So, Super!Student never came back.

[highlyeccentric]

I seem to have taken the lesson that it's ok to be less than perfect entirely too much to heart. Welcome to my first entirely last-minute essay. (Well, except for that one in first year where I spent two weeks analysing functional grammar only to realise on the morning it was due that I'd analysed a scene we were specifically forbidden to analyse, and re-did it all in four hours.)

Mkay. This is a 4000 word essay for Devious' Medieval Cosmology course. It is due on thursday. It is now the wee hours of wednesday. This must be a SUPERSWIFT ESSAY.

What: Anglo-Saxon Charms.
Why: um... the actual reason is that i didn't follow much of Devious' course at all, and so decided the best thing to do would be to get my essays as far out of his time period and field as possible.
From what perspective: I did some work earlier in the semester on the general principles of medieval magic- which I had earnestly intended to blog about, but never did.
In his book Magic in the Middle Ages (which has plenty of problems, lets not go into that now), Richard Kiekheffer declares that medieval magic is a crossing-point where religion converges with science, popular beliefs intersect with those of the educated classes, and the conventions of fiction meet with the realities of everyday life.
Now, by and large Kiekheffer seems to take this schema as a good excuse just to smoosh everything together and go "look, crossroads!" Unfortunately, it also seems to be true. We can rant about that later.

Pinched from my presentation notes:

For the purposes of his book, K says he’s going to address as “magical” all those things which the medieval elite would have regarded as either demonic magic (calling upon or working through the powers of demons) or natural magic (relying on the occult, or hidden, powers of nature.)
According to this definition, magic is magic according to the type of power involved. Divine action and manifest powers of nature are not magical. Demonic aid and occult powers are.

Now... K's definition hinges on the idea of "occult powers", which is a high medieval formulation. The idea of a natural magic, which might be available for study, and non-sinful to use, isn't really formulated in the early middle ages. In fact, I'm hesitant to talk about "magic" at all, because even in the case of a charm which we can tell would be condemned by the church, we can't know that it's user didn't understand it in a christian context (matters of orthodoxy aside).
So... I would rather not talk about the definition of magic in Anglo-Saxon England. If I were to do that, I would have to stick to religious orthodoxy, and i'd look at the sermons and penitentials. As it is... I want to get a feel for the charms. How they work. What they tell us about the relationship between man and the cosmos around him.

Question Time! I think I'm going to write myself one of those crappy quote-questions.

Medieval magic is a crossing-point where religion converges with science, popular beliefs intersect with those of the educated classes, and the conventions of fiction meet with the realities of everyday life. (Kiekheffer)
Can this thesis, designed for a study of primarily high medieval texts, be used to understand Anglo-Saxon charm practices?

What can we say about that:

* That it is not fruitful to attempt to define Anglo-Saxon "magic" in answering this question; rather, I will look at the texts usually identified as charms- with their various christian, pagan, poetic and classical influences- leaving aside the question of broader magical theory.
* That a charm is a ritual, using words, often (always?) along with actions and objects, by which the charm practitioner intends to affect, constrain or alter the outcome of events. I think this may be a Keikheffer defn, actually, and the problem in applying it is that while some "charms" which don't involve the pronouncement of words or formulae (espcially medical) can be redesignated as prescriptions or recipes, others really can't, or we can't tell if words were involved. The penitentials talk about women dragging their children through hedges, for example. We don't know if they had to pronoucne a formula in doing so, because no independant evidence survives. My guess, based on the fact that the pregnancy charms all involve spoken formulae, is that these women would have had to. But we can't tell.
Also, this definition of charm does include practices which were probably understood by the practitioners to be prayers rather than magic-based. That's a bit of a problem and i'll have to have a think about that.
* The above suggests that charms are a "cross-roads" in Anglo-Saxon England.
* Talk about some of the crossing-points:
- is it the point where religion meets science, as Keikheffer suggests? I don't know but i don't think so. I haven't seen anything in the AS charms which relates to "science" as it was studied in the early middle ages. Occult properties weren't being studied; the charms aren't interested in the shape of the world; the lorica formula may be evidence of encyclopaedic sort of interests but i doubt it; the practical uses of charms, eg in medicine, just plain aren't "science" in medieval terms, even if they are in ours. wouldn't have been understood as science at all.
- popular beliefs and intersect with those of the educated classes: yes, definitely. evidence of classical learning in AS medical charms; liturgy applied/ bastardised for everyday use. expand this point somehow.
- fiction and everyday life? not even sure what K means by that. or how he wants to prove it. but what does intersect is poetry and practicality. charms put the power of words to use. I've got a nice fat article on this.
- the oft-cited paganism/ Xnity crossing point. talk about whether or not it's helpful to study "pagan influences" & looking instead for cultural adaptation.
* Charms presume a relationship between man and the world around him- man can affect the world around him by the enactment of a charm.
* What kind of relationship is this? Varied, of course. Can't presume a cohesive magical theory. But what i want to talk about is the principles of sympathy (where a thing which looks like something can be used to cure it) and typology (where one event is a type for another). I think they're the same thing. One presumes a physical link. The other presumes a narrative link. The cultural mishmash for this is a crossroads: Xn typology, for one. but note use of poetic repetitions & oral formulae. By saying a charm, the charm practitioner is able to change his narrative. So the repetitions which are used in poetry to tell the narrative are used to shape it in charming.
this point is getting all bloated and stuff. but i may be able to work something about AS narrative structures in here, if i can get my head around it.

Yay. I can has essay now.

Comments

[loup_noir]

Came here via a link from another blog.

I've been a Kieckhefer fangirl for years. I thought "Forbidden Rites" was fantastic, although I wasn't as keen on "Magic in the Middle Ages." Way too big of a topic for such a little book. What sorts of problems did you have with the book? Can you recommend some other texts?

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

hi!

thanks for commenting :) I'll get back to you about Kieckhefer as soon as i have this awful essay done. In short, though, i had problems with his definition of magic and i also thought, that having picked his definition he didn't stick to it.
i also have problems with such broad general approaches.he talked about changes over time but didn't seem to apply that to his analysis.

other texts... depends what your interests are. if you have any interest in Anglo-Saxon at all, Bill Griffith's Aspects of Anglo-Saxon Magic is AWESOME. :D