Rewriting Magic: An Exegesis of the Visionary Autobiography of a Fourteenth-Century French Monk

Magic in History

by Claire Fanger

In Rewriting Magic, Claire Fanger explores a fourteenth-century text called The Flowers of Heavenly Teaching. Written by a Benedictine monk named John of Morigny, the work all but disappeared from the historical record, and it is only now coming to light again in multiple versions and copies. While John’s book largely comprises an extended set of prayers for gaining knowledge, The Flowers of Heavenly Teaching is unusual among prayer books of its time because it includes a visionary autobiography with intimate information about the book’s inspiration and composition. Through the window of this record, we witness how John reconstructs and reconsecrates a condemned liturgy for knowledge acquisition: the ars notoria of Solomon. John’s work was the subject of intense criticism and public scandal, and his book was burned as heretical in 1323. The trauma of these experiences left its imprint on the book, but in unexpected and sometimes baffling ways. Fanger decodes this imprint even as she relays the narrative of how she learned to understand it. In engaging prose, she explores the twin processes of knowledge acquisition in John’s visionary autobiography and her own work of discovery as she reconstructed the background to his extraordinary book. Fanger’s approach to her subject exemplifies innovative historical inquiry, research, and methodology. Part theology, part historical anthropology, part biblio-memoir, Rewriting Magic relates a story that will have deep implications for the study of medieval life, monasticism, prayer, magic, and religion.

Genres: Magick, Nonfiction, Religion

234 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 1, 2015

Reviews

[Cole Tucker · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent account the discovery and research into a unique devotional document. John of Morigny's autobiography and set of devotional meditations/magical workings provide unique insight into the late medieval techniques widely available, both to monastics and educated laity. The magical and devotional uses of visualization and guided "pathworkings", widely believed to be modern innovations, are at the core of John of Morigny's system, developed in concert with the Virgin Mary through visions and dreams. His use of and reliance upon dream incubation is particularly striking, especially as his biography progresses orienting at first upon results magic ultimately arriving at a pure devotion, with the concern of setting forth a system to establish a similarly devoted relationship with the Virgin.

Fanger draws upon her extensive familiarity with John of Morigny's historical milieu to help the reader more substantially understand the projects at play in the autobiographical and operative sections of his text. The survey of historigraphical approaches, as well as the reflections on her own personal journey in investigating the book and its several manuscripts were the weakest areas of the book, and showed the need of a better editor. If both were necessary, to establish scholarly acumen or communicate some of the personal sense of adventure, they would rather have complemented each other in combination, while reducing the unnecessary loose ends appearing in both.