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| The conference was held at Cardiff's Sir Martin Evans Building. Image by Seth Wales, from Wikipedia. |
The conference kicked off with a keynote talk from Professor Ronald Hutton of the University of Bristol, an eminent historian and specialist in the Early Modern period who
has also published seminal work on the history of modern Pagan Witchcraft (and
for those of you who haven’t seen it, Professor Hutton kindly gave an interview for Albion Calling last year). Titled “The Western Magical Tradition”, Hutton
took us back to the place of magic and witchcraft in the ancient Near Eastern
societies of the Egyptians, Mesopotamians, and Hittites, before discussing the
distinction between magic and religion held to in the Greco-Roman world and the
ways in which these historic approaches and sources impacted on European views
of magic into the Early Modern period. This is partly based on research for a forthcoming book which I look forward to tremendously.
Next up was “Panel I: Folk
and Learned Magic”, chaired by Tom George, which opened with my paper on “The
Anglo-Saxon Cunning Woman: New Perspectives from History and Archaeology”,
which was based in large part on my earlier master’s thesis. I was concerned
that the presentation of the paper might have come across as a little rushed (after
all, it is difficult to fit all that information into a twenty-minute slot!)
but it certainly seemed to pique the interest of various attendees and many
people told me that they had found it to be both enjoyable and interesting,
which was a relief. I was followed by Dr. Debbie Lea of INTO Manchester with
her paper on “Sieves, Shears and a Swallow” in which she discussed the
activities of several cunning folk in Early Modern Lancashire (and surprisingly enough, neither Dr Lee nor any of those who asked her questions mentioned Lancashire's famous Pendle Witches). Rounding off this section was Cardiff’s own
Alison Harthill with “To Obtain a Horse: Necromancy and Fantasy” in which she
looked at the place of fantasy in Early Modern grimoires, bringing up the
interesting and innovative comparison between the ways in which such books of
magic may have been read and the ways in which comic books are often read
today.
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| Baldung's Hexen, a woodcut of 1508. |
Chaired by Mark
Truesdale, “Panel IV: Philosophy and Spirituality” kicked off with Jonathan Jancsary of the University of Innsbruck on “Dreams and Imagination as First
Insights into the Spiritual Spheres”, an examination of the role of dreams in
the ideas of Medieval Arab philosopher-come-Sufi mystic Ibn Arabi. Jancsary was then
followed by Clare Fitzpatrick of Birkbeck, University of London who examined the ideas regarding
an immortal soul that were expounded in the writings of Early Modern
philosopher and Christian apologist Henry More in her paper on “Apparitions of
the Dead, Visions, Monstrous Births and Other “Extraordinary and Miraculous”
Phenomena”. Panel VI, “Body and Medicine”, was chaired by Michael Fulton and
opened with Cat Stiles of the University of Bristol on “Popular Magic: The
Anglo-Saxon Charms and the Line Between Magic, Medicine and Religion”. Moving
from the Early Medieval and into the Early Modern, we then had Nailya Shamgunova of the University of Cambridge providing a paper on “An Unnatural
Sin? The Concept of Nature in Anglophone Discourse in South East Asia in the 17th
Century”, the focus of which was on John Bulwer and the way in which he
(erroneously) interpreted penis rings as a means of preventing sodomy among the
indigenous peoples of Thailand. Although not fitting so neatly into the “Magic
and the Supernatural” theme of the conference as other papers, it was still a
fascinating talk and one of my favourite contributions to the day.
Panel VIII was chaired
by Isabelle Valade and titled “Witches and Place”. It opened with Warwick University’s Paula McBride on “Magic and Witchcraft in the Early Modern
Midlands” and involved a discussion of her exciting first-hand research into
the Early Modern witch trials of that English region. From there we moved our attention
to Spain with Birkbeck’s Sander Berg on “Witches and Watermelons: Attitudes to
Magic in Spanish Golden Age Literature”, in which he focused on the appearance
of sorcery in the work of María de Zayas. The day was then rounded off with a
fascinating plenary paper by Dr Darren Oldridge of the University of Worcester
on the place of fairies – among them imps, hobgoblins, and Robin Goodfellow –
in the Early Modern imagination.
A big part of the
importance of this event was that it brought together historians,
archaeologists (or at least this archaeologist), scholars of literature, and
scholars of philosophy, all of whom were united by their thematic fascination for magic
and the supernatural in the Medieval and Early Modern periods. Covering not only the witch trials of the Early Modern, which have long been one of the only respectable ways for historians of this period to study magical beliefs, it also included contributions on the practices of folk magic, folkloric beliefs in supernatural entities, alchemy, and learned esoteric and philosophical beliefs regarding supernatural phenomena. It was thus a great
space to learn about each other’s research, although because the
question-and-answer sessions were quite brief there wasn’t the opportunity to
engage in in-depth group discussions, as for instance I experienced at last year’s “New Antiquities” conference at the Free University of Berlin. It was
nevertheless an incredibly interesting and well organised event, and I met a
lot of interesting people who I hope to see again at similar events in future. Events such as these are a very important space for the advancement of scholarship, both in terms of exchanging ideas and mentally recognising that those of us who study such "eccentric" fields are not alone. For that, the organisers and contributors have my thanks and my congratulations at putting on such a great event.
