History and the Supernatural in Medieval England

History and the Supernatural in Medieval England PDF Author: Carl S. Watkins
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780511378706
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description

History and the Supernatural in Medieval England

History and the Supernatural in Medieval England PDF Author: Carl S. Watkins
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780511378706
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description


History and the Supernatural in Medieval England

History and the Supernatural in Medieval England PDF Author: C. S. Watkins
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521154819
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This is a fascinating study of religious culture in England from 1050 to 1250. Drawing on the wealth of material about religious belief and practice that survives in the chronicles, Carl Watkins explores the accounts of signs, prophecies, astrology, magic, beliefs about death, and the miraculous and demonic. He challenges some of the prevailing assumptions about religious belief, questioning in particular the attachment of many historians to terms such as 'clerical' and 'lay', 'popular' and 'elite', 'Christian' and 'pagan' as explanatory categories. The evidence of the chronicles is also set in its broader context through explorations of miracle collections, penitential manuals, exempla and sermons. The book traces shifts in the way the supernatural was conceptualized by learned writers and the ways in which broader patterns of belief evolved during this period. This original account sheds important light on belief during a period in which the religious landscape was transformed.

Magic and the Supernatural in Medieval English Romance

Magic and the Supernatural in Medieval English Romance PDF Author: Corinne J. Saunders
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
ISBN: 1843842211
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 314

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Book Description
"This study looks at a wide range of medieval Englisih romance texts, including the works of Chaucer and Malory, from a broad cultural perspective, to show that while they employ magic in order to create exotic, escapist worlds, they are also grounded in a sense of possibility, and reflect a complex web of inherited and current ideas." --Book Jacket.

The Natural and the Supernatural in the Middle Ages

The Natural and the Supernatural in the Middle Ages PDF Author: Robert Bartlett
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521878322
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Exploration of how medieval people categorized the world, concentrating on the division between the natural and the supernatural.

Supernatural Encounters

Supernatural Encounters PDF Author: Stephen Gordon
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429779151
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 170

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Book Description
The belief in the reality of demons and the restless dead formed a central facet of the medieval worldview. Whether a pestilent-spreading corpse mobilised by the devil, a purgatorial spirit returning to earth to ask for suffrage, or a shape-shifting demon intent on crushing its victims as they slept, encounters with supernatural entities were often met with consternation and fear. Chroniclers, hagiographers, sermon writers, satirists, poets, and even medical practitioners utilised the cultural ‘text’ of the supernatural encounter in many different ways, showcasing the multiplicity of contemporary attitudes to death, disease, and the afterlife. In this volume, Stephen Gordon explores the ways in which conflicting ideas about the intention and agency of supernatural entities were understood and articulated in different social and literary contexts. Focusing primarily on material from medieval England, c.1050–1450, Gordon discusses how writers such as William of Malmesbury, William of Newburgh, Walter Map, John Mirk, and Geoffrey Chaucer utilised the belief in demons, nightmares, and walking corpses for pointed critical effect. Ultimately, this monograph provides new insights into the ways in which the broad ontological category of the ‘revenant’ was conceptualised in the medieval world.

Magic as a Political Crime in Medieval and Early Modern England

Magic as a Political Crime in Medieval and Early Modern England PDF Author: Francis Young
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1786722917
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 275

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Book Description
Treason and magic were first linked together during the reign of Edward II. Theories of occult conspiracy then regularly led to major political scandals, such as the trial of Eleanor Cobham Duchess of Gloucester in 1441. While accusations of magical treason against high-ranking figures were indeed a staple of late medieval English power politics, they acquired new significance at the Reformation when the 'superstition' embodied by magic came to be associated with proscribed Catholic belief. Francis Young here offers the first concerted historical analysis of allegations of the use of magic either to harm or kill the monarch, or else manipulate the course of political events in England, between the fourteenth century and the dawn of the Enlightenment. His book addresses a subject usually either passed over or elided with witchcraft: a quite different historical phenomenon. He argues that while charges of treasonable magic certainly were used to destroy reputations or to ensure the convictions of undesirables, magic was also perceived as a genuine threat by English governments into the Civil War era and beyond.

Magic and Religion in Medieval England

Magic and Religion in Medieval England PDF Author: Catherine Rider
Publisher: Reaktion Books
ISBN: 1780230745
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 222

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Book Description
During the Middle Ages, many occult rituals and beliefs existed and were practiced alongside those officially sanctioned by the church. While educated clergy condemned some of these as magic, many of these practices involved religious language, rituals, or objects. For instance, charms recited to cure illnesses invoked God and the saints, and love spells used consecrated substances such as the Eucharist. Magic and Religion in Medieval England explores the entanglement of magical practices and the clergy during the Middle Ages, uncovering how churchmen decided which of these practices to deem acceptable and examining the ways they persuaded others to adopt their views. Covering the period from 1215 to the Reformation, Catherine Rider traces the change in the church’s attitude to vernacular forms of magic. She shows how this period brought the clergy more closely into contact with unofficial religious practices than ever before, and how this proximity prompted them to draw up precise guidelines on distinguishing magic from legitimate religion. Revealing the necessity of improving clerical education and the pastoral care of the laity, Magic and Religion in Medieval England provides a fascinating picture of religious life during this period.

Medieval Religion and its Anxieties

Medieval Religion and its Anxieties PDF Author: Thomas A. Fudgé
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137566108
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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Book Description
This book examines the broad varieties of religious belief, religious practices, and the influence of religion within medieval society. Religion in the Middle Ages was not monolithic. Medieval religion and the Latin Church are not synonymous. While theology and liturgy are important, an examination of animal trials, gargoyles, last judgments, various aspects of the medieval underworld, and the quest for salvation illuminate lesser known dimensions of religion in the Middle Ages. Several themes run throughout the book including visual culture, heresy and heretics, law and legal procedure, along with sexuality and an awareness of mentalities and anxieties. Although an expanse of 800 years has passed, the remains of those other Middle Ages can be seen today, forcing us to reassess our evaluations of this alluring and often overlooked past.

A Supernatural War

A Supernatural War PDF Author: Owen Davies
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 019879455X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 295

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Book Description
How widespread belief in fortune-telling, prophecies, spirits, magic, and protective talismans gripped the battlefields and home fronts of Europe during the First World War.

Death in Medieval Europe

Death in Medieval Europe PDF Author: Joelle Rollo-Koster
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 131546683X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
Death in Medieval Europe: Death Scripted and Death Choreographed explores new cultural research into death and funeral practices in medieval Europe and demonstrates the important relationship between death and the world of the living in the Middle Ages. Across ten chapters, the articles in this volume survey the cultural effects of death. This volume explores overarching topics such as burials, commemorations, revenants, mourning practices and funerals, capital punishment, suspiscious death, and death registrations using case studies from across Europe including England, Iceland, and Spain. Together these chapters discuss how death was ritualised and choreographed, but also how it was expressed in writing throughout various documentary sources including wills and death registries. In each instance, records are analysed through a cultural framework to better understand the importance of the authors of death and their audience. Drawing together and building upon the latest scholarship, this book is essential reading for all students and academics of death in the medieval period.