The Rise of Magic in Early Medieval Europe

by Valerie I.J. Flint

"There are forces better recognized as belonging to human society than repressed or left to waste away or growl about upon its fringes." So writes Valerie Flint in this powerful work on magic in early medieval Europe. Flint shows how many of the more discerning leaders of the early medieval Church decided to promote non-Christian practices originally condemned as magical--rather than repressing them or leaving them to waste away or "growl." These wise leaders actively and enthusiastically incorporated specific kinds of "magic" into the dominant culture not only to appease the contemporary non-Christian opposition but also to enhance Christianity itself.

Genres: History, Medieval, Medieval History, Nonfiction, Religion, Academic, School

472 pages, Paperback

First published December 31, 1990

About the author

Valerie Irene Jane Flint (5 July 1936 – 7 January 2009) was a British scholar and historian, specialising in medieval intellectual and cultural history.

Reviews

[Brandon Hawk · Rating 4 out of 5]

(This rating really is more like 3.5--I couldn't give it just a 3, but can't quite justify a full 4.)

In general, Flint's study is a detailed and estimable contribution to early medieval practices, ranging across such a variety of issues to be relevant to almost any study of early medieval Christianity. Furthermore, in taking account of the social world, Flint brings medieval mindsets to life in considering the ways in which people need and conceived of magic and miracula. As a major study and overview of these issues, the book is a mainstay in scholarship.

For all of its great worth, two flaws stand out in Flint's methodology. First, in her use of anthropology and sociology, she fails to take account of Peter Brown's work on Christian "holy men" as emerging analogues to their pagan counterparts in late antiquity. In doing so, Brown was a forerunner for the use of anthropology and sociology in understanding the interplay between paganism and Christianity as the latter developed. While Flint cites some of Brown's other work, this aspect of his scholarship is unacknowledged, despite the apparent parallels with her own project. This is even more surprising given that the phrase and idea of the "holy man" is used throughout Rise of Magic in relation to both Christian and pre-Christian practitioners.

The second problematic aspect of Flint's methodology is in her all-too-common acceptance of source accounts at the same face value as they present themselves. In doing so, her own accounts often fail to acknowledge that the reality was most likely more complex than the ways they are presented by (often one-sided) polemics. For example, she discusses early Christianity as "the heroic ages of Christian conversion" (71) and "subsequent triumph" (73)--but forgets that this history was written by those winners. The same problem underlies some of her other discussions, as she relies on normative Christian sources to understand unorthodox practices that they condemn. She herself acknowledges the tensions in her work when she cautions, "We do well to be a little guarded... and to be alerted once more to the danger of depending literally upon sources which are both so firmly Christian and often so very polemical" (332)--but her analyses do not always take this into account and would benefit from a more nuanced approach to the sources.

Still, these drawbacks are not to deter readers from this book; it is clearly a pivotal study of the early medieval transformation of magic. There is certainly a sense that this work is foundational: that it both changed the field and remains a standard account for students of the early Middle Ages.

[Holly]

kill me

[J.M. Hushour · Rating 4 out of 5]

Probably not ballsy enough for some tastes, but overly satisfying as a whole, Flint delves into that awesome intersection of pre-Christian/Christian ideologies and looks at what the Church took from its predecessors. Yes, yes, we all have that friend who likes to remind us that Christmas was some Mithratic pagan festival and the eggs at Easter are our friendly neighborhood ovum (thanks, pesky fertility deity!), but Flint gets into the real, syncretic nitty-gritty here.
She sets out by making dense inquiries into what was and wasn't acceptable forms of magic. You might not know this, but early on, a lot of the Church's targets as far as diabolery went were a lot of its own peeps! There was a distinct border between "learned" magic and "popular superstition". It is the latter that interests Flint most and she does a great job sifting through the extant material to show how the Church gently co-opted and sometimes outright stole popular beliefs and molded them into their own. Think of how sampling often produces more outstanding musical works, e.g. "Paul's Boutique", anyone? There's focus on both practice and place and way to much to get into here, but if you want to read about how religious syncretism and assimilation actually works, you wouldn't be wrong to read this one.

[Ietrio · Rating 1 out of 5]

What would the world be without paper pushers like Flint? You, ignorant reader, would be wallowing in your lack of knowledge and miss the science, technology and industrial revolution of the Roman Empire, before the Rise of Magic in Early Medieval Europe.

[Walt · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although it is well written and researched; the writing is very dense and academic. The arguments are well thought-out; but it forces the reader to spend a lot of time thinking about the text to make sense of it all.

[Zhelana · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was remarkably hard to read. I mean, I got almost nothing out of it, and I'm not sure why it was so hard, but it was just confusing. The main thesis is that christian magic came out of pagan Roman magic. The author tries to argue that Christians took the least offensive parts of magic and left things like necromancy to the pagans, but we know from reading multiple other books on magic in the middle ages that the christians did use necromancy, and I don't know how to justify this book given the other books. She focused mostly on astrology as though that were the only kind of magic done. She starts by arguing that medieval people believed that magic was real and dangerous. She points out that for the first 4 centuries of Christiandom we don't hear from a single magic user; only those they terrify, so all of the sources she uses are biased. Eventually there was legitimate and illegitimate magic which differed only in who was doing them. So, basically, that's what I got from this book, which isn't much given how much time I spent reading it. I hope I can find an easier book on the topic to read next.

[Sara Tiede · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read because I had a specific need for the information, so I completed the book and when the facts were clear, I was interested in the subject matter. But this book was dense, choppy, and fairly hard to follow specific lines of change. I love history, and have read extensively in historical non fiction, so I know from experience it is apparently fairly hard, especially the wider the scope of the subject matter, to compose a book that not just relates disparite facts relating to the subject, but also give those facts a frame by which readers can see how fact B is important in light of fact A. This book did only so-so. I wanted to finish it, and I did, but I would never idly recommend it to a casual reader.

[C · Rating 3 out of 5]

An illuminating book and interesting read, although incredibly dense and academic. I was frankly impressed by how long and complex the sentences consistently were. And I thought my run-on sentences were bad.
In seriousness though, the book is interesting, bringing up some very interesting examples of magic and sources of magic in early Medieval Europe that I didn't know about. I would not really be able to tell you why this book is 400 pages long, though. The whole book is extremely academically dense, frankly leaving me exhausted after finishing it.

[Tecre · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pro
- close to the sources
- line of argument is easy to understand and follow

Contra
- lack of source criticism
- seldom references secondary literature