ABSTRACT
In the societies of the late Middle Ages, courts – those of sovereigns and those of secular and ecclesiastical princes – are privileged domestic spaces for the political elites, places of power representation and centres of rivalries of all kinds, involving often illicit practices. The use of magic and repression of it should be considered in this highly competitive sociopolitical context, where individual strategies seem to oppose the norms imposed by the Church and the secular powers. But recent research focused on some particularly revealing periods of crisis suggests that the sovereign powers – those of the Pope, kings and territorial princes – have not built themselves up only in opposition to magicians, sorcerers and witches, but also, to some extent, with their help.
