MOOC: Magic in the Middle Ages / Universitat de Barcelona
Official page for the course Magic in The Middle Ages, organised by University of Barcelona, ARDIT, IRCVM, and the MA in Medieval Cultures
23/04/2018
Godefroid de Callatay and Sébastien Moureau, instructors of the MOOC Magic in the Midde Ages, have also their own MOOC on Oriental Beliefs. You'll find a sneak peak here:
Join our Oriental Beliefs MOOC! (subtitles in different languages) https://www.edx.org/course/oriental-beliefs-between-reason-and-traditions Join us! https://www.facebook.com/orientalbeliefs/ https://www.facebook.com/orienta...
21/09/2017
Do You Have the Magic Touch? Chicago Library Appeals to Public for Help Transcribing Magical Manuscripts Do you have a talent in solving magical puzzles and manuscripts? Do you have a penchant for casting spells? Well, if that’s the case, Chicago's Newberry Library is offering the right job for you as it is asking for the public's help with what might be one of the coolest mass transcription projects i...
12/04/2017
Medieval Magic Tricks - Medievalists.net How to turn water into wine, make a cross turn by itself, or have worms appear on cooked meat - some fun medieval magic tricks!
03/04/2017
Scientists uncover medieval remains of the first English 'vampires' New scientific research suggests that our medieval ancestors were terrified of the living dead – reanimated corpses which would in popular culture today be dubbed revenants or vampires. Scientists from Historic England and the University of Southampton have completed a study of human bones from a me...
03/04/2017
If you happen to flight with S7 Airlines during this month you will find us in their magazine (you will need to refresh your Russian though!)
17/03/2017
Fascinating Q&A with Professor Anne Lawrence-Mathers, who talks about Medieval Magic. There is a second part on the same web!
http://blogs.exeter.ac.uk/medievalstudies/2017/03/anne-lawrence-mathers-on-medieval-magic-part-i/
Anne Lawrence-Mathers on Medieval Magic, Part I Interviewers: Éléonore Raymakers, Emma Prevignano and Lauren Lloyd On Wednesday 15 February, Professor Anne Lawrence-Mathers (University of Reading) visited the Centre for Medieval Studies here at …
17/03/2017
Do not miss the British Library exhibition: Harry Potter: A History of Magic. It opens 20 Oct
Harry Potter Exhibition | Ticket notification entry The British Library | Harry Potter Exhibition | Notification entry for Ticket Information
19/02/2017
Cicero's "De Officiis" written on the skin of a sorceress? A strange way to channel magic!
16/02/2017
Is the earliest surviving representation of witchcraft in Christian Europe a porno-erotic wall painting? Is it a medieval political "poster", or is it something else?
In this URL you can read an interview with George Ferzoco, one of the first scholars to publish a book about it: http://www.threemonkeysonline.com/from-fertility-symbol-to-political-propaganda-decoding-the-massa-marittima-mural/
And here you have an interesting paper by Matthew Ryan Smith, who advocates a different interpretation:http://shiftjournal.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/smith.pdf
15/02/2017
Being lovesick was a real disease in the Middle Ages Lettuce leaves and purgatives might ease your aching heart.
02/02/2017
The Duchess and the Necromancers - Medievalists.net The downfall of Eleanor Cobham was a shocking event in the 15th century, and it's disturbing today.
30/01/2017
Spells for sale: the grubby reality of magic in early modern England By Francis Young Popular perceptions of magic in Tudor and Stuart England have largely been formed by scholarship on three figures, one real and two fictional: John Dee (1527–1608/9), the astrologer and crystal-gazer who famously advised Elizabeth I; Prospero, the magician in Shakespeare’s The...
22/01/2017
While we wait for the next season of Vikings, maybe we can learn a bit more about their magic practices and tools. Let's start with magic viking staffs:
Magic Viking Staffs in Literature and Archaeology – Medieval Histories The staff or wand was an important accessory used by the Völva when carrying out her magic. New book explores the staffs in both literature and archaeology
17/01/2017
http://www.medievalists.net/2017/01/scapegoat-impotence-witchcraft-middle-ages/
The Scapegoat: Impotence and Witchcraft in the Middle Ages - Medievalists.net This essay investigates the question of how women were used as scapegoats for male impotence during the Witch Craze.
In the early 11th century, Burchard of Worms, a German bishop and theologian, compiled a penitential handbook to aid priests in administering confession. Known as The Corrector, it listed dozens of potential sins and what the penance would be if someone committed them – usually the punishment be fasting for a few days on bread and water. Many of these sins involved people observing or practicing old pagan folk rituals, or what Burchard considered to be evil magic.
http://www.medievalists.net/2015/01/medieval-black-magic/
11/01/2017
If you are interested in a free ebook about the history of witchcraft and the supernatural check out this link http://ow.ly/glbs306dVvt
Witchcraft and the Supernatural FreeBook We are delighted to introduce a new collection which brings together a number of fascinating chapters from some of our leading books on witchcraft and the supernatural. This will be a valuable resource for anyone interested in the Early Modern period, witch-hunting, supernatural phenomena, folklore,...
31/10/2016
Historic England asks for help hunting for Witches' Marks
Witches' marks: public asked to seek ancient scratchings in buildings Historic England keen to track markings typically found around old windows and doorways, used to ward off evil spirits
Hi everyone! We hope you enjoyed/are enjoying/are planning to enjoy "Magic in the Middle Ages". We are working to improve your experience of the course.
We have just updated the "Credits" page of the course with the links to the videos from the 1st edition of the MOOC that are no longer available on Coursera.
Those of you who wrote asking for these materials will receive an email with this list.
Just added three new videos from the 1st edition of the course to Units 2, 3 and 4. They deal with some of the questions that appeared back then in the forum, and we think you might find them useful. They are dubbed "weekly video # (2015)".
Enjoy!
02/08/2016
Please, remember that the deadlines for the quizzes are suggested deadlines; they are not enforced. If you want to take the course at your own pace and cannot complete the course by the session end date, you can always enroll in the next session.
You can find more information here:
https://learner.coursera.help/hc/en-us/articles/208279866-Assignment-deadlines
Assignment deadlines Most courses have suggested deadlines. If you miss a deadline, your grade won't be affected. To see suggested deadlines for a course you're enrolled in: Open the course you want to see deadline...
We have just added a new video from the 1st edition of the course to Unit 1. It deals with some of the questions that appeared back then in the forum, and we think you might find it useful. It is called "weekly video 1 (2015)"
Enjoy!
There is a new resource available. You can now download the bibliography of each unit in pdf format.
05/07/2016
Hi, some of you have written asking for the course syllabus. We have updated the landing page of the course, so you should be able to read it right there.
And because sometimes redundancy is useful, here you have it as well!
04/07/2016
Yes, after much work (and the odd hiccup along the way) the course is already open for enrolment!
Thank you all for your support and your patience!
The course will be a session-based course, that is, it will have specific start and end dates (you will have a schedule), and if you miss the first session (starting July 18th) you will have the opportunity to enrol in future sessions (for instance, the second one will start on August 29th).
We really hope you enjoy the course!
Here is the link: https://www.coursera.org/learn/magicmiddleages
Magic in the Middle Ages - Universitat de Barcelona | Coursera Magic in the Middle Ages from Universitat de Barcelona. Magical thought has always attracted human imagination. In this course we will introduce you to the Middle Ages through a wide conception of magic. Students will have an approach to medieval culture, beliefs and practices from the perspective o...
08/06/2016
Why should anyone be buried with a sickle around their neck or their hips? Or, for that matter, why should anyone be buried face-down, or with their head cut off or in a prone position?
Some archaeologists interpret this burial customs as an evidence of a magical belief in roaming dead bodies that come back to hurt their neighbours. Others understand these customs the other way around, claiming that, for instance, the sickles were not there to prevent them from rising but to ward off demons.
These burial sites are sometimes called “vampire” or “anti-vampire” burials, and the aforementioned customs “anti-vampire practices”. But if the practice itself cannot tell us whether it was intended to protect the living or the dead, let’s ask the bodies for answers.
As we saw in a previous post (Burial of a witch girl; March 11th) paleness or sickness were sometimes interpreted as a sign of evil powers. A group of archaeologists excavating a Medieval cemetery site in Kaldus (Poland) discovered 14 anti-vampire burials among more than 1,000 graves, and analyzed the bones of these so-called vampires.
Doctors Matczak and Kozłowski, in charge of the excavation of this cemetery, claim that “most of the skeletons from anti-vampire burials have changes associated with scurvy, osteoperiostitis, degenerative lesions, and fractures.” This would support the theory that vampire graves were meant for people with strange behaviours (strange to their neighbours) or that were perceived as a threat due to their physical aspect. But their analysis also shows "that people with tuberculosis, anemia, and scurvy were not [necessarily] given anti-vampire burials." Thus, disabilities and diseases were probably rather normal within this community and "would not have raised anxiety, fear, or negative perception of diseased people as vampires."
Therefore, more work is needed to understand these burial customs.
[Source: Kristina Killgrove. http://www.forbes.com/sites/kristinakillgrove/2016/06/01/healthy-vampires-emerge-from-graves-in-medieval-polish-cemetery/ ]
03/06/2016
Nuestra instructora Delfi participa en las jornadas sobre Astronomía y Astrología en la Edad Media que tendrán lugar en el Monasterio de Sant Cugat los días 15 y 16 de Junio. Tenéis toda la información en la imagen. Las Jornadas son gratuitas y tendréis la oportunidad de visitar el monasterio. No os lo perdáis!!
26/05/2016
Last Tuesday we were talking about the roots of learned magic, but where are the roots of folk magic? Once again, a very difficult question to answer. Learned magic was practiced by learned people, and therefore it is more likely that we find information about them and their traditions. But how can we trace the origin of folk traditions?
One way to do this is through language, like the research project carried out by Jamie Tehrani of Durham University and Sara Graça da Silva of the New University of Lisbon. They conducted a statistical analysis of the relationship between 275 magic-based stories (from a database of more than 2,000 types of folktales) and language, and found that four tales had a high probability of being associated with the structure of the Proto-Indo-European language. But just one of them, that of 'The Smith and the Devil', can be definitely considered as a Proto-Indo-European tale.
They also found that early versions of “Rumpelstiltskin” and “Beauty and the Beast” might have originated between 3,000 and 4,000 years ago.
You can find more information here:
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/no-fairy-tale-origins-some-famous-stories-go-back-thousands-years
http://www.archaeology.org/news/4089-160121-language-folktales-blacksmith
[British Library – Harley 6563 f.68v]
24/05/2016
Where are the roots of Magic? It is difficult to pinpoint the different traditions behind the various rituals and conceptions of the universe that we usually associate with magic. But, should we be surprised by the fact that Western learned magic has the same roots as Western science?
Where? Iran, Greece and Rome.
Who? Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics.
Learned magic and Science share places of origin and ideas. Nowadays, some people might be embarrassed that Newton sought the philosopher's stone, but why can't we embrace this fact and try to understand how his scientific and magical beliefs correlate?
Professor Brian Copenhaver tries to answer these and many other questions in his book "Magic in Western Culture: from Antiquity to the Enlightenment".
Magic is still alive and kicking!
18/05/2016
We are happy to announce that the second edition of the MOOC Magic in the Middle Ages will start on July 5, 2016. The course will be available on demand at Coursera. Do not forget to mark this day on your calendar!
Videos (show all)
