What do you think?
Rate this book
Witchcraft and Magic in Europe #3
Witchcraft and Magic in Europe, Volume 3: The Middle Ages
Between the age of St. Augustine and the sixteenth century reformations magic continued to be both a matter of popular practice and of learned inquiry. This volume deals with its use in such contexts as healing and divination and as an aspect of the knowledge of nature's occult virtues and secrets.
294 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2001
2 people are currently reading
394 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
October 30, 2018
A decent if uneven trio of essays, but not uneven in the sense of quality, but rather in theme and maybe even more so: specificity.
The middle essay covers the trolldomr (a fancy North-of-the-Wall word for "witchcraft") of medieval Scandinavia and is thus incredibly hyper-specific. It is the most fun chapter, though, since it strays away from analysis unlike the other two chapters, and sticks to classificatory fun. It discusses ceremony, rite, and the borderline shamanism of the weird Norse.
The first essay is more analytical, though it might not come across so at first. Doing the best she can with the extant record, Jolly neatly partitions the rise of the concept of magic and its purveyors into three parts and then teases out what it meant during each of those three times. Her second section details objects and rites and meanings (kind of) of magical shizz. Unfortunately, Jolly is dogged by her own insistence on outright syncretism and falls into the trap of making evolving notions of superstition/witchcraft too dependent on a Christian lens. Sure, syncretism and symbiosis by their very nature are two-way streets but Jolly seems to assign too much weight to the overbearing spread of Christianity (counter to work such as Russell et al). But it only detracts some from the information she presents, the real value here.
The third section on what we can call institutional intolerance and its counterpart, penal brutality, is decent, but a retread of stuff you've probably already read if you're digging into the subject.
The middle essay covers the trolldomr (a fancy North-of-the-Wall word for "witchcraft") of medieval Scandinavia and is thus incredibly hyper-specific. It is the most fun chapter, though, since it strays away from analysis unlike the other two chapters, and sticks to classificatory fun. It discusses ceremony, rite, and the borderline shamanism of the weird Norse.
The first essay is more analytical, though it might not come across so at first. Doing the best she can with the extant record, Jolly neatly partitions the rise of the concept of magic and its purveyors into three parts and then teases out what it meant during each of those three times. Her second section details objects and rites and meanings (kind of) of magical shizz. Unfortunately, Jolly is dogged by her own insistence on outright syncretism and falls into the trap of making evolving notions of superstition/witchcraft too dependent on a Christian lens. Sure, syncretism and symbiosis by their very nature are two-way streets but Jolly seems to assign too much weight to the overbearing spread of Christianity (counter to work such as Russell et al). But it only detracts some from the information she presents, the real value here.
The third section on what we can call institutional intolerance and its counterpart, penal brutality, is decent, but a retread of stuff you've probably already read if you're digging into the subject.
Currently reading
December 27, 2009This book, and maybe whole series, would probably be good for me to skim in preparation for the section on magic in my Scandinavian Folklore course which I am teaching this Spring. Looks good so far, after reading maybe an 8th of the book.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews