Textual Magic: Charms and Written Amulets in Medieval England

by Katherine Storm Hindley

Overview

An expansive consideration of charms as a deeply integrated aspect of the English Middle Ages.
 
Katherine Storm Hindley explores words at their most powerful: words that people expected would physically change the world. Medieval Europeans often resorted to the use of spoken or written charms to ensure health or fend off danger. Hindley draws on an unprecedented archive of more than a thousand such charms from medieval England—more than twice the number gathered, transcribed, and edited in previous studies and including many texts still unknown to specialists on this topic. Focusing on charms from 1100 to 1350 CE as well as previously unstudied texts in Latin, French, and English, Hindley addresses important questions of how people thought about language, belief, and power. She describes seven hundred years of dynamic, shifting cultural landscapes, where multiple languages, alphabets, and modes of transmission gained and lost their protective and healing power. Where previous scholarship has bemoaned a lack of continuity in the English charms, Hindley finds surprising links between languages and eras, all without losing sight of the extraordinary variety of the medieval charm tradition: a continuous, deeply rooted part of the English Middle Ages.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780226825342
Publisher:	University of Chicago Press
Publication date:	05/31/2024
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	313
File size:	5 MB

About the Author

Katherine Storm Hindley is assistant professor of English literature at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, and director of the London International Palaeography School. Her articles and essays have appeared in a variety of publications. This is her first book.

Table of Contents

List of Boxes
Note on Translation and Transcription
Abbreviations
Introduction Reading, Writing, and Charming
Chapter 1 The Powers of Charm-Words and Relics
Chapter 2 Before 1100: “Textual Magic” in Pre-Conquest England
Chapter 3 1100 to 1350: Charm Language and the Boundaries of Text
Chapter 4 1350 to 1500: “A Fayre Charme on Englysh”
Conclusion The Changing Power of Words
Acknowledgments
Manuscripts Cited
Works Cited
Index

Editorial Reviews

Hindley carefully and fruitfully rethinks what charms tell us about written and oral aspects of culture, drawing on a wonderfully abundant collection of source material from a period in which charms proliferated but were often kept secret. A valuable contribution to the history of magic, her book sheds light on both an impressively diverse archive and the implications of their textuality.

Richard Kieckhefer

"Hindley is a sure-footed guide to this strange terrain . . . [as] she traces the use of amulets across the whole span of the Middle Ages and the ways it was affected by linguistic change and the spread of literacy."

London Review of Books

"Hindley’s study of language’s weird fringe allows her to convincingly demonstrate that the nature of words’ power, and the difference in force between writing and speech, was a live issue in the Middle Ages: it was possible to disagree about why words worked, and how, and for whom. In historicizing textual magic, she has produced a compelling account of one strand of the psychology of language in premodern England."

Genre

"A thought-provoking look at the distinctive ways medieval English people viewed language [that] intrigues. It’s an enlightening deep dive."

Publishers Weekly

"A vital resource for anyone interested in histories of magic. The book is a study of what the author calls 'textual magic'—a term broadly intended to cover all the diverse uses of text in magic (not merely textual amulets/portabilia, but also things written on leaves, butter, or cheese, and meant to be eaten, washed into liquids, buried, or otherwise destroyed). . . . the book is at once a
solidly argued intervention in ways of thinking about magic and a substantial reference work. Throughout the book, Hindley highlights evidence for magical practices: who used these charms? In what circumstances were they deployed? How did practitioners think about what they were doing?"

Magic

A major push forward . . . [that] this flies in the face of the current scholarly orthodoxy that oral and literate cultures were indivisible: it appears that writing was perceived as having its own power, which transcended that of speech.

Fortean Times

Hindley paints a picture of magic’s place in medieval England, producing an eye-opening study of ‘words at their most powerful’ . . .  that promise[s] to change the way we think about magic in the medieval world.

Times Literary Supplement - Mary Flannery

Textual Magic is a significant new work in medieval studies, generously illustrated with images and transcriptions of charm texts. In particular, Hindley’s focus on the instructions accompanying charms and her awareness of their multilingual contexts are welcome additions to the literature on verbal charms.

Jonathan Roper

"A serious work of rigorous research that offers a fascinating account of documents containing written magical formulas from Roman Britain to late medieval England. Although such an ambitious chronological scope is rarely attempted, Hindley proves more than capable of handling the massive body of evidence, much of it still in manuscripts without modern printed editions. . . . an important resource for anyone interested in medieval philosophy of language."

Journal of English and Germanic Philology

A look at how spoken and written charms were used to improve health or send danger packing drawing on more than 1,000 different charms from medieval England, many of which were previously unknown. With texts in Latin, French, and English, Hindley focuses on what they reveal about language, belief, and power.

Fine Books & Collections

The first systematic, long-durée survey of these charms in medieval England, ranging from the pre-Conquest period to the early sixteenth century. . . the book [is] a good repository of primary source material for teaching as well as a valuable contribution to charm research. . . . An accessible, engaging, and original path into a large body of material.

Speculum

Hindley guides readers through the complete history of spoken and written charms in medieval England with seasoned ease. Through close readings and the latest archaeological insights, Textual Magic offers an indispensable introduction to medieval English charms, packed with examples in both their original language and modern English translation.

Lea Olsan

"A terrific resource for teaching as well as a starting-point for new scholarship. . . this is a book to be welcomed enthusiastically by all those with an interest in charms and charming."

Studies in the Age of Chaucer

"Hindley’s book seeks to establish the extent of the textual record for charms, not only as it is commonly recognized in the early medieval period but across the Middle Ages, and thus to assert the truly integral place of powerful words (the “textual magic” of her title) in medieval life."

Modern Philology