This course will examine the development and diversity of forms of magic and witchcraft in Europe before 1600. We shall ask what magic is and how it relates to Christian and "pagan" religion and science. We shall examine how attitudes toward the magical, including the saintly and the miraculous, constantly shifted in a world consistently committed to the possibility of supernatural and extraordinary powers. The course will examine both documents from the past and some of the fascinating scholarship that historians and others have produced on such things as magic, miracles, relics, witches and witch-hunting, astrology, ghosts, and demonology. |