The Rise of Magic in Early Medieval Europe - Softcover

Flint, Valerie Irene Jane

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0691001103 ISBN 13: 9780691001104

Publisher: Princeton University Press, 1994

Synopsis

"There are forces better recognized as belonging to human society than repressed or left to waste away or growl about upon its fringes." So writes Valerie Flint in this powerful work on magic in early medieval Europe. Flint shows how many of the more discerning leaders of the early medieval Church decided to promote non-Christian practices originally condemned as magical--rather than repressing them or leaving them to waste away or "growl." These wise leaders actively and enthusiastically incorporated specific kinds of "magic" into the dominant culture not only to appease the contemporary non-Christian opposition but also to enhance Christianity itself.

About this title

Review:

"Flint combines a bold thesis and sophisticated historiography with impeccable scholarship. Her semantic disentangling of contemporary texts and their various terms is as sensitive as her contextual interpretation of them.... Flint writes with verve and style. This is an extraordinarily good book."---Patrick Curry, History Today

"In this large, brave and erudite book, Valerie Flint sets out to rescue the preternatural aspects of medieval culture from the opprobrium with which Reformation polemicists attacked them, and to understand magic, both 'Christian magic' and non-Christian, on its own terms.... This is a book which will inevitably arouse welcome and refreshing controversy."---Julia Smith, Early Medieval Europe

"Diligently researched and well-written survey of what antiquity and churchmen between the fifth and eleventh centuries had to say about magical beliefs and practices, and what the Church and State should do about them."--The Times Literary Supplement

About the Author:

Valerie I. J. Flint is Professor of History at the University of Auckland. Among her books is The Imaginative Landscape of Christopher Columbus (Princeton).

About this edition

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0691001103
• ISBN 13: 9780691001104
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 468