Witchcraft and Magic in the Nordic Middle Ages

383 Pages·2010·3.19 MB·English

by  Stephen A. Mitchell

Witchcraft and Magic
in the Nordic Middle Ages
THEMIDDLEAGESSERIES
RuthMazoKarras,SeriesEditor
EdwardPeters,FoundingEditor
Acompletelistofbooksintheseries
isavailablefromthepublisher.
Witc hc r a f t
a nd M a g ic
in the
Nord ic
M idd le A g e s
Stephen A. Mitchell
university of pennsylvania press
philadelphia . oxford
Publicationofthisvolumewasaidedbyagift
fromtheRoyalGustavusAdolphusAcademy.
Copyright(cid:1)2011UniversityofPennsylvaniaPress
Allrightsreserved.Exceptforbriefquotationsusedfor
purposesofrevieworscholarlycitation,noneofthisbook
maybereproducedinanyformbyanymeanswithout
writtenpermissionfromthepublisher.
Publishedby
UniversityofPennsylvaniaPress
Philadelphia,Pennsylvania19104-4112
www.upenn.edu/pennpress
PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmericaonacid-freepaper
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Mitchell,StephenA.,1951–
WitchcraftandmagicintheNordicMiddleAges/StephenA.Mitchell.
p. cm.
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
ISBN978-0-8122-4290-4(hardcover:alk.paper)
1.Witchcraft—Scandinavia—History. 2.Magic—Scandinavia—History. I.Title.
BF1584.S23M58 2011
133.4(cid:1)309480902—dc22 2010022016
(cid:1)
o my very supportive family and friends
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Contents
Preface ix
Introduction 1
Chapter1.WitchcraftandthePast 16
Chapter2.MagicandWitchcraftinDailyLife 41
Chapter3.NarratingMagic,Sorcery,andWitchcraft 74
Chapter4.MedievalMythologies 117
Chapter5.Witchcraft,Magic,andtheLaw 146
Chapter6.Witchcraft,Sorcery,andGender 175
Epilogue:TheMedievalLegacy 201
Notes 207
WorksCited 297
Index 353
Acknowledgments 367
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Preface
Thisstudyexaminestheresponsesinthelegal, literary,andpopularcultures
of the Nordic Middle Ages to the belief that there existed people capable of
manipulating the world through magical practices. To date, there have been
nocomprehensiveevaluationsofNordicwitchcraftbeliefsbetween1100and
1525, whereas studies of Scandinavian witchcraft in the eras both before and
after this period abound. The reasons for this situation are many. In large
part, itisexplainedbythetendencyformanyofthelatemedievalmaterials,
such as the Icelandic sagas, to be appropriated to discussions of the much
earlier Viking Age; moreover, there is a view among some specialists that
nothingmuchhappenedwithrespecttoScandinavianwitchcraftbeforecirca
1400.1
I argue, on the contrary, that much was happening and that an evalua-
tion of this important meeting ground of church doctrine and vernacular
belief systems in the period between the Viking Age and the early modern
erahaslongbeenadesideratum,bothforthestudyofwitchcraftinScandina-
viaitselfandforthestudyofwitchcraftinEuropemorebroadly.2Thecurrent
workthuspresentsanaccountofdevelopmentsinwitchcraftbeliefsthrough-
out Scandinavia in the later Middle Ages, of how elite and nonelite, native
andimportedconstructionsofwitchcraftevolvedduringthecenturiesbefore
the Reformation, an era of profound and widespread changes that set the
stagefortheearlymoderncrazes.
A phrase like ‘‘Nordic witchcraft,’’ especially when framed by specific
dates, suggests a highly bounded entity, a set of orthodox views held by a
homogenous culture,butnothingcouldbefurtherfromthetruth.Whatwe
know and what we can reconstruct about the world of Northern Europe
from the early Iron Age through the Middle Ages says that it was always a
heterogeneousanddynamicworld,and,importantly,seenfromtheperspec-
tiveofthepeoplewetendtothinkofas‘‘Scandinavians’’or‘‘proto-Scandina-
vians,’’ a world in which their neighbors, the Sa´mi, with their shamanic