Magic in the Middle Ages

Richard Kieckhefer's Magic in the Middle Ages is a standard scholarly survey of medieval European magical practice, treating both learned ritual magic and the more common practices condemned as folk sorcery, written by a historian whose method is close reading of surviving manuscripts, trial records and theological condemnations rather than any claim about magic's actual efficacy. Its authority is well established in medieval studies as the standard entry point to the subject, valued for distinguishing clearly between the church's shifting theological categories for magic, the practices actually attested in the sources, and the social contexts that made accusations of sorcery meaningful. As a broad survey rather than a monograph on any single tradition or region, it necessarily treats some areas at greater depth than others, and specialists have refined particular corners of Kieckhefer's synthesis in the decades since its publication.