Fever, sun, and blood: sermons, amulets, and incantations as sources for magical practices in Medieval Europe.
This paper presents a novel method to access lived religion and magical practices of a Medieval congregation via sermons combined with material culture. Previously, scholars have dismissed sermons as having low 'truth value' due to the copying inherent in the genre. In this paper, I first examine ho...
| Published in: | Scandinavian Journal of History Vol. 49; no. 4; pp. 421 - 445 |
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| Format: | Article |
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Taylor & Francis Ltd
Sep2024
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| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=179108473&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 179108473 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 03468755 9DR jtl: Scandinavian Journal of History issn: 03468755 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Sep2024 vid: 49 iid: 4 pid: 377 pub: Taylor & Francis Ltd artinfo: ui: 179108473 10.1080/03468755.2024.2345406 ppf: 421 ppct: 24 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 1.1MB tig: atl: Fever, sun, and blood: sermons, amulets, and incantations as sources for magical practices in Medieval Europe. aug: au: Dalsgaard, Clara affil: Centre for Medieval Studies, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden su: Amulets Material culture Middle Ages Magic Clergy sug: subj: Amulets Material culture Middle Ages Magic Clergy keyword: amulets Denmark incantations late middle ages sermons ab: This paper presents a novel method to access lived religion and magical practices of a Medieval congregation via sermons combined with material culture. Previously, scholars have dismissed sermons as having low 'truth value' due to the copying inherent in the genre. In this paper, I first examine how one Danish sermon was adapted from a German model to fit a local context. This adaptation reveals specific local practices that the preacher thought were relevant to his congregation. Secondly, I demonstrate how several practices described in the sermons are mirrored in surviving non-normative material evidence such as amulets and incantations in manuscripts. This interdisciplinary combination of sermon studies, magic studies, archaeology, and medieval studies yields an as-yet-untapped source group. The paper concludes that 1) sermons can indeed be used as sources for magical practices and lived religion, and 2) they can be used as sources for practices that did not leave material evidence. Finally, discussions of the importance of material evidence in sermon studies and how magical practices were both locally anchored and part of an international network are broached. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Copyright of Scandinavian Journal of History is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. item: Scandinavian Journal of History holder: Taylor & Francis Ltd dt: @attributes: year: 2024 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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