Knowing Demons, Knowing Spirits in the Early Modern Period by Michelle D. Brock & Richard Raiswell & David R. Winter

Author:Michelle D. Brock & Richard Raiswell & David R. Winter
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783319757384
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

Vernacularlization, Popularization, and Practicality

Although vernacular manuscripts of magic survive from earlier centuries, particularly from Iberia , learned magic generally does not appear regularly in European vernaculars until the fifteenth century, and only in the sixteenth does this become common. The introductions to the far more numerous Latin texts invoke a mythology of secrecy that implicitly (and sometimes explicitly) excluded all but the learned clerical minority. This was not merely wishful thinking or grandiose posturing. That the texts were available almost exclusively in Latin and depended upon knowledge of the liturgy and astrology functionally excluded anyone else. Only the Latinate could read the texts, expand the prayer or psalm incipits from memory, or make sense of the astrological requirements. Early transmissions to the vernacular generally involved other genres of magic such as charms and or books of secrets, like the Secretum secretorum , which did not require clerical involvement or specialized knowledge.42 Vernacular charms required at most the recitation of the Pater Noster , Ave Maria , and Credo in Latin, something that was manageable for a churchgoing layperson. Books of secrets may have included exotic ingredients but generally took the form of simple recipes or lists of occult properties.

The first examples of vernacular ritual magic in Britain appear in fifteenth-century manuscripts and tend to be quite simple, possibly abbreviated versions of Latin antecedents. A short ritual to see a spirit in a candle appears in the collection of the non-Latinate Robert Reynes , for example.43 This new vernacular literature can also be found in collections of people who were fully Latinate. The Rawlinson Handbook , a dedicated British conjuring manual, contains a few passages in the vernacular. Although the scribe’s Latin was not flawless, he did not need to have material in English in order to understand it. The appearance of these passages in largely Latin volumes suggests that vernacular texts were not initially produced for an audience that worked solely in the vernacular. Nonetheless, these early vernacular texts formed the basis for a growing literature in English for non-Latinate users. The first surviving fully English conjuring manual dates from the second quarter of the sixteenth century. It employed the newly translated Great Bible and its composition may have been motivated in part by the Protestant vernacularization of the bible and liturgy .44 In the second half of the century, fully vernacular conjuring manuscripts became quite common.45 Translation was, however, only part of the picture.

The appearance of conjuring magic in the vernacular was also interwoven with the popularization of learned magic. Popularization involves the development of widespread appetite for the materials, transmission to a larger and different group of people, and also, potentially, the transformation of the literature for and by that group. The popularization of learned magic began with versions of less problematic forms of magic, such as books of secrets, which commonly appear in fifteenth-century manuscripts. Evidence for the popular diffusion of this kind of literature may be found in fifteenth-century family notebooks that include short texts of magic and divination .

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.