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The Rise of Magic in Early Medieval Europe Reprint Edition

3.7 out of 5 stars 7 customer reviews
ISBN-13: 978-0691001104
ISBN-10: 0691001103
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Product Details

  • Paperback: 472 pages
  • Publisher: Princeton University Press; Reprint edition (January 24, 1994)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0691001103
  • ISBN-13: 978-0691001104
  • Product Dimensions: 6 x 1.1 x 9.2 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #946,190 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

40 of 42 people found the following review helpful
Where did Medieval "Magic" come from?
By Curt Emanuel on February 11, 2001
Format: Paperback
One of the fairly resilient "myths" of the early Middle Ages is that of a young, weak Church with a largely ignorant leadership that was unable or unwilling to resist the influx of Pagan and other non-Christian superstitions and beliefs and was forced to absorb these into its structure. Church leaders were unable to recognize Pagan superstition for what it was as it exerted its influence on the Church. In addition, as weak as it was, the Church was simply unable to resist these ideas and the pressure to adopt them that was exerted by the masses in the early Medieval period.
In this volume, Valerie Flint attempts to show that, for the most part, the Church's assimilation of Pagan elements was voluntary and only permitted after careful consideration by Church leadership. She argues that various Church fathers, including Augustine, Gregory the Great and even Hincmar of Rheims, consciously adopted certain superstitions into the early Medieval Church.
Flint begins by describing the status of the Church during the later Roman Empire. She notes that there is considerable denunciation of magic by the Empire, most notably by Pliny in his _Natural History_ and that magic is characterized as unhealthy at best and maliciously evil at worst. Virgil, Lucan, Apuleius and others are enthusiastic in condemning magical practices and practitioners. This was the legacy that the Church inherited.
But the Church, being an agent of the supernatural, is itself a magical organization. At the very least, Christ's conception and resurrection are outside the realm of natural events and the Eucharist with the transmutation of the host is a highly magical event. Augustine is the first to address this in any depth, most fully in _The City of God_.Read more ›
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19 of 21 people found the following review helpful
Magic Alive during the "Dark Ages"
By A Customer on March 16, 1999
Format: Paperback
Taking a very close look at a wide variety of documents, the author demonstrates how magical practices - especially healing and divination techniques - were present all through the early middle ages. It is fascinating to see the constant attempts of Christian churchmen to appropriate part of these practices for their own purposes - so to say to "baptise" them by cutting them off from the roots of the pagan world views they were based on. One also comes to realize that the information that became available from Arab sources from the 11th century on met with a fertile ground - and with well-practised reception routines to adapt it to the Christian environment. These findings have nothing to do with the widespread legends about "surviving witch cults". Pointing to the contrasting frameworks into which identical practices - e.g. healing by laying on hands while saying an incantation / prayer and / or using specific herbs - could be put, one still gets an idea of what the traditions of modern-day esotericism (the antecedents of which usually only become visible centuries later) probably looked like. Hence the book would not only be of interest to historians, but also to anyone interested in magic / esotericism and its historical dimensions. Even though fairly technical at times, the book is never dull, and I'm glad to say I learned a lot from it.
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11 of 13 people found the following review helpful
An Excellent Overview of a Complex Subject
By Amazon Customer on July 15, 2004
Format: Hardcover
Valerie Flint, Professor of Medieval History at the University of Auckland (New Zealand) has written a strong and thought-provoking work on the possible origins of medieval magical practice.
Drawing almost exclusively on early Church fathers and theologians from early medieval Europe (500-1000 CE), she sets out her theories on how many medieval magical practices arose, contrasting the Christian or Christianized forms of more acceptable magical practice with the pagan practices that she sees as their roots. Ms. Flint has made a strong effort to draw on or provide English translations of key texts, which makes it much easier for non-Latin speakers to follow the (often convoluted) theological arguments behind the subject matter at hand.
While I feel that the author could have profited from more attention to primary sources from the other side of the fence (surviving works on magical praxis and leechcraft, especially the svartbokr and galdrabokr of the Northern traditions) this is an excellent introduction to this complex field.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Quite interesting, but difficult to read
By Christopher R. Travers on November 6, 2010
Format: Paperback Verified Purchase
First, I found the author's writing style to be even a bit dry for me. Like one other reviewer, I found the book to be very hard to get into, and I also found myself skimming over some sections. The writing style is rather dry but doesn't pack a lot of facts in. This is the major reason for this rating. Moreover the author's viewpoint sometimes gets in the way (particularly when discussing Roman augury practices).

On the other hand, this book is very interesting because of the angle taken to the subject matter. The author is primarily interested about attitudes towards magic in the early middle ages in relation to religious thought. Her definition of magic is quite expansive and includes a fairly interesting set of religious views in the early Middle Ages as well. Through the book she productively struggles to sort approved from unapproved magic in this time period and place this in context with the religious thought of the age.

On the whole, for individuals deeply interested in this topic, this book is to be recommended. I wouldn't recommend it widely however.
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