Religion, Magic, and Medicine

Opening remarks:

During the last ten years, the study of magical practices has moved from the periphery of historical studies to the main stream. A considerable number of publications have been devoted to various aspects. Whoever writes on the topic, however, feels compelled to attempt a definition, and everyone arrives at a different one. Medieval writers did not recognize a precise definition, and similarly modern historians cannot agree on one. It is curious that every scholar approaching the subject feels this need to characterise the object of inquiry.

When characterizing and categorizing the subject matter, contrasts and oppositions are frequently employed - most often the contrast of magic with science, or the irrational with the rational. However, what is today deemed irrational was not considered so in the Middle Ages. Other dichotomies used to characterze magical practice are high vs. low magic, white vs. black magic, prayers vs. spells, learned vs. popular. Attempts at an all-inclusive definition in fact define very little and tend to reflect the concerns of the person writing, whether theological, historical, anthropological, medical, or whatever. The subject defies precise definition, for there are always contradictions and exceptions. Do we really need to define magic precisely?

Periodizing the subject matter has been another approach. For example, according to Valerie Flint much early medieval magic was embraced by the Church as positive and benevolent before the twelfth century and became demonic only later, and Charles Burnett has contrasted magic before and after the introduction of Arabic influences on European practices. Such periodizing is not entirely successful, however. We ought, for example, to move away from the notion that magical medicine occurs in the absence or failure of rational medicine.

Literary sources are largely prescriptive, and consequently material objects might be a better guide to actual practice. The problems of relying primarily on an archaeological approach are none the less considerable. There are often great problems of interpreting material remains; for example, in Anglo-Saxon graves sacks containing pieces of glass have been found, but how is their intended function to be interpreted? Speculation regarding trepanned skulls found at archaeological sites and various ritual practices is diverting, but is it more than that? Similarly, there are difficulties with reliance upon only a linguistic approach or a cultural/social approach or an anthropological one (in which the effectiveness of magic, medicine, and religion are viewed as more or less similar) or a rhetorical approach (in which by emphasizing ritual and rhetoric as a means of manipulation, the differences between magic, medicine, and religion are played down to the point that where all three seem interchangeable).

[Correction sent in by Debby Banham: I'm not sure where the reference to 'sacks of pieces of glass' came from in our discussions, but it gives a rather misleading impression if taken literally. It is true that a lot of glass objects are found in burials of the fifth to seventh centuries, mostly in Kent. There are two main categories, drinking vessels, which are generally supposed to be Frankish, and 'crystal' balls in metal mounts. These latter are believed to have some kind of amuletic function, and to have hung from the girdle. These are found in female graves (although only sexed by their grave goods, so we are in danger of circular argument here) and I think exclusively in Kent. Drinking vessels are found with both sexes and over a wider geographical area, and are thought of as markers of wealth and/or status, which would make sense if they were imported. The Anglo-Saxons are not thought to have had glass-making technology this early, although small pieces of coloured glass are found in jewellery. Beads are fairly common, but brooches with glass mounts usually belong to 'high-status' burials. Jewellery is thought to denote female burials. And as for 'pieces', these objects are frequently found intact (and never in sacks!).]

An interdisciplinary approach is advocated - one which emphasizes symmetry (that is, different practices are approached as equally valid and to be examined in parallel), which tries to negotiate the rhetorical boundaries that have separated medicine, magic, and religion in the early medieval past, which recognizes constant change, which is sensitive to sources so far unexplored, and which employs comparative studies.

Points arising in discussion:

Objection might be voiced to placing medicine together with magic and religion, for medicine is 99 per cent rational while magic is not.

Why did so many practitioners employ magic (if indeed they did), and how do we determine just what and how prevalent magical procedures were? If an amulet is found in a grave, or a spell in a manuscript, does this really reflect practise? Historians have become more sceptical about texts; should we also be sceptical about artefacts? For example, today a cross as a piece of jewellery is for some a fashion item and not necessarily an indication of church attendance. While European texts may seldom mention magical practices, in the Arabic material there are large numbers of Arabic magical treatises as well as manuals compiled by itinerant amulet makers, which imply some sort of use of the procedures. Stone books (or lapidaries) devoted to instructions for elaborate magical figures and formulae to be engraved on precious and semi-precious stones, on the other hand, produce a scepticism in some readers, for the designs seem far too elaborate to have been executed on a gemstone and they are in no way corroborated by the designs on the thousands of medieval gemstones that survive. Perhaps stone books are an example of a genre that is interesting to read, but of little use to an amulet maker. Yet Galen advocated curing hepatitis with a stone of green jasper, though without an image on it. The stone could be viewed as a natural cure and the image as a magical element that for some was not necessary. So the boundaries have shifted between the natural and the magical.

How do we identify an amulet or piece of magical equipment? They are often not described in written sources, and archaeologists, when in doubt, tend to call an object 'ritual' rather than amuletic. If one finds in a grave a bone with a hole in it, how can we establish what was it used for? One should never assume that those buried knew of the objects interred with them. Historians are learning to be more cautious in their interpretations of such objects.

Occasionally there are large groups of indubitably magical objects that, on the basis of evidence so far available, are not reflected in any written sources. One example is provided by the magic bowls from Late Antiquity (clay, with Aramaic incantations written in spirals, often with 'bound' figures drawn at their centre). According to the inscriptions, these bowls were apparently placed upside down to 'capture' demons. A second example are the Islamic magic bowls that appear suddenly in the twelfth century (metal, engraved with figures very different from the Aramaic ones) which were inscribed with the names of diseases and afflictions for which they were said to be useful and from which the patient or a the patient's proxy drank water. Neither of these two groups of objects is mentioned in written sources, though a large number of artefacts are preserved today. What does this tell us about the relationship between magical treatises and the artisan maker of magical equipment?

The written magical tradition often seems divorced from practise. Take the example of al-Razi (Rhazes to Europeans), d. 925. He composed a treatise on the magical and occult properties of various substances (in Arabic called khawass), yet in his case histories (over 900 of which are preserved today) no magic elements are to be found, unless one counts a single short entry where a blister is treated with semen. Another example is the physician Ibn Zuhr, who worked in Spain in the 12th century. He also wrote on occult properties of things, but he included the use of animals such as lions which are not to be found where he lived. His purpose in composing such a tract must have been quite different from his reasons for composing his medical treatises. Perhaps it was to promote his authority and reputation amongst people different from those to whom his medical writings were addressed.

Magic was often believed in, and justified, by placing it under the umbrella of religion. Take incantations. There are reports that when the Prophet Muhammad was asked about the use of incantations, he said that one should use the Qur'an, for otherwise it would be a dubious procedure. If the Prophet used it, then it was all right. In the case of the Middle East there were underlying Bedouin traditions which were incorporated into later practices. Demons (djinn) were omnipresent in traditional thinking in the Middle East, yet they are very seldom named on the artefacts. The magical equipment and artefacts from the medieval Middle East that have been studied address the invocations not to demons but to God (or to archangels). As the late Michael Dols argued, Islamic magic is many respects a continuous prayer to God.

In Latin there are clerical handbooks, penitentials, and court records which can serve as evidence for the practice of magic. Caution of course must always be exercised. Perhaps we must begin on a local, individual level. While comparative studies are desirable, global statements such as 'all magic is based on the wish to control fear' should perhaps be avoided. We do not even know what Anglo-Saxon elfshot was? Does that matter? How useful are the three categories of our session heading for the descriptions of the past? It is very difficult to discover the belief system behind a practice, yet we must endeavour to do so. There can, of course, be different belief systems and contradictions within one person - Newton for example.

The role of nonsense and mumbo-jumbo in incantations and amuletic inscriptions is problematic. The scholar should consider the scribe's point of reference. Were the words nonsense to the person writing them? Had they value for that reason? Was the person writing them illiterate and misunderstanding the formulae? If so, was that thought to invalidate the 'magic'. Did it compromise the efficacy of the magic if the person wearing an amulet or repeating an incantation did not understand the formulae? What happens when gibberish in one language is 'translated' into another?

Another element to consider is the use of non-medical things in a medical context, such as the reading of the vita of a saint in order to cure someone. Or, for example, the saying of mass for people suffering from epilepsy. It is, however, easy too easy to create a new category of magical religion to cover such phenomena. An amulet can look like a relic. The difference between the two is that a prayer is accepted because it is to the true god, while an amulet might be regarded as idolatry. The latter distinction, however, is not as pertinent to artefacts from the Islamic world. In medieval Europe, the scholastic distinction between magic and religion was defined by the 13th century. According to some, the church tried to incorporate magic into its belief system because it was unable to defeat the practice of magic. The word virtus is translated in many ways. Relics have virtus, which is a holy power. A saint can have virtus if a cure was affected by him or her. When did virtus become the standard Latin translation of the Greek word dynamis?

Latin scribes often copied into the same manuscript both a herbarium, which we might consider a natural science, and a lapidary, which we would today consider magical and fanciful. The scribe probably considered them to belong to the same category of knowledge - but was that magical or natural? The matter is made more complicated by the fact that a substance might have been useful in effecting a cure but today it is not in our biomedical pharmacopoeia and therefore we do not recognize its potential to affect the patient. Despite the best intentions of historians, the criterion by which we designate something as magical or medical is often simply whether it works according to modern standards.