Middle Ages Magic and Witchcraft Flashcards
What are the three periods of the middle ages in regards to magic?
Conversion Period: 5th-12th century
12th Century Renaissance
Late Middle Ages: 14th-15th Century
How is the conversion period identified?
A period of identity formation specifically for the christian community
- greco roman influences dying out
- transition to orthodoxy
- increased accusations of heresy
- establishment of creeds
how was magic defined during the conversion period?
magic depicted as illusionary and deceptive
1. not seen as a real thing
2. seen as paganism
Hagiographies
1. writings by saints
2. medical texts that scholars identified as magic such as amulets, healing by touch
3. manipulation of nature that midern science doesn’t explain but considered good as they are practiced by saints
How is the 12th Century Reinaissance identified?
Beginning of the crusades
western contact with eastern populations
rise of scholasticism and universities
distinction between high and low magic deepened
How was astrology and alchemy viewed during the 12th century renaissance?
secretive, scholarly, eventually named occult sciences
How are the Late Middle Ages identified?
witches and witchcraft being associated with trickery, the devil, heresy, a growing belief that magic is real, prosecution of magic practitioners
What were the Teutonic Crusades?
Western Europes attempt in converting Eastern Europe to Christianity
What European country was the last to convert to Christianity?
Lithuania
Why was the baptism of Mindaguas significant?
- significant because it was the first instance but it didn’t matter to the populations
- if you wanted power and recognition you needed to go through certain rituals
Why did the Christians build a cathedral over a pagan temple?
because the land/site was still significant to people, allowed them to take over the sacredness of the space
What is the Malleus Maleficarum?
A text written by Heinrich Kramer going preaching against witchcraft and saying that magic is real
When and why did witches start to be deemed as untrustworthy in Lithuania?
After the success of the Roman Catholic Church in the 17th centyry
What is significant about the Malleus Maleficarum
Was made extremely popular due to the printing press, first paper document linking witches to the devil, places emphasis on the evil aspect of witches
What were the 3 parts of the Malleus Maleficarum?
Part 1: Developed Theological Theory
Part 2: Discusses recruitment of witches and types of witchcraft
Part 3: Recommendations on how to prosecute witches
What was in Part 1: Developed Theological Theory of the Malleus Maleficarum?
proving the existence of witches, magic, and witchcraft
said that anyone who thought witches/magic werent real were heretic
discussed why women were more likely to be a witch rather than men
How does the malleus explain why women are more likely to be witches?
women are more impressionable and have slippery tongues: more susceptible to being in league with the devil cos they are naive, impressionable, and ready to receive evil spirits, cos women are more emotional
What were some of the recommendations made on how to prosecute a witch?
- wanted prosecution in secular courts
- advocate of the witch could get ex communicated if defending heresy
- described how to obtain a confession
- done through certain amounts of torture and persuasion
What is the Sauducismus Triumphatus?
A book written by Joseph Glanvill (1668) and published posthumously in 1681 by Henry More
What does the Sauducismus talk about?
Glanvills experience of witch trials, argued for the existence of witches and the supernatural, said its all in the bible, discusses the witches sabbat and the island of Blockula, the witches bottle
How was magic viewed in the Late Middle Ages?
seen as evil, this shift impacted common/low magic practices the most while high magic was still seen as a science
- more perceived evidence of witches and witchcraft emerged
How did the shifting views of magic in the Late Middle Ages affect people?
outsider groups seen evil in addition to magic, more accustations and prosecutions of witchcraft
How was witchcraft understood during the witchhunts/trials?
- practice of maleficia (harmful magic)
- diabolism (devil worship)
What were harmful magic practices?
- caused storms, causing death of people or animals, producing impotence
- reflect fear of sorcerer and their sense of power associated with nature
- representing the wildness and unpredictability of nature opposed to civilized humanity
What was Diabolism?
- the devotee would renounce christianity, make a pact with satan and got a reward
- this pact would include the Obscene kiss
- had witches “Sabbats” consisted of collective satan worship
- role of flight
- opposition to normatice behaviour such as homosexual/heterosexual orgies, desecration of the cross, nudity, incest, child sacrifices
