7/27/2019 Description Byzantine Magic

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Byzantine Magic

edited by Henry Maguire

In recent years considerable attention has been given to magic in the societies of ancient Greeceand Rome, of late antiquity, and of the medieval West. Much less attention, however, has been

given to the phenomenon of magic in eastern Christendom during the middle ages.The papers in this volume, written by specialists in several disciplines, explore the parametersand significance of magic in Byzantine society, from the fourth century to after the empire's fall.The authors address a wide variety of questions, some of which are common to all historicalresearch into magic, and some of which are peculiar to the Byzantine context.Among the topics discussed are the attitudes of the early church fathers toward the evil eye andtheir efforts to reconcile that belief with orthodox Christian theology, the physical evidence

provided by archaeology for magical practices during the early Byzantine period, the concernsraised by the magical use of Christian images and the consequences for the design and

presentation of icons, the ambiguous distinctions between holy and unholy miracles found insaints' lives and histories, the reactions of Byzantine intellectuals to the theory and practice of

magic, and the changing attitudes toward magic between the late antique and medieval periods asrevealed by imperial legislation and canon law. The last two chapters discuss the rich evidencefor the continued importance of magic in the late Byzantine period, seen in texts such as practicalmanuals for magicians and proceedings of trials, and, finally, the transmission of much magicallore as a Byzantine legacy to the Slavs.The authors reveal the scope, the forms, and the functioning of magic in Byzantine society,throwing light on a hitherto relatively little-known aspect of Byzantine culture, and, at the sametime, expanding upon the contemporary debates concerning magic and its roles in pre-modernsocieties.

Full electronic texts and illustrations are available.

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Contents:

Introduction, Henry MaguireMatthew W. Dickie, The Fathers of the Church and the Evil EyeJames Russell, The Archaeological Context of Magic in the Early Byzantine PeriodHenry Maguire, Magic and the Christian ImageAlexander Kazhdan, Holy and Unholy Miracle WorkersJohn Duffy, Reactions of Two Byzantine Intellectuals to the Theory and Practice of Magic:Michael Psellos and Michael Italikos

Marie Theres Fgen, Balsamon on Magic: From Roman Secular Law to Byzantine Canon LawRichard P. H. Greenfield, A Contribution to the Study of Palaeologan MagicRobert Mathiesen, Magic in Slavia Orthodoxa: The Written TraditionAbbreviations and Index

1995 216 pp. 39 illus. 0-88402-230-7 $30.00