Medieval Perceptions of Magic, Science, and the Natural World

Carolina Escobar-Vargas is the current Vice-Dean for Academic Affairs at the Facultad de Ciencias Humanas y Económicas, Universidad Nacional de Colombia (Medellin) and former head of the Department of History in the above faculty.Anne Lawrence-Mathers is Professor of Medieval History at the University of Reading, and the author of The True History of Merlin the Magician and Medieval Meteorology.

[O]ne of the most recent trends in the history of medieval magic, the study of positive astral magic or angel magic, which complicated the perceived boundaries between demonic invocation and other forms of putatively natural magic considerably, is not a major focus in this volume, although important medieval texts, like Picatrix, and seminal modern studies, like those of Claire Fanger, are cited. In general, however, the breadth of coverage among the chapters is admirable. The volume is also solidly interdisciplinary, with several chapters focusing on literature; for example, the depiction of magic in the late-medieval Prose Merlin, by Victoria Flood, and Zachary Matus’s examination of several alchemical poems from late-medieval England.For those looking for analysis of change over time, many of the chapters adopt the broadest chronological framework possible within the boundaries of the Middle Ages, tracing treatment of their particular topics from early Christianity (often Augustine) to the scholastics and beyond.[...]What does define this volume is a rich variety of topically focused chapters that all serve to illustrate the convoluted and frequently contested boundaries between magic and the natural world. In this, the volume absolutely succeeds in demonstrating the proposition with which it began.

• List of IllustrationsAcknowledgements“Introduction,” by Carolina Escobar-VargasChapter 1: “Rhythms of the (Super)Natural World: Timing Instructions in Early Medieval Medical Recipes,” by Claire BurridgeChapter 2: “Time and Tide: The Creation of a Sea Travel Network in the Severn Region in the Early Middle Ages,” by Caroline BourneChapter 3: “Astral Forces and Arthurian Dragons in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae,” by Humma MouzamChapter 4: “Natural and Non-Natural: Weather, Seasons, and Place in the Medicine of Constantine of Africa,” by Anne JeavonsChapter 5: “Matthew Paris, William of Conches, and the Use of Diagrams to Observe the World,” by Judith CollardChapter 6: “Astrology: Science or Divination? The Example of Astro-Meteorology,” by Anne Lawrence-MathersChapter 7: “Magic and Science in the Middle Ages: The Building of the Boundaries between Natural Magic and Necromancy, ca. 1230–ca. 1310,” by Sebastià GiraltChapter 8: “Witchcraft and Weather: The Problem of Magical Control of the Weather,” by Carolina Escobar-VargasChapter 9: “The Boundaries of Magic and Medicine in Medieval Theology,” by Victoria Burns-PriceChapter 10: “Between Natural and Demonic? Onomantic Divination in the Later Middle Ages,” by Joanne EdgeChapter 11: “Late-Medieval Brontologies: Popular Superstition or Astrological Medical Guide?,” by Janet WallsChapter 12: “Wonder and Wonder Working in Middle English Romance: The Prose Merlin,” by Victoria FloodChapter 13: “Alchemical Poetry, Alchemical Practice,” by Zachary MatusChapter 14: “Encountering the Wonder in Nature: The Science of the Sacred in the Early-Modern Construction of the Natural World,” by Helen ParishIndex