Introduction

The study of medieval magic has seen a great deal of important work in recent decades. Since the 1990s, scholars have demonstrated that a wide range of people were engaged in magical activities from all groups in society, and that a great variety of magical texts were in circulation. In addition to this, they have continued to explore topics that have long attracted attention, such as the relationship between medieval magic and the witch trials of the early modern period. It has become clear from this recent scholarship that magic was not a marginal area of medieval culture but intersected with many larger and more conventional historical topics. Taking a lead from Richard Kieckhefer, who in an influential 1989 book described magic as a “kind of crossroads where different pathways in medieval culture converge”, ¹ historians have explored the ways in which magic interacted with mainstream religion, medicine and science, law, and the culture and politics of royal and aristocratic courts, to name but a few areas. The resulting publications are spread widely across academic publishers and journals – another sign that medieval magic is no longer regarded as a marginal topic – but the subject has found a place particularly in Pennsylvania State University Press’s Magic in History series and SISMEL’s Micrologus Library series.