Chapter 12 - Diabolic Magic

Summary

The restrained view of demonic capabilities, and hence the nature of the threat represented by demonic magic, which was evident into the early 1000s, changed dramatically during the eleventh through eighteenth centuries, the era of Old Europe. This chapter approaches the witchcrafts as the major evidence for and consequence of a particular Western European view of diabolical magic. In recognition of the possible marvelous, mysterious, and occult virtues in nature that human beings might learn to manipulate, a category of natural magic emerged in thirteenth-century Christian thought, which would further complicate notions of demonic magic for the remainder of the era of Old Europe. Skepticism and decline are often linked terms in witchcraft historiography. Renaissance magic is a vague category, but in general it may refer to learned systems of magic grounded in new modes of thought that emerged initially out of Italy.