Tag: magic

Terminology is not the question to debate…

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Here is my Week 6 Forum assignment for Magic in the Middle Ages. This is our last week, and this question received quite a bit of response, not the least of which was that the question itself was rather confusing. As such, I edited it for my own understanding and the clarity of the other students. To be fair, the instructors of the course do not speak English as their main language. Nevertheless, I took a different approach to answering the question.

 

The description of “sumptuary arts” is quite contemporary. Throughout the History of Art, those artistic expressions have been considered a minor category, compared to Architecture, Sculpture and Painting. They have even received a pejorative name: “Minor Arts”. Currently, to employ a more suitable word according to the value deserved for those pieces is under discussion. For Hanns Swarzenski, of “Monuments of Romanesque Art” The Art of Church Treasures in North Western Europe, Londres, 1967, pp. 14: “The better denomination for this kind of art would be the Art of Church Treasuries.” Other researchers like Concepción Fernández Villami, from “Las Artes Aplicadas”, Madrid, 1975, for instance, considers that it would be better to use “applied arts” because this definition includes the determinants of utility and beauty, two of the distinctive features of these kinds of artistic expressions. 

Which definition suits better with your opinion and why? Answer the question in around 100 words showing your understanding of the importance of those artistic manifestations.

 

I choose neither. I think a better term would be “Church Antiquities”. These relics served the purpose of bringing people into the churches and were coveted for their ornate ornamentation. However, this does not make them “art”. Their purpose was in their economic value, and the “power” they possessed by their contents became secondary. There are important relics in cultures other than Europe in the Middle Ages. For example, relics of Egypt were also thought to have powerful, magical qualities and were buried within the chambers of the dead to help them cross over. Why should these particular artifacts be denoted any differently than antiquities of Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome or Ancient Egypt or numerous other civilizations? Those civilizations viewed their artifacts with reverence, as well. Some of the relics of Europe in the Middle Ages may be very artistic in nature, but certainly not all of them. Art is subjective, but it is also produced to form a connection between the artist and the audience through the art itself, not the supposed magical qualities it possesses. Some, if not most, of these artifacts were created for rather deceptive reasons i.e. relics were split into smaller and smaller pieces to have more available for all the churches who sought them to increase their congregations. It seems inaccurate to compare these items with true artistic pieces when both were present during this time. Therefore, “Church Antiquities” is the least misleading of all the terms suggested, and if a piece is worthy of artistic merit, it should be regarded separately and on its own terms from these “magical” relics. The terminology is not the question to debate, but rather the variable qualities of the relics in the Middle Ages.

Magic in Islam: Prophets versus Sorcerers

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This unit in my MOOC, Magic in the Middle Ages, focused on magic in Islam and how it was viewed. Because I come from a similar but different religious background, much of the texts were new to me. When I first read the assignment, I didn’t think I would have anything to say – certainly not anything of value. However, as it always happens, I explored the given text and expanded my ideas, and I came up with a rather interesting conclusion. If you would like to understand the references given, you will need to access the link provided and read the brief text to formulate your own opinions and perhaps challenge mine.

 

In this link you will find a passage on magic from the Muqaddima (the Introduction) by the famous historian Ibn Khaldūn (732-784/1332-1382). This passage is available in a great variety of translations. For English, we recommend Rosenthal’s translation. The passage is part of chapter 6.27. Ibn Khaldūn, The Muqaddimah. An Introduction to History, trans. by F. Rosenthal, Princeton University Press, 1967 (1st ed. 1958), vol. 3, p. 156 and sqq.

Read the following passages:

paragraphs 1-2

paragraph 5-13, from ‘Let us present’ to ‘All this comes from (sorcerers and sorcery).

Read the selected passage and answer the question:

What is the difference between prophets and sorcerers in this particular field? And what is the difference between their practices?

According to this particular passage, the potentiality of souls is present, but unique, in every individual. Some are destined to be prophets, receiving information and practicing their divination through God. Others have the potentiality to be sorcerers, but this does not mean they will act on it, only that it is a quality of their soul, presumably over which they have no direct source of control. However, if they choose to exercise this innate power, then they rely on insights from objects or demons, rather than God. Their powers are three-fold: First, the most powerful is by pure mental power that they exercise their practices. The second is brought about by the use of talismans and communication with celestial objects or the properties of numbers (like geomancy, it seems). The third power is through influence of the imagination of others, which is perceived to be “unreal” unlike the first two types of powers. The prophets’ practices are not specific in these passages, but I read further and discovered that prophets’ powers can be the same as a sorcerer’s powers, like Moses’ “miracles”, which he performed as evidence of his prophecy, but was something “bragged about” and attributed to sorcerers.

The main difference, as far as I can tell, is that the prophets’ practices came from a divine source: the same end result for either type of soul, just a different means to get there. It is the exact opposite of “the ends justify the means”. I agree that there is a clear distinction between light and dark, white and black magic, us versus them, depending on your perspective, particularly if you come at it from a religious viewpoint. Even though prophets and sorcerers achieve the same ends, it is clear that sorcerers are thought of as “evil” by their counterparts, and I think this is due to fear of the unknown and placing a higher value on the religion of that time and place. Obviously, if the potentiality of souls in unique and innate in every individual, they are constrained to their destiny from birth and apparently, it cannot be changed. Thus, the prophets are sorcerers have the same powers and practices, and the ones claiming that sorcerers are evil are the ones that write the books, the believers in that religion, who see the sorcerers as “non-believers”. The people in power write the books and keep the histories and so are always biased by their opinions. Sorcerers are not necessarily evil, but where are the writings from their perspective, speaking on their behalf, defending their ideas and practices?

Witchcraft: Salem in the 1690’s and Europe in the Middle Ages… Can we even compare the two?

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Watch this documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpQGmy-pLRk about the most famous witchcraft trials of the history of the USA, dated from 1692. Which relations can you establish between the facts of Salem and the persecution of witchcraft that we have studied in this module? Discuss this question in the forum.

 

I’m not even sure how to begin a comparison of the witchcraft trials of Salem versus the persecution of witchcraft in the middle ages in Europe. The first thing that struck me was that Salem was a short, intense period of mass hysteria, utterly chaotic in its persecution of witches, while the search for witches in medieval Europe, while still cruel and ignorant, was more calculated.

In Salem, the accused could be found guilty simply by the accusations of their accusers, especially when “spectral evidence” was introduced. There was no way to refute these claims, so the accused were guilty without any sort of real proof. It was literally one person’s word against another, and the accused’s word had no value; they had no defense whatsoever. In medieval Europe, there was at least a chance of reprieve because the courts looked for “evidence”, especially if the interrogations were done by the inquisitors, rather than local courts. That, I suppose, is the similarity between the two. In European local courts, many more witches were accused and trialed because of small-town mentality, a sort of “mob mentality”, which is exactly what seemed to happen in Salem, a small town overtaken by mass hysteria and fear of one’s own neighbors.

While Europeans searched for witches to understand unknown tragedies, such as crop failure and infantile death (which was inevitable during those times), the people of Salem accused others of witchcraft, mostly out of spite against their neighbors, for revenge, and to further their own agendas. I could almost understand searching for a source to blame for tragedies that could not be understood at the time – we have done that for thousands of years through the concept of deities and such… but to accuse your neighbors of witchcraft to exact revenge for long-standing feuds – it’s just beyond my scope of empathy.

The accusations of witchcraft in medieval Europe were a way to eradicate paganism and any religion other than Christianity, and so started by the church but persecuted by the public and the secular courts mostly, such the witch hunts were started from above and prolonged by the proletariat. However, the afflicted in Salem appear to have behaved in outlandish ways, either to seek attention or for such intense fear of the devil in a severely strict religious society, by poisoning of fungus on rye (which I do think is a distinct possibility in some cases), or for revenge-filled purposes. The attacks started at the bottom, with public outcry, and spread like wildfire. The courts and the accusers all had something to gain, while the public itself was beset with terror at the thought of the devil among them or at being innocent and accused, punishable by certain death, except to claim guilt and name names, thus their lives be spared. I do believe that Mercy of Salem suffered from post-traumatic stress after seeing her entire family massacred, and then years later, hearing that the attacks had resumed nearby, thus she struck out at someone similar in features to those that killed her family and named him a witch. I have some sympathy for her alone. I don’t know what beset the original children, but I suspect a neurological or psychological disorder was at play.

There are some similarities between the two instances of witchcraft persecution, but so many differences in motive, time period, politics, beliefs, natural disasters, and deaths of unknown origin. It really is a Herculean task to compare the two; one could write an entire thesis on the subject or make it their life’s work, really, as I’m sure many historians do.

The Name of the Rose: Are all Inquisitors Created Equal?

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Watch the movie The Name of the Rose, based on Umberto Eco’s book and directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud. How is the inquisitor Bernard Gui characterized? Does it match the image of the medieval inquisitors as we have studied them in this unit? Explain why.  

 

First of all, The Name of the Rose was a fantastic movie, despite my doubts early on. I expected the film to center around Bernard Gui as the main character, but he did not make his appearance until the very end. Based on the limited scenes that Bernard Gui participated in, in conjunction with the evocative back story provided by William of Baskerville in his confession to his apprentice, Adso, Bernard was bull-headed and perhaps, intentionally ignorant, of the facts of the case. It was his way or no way – death to anyone who dared speak out against him. I think this characterization fits with how we think of inquisitors in modern society, but it is completely opposite of the medieval inquisitors’ characterizations, based on real evidence, that we have studied in this unit.

 

I was more moved by the mystery of the book and William’s quest to solve the crimes than I was impressed by the portrayal of the inquisitor. It seems William is much more suited to the characterization of the medieval inquisitors we have studied because he does not act irrationally – he does his job. This is my understanding of how medieval inquisitors were supposed to act, but as time went on, they became hard-pressed by their superiors to set examples and make people afraid of magic, with the intent that patrons would come whole-heartedly to Christianity and give up their old customs, which threatened the existence of a new religion. William reminded me of an early scientist, almost like Sherlock Holmes, in his dedicated search for clues to the many deaths. Bernard, on the other hand, took testimony (during obvious duress) and did no research to find the real reasons for the crimes. He just attributed them to witchcraft and nearly killed an innocent girl. (Spoiler Alert): The film portrayal suggests she survived somehow, so I’d like to believe that. I still wonder why that particular book, out of the many books that were banned from the Bible throughout time, held such importance. Surely other texts used humor, as well?

Magic Today Versus Magic in the Middle Ages

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How would you value the magical thought today in comparison to magic in the Middle Ages? Do you think we have prejudices regarding this period? Are we still under the legacy of the Renaissance artists, who introduced themselves as the ‘light’ after some ‘Dark Ages’ for ‘marketing purposes’?

Let me begin by saying that I believe in magic – because the world is cynical without wonderment. What I call magic is called miracles by some and science by others. I’ve always wanted to believe in magic, but I think it was my study of hard sciences that made me realize they are one and the same. The conception and birth of a child can be seen as a miracle. The odds are stacked against conception, yet it happens all the time. There is more space within an atom than surrounding it – I don’t remember exact measurements, but it’s mind-boggling. The fact that we live in the “Goldilocks Zone”, where water is liquid, we have atmosphere, oxygen, et cetera, is a scientific wonder. The idea that the universe started out as mere particles and star dust, which have found their way into planets, people, objects… Or consider physics: you cannot place your hand on top of a table. It is not that simple. The atoms of your hand interact with the atoms of the table, so on a molecular level, your hand and the table are one. How did the universe start? Where did those initial particles which became atoms and elements come from? Is the universe cyclical in nature? My point is that we have just as many unknowns now as we did in the Middle Ages, but instead of using “magic” to describe phenomena, we use “science”. I think, from a mathematical perspective, they are one and the same: the odds of any of these things happening are astronomical.

I don’t know that there are many others that see things the way I do. I think many people today view magic as impossible or trickery, something like Santa Claus or a magician’s sleight of hand. So, for them, I suspect they don’t value magic very much and relegate it to children’s fantasy. I highly value magic. I want to believe in magic because it makes the world more amazing. My logical, scientific brain tells me otherwise, but I would love to believe in fairies and wood nymphs. I’d like to believe that unicorns existed and we haven’t discovered their bones yet. Why dragons seen as magical, but dinosaurs aren’t? Simply because we found fossil evidence of the latter? Magic means so many different things to different people, so placing a value on magical thought today seems nearly impossible.

On the other hand, it feels rather easy to say that magic was held in high regard during the Middle Ages because the practices were so commonplace. Magic then is valued as holistic medicine is today, in a way. Both have skeptics in their time, but both can be supported by anecdotal evidence and as an explanation for the curious events that surround us. Many people across the world practice holistic medicine today and have for thousands of years. It’s considered medicine – not magic. Yet, skeptics would disagree on that terminology.

As far as the two latter questions in this assignment, I don’t think we are necessarily prejudiced against this period. Many people regard the beliefs of the time as ignorant or false, but at the same time, many people are intrigued, curious, and caught up in the stories of the time, which is why this academic field is so popular and why we have so many movies based in this period. I think, if anything, prejudices are unintended and mixed. I believe we do fall victim to the legacy of the “Enlightenment” following the “Dark Ages”, but I attribute that to the way we are taught as children in school. I didn’t realize the “Dark Ages” were so full of excitement, discoveries, and rich history until many years later (partly because my husband is a history major). When I was a child, I thought the Dark Ages meant that during that period, there was no light. That, somehow, it was always night and people were uncivilized heathens because they had “lost” the knowledge of earlier civilizations. How we teach this history affects how people understand its significance.