Description
Book SynopsisTrafficking with Demons explores how magic was perceived, practiced, and prohibited in western Europe during the first millennium CE. Through the overlapping frameworks of religion, ritual, and gender, Martha Rampton connects early Christian reckonings with pagan magic to later doctrines and dogmas. Challenging established views on the role of women in ritual magic during this period, Rampton provides a new narrative of the ways in which magic was embedded within the foundational assumptions of western European society, informing how people understood the cosmos, divinity, and their own Christian faith.
As Rampton shows, throughout the first Christian millennium, magic was thought to play a natural role within the functioning of the universe and existed within a rational cosmos hierarchically arranged according to a great chain of being. Trafficking with the demons of the lower air was the essense of magic. Interactions with those demons occurred both in h
Trade Review
"Trafficking with Demons offers a comprehensive overview of how early medieval magic was perceived. By offering an alternative interpretation of the period, Rampton has filled a gap in recent scholarship on the gendering of early medieval magic practices." -- Catherine Rider, Senior Lecturer in the Department of History, University of Exeter, and author of Magic and Religion in Medieval England
"Martha Rampton argues that the greatest change to magic in a thousand years occurred when Carolingian elites discounted the effectiveness of many magical rites, especially those practiced by women. This sweeping book is an important contribution to the history of magic and of women in the first millennium." -- Michael Bailey, Professor and Director of Graduate Education , Iowa State University, and associate editor of Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft
Table of Contents
Introduction
Part 1: Studying Magic
1. Magic and Its Sources in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages
2. Demons of the Lower Air
Part 2: Breaking In: Christianity in Classical Rome
3. Ritual, Demons, and Sacred Space
4. A Thousand Vacuous Observances
5. Maleficium and Traffic with the Dead
6. Screech Owl, Vampire, Moon, and Women's Magic
Part 3: Traffic with Demons: Post-Roman Europe
7. Sub Dio
8. Victimless Magic and Execrable Remedies
9. The Awesome Power of the Women's Craft
Part 4: Skepticism: The Carolingian Era
10. Demonization of the Natural World
11. Superstition and Divination Questioned
12. Women's Magic Challenged
13. Magic, Women, and the Carolingian Court
14. Magic and Materia Medica
15. Conclusion
