Conjuring Spirits Texts And Traditions Of Medieval Ritual Magic

Conjuring Spirits contains general surveys & analyses of magical texts & manuscripts by scholars in a variety of disciplines. The book will be invaluable for scholars & others interested in the issues surrounding ritual magic texts in the Middle Ages.

"Presents and analyzes texts of learned magic written in medieval Central Europe (Poland, Bohemia, and Hungary), and attempts to identify their authors, readers, and collectors"--Provided by publisher.

"A collection of essays examining medieval and early modern texts aimed at performing magic or receiving illumination via the mediation of angels. Includes discussion of Jewish, Christian and Muslim texts"--Provided by publisher.

The main text consists of prayers to the Virgin Mary. It is followed by the Office of the Angels, commencing at leaf 85, in a different hand. Nicholas Watson suggests in his essay in Clare Faranger's book Conjuring Spirits: Texts and Traditions of Medieval Ritual Magic (1990) that the manuscript is a copy of a work by Jean de Morigny, the first part composed between 1304 and 1307 and the second part composed before 1315. Manuscript is bound in reinforced vellum with "Codex" stamped on spine and slipcased with "Prayer book. c 1460" stamped on spine. Manuscript contains 12 illustrations and decorations executed by an amateurish other hand, all near the front.

Noted occult historian cites essential passages from Renaissance-era documents and offers modern analysis. Meticulously researched survey provides information on casting spells, conjuring spirits, other supernatural practices.

"Explores two principal genres of illicit learned magic in late Medieval manuscripts: image magic, which could be interpreted and justified in scholastic terms, and ritual magic, which could not"--Provided by publisher.

In Rewriting Magic, Claire Fanger explores a fourteenth-century text called The Flowers of Heavenly Teaching. Written by a Benedictine monk named John of Morigny, the work all but disappeared from the historical record, and it is only now coming to light again in multiple versions and copies. While John’s book largely comprises an extended set of prayers for gaining knowledge, The Flowers of Heavenly Teaching is unusual among prayer books of its time because it includes a visionary autobiography with intimate information about the book’s inspiration and composition. Through the window of this record, we witness how John reconstructs and reconsecrates a condemned liturgy for knowledge acquisition: the ars notoria of Solomon. John’s work was the subject of intense criticism and public scandal, and his book was burned as heretical in 1323. The trauma of these experiences left its imprint on the book, but in unexpected and sometimes baffling ways. Fanger decodes this imprint even as she relays the narrative of how she learned to understand it. In engaging prose, she explores the twin processes of knowledge acquisition in John’s visionary autobiography and her own work of discovery as she reconstructed the background to his extraordinary book. Fanger’s approach to her subject exemplifies innovative historical inquiry, research, and methodology. Part theology, part historical anthropology, part biblio-memoir, Rewriting Magic relates a story that will have deep implications for the study of medieval life, monasticism, prayer, magic, and religion.

How was magic practised in medieval times? How did it relate to the diverse beliefs and practices that characterised this fascinating period? In Magic in the Middle Ages Richard Kieckhefer surveys the growth and development of magic in medieval times. He examines its relation to religion, science, philosophy, art, literature and politics before introducing us to the different types of magic that were used, the kinds of people who practised magic, and the reasoning behind their beliefs. In addition, he 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. This 2000 book places magic at the crossroads of medieval culture, shedding light on many other aspects of life in the middle ages.

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.