Women, Magic, and Christianity in Early Medieval Europe

Martha Rampton

Pacific University

Berkshire Conference 2017

 ABSTRACT

Women, Magic, and Christianity in Early Medieval Europe

It is a common assumption, influenced largely by early modern evidence, that medieval women had a particular affinity toward magic. However, my research demonstrates that at no point in the early Middle Ages were women the primary custodians or practitioners of the magic arts. They had specialties, such as love, healing, and birth magic, but even in these areas women did not exercise a monopoly.

Using a variety of early medieval sources, specifically penitentials, Bishop Hincmar of Reims, De divortio Lotharii regis et Theutbergae reginae, and law codes, I argue that although there is appreciable evidence of what the literate elite perceived as female magical activity in the Merovingian period (c. 300-750), references to that activity die down in Carolingian-era sources (c. 750-1000).  As the Frankish lands of Western Europe were brought under progressively well-articulated authority beginning in the mid-eighth century, “the holy” as expressed through popular religious practices, the monastic movement, and ecclesiastical conventions, came under scrutiny.  In the process, activities of Christian holy women narrowed as they were increasingly barred from the organizational structure of the church. This developing perception of women as ineffective in sacral affairs paralleled views about women's inability to control the occult through magic.  Women’s magic (once feared) came to be seen as ineffective and the foolish illusions of weak minds.