Download or read book Magic in the Middle Ages written by Richard Kieckhefer and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-09-09 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How was magic practiced in medieval times? How did it relate to the diverse beliefs and practices that characterized this fascinating period? This much revised and expanded new edition of Magic in the Middle Ages surveys the growth and development of magic in medieval Europe. It takes into account the extensive new developments in the history of medieval magic in recent years, featuring new material on angel magic, the archaeology of magic, and the magical efficacy of words and imagination. Richard Kieckhefer shows how magic represents a crossroads in medieval life and culture, examining its relationship and relevance to religion, science, philosophy, art, literature, and politics. In surveying the different types of magic that were used, the kinds of people who practiced magic, and the reasoning behind their beliefs, Kieckhefer shows how magic served as a point of contact between the popular and elite classes, how the reality of magical beliefs is reflected in the fiction of medieval literature, and how the persecution of magic and witchcraft led to changes in the law.
Download or read book The Book and the Magic of Reading in the Middle Ages written by Albrecht Classen and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-10-11 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The computer revolution is upon us. The future of books and of reading are debated. Will there be books in the next millennium? Will we still be reading? As uncertain as the answers to these questions might be, as clear is the message about the value of the book expressed by medieval writers. The contributors to the volume The Book and the Magic of Reading in the Middle Ages explore the significance of the written document as the key icon of a whole era. Both philosophers and artists, both poets and clerics wholeheartedly subscribed to the notion that reading and writing represented essential epistemological tools for spiritual, political, religious, and philosophical quests. To gain a deeper understanding of the cultural significance of the medieval book, the contributors to this volume examine pertinent statements by medieval philosophers and French, German, English, Spanish, and Italian poets.
Download or read book Magic in the Margins written by W. Nikola-Lisa and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2007 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A young apprentice learns to tap his own wellspring of creativity with the help of the magical margins of an illuminated manuscript in this story about patience, talent, and imagination. Full color.
Download or read book Magic and Magicians in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Time written by Albrecht Classen and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2017-10-23 with total page 767 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There are no clear demarcation lines between magic, astrology, necromancy, medicine, and even sciences in the pre-modern world. Under the umbrella term 'magic,' the contributors to this volume examine a wide range of texts, both literary and religious, both medical and philosophical, in which the topic is discussed from many different perspectives. The fundamental concerns address issue such as how people perceived magic, whether they accepted it and utilized it for their own purposes, and what impact magic might have had on the mental structures of that time. While some papers examine the specific appearance of magicians in literary texts, others analyze the practical application of magic in medical contexts. In addition, this volume includes studies that deal with the rise of the witch craze in the late fifteenth century and then also investigate whether the Weberian notion of disenchantment pertaining to the modern world can be maintained. Magic is, oddly but significantly, still around us and exerts its influence. Focusing on magic in the medieval world thus helps us to shed light on human culture at large.
Download or read book Witchcraft and Magic in the Nordic Middle Ages written by Stephen A. Mitchell and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2011-06-06 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Stephen A. Mitchell here offers the fullest examination available of witchcraft in late medieval Scandinavia. He focuses on those people believed to be able—and who in some instances thought themselves able—to manipulate the world around them through magical practices, and on the responses to these beliefs in the legal, literary, and popular cultures of the Nordic Middle Ages. His sources range from the Icelandic sagas to cultural monuments much less familiar to the nonspecialist, including legal cases, church art, law codes, ecclesiastical records, and runic spells. Mitchell's starting point is the year 1100, by which time Christianity was well established in elite circles throughout Scandinavia, even as some pre-Christian practices and beliefs persisted in various forms. The book's endpoint coincides with the coming of the Reformation and the onset of the early modern Scandinavian witch hunts. The terrain covered is complex, home to the Germanic Scandinavians as well as their non-Indo-European neighbors, the Sámi and Finns, and it encompasses such diverse areas as the important trade cities of Copenhagen, Bergen, and Stockholm, with their large foreign populations; the rural hinterlands; and the insular outposts of Iceland and Greenland. By examining witches, wizards, and seeresses in literature, lore, and law, as well as surviving charm magic directed toward love, prophecy, health, and weather, Mitchell provides a portrait of both the practitioners of medieval Nordic magic and its performance. With an understanding of mythology as a living system of cultural signs (not just ancient sacred narratives), this study also focuses on such powerful evolving myths as those of "the milk-stealing witch," the diabolical pact, and the witches' journey to Blåkulla. Court cases involving witchcraft, charm magic, and apostasy demonstrate that witchcraft ideologies played a key role in conceptualizing gender and were themselves an important means of exercising social control.
Download or read book Magic and Impotence in the Middle Ages written by Catherine Rider and published by Oxford University Press on Demand. This book was released on 2006-01-26 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Magic and Impotence in the Middle Ages' investigates the common medieval belief that magic could cause impotence, focusing particularly on the period 1150-1450. The book also examines why the authors of legal, medical, and theological texts were so interested in popular magical practices relating to impotence.--Résumé de l'éditeur.
Download or read book The Transformations of Magic written by Frank Klaassen and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2015-06-26 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this original, provocative, well-reasoned, and thoroughly documented book, Frank Klaassen proposes that two principal genres of illicit learned magic occur in late medieval manuscripts: image magic, which could be interpreted and justified in scholastic terms, and ritual magic (in its extreme form, overt necromancy), which could not. Image magic tended to be recopied faithfully; ritual magic tended to be adapted and reworked. These two forms of magic did not usually become intermingled in the manuscripts, but were presented separately. While image magic was often copied in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, The Transformations of Magic demonstrates that interest in it as an independent genre declined precipitously around 1500. Instead, what persisted was the other, more problematic form of magic: ritual magic. Klaassen shows that texts of medieval ritual magic were cherished in the sixteenth century, and writers of new magical treatises, such as Agrippa von Nettesheim and John Dee, were far more deeply indebted to medieval tradition—and specifically to the medieval tradition of ritual magic—than previous scholars have thought them to be.
Download or read book Magic in the Cloister written by Sophie Page and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2013-10-21 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries a group of monks with occult interests donated what became a remarkable collection of more than thirty magic texts to the library of the Benedictine abbey of St. Augustine’s in Canterbury. The monks collected texts that provided positive justifications for the practice of magic and books in which works of magic were copied side by side with works of more licit genres. In Magic in the Cloister, Sophie Page uses this collection to explore the gradual shift toward more positive attitudes to magical texts and ideas in medieval Europe. She examines what attracted monks to magic texts, in spite of the dangers involved in studying condemned works, and how the monks combined magic with their intellectual interests and monastic life. By showing how it was possible for religious insiders to integrate magical studies with their orthodox worldview, Magic in the Cloister contributes to a broader understanding of the role of magical texts and ideas and their acceptance in the late Middle Ages.
Download or read book The Routledge History of Medieval Magic written by Sophie Page and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-01-15 with total page 550 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Magic and Divination in the Middle Ages written by Charles Burnett and published by Routledge. This book was released on 1996 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After discussing the terminology of talismanic magic (or necromancy) and its position in divisions of science in the Middle Ages, this book traces the history of talismanic texts from the Classical period through the Arabic world to the Latin Middle Ages. The principal authorities are Hermes and Aristotle, and the search for the 'secret knowledge' of these ancient sages is shown to have been a catalyst for the translating activity from Arabic into Latin in 12th-century Spain. The second half of the volume is devoted to examples of the kinds of divination prevalent in Arabic and Latin-reading societies: chiromancy, onomancy, scapulimancy, geomancy and fortune-telling. The book ends with advice on when to practice alchemy and a prophetic letter of supposed Arabic provenance, warning of the coming of the Mongols. Several editions of previously unedited texts are included, with translations.
Download or read book Medieval Robots written by E. R. Truitt and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2015-06-11 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Medieval robots took such forms as talking statues, mechanical animals, or silent metal guardians; some served to entertain or instruct while others performed surveillance or discipline. Medieval Robots explores the forgotten history of real and imagined machines that captivated Europe from the ninth through the fourteenth centuries.
Download or read book The Book Without Words written by Avi, and published by Hyperion. This book was released on 2006-08-01 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Having tried for years to unlock the secrets of the magical Book Without Words, old man Thorston dies in failure and the book is passed on to his servant, Sybil, and her magical raven who eagerly begin the process of breaking the code.
Download or read book Unlocked Books written by Benedek Lang and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2010-01-01 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the Middle Ages, the Western world translated the incredible Arabic scientific corpus and imported it into Western culture: Arabic philosophy, optics, and physics, as well as alchemy, astrology, and talismanic magic. The line between the scientific and the magical was blurred. According to popular lore, magicians of the Middle Ages were trained in the art of magic in &“magician schools&” located in various metropolitan areas, such as Naples, Athens, and Toledo. It was common knowledge that magic was learned and that cities had schools designed to teach the dark arts. The Spanish city of Toledo, for example, was so renowned for its magic training schools that &“the art of Toledo&” was synonymous with &“the art of magic.&” Until Benedek L&áng&’s work on Unlocked Books, little had been known about the place of magic outside these major cities. A principal aim of Unlocked Books is to situate the role of central Europe as a center for the study of magic. L&áng helps chart for us how the thinkers of that day&—clerics, courtiers, and university masters&—included in their libraries not only scientific and religious treatises but also texts related to the field of learned magic. These texts were all enlisted to solve life&’s questions, whether they related to the outcome of an illness or the meaning of lines on one&’s palm. Texts summoned angels or transmitted the recipe for a magic potion. L&áng gathers magical texts that could have been used by practitioners in late fifteenth-century central Europe.
Download or read book Teaching the Middle Ages written by Robert V. Graybill and published by Smart Publications. This book was released on 1982 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Knight at Dawn written by Mary Pope Osborne and published by Paw Prints. This book was released on 2009 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jack and Annie journey back in time in the Magic Tree House to medieval England, where they encounter a remarkable castle that comes complete with a fierce dragon, terrifying dungeon, and secret passageway. Simultaneous.
Download or read book Vernacular Aesthetics in the Later Middle Ages written by Katharine W. Jager and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-07-03 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Vernacular Aesthetics in the Later Middle Ages explores the formal composition, public performance, and popular reception of vernacular poetry, music, and prose within late medieval French and English cultures. This collection of essays considers the extra-literary and extra-textual methods by which vernacular forms and genres were obtained and examines the roles that performance and orality play in the reception and dissemination of those genres, arguing that late medieval vernacular forms can be used to delineate the interests and perspectives of the subaltern. Via an interdisciplinary approach, contributors use theories of multimodality, translation, manuscript studies, sound studies, gender studies, and activist New Formalism to address how and for whom popular, vernacular medieval forms were made.
Download or read book Imagining the Woman Reader in the Age of Dante written by Elena Lombardi and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-05-11 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Imagining the Woman Reader in the Age of Dante brings to light a new character in medieval literature: that of the woman reader and interlocutor. It does so by establishing a dialogue between literary studies, gender studies, the history of literacy, and the material culture of the book in medieval times. From Guittone d'Arezzo's piercing critic, the 'villainous woman', to the mysterious Lady who bids Guido Cavalcanti to write his grand philosophical song, to Dante's female co-editors in the Vita Nova and his great characters of female readers, such as Francesca and Beatrice in the Comedy, all the way to Boccaccio's overtly female audience, this particular interlocutor appears to be central to the construct of textuality and the construction of literary authority. This volume explores the figure of the woman reader by contextualizing her within the history of female literacy, the material culture of the book, and the ways in which writers and poets of earlier traditions imagined her. It argues that these figures are not mere veneers between a male author and a 'real' male readership, but that, although fictional, they bring several advantages to their vernacular authors, such as orality, the mother tongue, the recollection of the delights of early education, literality, freedom in interpretation, absence of teleology, the beauties of ornamentation and amplification, a reduced preoccupation with the fixity of the text, the pleasure of making mistakes, dialogue with the other, the extension of desire, original simplicity, and new and more flexible forms of authority.
