Medieval Necromancy and the Cursed Imagination
Necromancers – medieval Christian demon conjurors – thought they could compel demons to reveal the truth about anything they asked, including all the secrets of the past, present, and future. Demons had access to extraordinary knowledge because of their immortality and superior rationality. It was not that they were omniscient: rather that they had lived for a very long time, had seen it all before, and were superlative predicters. Some medieval thinkers thought of demons as the first natural scientists, permitted by God to pass the eons observing and interpreting humans to puzzle out each sin an individual was likely to succumb to. As the demons wandered eternally in the sublunar realm, they noticed things of great interest to the necromancer: where treasure was buried, who stole objects of value, unfaithful lovers, wrongful imprisonment, and princes’ guilty secrets. In this talk I will discuss how necromancers hoped to succeed in their rituals despite the intense malice and cunning of demons. We will also investigate the mystery and ambiguity of the spirit realm and the charge laid at necromancers that they had a ‘cursed imagination.’
Bio:
Sophie Page is Professor of Medieval History at University College London. She has published on monks and magic, cosmology, diagrams, animals and rituals and was joint editor of the Routledge History of Medieval Magic (2019). In 2018 she co-created the exhibition, Spellbound: Magic, Ritual and Witchcraft at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.
Image: The Pilgrim meeting the messenger of Necromancy, from ‘The Pilgrimage of the Life of Man’ by John Lydgate. Cotton Tiberius A VII/1, f. 42.r
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Divining the Past, Present, and Future: Oracles, Series 1 – Four Lectures
Join us for Series 1 as we journey into the histories and mysteries of divination. Delivered by leading scholars in the field, ‘Divining the Past, Present, and Future’ includes talks on specific types of divination, from Mambila spider divination to Medieval necromancy.
Curated & Hosted by
Marguerite Johnson is a cultural historian of the ancient Mediterranean, specialising in sexuality and gender, particularly in the poetry of Sappho, Catullus, and Ovid, as well as magical traditions in Greece, Rome, and the Near East. She also researches Classical Reception Studies, with a regular focus on Australia. In addition to ancient world studies, Marguerite is interested in sexual histories in modernity as well as magic in the west more broadly, especially the practices and art of Australian witch, Rosaleen Norton. She is Honorary Professor of Classics and Ancient History at The University of Queensland, and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. She lives in Mytilene on the Greek island of Lesvos.
Image: John Collier, ‘Priestess of Delphi’ (1891), Art Gallery of South Australia
