternally present within God. It is not the aggregating category but the more specific one that constitutes them as elements of mysticism, and thus I will call these more specific forms of reference constitutive terms.⁷

We devote most of our energy to refining our aggregating terms, supposing that this is where our efforts are repaid by clarity and constructive value, and we often think of subcategories as afterthoughts – but this is precisely the opposite of what we should be doing. It is the constitutive terms that are more likely to serve as useful tools for analysis and finely tuned comparison; aggregating terms are terms of convenience. While constitutive terms tend to be taken from and largely at home in specialized analytic discourse, aggregating terms tend to be widely used in general and popular discourse. Constitutive terms are relatively intolerant of ambiguity and imprecision; aggregating terms are by comparison open to ambiguous and imprecise usage. Constitutive terms are less connotative, aggregating terms more so. Constitutive terms tend to be univocal; aggregating terms are more often, in scholastic language, analogous or even equivocal.

Let me pursue a bit further my discussion of the term “mysticism”. Those who rely on it as a tool for comparative study are often drawn towards something like William James’s marks of mystical experience as ineffable, noetic, transient and passive.⁸ On the surface, these may seem useful as common denominators of mysticism across cultures. But to take these as defining features of mysticism risks giving emphasis and importance to discrete mystical experiences even when the mystics we are reading spoke slightingly of them (Eckhart) or thought of them as belonging to earlier and lower levels of attainment (Teresa of Ávila). In any case, centring attention on such alleged common features risks turning away from what was of central importance to the mystics themselves. Bernard of Clairvaux no doubt did have experiences that were ineffable, noetic, transient and passive, but what was important to him was not these qualities of experience but rather the living and lively presence of Christ. If we want to do comparative study of mysticism that will combine rigour with sensitivity to the values of our subjects, the term “mysticism” may not be the most helpful tool to use. It means too many different things and is too connotative. Much more can be accomplished by more focused comparison of constitutive terms. There is theoerotic literature in many religious traditions, and comparison of the late medieval German mystic Dorothea von Montau (who was overwhelmed with love for Christ), the Islamic mystic Rābi’a (similarly on fire with love of Allah) and the Hindu mystic and poet Mīrā Bāī (who sought only the love of Krishna) can elucidate patterns of similarity and difference that will lead to insightful understanding.⁹ Most religious traditions provide disciplines of contemplation or meditation, and these too are fruitful subject matter for comparison.

What, then, are the constitutive terms that might be used to elucidate the aggregating term “magic”? This is a question that clearly calls for discussion, but provisionally I would suggest at least these three constitutive terms: conjuration, symbolic manipulation and directly efficacious volition.

By “conjuration”, I mean here the ritual summoning and command of spirits. A long tradition of “skrying” claims that by gazing intently into a reflective surface and uttering incantations one can conjure angels or demons who will reveal secret and future things, perhaps telling who has stolen one’s property. In the Yiddish play and film The Dybbuk, a young Kabbalist named Khonnon goes into the ritual bath and conjures Satan.¹⁰ The spirits conjured may be thought of as good, evil, neutral or ambiguous; different observers may conceive them differently. In any case, the conjuration involves ritual that is in some measure complex and requires specialized skills, which helps to explain why the practitioner often belongs to some professional elite such as a priest or monk. The techniques, the assumptions and the status of the operator all show that conjuration is closely linked with religion, and may indeed be seen as part of a religious system, even if most people view it as a perversion of proper ritual. Summoning assumes that the spirits have local presence and locomotion: they are there, until they are called here. Command implies not manipulation but an exercise of authority in the face of potential resistance. Conjuring a spirit is decidedly not like activating an impersonal machine. A spirit has a will, and to be commanded must be brought into submission. The point of the ritual is precisely to effect that submission. Necromancy clearly falls under this category, but so does angel magic, and techniques of spirit magic in other cultures that in various ways resemble or relate to necromancy and angel magic. The very category “spirit” will surely require nuancing in comparative study, but taking into account different conceptions of what a spirit could be, and how a spirit relates to a ghost or an embodied being, is part of the task of comparison.

When I speak of “symbolic manipulation”, I mean to include both of James G. Frazer’s classic categories, sympathy and contagion, both of which involve exploitation of natural forces identified and explained in symbolic terms.¹¹ Assumed here is an order of nature rife with symbolic links on which magical efficacy depends. Plants, gems and artefacts are symbolically linked with the stars and planets, and can channel their power. Plants may resemble human organs and prove to benefit or harm those organs. Breaking and burying a candle symbolizes breaking and burying the power of a phallus and may cause impotence. Putting human excretions, bones from beneath a gallows, and other noxious substances in a bundle and placing it near an intended victim is no less a way of manipulating symbolic links: other objects may contaminate in more ordinary ways, but these substances are harmful because their natural decay symbolizes a deeper contamination, moral and spiritual as well as physical. Figures and images taken to resemble and channel powers from or towards what they represent are among the symbols manipulated by such magic. Names and recital of events can also hold symbolic power: the magician can invoke the force contained in the name “Jesus” or some form of “Jahweh”, or in an event of sacred history. In all these cases, the symbol can be viewed as a sign in either of two ways: if it is a sign to be interpreted by a demon or other spirit, who serves as the agent effecting the magician’s will, then symbolic manipulation turns into a form of conjuration; however, even within proper symbolic manipulation, the links between symbols (objects, words, ritual actions) and what they symbolized are conceived as intelligible and in that sense signifying. If a plant shaped like a liver is useful for healing the liver, it is in that sense a sign of what it is thought to affect, and the intelligible resemblance is what effects the healing. The magical power of symbolic manipulation may still not be automatic, but it is more nearly so than the power of conjuration. If conjuration is a reprobate branch of religion, symbolic manipulation claims an efficacy like that of science and will be seen by its practitioners as a type of science. The magician who manipulates symbolic links in the natural order might be thought of as tugging on invisible cords that link one level of that order with another. The symbolic links may be articulated in terms of cosmic correspondences or sympathies, at least in sources that provide theoretical grounding for magical practice. If the invisible cords are not thought of as efficacious symbolically, then the process is not magical; the user may not be told explicitly that symbolic links are entailed, and may simply be assured that the results are tried and proven, but in magical operations, the symbolic causality is at least implied by the types of word, ritual and object used.

As for “directly efficacious volition”, the clearest example is cursing.¹² Threatening and cursing a neighbour may cause ill will, anxiety, high blood pressure, ill health and in the extreme case or the long run death. It counts as magical, however, only if someone – the magician, the victim, a neighbour, an inquisitor – thinks of the effect as more direct, as flowing directly from the will and its expression, without being mediated through external agencies and mechanisms.¹³ This was the crux of Freud’s understanding of magic as grounded in an infantile confusion of will with reality: the magician, like a child, supposes that willing something to happen can in itself make it happen, and such “magical thinking” in an adult is for a Freudian a form of neurosis.¹⁴ Usually, the will seen as having this efficacy is one supported by vehement and even violent psychological energy. Typically, it is focused by becoming explicit, not only in the magician’s mind but also in speech. Language is a vehicle of energies, positive and negative, and aggressive energy can be thought of as directly harming or coercing a victim. It may be difficult to distinguish between a curse that has inherent power and a threat that is followed by an act of magic. In principle, however, malediction is not just an expression but a tool of a malevolent will; whereas in conjuration the magician engages in a contest of wills with the spirit conjured, malediction is a weapon wielded by a malevolent will against an enemy.

Note, however, the asymmetry here: conjuration can be seen as either benevolent or malevolent (those who profess to conjure angels typically insist they are engaged in ...