Speaking with Spirits in Medieval Magic Texts

In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, learned magic texts of Arabic and Jewish origin were translated into Latin, introducing new ideas about angels to medieval Europe. Although the Christian Church accepted the existence of invisible spirits, scholars were engaged in uneasy debates over their corporeality, man’s ability to comprehend them and the nature of their influence in the sublunary world. The imported magic texts, on the other hand, were full of tangible certainties. They gave angels names, attributes and locations, revealing a vivified cosmos in which temporal divisions – the hours, days, months and seasons – and physical elements – fire and the air, winds, sea, stars and earth – were ruled over or personified by spirits. This was a pragmatic cosmology: the attributes of a spirit told the magic operator what purpose it would be useful for, its name gave him the power to speak to it directly, and descriptions of the spirit’s relationship to the physical world instructed him in the best materials and times for his operation. From the thirteenth century, ecclesiastical authorities condemned learned magic texts for encouraging interaction with demons rather than for presenting fraudulent operations; that is, the authorities accepted that the spirits described in the texts had real powers but classified them as demonic. This allowed elaborate and alien hierarchies to be absorbed into the Christian cosmos. For readers and operators of magic texts, however, it was always possible to regard the angels and spirits of magic texts as good or neutral beings rather than evil demons.