History Witch: Uncovering Magical Antiquity
Want to know about real magic from history? This is the place. Here we explore primary texts and historical accounts from the past.
Burchard's Corrector: Rooting Out Medieval Magic
This week in my Women as Witches, Saints & Healers course, we read the Corrector of Buchard of Worms. This early 11th century handbook guided priests with questions they ought to ask their confessing parishioners in order to root out bad behaviour -- and a lot of the bad behaviour was pre-Christian practices that persisted. The insight these questions offer is rather magical, but the style of his rhetoric makes this much more fun to read than the usual sort of penitential.
Here are a few snippets to entertain you:
It's worth remembering that the medieval church held 'magic' to be nonsense (but not charms nor necromancy) so Burchard's attitude is one of scorn for these foolish women -- though there are sections on infanticide where he is much more stern. My students were surprised to see how many different ways the problem was addressed, which gives a sense of how widespread the problem was.
Life is more precarious when you are dependent upon a good harvest. I wonder if all the fairy tales of abandoned children being rescued after perilous adventures were not a way to assuage the sense of loss some mothers suffered.
Comments
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Monday, 14 September 2015
That's very good to hear!
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I'm glad to see I'm not the only person interested in these sorts of texts as source material for modern Heathenism or Paganism. In fact, I'm working on a book right now that collates numerous customs and beliefs mentioned in this and other medieval penetentials, sermons, and saints' lives, and turns them into workable rituals and "everyday religion" practices.