The Idea Of Magic

Before going into the subject of medieval magic, we have

first, to establish some basic
ideas about magic itself. It is not easy for us, living in the 21st
century to understand the way in which our ancestors saw the
world in the past and conceptualized its magical nature. De-
spite this difficulty, we have to acknowledge that the magical
perception of reality has been hegemonic during the most part
of human history and it is still today in many parts of the
globe. This fact has been explained by modern
scholars through different approaches. One of these ap-
proaches associates magic with the primitive state of knowl-
edge characteristic of pre-modern cultures. Those cultures al-
legedly incapable of understanding certain phenomenons
would have built magical explanations in order to give sense
to the world that surrounded them. This idea is firmly based
on the notion of a lineal human progress, attributing a lesser
grade of development to earlier cultures and a gradual im-
provement throughout history from darkness to light, placing
us on the top of that teleological progression. Following that
logic, the alleged intellectual awakening of modern times
would have liberated us from this magical nonsense character-
istic of previous cultures. Another common explanation for
magical thought based mostly on anthropological studies re-
lies on its function and structure, as a cultural construct. That's
designed to regulate human emotions, such as fear, violence,
power or the cohesion of human groups. Both explanations
have, in fact, a lot in common. First, they are both formulated
by western scientists who often see as inferior or less devel-
oped the people and societies who share magical beliefs, ei-
ther historical or contemporary. Second, they both understand
magical beliefs as intrinsically wrong as disprove by modern
science. As you may have already guessed, we do not share
this kind of approaches, as accepting them would mean to cat-
alog as ignorant most of the societies that have existed in the
world since we, humans started to walk this Earth. On the
contrary, we will consider magic and specifically medieval
magic as simply another way to see and interpret things. A
way to understand and mediate with the world around us. Our
goal then would not be to explain, prove, or disprove the real-
ity of magic, but rather to describe and try to understand the
magical believe and practices of medieval people in a non-
judgmental way.

The Ancient Precedents

To begin this journey into medieval magic, we have to place
ourselves at the end of the Roman world, just at the dawn of
the so-called late antiquity.In a period characterized by the
dismantling of previous structures and the merging of differ-
ent cultures and societies, magical beliefs also merged, giving
birth to new realities issued from the exchanges between Ro-
man, Judeo-Christian, and Germanic cultures.The first impor-
tant thing to note is that, at that time, the frontiers between
magic and religion were not so clearly established in people's
minds. Among Romans, for example, the magical practices
abounded and were part of the religious ritual itself. Observ-
ing the flight of the birds or the entrails of animals to predict
the future. Composing amulets and formulas to attract good or
bad fortune, enchanting objects or concocting filters and po-
tions. Mediating with invisible spiritual forces, making oint-
ments and reciting charms to heal, protect, or injure other peo-
ple.All of these practices were part of the Roman system of
beliefs. A way to understand and relate to both the visible and
the invisible world. Not very different from the prayers, cere-
monies, or sacrifices offered to the gods.But then, when did
the word magic actually appear, and what did it mean for an-
cient peoples?As early as the fifth century BC, the Greek
word mageia was already used to refer to the activities of the
Zoroastrian priests from Persia, known as the magoi.The be-
liefs and practices attributed to those magoi were seen as dark
and dangerous, as they differed from Greek religion. In time,
the word mageia would also be used in a pejorative way to re-
fer to some practices performed by Greek and Roman peas-
ants, deviated from the official religious practices of the Ro-
man Empire.During Roman times the word mageia, magic,
was fixated in the Latin language to designate some practices
perceived as different or deviated from the Roman official
code, and sometimes even trickery or deceit.It is with this
meaning that the word magic was passed on to the Latin
rooted languages during medieval times. But by then, the an-
cient idea of magic had already been related to a much more
obscure concept issued from Christian religion, the concept of
superstition. You better know that word, since it will be cru-
cial in order to understand the perception of magic during me-
dieval times.So what about superstition, and when was magic
portrayed as such?With the arrival of monotheistic religions at
the end of the Roman era, especially the Judeo-Christian one.
The mental pattern regarding magic was to be changed for-
ever. Believing in an only true God, Christians considered a
large range of beliefs and practices performed by their con-
temporaries as essentially false or superstitious. A lot of activ-
ities previously performed by ancient peoples, including the
practices of mageia, were considered evil and misguided by
Christian authors. Moreover, since those practices fell outside
the only true religion, they could only be related to demons
and should then be eradicated.As you will see in the following
units, this shift would mark the evolution of Western culture
for the centuries to come, since the so-called superstitious be-
liefs would be seen as wrong and dangerous by the new reli-
gious authorities, who then pushed for their extirpation in or-
der to fully embrace the new religion of the Christ. Neverthe-
less, magic would become a central aspect of the new me-
dieval society. A wide range of sources attest to the magical
beliefs shared by men and women from all social strata.In the
next chapters, we will see some examples of this magical
thought characteristic of medieval society, from royal courts,
to peasant villages, and even including some ecclesiastical en-
vironments.We will also see the efforts undertaken by some
medieval elites to end with the magical practices and beliefs
held by the people from the Christianized territories. An en-
deavor, we must add, that was not quite accomplished during
medieval times. But for now we will continue to look into the
evolution of the idea of magic throughout the medieval cen-
turies.

Magic and Superstition in

Christian Europe
During the first medieval centuries, the new Christian authori-
ties would try to convince people to abandon their magical be-
liefs and practices, often portrayed as pagan superstitions. The
ecclesiastical elites condemned superstition repeatedly in their
councils and in their pastoral works, while the Christian rulers
promulgated their own legislation against such beliefs and
practices among their subjects.This kind of sources are pre-
cious for us historians, since they describe, while condemning
them, the different kinds of magical activities performed at
that time.When we dive into those sources, magic usually
comes to the surface.We can find legal ordinances against
those who perform acts of divination in order to predict the
future or to unravel the fate of kings and their subjects. The
sources call them  divini, or  divinatores. This is clairvoyants
or diviners, and condemn those who consulted them. We also
find condemnations against those who could influence the
weather, the so-called  tempestarii, considered capable of con-
trolling thunder and lightning through magical incantation-
s.Other sources mention the so called necromancers from
greek  necros, the dead, and  manteia, divination. Thus, the
people capable of mediating with the dead in order to get
some answers or even to provoke evil among the living.The
dangerous nature of premonitory dreams is also attested to in
the sources, as well as the diabolical nature of the magical rit-
uals performed by the  magi or the  sortilegi. This is, the sor-
cerers and sorceresses, to whom people used to go to with the
aim of avoiding bad fortune, seeking counsel about future en-
deavors, healing sickness, and attracting or preventing another
person's love.Many of those anti-superstition laws were aimed
against women, mostly for performing a wide range of magi-
cal activities, mostly healing practices, with herbs, potions,
magical knots, charms, and amulets.Apart from the magicians
themselves, many sources condemned those who consult them
or seek their assistance. They also legislate against common
magical practices performed by most of the folk, such as be-
lieving in the influence of stars and planets, composing or
wearing amulets and written formulas, performing some mag-
ical rituals on trees, water sources, or graves, believing in
spiritual figures such as fairies or nocturnal armies, and leav-
ing them food and drink during the night, using magical ritu-
als to protect children or cattle, and a long etcetera.Despite the
efforts shown by some ecclesiastical authorities, the wide
range of magical activities performed by our medieval ances-
tors keep appearing in the sources throughout all the Middle
Ages. That fact shows their deep rooting among people and
also the difficulty experienced by Christian authorities in their
aim to eradicate them.We will see an example taken from the
14th-century series of pastoral visitations carried out in the
principality of Catalonia, the head of the Iberian Crown of
Aragon. For those who do not know, pastoral visitations were
a common practice at that time in many Christian territories.
They consisted in the annual inspection of the parishes carried
out by their bishops. During those inspections, the bishops or
their envoys asked the people and the local priests about the
state of the cult among them and the behavior of the parish-
ioners. Did they follow the church rules, or were they quarrel-
some, adulterous, blasphemous or even superstitious? Let's
see what did those Catalan parishioners answer during those
14th-century visitations.In 1310 during the pastoral visit of
the diocese of Barcelona, people were asked about the pres-
ence of sorcerers and diviners among their parish. The neigh-
bors of the village of Badalona, a village near to Barcelona,
told the bishop that a woman called Nadala was  divinatrix et
sortilega, and that people used to go to her for different pur-
poses, and that she performed her incantations with a strap,
and also with enchanting symbols carved in the soil. The orig-
inal document says,  facit coniurationes suas  cum corrigia et
in terra cum signis coniuratoribus.In other the villages the
neighbors informed about women, often called  sortilegas, 
divinatrices or  coniuratrices, that is, sorcerers, diviners, and
conjurers. Women that made some kind of sorcery with bread,
wheat grains, knives, herbs, or stones, and that were capable
of binding the souls of men and women, of healing sickness,
enchanting animals, curing or preventing the evil eye and
other bad spells, predicting the future or finding lost objects
through some magical rituals, and even wandering by night
what some female spirits, commonly known as "the good
ladies", the fairies of the night.All those magical activities had
been condemned by ecclesiastical laws since the first me-
dieval centuries. And still, the pastoral visitations from the
late Middle Ages showed a deep rooting among people who
used to turn to those  sortilegas,  divinatrices and  coniuiratri-
ces in order to cure the illnesses for those of the family and
cattle, to solve a love or sexual problems and to recover lost
objects or stolen goods.Nevertheless the attempts to change
people's attitude towards magic, would begin to payoff at the
end of the medieval times. The reasons? Mainly two. The ren-
ovated evangelization efforts undertaken by the Church, and
the emergence of neo-scientific and theological paradigms is-
sued by medieval universities

The Decline of Magic

During the last medieval centuries a change occurred in the
perception of magical practices. On the one hand, the new ra-
tionalistic approaches issued from the universities started to
displace traditional magical practices, thus extending a
shadow of suspicion over sorcerers, diviners and conjurers.
On the other hand, the until then unsuccessful attempts made
by the Church to uproot magical activities started to pay off
thanks to the action of the mighty preachers of the Mendicant
orders. Those preachers undertook a massive evangelization
campaign among medieval society through a series of com-
pelling sermons, in which they demonized magical activities.
Both fronts, rationalistic science and Christian evangelization
will definitely contribute to the disapproval and discredit of
magic during the late medieval centuries and the early modern
period. To give you an idea of this change in mentality, we are
going to see some examples of those new conceptions of
magic based on the new scientific paradigms of the Late Mid-
dle Ages. Let's take a look into a series of treatises written by
the 15th-century Castilian Bishop Lope de Barrientos. Barri-
entos had studied at the University of Salamanca, and was
part of the humanist entourage of the Castillian King John II,
who appointed him as his own confessor and the preceptor of
his first-born son.During the central years of the 15th century,
Bishop Barrientos wrote a series of three books, dedicated to
his king, in which he advised him on the subject of magic and
superstition. Those three books were the so-called "Treatise
on Sleeping and Waking; of dreaming and of divinations; of
presages and prophecies", "Treatise on prophecies" and "Trea-
tise on divination". In all of them, this learned man analyzed
human affairs related to magic from a Thomistic perspective,
relying on an empirical and materialistic approach, and with a
great amount of confidence in human reason. As he himself
stated at the beginning of this treatises, Barrientos's goal was
to educate and correct the King's credulity regarding magical
activities. When we read these treatises, we realize that the
Bishop's concept of magic included a wide range of rituals
and beliefs that went from astrology to divinatory arts, from
the causes of the evil eye and other illnesses to the rituals of
sorcery and incantation. While condemning this kind of prac-
tices and those who perform them, Barrientos also tried to dis-
prove the reality of such things. For example, he criticized
those who believed in the evil eye, which he considered a sim-
ple optical illness, susceptible of being cured by medical pro-
cedures. While addressing the subject of premonitions and
divination, he attributed them to the operations of fantasy in
people's minds, which tricked them into believing things that
were not real. He also talked about the extended belief in the
fact that some women were capable of getting out of their
bodies at night and, in that manner, enter closed houses
through the narrowest chinks with the purpose of harming lit-
tle children. On that regard, Barrientos argued the impossibil-
ity of such magical things, since it was not possible for a
three-dimensional body to pass through such little spaces. All
those magical beliefs, according to Barrientos, were nothing
but the effect of mental or natural disorders, or even worse,
they were caused by the operations of bad spirits. Learned
men such as Barrientos and others, contributed to the discredit
of magical practices among the elites, while reinforcing the
confidence on experimental science and medical procedures.
Apart from these men of science, the members of the Mendi-
cant Orders also contributed to the denigration of magical ac-
tivities among the population. To exemplify that, we can take
a look at the sermons given by Mendicant preachers during
the last centuries of the Middle Ages, always bearing in mind
that these sermons, preached in the vernacular language, had a
compelling effect among the public that gathered by the hun-
dreds, waiting for the arrival of one of those admired preach-
ers to their cities and villages. Let's hear some parts of a ser-
mon given by the Valencian preacher Vicent Ferrer at the be-
ginning of the 15th century. "Because if your father, your wife
or another person is sick, or you have lost something, or if you
are in distress, don't ever go to the diviners but to God. And
you, my daughters, if your children are suffering some dis-
ease, do not make any sorceries nor go to the sorceresses, be-
cause it would be better for your children to die.The women
will go to their confession and they will say: 'the child was
sick and there was no doctor around, and so I went to the con-
jurer'. And the confessor will answer: 'A sin you have com-
mitted!' And they will defend themselves arguing how could
they let the child die. It would be better that he died.She went
to male and female diviners, to the demons, because every-
thing they do, they do it by the action of demons. Diabolical
sorceries! That it is what male and female diviners are, sorcer-
ers and sorceresses that make things with charms, bread, bot-
tles and plates. Avoid their presence in your circumscription.
If not, God's wrath will fall on the village and its circumscrip-
tion." Such strong admonitions made by the influencing
preachers had a great impact among the crowd. We often find
local laws against magical activities promulgated by the city
councils shortly after the passing of one of these preachers.
The effect of this kind of preachings, together with the promi-
nent role taken by the new scientific paradigms, contributed to
the decline of magic during the Late Middle Ages. Not only
did they entail the discredit and denigration of magical prac-
tices, but they also established a perilous link between those
sorcerers and diviners and the misdeeds that haunted society;
even relating those allegedly dangerous people to the action of
demons and encouraging the population to expel them from
their villages.As we will see in the following units, the situa-
tion was the prelude of terrible persecutions to come, in which
hundreds of people were to be burned at the stake, accused of
a dark crime with explicit magical connotations: the crime of
witchcraft.