Sometimes
when I hear the word magic I think of things like Merlin, the evil
witches/queens from the Disney movies, fairy tales, and yes, especially ABC’s Once Upon a Time. Personally, I don’t
automatically think of demons or devil worship when I think about magic, but it
is definitely there. Any culture in the world would have some form of magic,
whether it’s considered good or evil or even a mixture of both. When we read
medieval literature, we can see a rich history of magic, sorcery and witchcraft.
For the most part, I’ve noticed that medieval magic is usually good, especially
the magic associated with the Catholic Church. However, there is magic that can
be used for evil, selfish reasons or to cause harm to someone.
Looking back now, we can probably say that those in medieval times were coming up with pretty wacky stuff to do with magic. Richard Kieckhefer lists some examples of this in his book, Magic in the Middle Ages: “by anointing yourself with the blood of a lion you can keep yourself safe from all other beasts, and if you smear lion fat over your body you will be secure from snakebite.” (Kieckhefer 76). First off, I wonder how they get the lion’s blood and fat because I’m pretty sure that medieval Europe was not exactly crawling with lions. And secondly, I feel that this could set people up to become victims to charlatans who claim that they have real lion’s blood when it could really be the blood of a cat they found.
But I honestly give them props for creativity in their instructions for magic. And it is interesting to note the Christian influence that can be found in the spells or formulas for the magical procedures. Christianity can particularly be found in magic for protection; an example that Kieckhefer gives is that a “manuscript gives a series of names for God which, if borne on one’s person, will protect against fire, water, arms and poison.” (Kieckhefer 77).
To me magic seems like a comfort blanket to these people. This was not an age of science so they did not really understand a lot of things that were occurring around them. They could not really give a scientific explanation for how a thunderstorm could come on suddenly and destroy their crops or why there was a draught. Today, we could say that it was because of changes in the atmosphere or climate. So to them, it was logical to assume that some sort of magic was involved, whether it was the work of God as punishment or the work of an evil jerk who just wanted people to suffer for some reason. They were also dealing with plagues, poverty in some cases and death, and other things that to them, defied their "natural" explanation. To have something to explain both the good and evil in the world must have helped them keep on going through their lives.
Kieckhefer,
Richard. Magic in the Middle Ages. New
York: Cambridge University Press.1989. Print.
