European Cultural History of the Middle Ages Series: Medieval and Early Modern Magic

Foreword

As an anthropological universality, magic occupies a foundational yet often elusive role in human cultures, psyches, and histories. Despite the myriad definitions, the simplest description of magical practice would be “a belief in the existence of supernatural forces that people can influence to achieve desired goals that would have been impossible by natural means” (Hrvatska enciklopedija, 2024). The relationships between the human mage and the spiritual entity may vary cross-culturally, from ancient Egyptian concepts where magic was not seen as manipulating but rather relating to or communicating with the matter (von Franz, p. 30) to systems that conceptualise the link between the practitioner and entity as strictly hierarchical and coercing. However, what magic is might not be as fascinating a topic as what it is for. As an element of religion, societies have practised magic to engage with the spiritual world, worship, negotiate, achieve a goal, influence, or inspire an action. In interpersonal relationships, individuals have tried affecting others or themselves. Throughout time, space, and media, magic has been portrayed in vibrant, diverse palettes. Besides its crucial role in establishing culture, religious systems, and society, and its somewhat vague but undeniable role in personal lives, the analysis of historical magic highlights the social power dynamics. Who is allowed to use, define or access magic? 

The medieval period was forged between two major transformations in attitude towards magic. The first one happened at the symbolic end of Antiquity, at the confluence of the rise of Christianity, and the second between the Middle Ages and the dawn of early modernity. The transitional periods introduced shifts in values and interests but also political and economic factors, which resulted in a significant change in the conceptualisation of magic. The rise of centralised monarchies in the late Middle Ages, the influence of the Church, scientific discoveries and the beginning of the colonial period transformed how medieval people viewed, defined, and practised magic under the influence of new emerging systems and hierarchies of power. This article will approach the theme through the lens of social power dynamics to illustrate how a cultural segment that many contemporary people dismiss as not being “real”, doesn’t only influence beliefs, values, and the mere tissue of society but reflects changes within systems and power struggles between groups.

Magic Between the Middle Ages and Early Modernity: An Overview

Figure 1: A Wizard/Scientist. (n.d.) Knights Templar.

Early medieval Christianity rejected the belief in magic and branded the practitioners as heretics (Gračanin, 2017, p. 36, as cited by Horvat, 2018, p. 9). Saint Augustine particularly equated pagans and those who practised or believed in magic. The reason for this was the specific relationship Christianity established with the wondrous and supernatural. For them, the only way anything could affect the mundane world was through God and the concept of Miracle. Therefore, people who relied on magic to exert any influence were categorically accused of heresy (Horvat, 2018, p. 10). This created a basis for certain issues in the latter centuries, especially those tied to pharmacy and medicine. The Church supported the idea of influence through spiritual means, like prayer, while believing Satan nudged into the direction of using the material world, like potions or herbs, which resulted in the notoriety of proto-pharmacy (Michelet, 2003, p. 102). 

Early modernity also reflected changes regarding magic and the attitude toward witches. The Inquisition in the Middle Ages became active during the 12th and 13th centuries and dealt with Christian cults rejected as heretics, like the gnostics. The late medieval period was a time marked by the rise of monarchy. What used to be smaller regions ruled by various nobles became a territory unified by a king and blessed by the Church. This new identity required a solidification of the desirable identity. The Spanish Inquisition of the 15th century, led by Isabella of Castille and Ferdinand of Aragon, expelled the Jewish and, a century later, the Muslim population to create a Catholic Spain, even though said populations had lived in the region and influenced its culture for centuries (Hrvatska enciklopedija, 2024).  

According to Silvia Federici, the turn toward women at the dawn of modernity was also a power move meant to ensure better control of the reproduction and the population for the newly born modern state entities (Federici, 2004). Michel Foucault argued that the practice of confession was used as a form of early surveillance and was useful for gathering information on the population since other means were unavailable (Foucault, 1975/1994). Although many associate witch hunts with the Middle Ages, the Inquisition prosecuted witches between the 15th and the 18th centuries (Horvat, 2018, p. 7). What started perhaps as a strategic movement aimed at control of the population was soon fuelled by mass hysteria and superstition spiralling out of the Church’s control.  Witchcraft was officially acknowledged as reality by the pope in 1486, only to be followed by the publication of Malleus Maleficarum, which particularly singled out women as prone to the devil’s temptation and witchcraft (Michelet, 2003, p. 104). The witch hunts were a complex phenomenon with layered backgrounds and different motivations. Fictional historical works, like the series of novels by Marija Jurić Zagorka, The Witch of Gritch, showcase the complexity of the witch craze by identifying different interest groups. The Church, the state, and the small communities where ignorance, jealousy and other personal reasons prompted accusations. 

Figure 2: A Witch at Trial. (n.d.). History Things.

Gender and Magic Between Antiquity and Early Christianity

The concept of women as mostly inclined toward the practice of magic was not a new idea. Ancient Greco-Roman literature, a culture early Christians have inherited, was full of portrayals of women magicians (Stratton, 2024, p. 1). The traditional Jewish literature was no different. The trope of a female magical predator who used unnatural means to inflict revenge, seduce or gain power embodied the unease of these male-oriented and patriarchal cultures regarding women in power. Ancient Greek, Roman, and Jewish literature, preferred to portray dangerous female practitioners as a symbol of women’s mingling into power and authority which, in those cultures, was seen as an exclusive domain of men. 

A magic user, as a trope, did not only mark the so-called Other, a foreigner or a member of a marginalized group, but a potentially dangerous threat to the existing social order. This, rather than the reality of women being more interested in magic, caused the prevalence of the trope (Stratton, 2024, pp. 1-2). Magic in Greece and Rome was also feminized because of the associations with other cultures like Egypt or Mesopotamia, whose men were seen as effeminate and barbaric (Stratton, 2024, pp. 1-2). The first century BC introduced dark practices like necromancy and infanticide into the witch literature. A particularly gruesome example was Lucan’s Erictho who desecrated dead bodies and feasted on the flesh of the criminals nailed to the cross (Stratton, 2024, p. 3). The second century highlighted lust as the main motive for female magical predation. This is especially intriguing since most of the evidence regarding erotic spells from the ancient Mediterranean region showcases it was mostly men who engaged in this type of practice, at least when it comes to written formulas (Stratton, 2024, p. 3). Therefore, a woman as a figure of the magical sexual aggressor was not so prevalent because it was accurate to life, but to promote an ideological stance. 

Figure 3: Jesus rising the dead with a wand. (3rd/4th century A.D.) High on History.

Early Christianity turned the trope of the magical woman on its head by introducing a gender twist: a literary tradition of male magicians and female victims of magic. For instance, the 2nd century Acts of Andrew depicted a magical attack that the woman repelled by virginity. St. Jerome’s Vita Hilarionis described a similar situation. However, the woman’s virginity was hardly enough. She needed to be saved by the saint (Stratton, 2024, p. 5). The author of the article “Male Magicians and Female Victims: Understanding a Pattern of Magic Representation in Early Christian Literature” suggested a possible explanation for this trope inversion and that is the male author’s identification with the attacked virgin as a manifestation of the uneasiness regarding Greco-Roman masculinity that represented a rival for the early Christian. In the article, Kimberly B. Stratton claims:

“Drawing on the work of Virginia Burrus and Daniel Boyarin, I suggest that Christian depictions of female ‘victims’ and male ‘magicians’ reflect an ego identification on the part of these male writers with vulnerable but chaste female bodies over and against the invasive violence of Roman masculinity. In these narratives, the magician/heretic threatens the carnal integrity of chaste Christian women” (Stratton, 2024, p. 8)

Similarly, in the late Middle Ages and early modernity, the depiction of the magician/witch was less about reality and real magical practices of the folk and more about serving as a trope in the battle for authority, power, and spiritual legitimacy.

A practitioner of magic as a literary trope draws attention to the places of uneasiness in culture. It cannot reflect reality since it is impossible to know how many people would have been interested or engaged in magical practices. Even though there are some documented leftovers, the majority of the population in the past eras would have engaged in oral rather than written culture. Therefore, literary tropes concerning magic are not evidence of the behaviour of real people but rather an indication of social power struggles. 

Early Modernity and Cultural Hybridization

The early modern period was marked by the unification of the state/monarchy and the invention of the press, which resulted in books becoming more available. When it comes to magic, this meant that books alongside the traditional oral transmission, represented a source of potential magical knowledge. Books known as grimoires, from the word for “grammar,” have been in circulation since the 12th century (Illes, 2005, p. 114). Grimoires were compilations from different sources, including antiquity and non-European cultures. They were amalgamations of translations, summaries, attempts at linking different, even contradictory traditions, and personal authorial imagination. The books were copied by hand, which posed a great personal risk since they were frowned upon by the Church authorities (Illes, 2005, pp. 114-116). Their authorship was mostly unknown, even though sometimes the alleged authors would be legendary or historical figures. This was convenient since dead men could not be accused of witchcraft (Illes, 2005, pp. 114-116). In her book The Element Encyclopedia of Witchcraft, Judika Illes identified several sources that served as an inspiration for grimoire content. Egyptian magical papyri, Jewish Kabbalah, pagan texts mostly of Greek, Roman, and Byzantine origin, and Catholic rituals, particularly the practice of exorcism, and alchemical tradition (Illes, 2005, pp. 114-116). One of the famed grimoires, The Grimoire of Honorius the Great, was allegedly written by Pope Honorius the Third. Although there is no evidence to confirm a pope ever wrote a grimoire, the Church authority figures’ interest in the mystic traditions of the time, like astrology, is not unknown (Illes, 2005, p. 123). 

Figure 4: McGuill, K. Kabbalistic Tree of Life (n.d.). Behance.

Jewish Kabbalah was, perhaps, the most prominent example of Renaissance cultural hybridism when it comes to esotericism. Borrowed from the Jews, Kabbalah, or Christianized, Cabala, was integrated into Christian theology and intertwined with other popular mystical disciplines like numerology, alchemy, science of the time, astrology, etc. Many crucial thinkers participated in this appropriation, creating a unique, syncretic esoteric system (Gray, 2009). 

Folk and Ceremonial Magic

In the medieval period, most of the magical practices were a segment of the oral culture. Folk traditions included the most prominent apotropaic (protective) magic and various rituals aimed at success in business, love or health (Vukelić, 2021). There is little insight into oral folk magic since the interest in the inner lives of ordinary people only emerged historically recently, with the birth of 19th-century disciplines like anthropology and ethnography. Early modern magic, though, developed in a literary genre, starting from medieval, hand-written and highly dubious grimoires to authorial books, like De Philosophia Occulta by Cornelius Agrippa. This solidified esoteric traditions but also excluded the masses, creating a more elite space and forming a figure of a magical scholar. Those associated with magic were no longer superstitious peasants but highly educated scientists, theologians, and philosophers of the time. The codification of magic in books and the process of social stratification have allowed not just easier research into early modern magic but also the development of isolated groups dedicated to the creation of different esoteric schools whose influence on modern and contemporary thought is undeniable (di Nola, 1987/2008, pp. 409-429). 

The Devil and the Savant-the Rise of the Erudite

The early modern occult writers were educated individuals who combined Christian philosophy with classic Greco-Roman and Hellenistic ideas and scientific discoveries of the day. For instance, Neoplatonism was a huge influence on the spiritual philosophy of Cornelius Agrippa (1486-1535), a true Renaissance man whose activities included theology, knighthood, occult writing and the medical profession. His capital work, the three parts of The Occult Philosophy were heavily inspired by Neoplatonism, Hermeticism, and the hybrid Kabbalah mysteries. The influence of his thought survived to 19th and 20th-century esotericism (Illes, 2005, pp. 706-708). 

Figure 5: An illustration of Goethe's Faust. (n.d.). Meisterdrucke.

Marsilio Ficino, originally a priest, was exploring the idea of medical therapy under the influence of sound, music, and ritual movement/dance. His concepts were based on the Pythagorean theory of microcosm and macrocosm being built upon the same harmonic proportions (Walker, 1958/2014, p. 15). Renaissance magic attempted to establish a clear distinction between natural and demonic magic. Natural magic, the one reserved for the educated elites, was linked to nature, science, and God, while demonic magic was the domain of the untamed, illiterate peasants. 

Figure 6: Ferrari, E. (1889). A statue of Giordano Bruno. ultra60.

Giordano Bruno was the most notorious name of the Renaissance scholarly magicians since he was among the rare ones who were burnt at the stake by the Inquisition. Even though many works were branded as heretical, the Inquisition’s victims were rarely highly educated and privileged people. Still, Bruno was vocal about his theories including the endlessness of the Universe, heliocentrism and other thoughts deemed heretical by the dominant spiritual authority. Unlike Galileo, he didn’t publicly denounce them, which led to his execution in 1600 (Illes, 2005, p. 594).

Doctor John Dee and his assistant Edward Kelley were key figures in the Elizabethan court and remained models of Renaissance magicians in the collective imagination. They invented their own alphabet allegedly revealed to them by the angels they claimed to communicate with. The legacy of Dee’s Enochian magic influenced the upcoming centuries of esoteric orders up until the present day (Illes, 2005, p. 725-727).

The emergence of the erudite magician helped establish a Renaissance literary trope of a scientist who signed a contract with a demonic entity, often the Devil himself, and traded his soul for knowledge or magical power. The story of the unfortunate Faust, later to be further popularized by Goethe, was written in the 16th century by the English author Christopher Marlowe, perfectly embodying the social anxiety around the Renaissance rise of science. 

Figure 7: Enochian alphabet. (n.d.) The Demonic Paradise wiki.

Women as magic yielders still appeared in early modern literature. In Torquato Tasso’s 17th-century historical fantasy epic, a Muslim witch Armida represented Satan’s forces who backed the locals as God backed the Crusaders (Tasso, 1581). She was a powerful witch who used her womanly and Satanic vile to seduce Christian knights. Her identity as a woman and a Muslim defined her evil abilities. At the end of the story, Armida repented, rejecting both her witch status as well as the Muslim religion to accept Christianity. The concept of a magical foreigner acknowledging the Christian system is seen as a literary reflection of the colonial ideology of the time.

Another child of the early modern colonial period is a long-lasting trope of the “magical Negro/Native/Asian” that has remained prevalent in Western storytelling up until late 20th century Hollywood. “Scholars have defined the “magical Negro” as the Black character in the film who uses their magical abilities to help the white protagonist achieve their goal. These characters’ arcs are usually limited to aiding the white protagonist and do not use their powers to help themselves. It is important to study the “magical negro” trope because though it is built on racist beliefs it is consistently used in film” (Cusic, 2021). Just like the powerful and beautiful Armida, the symbol of the “East,” accepted Christianity, the non-threatening but still spiritually fetishized role of the person of colour as a magical helper to the white, Western protagonist, is a manifestation of Christian and Western ideological dominance. Despite this trope originating at the dawn of the early modern colonial era, it has plagued modern storytelling until relatively recently.

The Academic Study of Magic

Even though it was universally present within human societies, cultures, and different eras, magic as an academic field of study was overlooked and neglected for a long time (Walker, 1958/2914, pp. 9-13) When it comes to the witch hunts phenomenon, 19th century Jules Michelet was the first to break the ice with his book The Witch. Even though his major thesis that the practice of witchcraft was an organized peasant spiritual rebellion against the ideological establishment of the state and the Church has been rejected for the lack of evidence, his work has marked a shift in the way modern European scholars viewed medieval and early modern witchcraft as well as written esotericism. The cultural historian Daniel Walker and other prominent scholars of the so-called Warburg Institute further transformed the attitude toward this notorious field. Their studies revised the pattern of thinking that rejected such a huge aspect of the human lived and cultural experience as mere superstition unworthy of study (Walker, 1958/2014, p. 9). They confirmed that the attitude often ascribed to the early modern worldview, the dominion and mechanisation of nature was developed within the written, elitist esoteric thought of the early Renaissance. Shortly, magic is impossible to separate from science, theology and philosophy of the early modern era (Walker, 1958/2014, p. 10).  Renaissance science manuals often included esoteric elements like astrology because the strict division between science, religion, magic, philosophy, and art that characterises contemporary societies did not yet exist. Therefore, studying Renaissance science and philosophy cannot be complete without the knowledge of the time’s esoteric systems and thoughts. 

Figure 8: A Renaissance Mage. (n.d.). Magician Masterclass.

Legacy

The 19th and the 20th centuries were characterized by an occult revival, this time, in a more democratized fashion (di Nola, 1987/2008, pp. 409-429). Magical and esoteric orders, spiritism, and the New Age became popular with the masses, which was partially a result of more prevalent literacy among the population. Secret societies like the popular Freemasons, influenced the birth of the modern state and society. The Church attempted to demonize them since they helped bring an end to the feudal and theocratic concept of the world (di Nola, 1987/2008, p. 412). What started in the Renaissance as the beginning of Western esoteric thought, spread far into late modernity, subsequently abandoning the elites and including the masses. Late modernity brought the separation between the Church and the state, established modern social organization and personalized and hybridized spirituality. The war between the Church and rival esoteric traditions continues, with demonization and satanization being common tools (di Nola, 1987/2008, p. 411). However, the Church is not the only one that still uses Satanic and magical tropes to instil control and defeat the spiritual competition. Contemporary feminists have adopted the figure of the witch as both a metaphor for empowerment and a memento of unjust prosecutions and misogyny (Ryan, 2023). 

Conclusion

The magical traditions within cultural histories and studies have long been neglected and rejected as unimportant superstitions. Even though magic might not be real in an ontological sense of the word, human belief and a complex relationship between magic and culture/society have nudged scholars to approach it more seriously due to its undeniable influence on the overall ideology and thought of various societies and groups. Alongside being an important aspect of human culture and cultural development, magic has a nuanced, layered relationship with social hierarchy, ideology, power, authority, and legitimacy. The attitudes toward it, definitions, who is or isn’t included/excluded from yielding magical powers, and literary tropes provide a profound insight into cultural changes, ideological shifts, transference of power between groups and complex struggles and relationships between sexes, races, ethnicities, and religions. 

Figure 9: Male novine (1912). The first newspaper publication of Zagorka's The Witch of Gritch.

At the threshold between the Middle Ages and the new, modern era, esoteric thought has been codified in written form and intertwined with both science and theology of the time. Based on a syncretic combination of different influences, it has created a new, isolated intellectual space by distinguishing the proper, relatively tolerated magical systems from the untamed folk magic, deepening the gap between the illiterate and underprivileged and the elites. The magic of early modernity created barriers for women and lower classes but has also provided written evidence and better insight into the esoteric thought of the time for the following generations as well as created a new ideological space that would continue to parallel and rival both the Church and the state in forms of influential secret societies. Contemporary groups of a political or spiritual nature, like Wiccans or feminists, have revived and redefined magic. Witchcraft in particular has morphed into a concept of both female empowerment as well as awareness of historical oppression and injustice, intertwining magic and politics once again, demonstrating that magic in the context of social struggles and power is just as relevant in present as it was in the early days.

Bibliographical References

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