The Gone Medieval podcast (an excellent podcast about history)
has an episode out today about Magic in medieval days.
I've listened to it and it's excellent, all scholastic rigour, zero silly woo.
It might upset some people in the sense that they might not be aware that magic was absolutely entwined with the Catholic church in the Middle Ages. *EVERYTHING* was entwined with the church in the Middle Ages haha
Lots of astrology - because that is what they believed and used!!
I really do recommend reading The Witch by Ronald Hutton for a rigorous scholarly history of Witches (and magic) written by a pagan professor of history (Bristol University) (tldr; *all* magic practice (ritual) in the world percolates out of Egypt. They reached everywhere and everyone. Read the book!!! It's fascinating. Shamanism/Animism is it's own completely separate and different thing - he writes about that in a different book as well.)
And his numerous books on Druids, which shed light on how desperately *little* we know about them and how we came about inventing all we think we know about them now.
Astrology, as we know, is from India (and just as ancient as Egyptian magic)
So medieval magic is a fun and creative blend of all these practices and looks very much like how people practice now -- except no animal sacrifice (which they were still definitely doing then!)
has an episode out today about Magic in medieval days.
I've listened to it and it's excellent, all scholastic rigour, zero silly woo.
It might upset some people in the sense that they might not be aware that magic was absolutely entwined with the Catholic church in the Middle Ages. *EVERYTHING* was entwined with the church in the Middle Ages haha
Lots of astrology - because that is what they believed and used!!
I really do recommend reading The Witch by Ronald Hutton for a rigorous scholarly history of Witches (and magic) written by a pagan professor of history (Bristol University) (tldr; *all* magic practice (ritual) in the world percolates out of Egypt. They reached everywhere and everyone. Read the book!!! It's fascinating. Shamanism/Animism is it's own completely separate and different thing - he writes about that in a different book as well.)
And his numerous books on Druids, which shed light on how desperately *little* we know about them and how we came about inventing all we think we know about them now.
Astrology, as we know, is from India (and just as ancient as Egyptian magic)
So medieval magic is a fun and creative blend of all these practices and looks very much like how people practice now -- except no animal sacrifice (which they were still definitely doing then!)
