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Magic in History
Binding Words: Textual Amulets in the Middle Ages
In the Middle Ages, textual amulets—short texts written on parchment or paper and worn on the body—were thought to protect the bearer against enemies, to heal afflictions caused by demonic invasions, and to bring the wearer good fortune. In Binding Words, Don C. Skemer provides the first book-length study of this once-common means of harnessing the magical power of words.
Textual amulets were a unique source of empowerment, promising the believer safe passage through a precarious world by means of an ever-changing mix of scriptural quotations, divine names, common prayers, and liturgical formulas. Although theologians and canon lawyers frequently derided textual amulets as ignorant superstition, many literate clergy played a central role in producing and disseminating them. The texts were, in turn, embraced by a broad cross-section of Western Europe. Saints and parish priests, physicians and village healers, landowners and peasants alike believed in their efficacy.
Skemer offers careful analysis of several dozen surviving textual amulets along with other contemporary medieval source material. In the process, Binding Words enriches our understanding of popular religion and magic in everyday medieval life.
- GenresHistoryNonfictionOccult
336 pages, Hardcover
First published January 31, 2006
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 9, 2015
In this survey of the production and uses of written text for apotropaic purposes, primarily in Europe from the 13th to 16th centuries, Don Skemer offers insights into largely invisible popular religious practices, as well as previously understudied categories of text production and use in the Middle Ages. Through an analysis of dozens of texts, ranging from late-antique magical papyri to the mass-produced devotional broadsides made possible by the printing press, striking continuities emerge. The everyday concerns of individuals, and the supernatural means they employed to address these, remain quite consistent from polytheistic Egypt of the 2nd millennium BCE through post-Reformation northern Europe, and among all social classes.
While the consumer base of textual magic remained essentially constant, its producers became more varied over the centuries. In a largely illiterate world, clerics had held a near monopoly on distribution of written amulets among the laity, despite frequent - if inconsistent and ambivalent - condemnations of such practices by Church authorities. By the 16th century, however, parish priests had been joined by literate physicians, would-be prophets, profiteering hucksters, and in fact anyone capable of hand-copying any of the readily available exemplar texts which permeated society.
Despite their proliferation, the physical fragility of amulets inscribed on parchment or paper has led to their relative archaeological and archival scarcity, as Skemer notes. We are left to rely upon documentary references and informed inference to identify the presence of these texts, the difficulty in doing so exacerbated by the fact that most, if not all, of the scripture, biblical narratives, and sanctified names which constitute the substance of amuletic texts were themselves regarded as mediating divine power, whether their composition was intended as magic or not. On this matter, Skemer may sometimes err on the side of entertaining the possibility of amuletic function, but his thorough descriptions of the subject material allow readers to draw their own conclusions.
While the consumer base of textual magic remained essentially constant, its producers became more varied over the centuries. In a largely illiterate world, clerics had held a near monopoly on distribution of written amulets among the laity, despite frequent - if inconsistent and ambivalent - condemnations of such practices by Church authorities. By the 16th century, however, parish priests had been joined by literate physicians, would-be prophets, profiteering hucksters, and in fact anyone capable of hand-copying any of the readily available exemplar texts which permeated society.
Despite their proliferation, the physical fragility of amulets inscribed on parchment or paper has led to their relative archaeological and archival scarcity, as Skemer notes. We are left to rely upon documentary references and informed inference to identify the presence of these texts, the difficulty in doing so exacerbated by the fact that most, if not all, of the scripture, biblical narratives, and sanctified names which constitute the substance of amuletic texts were themselves regarded as mediating divine power, whether their composition was intended as magic or not. On this matter, Skemer may sometimes err on the side of entertaining the possibility of amuletic function, but his thorough descriptions of the subject material allow readers to draw their own conclusions.
May 25, 2014
If you've read my novel Daughter of Mystery then you'll know why I'm buying books on the history of magic and folk religion in Europe. (If you haven't read it, go do so … I'll wait.) While the scope of this book falls before the setting of my novels (at least the primary series -- I do plan a medieval one at some point), the magical practices are grounded in earlier practices. I'm primarily looking for inspirations for describing the paraphernalia around both the "high" and "low" versions of magic in my fiction. Skemer's work covers both the religious environment in which these amulets were produced but the purposes and expected benefits and a great many details on the textual content and the ways in which the amulets were produced and used. I haven't actually had a chance to read it through in detail yet (isn't that always the case?) but expect to cherry-pick details in the future.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews