Chapter 3 - Magicians in Society

Summary

Moving away from the quantitative approach of Chapters 1 and 2, Chapter 3 considers service magicians’ social position. The chapter begins by exploring the official stance towards magic and magicians over the period: what sort of archetypal image is painted by ecclesiastical and secular authorities, and how this changed over the centuries. This (overwhelmingly negative) characterisation acts as a point of comparison against popular attitudes towards service magic, and treatment of wizards in reality. The second section considers magicians living in London and uses their domiciliary location as a lens to look at how they lived and practised. Through this approach we see that most practitioners, though living on the edge of the city, were nevertheless carefully positioned to be as accessible to their client base as possible. Further investigation of court records and popular media (primarily plays) of the time demonstrates that service magicians were a recognised, even occasionally celebrated, part of London life. This leads to a conclusion that magic was broadly accepted in wider society, at least in an urban context.