Fearful Spirits, Reasoned Follies

D. Bailey Michael

Description

Superstitions are commonplace in the modern world. Mostly, however, they evoke innocuous images of people reading their horoscopes or avoiding black cats. Certain religious practices might also come to mind-praying to St. Christopher or lighting candles for the dead. Benign as they might seem today, such practices were not always perceived that way. In medieval Europe superstitions were considered serious offenses, violations of essential precepts of Christian doctrine or immutable natural laws. But how and why did this come to be? In Fearful Spirits, Reasoned Follies, Michael D. Bailey explores the thorny concept of superstition as it was understood and debated in the Middle Ages. Bailey begins by tracing Christian thinking about superstition from the patristic period through the early and high Middle Ages. He then turns to the later Middle Ages, a period that witnessed an outpouring of writings devoted to superstition-tracts and treatises with titles such as De superstitionibus and Contra vitia superstitionum. Most were written by theologians and other academics based in Europe's universities and courts, men who were increasingly anxious about the proliferation of suspect beliefs and practices, from elite ritual magic to common healing charms, from astrological divination to the observance of signs and omens. As Bailey shows, however, authorities were far more sophisticated in their reasoning than one might suspect, using accusations of superstition in a calculated way to control the boundaries of legitimate religion and acceptable science. This in turn would lay the conceptual groundwork for future discussions of religion, science, and magic in the early modern world. Indeed, by revealing the extent to which early modern thinkers took up old questions about the operation of natural properties and forces using the vocabulary of science rather than of belief, Bailey exposes the powerful but in many ways false dichotomy between the "superstitious" Middle Ages and "rational" European modernity.

Sujets

• Histoire
• Folclore
• Middle Ages
• History of religions
• History of Europe
• Christianity
• Folklore
• Europe

Informations

• Publié par: Cornell University Press
• Date de parution: 15 novembre 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780801467318
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

 FEARFUL SPIRITS, REASONED FOLLIES

FEARFULSPIRITS, REASONED FOLLIES T HE BOUNDARI ES n OF SUPE RST I T I ON I N L AT E ME DI E VAL E UROPE

M i c h a e l D. B a i l e y

CORNELLUNIVERSITYPRESS IthacaandLondon

Copyright©2013byCornellUniversity

Allrightsreserved.Exceptforbriefquotationsinareview, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850.

Firstpublished2013byCornellUniversityPress

PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica

LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData Bailey, Michael David, 1971–  Fearful spirits, reasoned follies: the boundaries of  superstition in late medieval Europe / Michael D. Bailey.  p. cm.  Includes bibliographical references and index.  ISBN 9780801451447 (cloth: alk. paper) 1. Superstition—Europe—History. 2. Superstition— Religious aspects—Catholic Church—History. 3. Civilization, Medieval. I. Title.  GR135.B35 2013 398'.41094—dc23 2012033791

CornellUniversityPressstrivestouseenvironmentally responsible suppliers and materials to the fullest extent possible in the publishing of its books. Such materials include vegetablebased, lowVOC inks and acidfree papers that are recycled, totally chlorinefree, or partly composed of nonwood fibers. For further information, visit our website at www.cornellpress.cornell.edu.

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  Co nt e nt s

Acknowledgmentsix NoteonNamesandTitlesxiii Abbreviationsxv

Prologue Introduction: The Meanings of Medieval Superstition 1. The Weight of Tradition 2. Superstition in Court and Cloister 3. The Cardinal, the Confessor, and the Chancellor 4. Dilemmas of Discernment 5. Witchcraft and Its Discontents 6. Toward Disenchantment? Epilogue

Appendix 255 Bibliography 267 Index 289

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  A c k n o w l e d g m e nt s

Booksarecuriousthings.Whocansayexactly where their histories begin? The idea for this book should have been obvi ous. I first encountered late medieval debates about superstition while re searching emerging ideas of witchcraft in the fifteenth century. As other scholars have noted, and as I argue here, concern over superstition fed into concern over witchcraft. My next project was staring me in the face. But I was tired of witchcraft and magic and the theologians who codified and condemned them, so I looked away. Thatdidn’tlastlong. Inthefallof2003,soonaftermybookonwitchcrafthadappeared, I began a fellowship year at the University of Pennsylvania, which holds among its special collections the only manuscript copy in North America of the important early fifteenthcentury treatiseOn Superstitions,written by the Heidelberg theologian Nikolaus of Jauer. So I am, rather romantically, going to extend the roots of this book back to 1877, when the indefatigable collector of ecclesiastical and inquisitorial texts Henry Charles Lea acquired that codex for his personal library, later donated by his children to the univer sity. For as I sat in the Rare Book & Manuscript Reading Room atop Penn’s Van Pelt Library, working my way through that treatise and other mate rial on medieval superstition, I decided that there was indeed another book I wanted to write. For financial support, crucial time to read and think, and stimulating en vironments in which to do so, I thank the University of Pennsylvania and its Humanities Forum, where this project began in earnest, and the University of Wisconsin–Madison and its Institute for Research in the Humanities, where I did most of the writing. In between, the Alexander von Humboldt Founda tion supported essential research in Europe, and the Monumenta Germaniae Historica welcomed me (again) into its halls and its wonderful library. The manuscript research for this book was conducted mainly amid the riches of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek. For those occasions when I needed to look beyond Munich, I am grateful to librarians at the Staats und Stadtbibliothek

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