Magic in Early Modern France -- The Renaissance World
Chapter
Overview
Overview
Abstract
The definition of magic has been the subject of considerable and prolonged debate among scholars. In early modern France, magic was generally understood to entail the manipulation of natural or supernatural forces to produce material effects. Its principal (if by no means exclusive) aims were healing, divining, protecting, enriching, fostering love, and causing harm, and its most powerful tools were derived from the ritual language, imagery, and sacramentals of the Roman Catholic Church. Magical beliefs and practices drew upon two traditions that gradually came together over the course of the era, a fusion made possible by the explosion of magical texts in circulation after the print revolution. The first was one of learned magic, which had its roots in medieval centers of learning, and the second a common magical tradition that had existed in Europe well before the Middle Ages. In both, the boundary between religion and magic was shadowy and indistinct. The universe as a whole was understood to be a complex of unseen and intersecting powers that could be divine, occult, or demonic in origin; it was widely accepted that those individuals who knew how to do so could access and direct them. Magical practice and belief therefore posed a challenge to the teachings of the Catholic Church. Both secular and religious authorities remained deeply concerned about the misuse of the sacred and spiritual powers of the Church. While they worked assiduously to convince their adherents that common magical practices – carrying a consecrated caul in the belief that it offered preternatural protection, using holy oil as a love potion, invoking spirits to reveal the location of hidden treasure – were at best superstitious and at worst demonic, such fulminations fell on largely deaf ears. Most subjects of the Bourbon monarchs evidently considered such activities unlikely to compromise their eternal salvation or the public good, and they continued to turn to France’s magical practitioners long after the royal government of Louis XIV officially decreed in 1682 that magic was nothing but a fraud perpetuated by sacrilegious con artists.
