Pettit, a specialist in English language and literature before 1525, assumes that readers have at hand and open the first volume, which contains the texts themselves, and so dives into his line-by-line commentary without introduction or explanation. He refers to the texts by entry number rather than page. His 70-page bibliography of works cited and principal works consulted does not duplicate the list of Abbreviations and Signs (Volume One). He does not provide an index. The text is double spaced. The sewn binding and cloth cover are high quality. c. Book News Inc.

Pettit, a specialist in English language and literature before 1525, assumes that readers have at hand and open the first volume, which contains the texts themselves, and so dives into his line-by-line commentary without introduction or explanation. He refers to the texts by entry number rather than page. His 70-page bibliography of works cited and principal works consulted does not duplicate the list of Abbreviations and Signs (Volume One). He does not provide an index. The text is double spaced. The sewn binding and cloth cover are high quality. c. Book News Inc.

"This study looks at a wide range of medieval Englisih romance texts, including the works of Chaucer and Malory, from a broad cultural perspective, to show that while they employ magic in order to create exotic, escapist worlds, they are also grounded in a sense of possibility, and reflect a complex web of inherited and current ideas." --Book Jacket.

Fresh examinations of the role of medicinal plants in medieval thought and practice and how they contributed to broader ideas concerning the body, religion and identity. The important and ever-shifting role of medicinal plants in medieval science, art, culture, and thought, both in the Latin Western medical tradition and in Byzantine and medieval Arabic medicine, is the focus of this new collection. Following a general introduction and a background chapter on Late Antique and medieval theories of wellness and therapy, in-depth essays treat such wide-ranging topics as medicine and astrology, charms and magical remedies, herbal glossaries, illuminated medical manuscripts, women's reproductive medicine, dietary cooking, gardens in social and political context, and recreated medieval gardens. They make a significant contribution to our understanding ofthe place of medicinal plants in medieval thought and practice, and thus lead to a greater appreciation of how medieval theories and therapies from diverse places developed in continuously evolving and cross-pollinating strands, and, in turn, how they contributed to broader ideas concerning the body, religion, identity, and the human relationship with the natural world. Contributors: MARIA AMALIA D'ARONCO, PETER DENDLE, EXPIRACION GARCIA SANCHEZ, PETER MURRAY JONES, GEORGE R. KEISER, DEIRDRE LARKIN, MARIJANE OSBORN, PHILIP G. RUSCHE, TERENCE SCULLY, ALAIN TOUWAIDE, LINDA EHRSAM VOIGTS

In the Middle Ages, textual amulets--short texts written on parchment or paper and worn on the body--were thought to protect the bearer against enemies, to heal afflictions caused by demonic invasions, and to bring the wearer good fortune. In Binding Words, Don C. Skemer provides the first book-length study of this once-common means of harnessing the magical power of words. Textual amulets were a unique source of empowerment, promising the believer safe passage through a precarious world by means of an ever-changing mix of scriptural quotations, divine names, common prayers, and liturgical formulas. Although theologians and canon lawyers frequently derided textual amulets as ignorant superstition, many literate clergy played a central role in producing and disseminating them. The texts were, in turn, embraced by a broad cross-section of Western Europe. Saints and parish priests, physicians and village healers, landowners and peasants alike believed in their efficacy. Skemer offers careful analysis of several dozen surviving textual amulets along with other contemporary medieval source materials. In the process, Binding Words enriches our understanding of popular religion and magic in everyday medieval life.

Using a comparative and broad perspective, Religion, Politics and Society in Britain 800-1066 draws on archaeology, art history, material culture, texts from charms to chronicles, from royal law-codes to sermons to poems, and other evidence to demonstrate the centrality of Christianity and the Church in Britain 800-1066. It delineates their contributions to the changes in politics, economy, society and culture that occurred between 800 and 1066, from nation-building to practicalities of government to landscape. The period 800-1066 saw the beginnings of a fundamental restructuring of politics, society and economy throughout Christian Europe in which religion played a central role. In Britain too the interaction of religion with politics and society was profound and pervasive. There was no part of life which Christianity and the Church did not touch: they affected belief, thought and behaviour at all levels of society. This book points out interconnections within society and between archaeological, art historical and literary evidence and similarities between aspects of culture not only within Britain but also in comparison with Armenian Christendom. A. E. Redgate explores the importance of religious ideas, institutions, personnel and practices in the creation and expression of identities and communities, the structure and functioning of society and the life of the individual. This book will be essential reading for students of early medieval Britain and religious and social history.

Trafficking with Demons explores how magic was perceived, practiced, and prohibited in western Europe during the first millennium CE. Through the overlapping frameworks of religion, ritual, and gender, Martha Rampton connects early Christian reckonings with pagan magic to later doctrines and dogmas. Challenging established views on the role of women in ritual magic during this period, Rampton provides a new narrative of the ways in which magic was embedded within the foundational assumptions of western European society, informing how people understood the cosmos, divinity, and their own Christian faith. As Rampton shows, throughout the first Christian millennium, magic was thought to play a natural role within the functioning of the universe and existed within a rational cosmos hierarchically arranged according to a "great chain of being." Trafficking with the "demons of the lower air" was the essense of magic. Interactions with those demons occurred both in highly formalistic, ritual settings and on a routine and casual basis. Rampton tracks the competition between pagan magic and Christian belief from the first century CE, when it was fiercest, through the early Middle Ages, as atavistic forms of magic mutated and found sanctuary in the daily habits of the converted peoples and new paganisms entered Europe with their own forms of magic. By the year 1000, she concludes, many forms of magic had been tamed and were, by the reckoning of the elite, essentially ineffective, as were the women who practiced it and the rituals that attended it.