This is the story of an inquisitor in the Middle Ages, buried treasure in early modern Germany, and the fine art of necromancy.
The concept of magic maps uneasily onto premodern Christian Europe, where recipes for curing illness could consist of wearing an amulet as readily as drinking an herbal potion, or a person might perform magic spells calling on angels, not forces of darkness. Medieval and modern scholars, however, agree that some particular acts were inherently magical. Chief among these ritual types was nigromancia: the conjuration and command of demons.
Image of necromancer controlling demons, from British Library, Royal 6 e.vi f.396v.
Dominican inquisitor Nicholas Eymerich of Aragon (c.1320-1399) had ample experience reading and condemning necromantic texts. [1] Thus, he had plenty of material to reference in his multiple books condemning necromancy. In Directorium inquisitorum, he laid out an example ritual that invoked demons to demonstrate how sorcerers show “honor or veneration or worship” [2] to demons by:
drawing a circle in the earth, by placing a boy in the circle, by fixing a mirror, a sword, an amphora, or other small body before the boy, and with the necromancer himself holding a book, and reading, and invoking the demon.[3]
The reference to a necromancer and his reading aloud suggest this spell comes from the “underworld” of learned magic, transmitted among the daring elite through texts in Latin, Hebrew, Arabic, and Greek. The rest of the ritual, however, seems to involve little beyond mechanical skill. Eymerich gives no information on the spell’s origin or purpose. His intent is to argue that necromantic rituals inherently involve venerating demons, even if there is no overt act of veneration.
Nearly two centuries after Eymerich composed Directorium in 1376, a group of women went treasure-hunting in Augsburg. [4] As Regina Koch admitted to her interrogators, in May 1544 two women from Nuremberg had definitely not convinced her that there was a pot of money buried in her backyard, but she had allowed them to dig there anyway. One of the two women, along with at least two strange men, was outside during the digging.
Her interrogator’s unanswered questions to her, as reported by a scribe, suggest why they were so interested in these events:
10. Who called for this priest for this business, and where did he come from? 11. Did she not have burning wax or candles there? 12. Were these candles blessed, or were they just simple candles? And who provided them? 13. Did the priest and one of the women read out of a book in the hole, and make a cross, as well as say a blessing or a magic spell? 14. What was in the little pitcher that the woman had in the hole, and then gave back to the maid? [5]
The interrogator is clearly working from a base of earlier information. One of their other questions concerned which men had taken a bath with which women inside Koch’s house, so town gossip seems a likely source. Even so, the unanswered questions almost all involve activities that, taken alone, amount to standard Christian practice.
With the aid of other witnesses’ overlapping and conflicting testimony, however, a full story of the events in Koch’s backyard was constructed:
Sophia Voit and Otilia Wolkenstainer of Nuremberg brought a village priest, a young girl, and several men to Regina Koch Mauerin’s house, and Sophia Voit made a circle or ring, went around it with candles, then took a naked sword from a young man and marked a spot with it where they should dig. Afterward, she sat in the circle, stuck a cross or crucifix in the grass and lay a little cloth over it, and read out of a little book. The above-noted village priest also sat there and read from a little book, and both made crosses and magic signs. In sum, they were digging for treasure. [6]
This 1544 legal record recounts a previously unnoticed elaborate (and sometimes slightly confused) version of the spell Eymerich referenced in 1376. Furthermore, even if the clerk writing the summation had some familiarity with a text of learned magic and polished up witnesses’ testimony a bit, town gossip—street knowledge—played a major role in the compilation of events. The scribe was not merely substituting something he had once read in a book for the results of the interrogation.
The discovery of the near-mirror image of these two rituals across time, space, and environment raises questions about the transmission of magic that must remain frustratingly unanswered for now. It is worth, however, considering one last point from the legal record concerning Koch and the others:
In perpetrating this superstitious act, they seriously abused the name and word of God. [7]
The inquisitor had cared enough about this case to torture Koch for more information (she revealed nothing further!). But not a word was spoken about invoking or venerating demons—even in the full flame of witch hysteria. Nicholas Eymerich would not have been happy to hear about this conclusion—nor about Koch’s punishment of “a good talking to.”
In conclusion: Klaatu verata niktu, and happy All Hallows’ Eve! [8]
Cait Stevenson PhD in History University of Notre Dame
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[1] Michael Bailey, “From Sorcery to Witchcraft: Clerical Conceptions of Magic in the Later Middle Ages,” Speculum 76, no. 4 (2001): 971. This article drew my attention to Eymerich and the sample spell recounted below.
[2] Nicholas Eymerich, Directorium inquisitorum R. P. F. Nicolai Eymerici… (Rome, 1578), 836.
[3] Translated in Bailey, 972.
[4] The records concerning Regina Koch and buried treasure are translated by B. Ann Tlusty in Tlusty, ed. and trans., Augsburg during the Reformation Era: An Anthology of Sources (Hackett Publishing: 2012), 242-46, which introduced me to this case.
[5] Trans. Tlusty, 243.
[6] Trans. Tlusty, 245.
[7] Trans. Tlusty, 245.
[8] Army of Darkness, directed by Sam Raimi (1990; Universal Pictures).
In 2009, the military base at Fort Hood installed what can only be described as a bizarre sculpture. Sitting outside the headquarters building is a monumental equestrian statue of medieval European fantasy complete with all the expected trappings—chain mail, axe, helmet and a shield here emblazoned with the caltrop of the III Corps United States. As this imposing character looks down with red eyes from his muscled horse, one cannot help but wonder about the figure’s appropriateness within this space. Surely, the statue would better suit an event at Comic-Con than an Army Base.
“Phantom Rider” Statue outside III Corp Headquarters, Fort Hood Texas, 2009.
The sculpture renders Frank Frazetta’s “Death Dealer” a character originally painted in 1973. During his career Frazetta would become famous for creating the cover art for re-printings and pastiches of Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Cimmerian. The infamous, Western barbarian, who spends his time battling Oriental sorcerers and slaughtering black cannibals, played some role in inspiring the “Death Dealer” as suggested by this cover of “Conan the Conqueror” from 1967.
“The Death Dealer,” Frank Frazetta, 1973.Conan the Conqueror Cover, Frank Frazetta, 1967.
While the original painting obscures the phantom figure’s physical qualities, his weaponry and costume code him as white. The bearded axe and horned helmet recall popular iconography denoting “Viking”[ness], though as some scholars have demonstrated such helmets were largely products of the nineteenth century. Furthermore, his shield bears the reichsadler, the black heraldic eagle employed by the Holy Roman Emperor which has also been used for more contemporary and horrifying purposes.
Imperial Black Eagle associated with Henry VI from Codex Manesse (c. 1304).Nazi appropriation of the Imperial Black Eagle in their Reichsadler Symbol (1935-1945).
Admittedly, the visual elements alone do not convey the more problematic elements found in the Conan narratives. As the “Death Dealer” grew in popularity, even becoming adopted as the III Corp mascot in 1986, Frazetta joined author George Silke to create a backstory for his creation in 1987. The novel “Prisoner of the Horned Helmet” begins in a proto-European forest defended by “Gath of Baal” (our Death Dealer). The text, perhaps unsurprisingly, describes “Gath” as a “barbarian” who must defend his homeland from the invading Kitzaaks, a pseudo-Mongol Empire, and their collection of Eastern allies, including the naked and bloodthirsty “Feyan Dervishes.” The cover art here depicts a scene where our hero encounters desert-dwelling “nomads” who have been mutated into dog-faced beings by their continued use of drugs. Such tropes have connections to medieval Latin Christian polemical narrative of Muslims, frequently described as a “race of dogs” or in the case of the Nizari State at Alamut, engaged in the consumption of hashish as part of a perverted “Saracen” practice. Finally, as the “Death Dealer” raises the axe, the artist reveals those corded arms, his previously indeterminable “epidermal” (Heng, 181-184) whiteness is now made manifest.
Cover of “Prisoner of the Horned Helmet” (The Death Dealer II), Frank Frazetta, 1987.
Evidently, the “Death Dealer” suffers from what Helen Young has previously termed the “Habits of Whiteness” that pervade fantasy literature. As with Tolkien’s and Howard’s work, white bodies and imagined culture is central to this genre. While I do not presume intent on the commissioning of the Fort Hood statue, given the textual narrative, how do we approach this installation of white violence? In fairness, when the III Corps adopted the character they decided to utilize the more politically correct “Phantom Warrior,” perhaps not wishing to glorify “death.” Still, we cannot divorce this sculpture from its racial overtones because of the larger context of artistic and authorial intent. The Army’s own literature manages to perpetuate some of the problems with this imagery, stating that it “represents the heritage and symbol of America’s Armed Corps” and even connects the “Phantom Warrior’s” horse to those employed by William the Conqueror in 1066. Even when devoid of the textual contribution of Frazetta/Silke, the official narrative insists upon a European past.
By highlighting these issues, I do not mean to attack the Army’s history, though the question of “historical preservation” remains interesting to this conversation. In recent years some discourse has begun to question the public display of Confederate statuary and the naming of military bases for Confederate generals. Opponents of this movement have cried foul, stating that to do so would be to remove American “history.” Of course, these claims are groundless as many of the monuments and bases were erected or named during the early-twentieth century. Yet, even if this were not true, and the icons of Confederacy somehow held an indelible historical value, in what way does an 1980s sword & sorcery construction constitute the pith of American military memory?
Cover of “Prisoner of the Horned Helmet” (The Death Dealer II), Frank Frazetta, 1987.“Hood’s Texas Brigade” Monument, Austin TX, 1910.
As we continue to move beyond more obvious examples of racist imagery, perhaps new attention needs to be paid to seemingly neutral renderings which bear all the hallmarks of a white fantasy. Indeed, it is the subtle appellations which allows such narratives to endure. With the escalating number of white nationalist affiliations among military personnel, the public should consider “who does this Warrior speak to and what mythologies does he seek to reinforce?”
“Phantom Warrior” Statue, Fort Hood, 2009.
Tirumular (Drew) Narayanan PhD Student in Art History University of Wisconsin, Madison
Frank, Roberta. “The Invention of the Viking Horned Helmet.” International Scandinavian and Medieval Studies in memory of Gerd Wolfgang Weber (2000): 199-208.
Higgs Strickland, Debra. “Monstrosity and Race in the Late Middle Ages.” In The Ashgate Research Companion to Monsters and The Monstrous. Edited by Asa Simon Mittman with Peter J. Dendle, 365-386. New York: Routledge, 2016.
Heng, Geraldine. The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018.
Young, Helen. Race and Popular Fantasy Literature: Habits of Whiteness. New York: Routledge, 2016.
When the pandemic strikes, and the trusted authorities are without a sure remedy, people extend their search for a cure, and in their desperation many resort to more unorthodox means of healing associated with alternative forms of authority and knowledge. Some of the most famous medieval tales are set in times of plague when folk fled to the countryside to avoid exposure to pestilence, as in Giovanni Boccaccio‘s Decameron and Geoffrey Chaucer‘s grim “Pardoner’s Tale” from his Canterbury Tales (which were themselves modeled on Boccaccio‘s collection of stories).
Portrait of Geoffrey Chaucer from the Ellesmere Manuscript ( The Huntington Library, MS EL 26 C 9, f.153v).
Medieval historian John Aberth writes of the plague known as Black Death, “for this pestilential infirmity [of 1348], doctors from every part of the world had no good remedy or effective cure, neither through natural philosophy, medicine [physic], or the art of astrology.” Aberth adds that although there were no medical solutions, those peddling in various cures could profit from a plague, and he argues that “To gain money some went visiting and dispensing their remedies, but these only demonstrated through their patients’ death that their art was nonsense and false” (The Black Death, 37).
In the Middle Ages, whenever plagues hit, people’s fear of the disease quickly resulted in a lack of faith in traditional authorities, at times followed by scapegoating. The later phenomenon has been observed with respect to xenophobic conspiracy theories targeting marginalized groups, which alleged that Jews were poisoning wells (and sometimes gypsies and witches) in order to spread the Black Death during the later part of the medieval period. And, as Samuel K. Cohn observes, it was then, “Not until the late sixteenth century did authorities once again arrest people suspected of spreading the plague through poisons and tampering with food; these later waves of fear, however, did not target Jews as the principal suspects; instead, witches or hospital workers were now persecuted” (“The Black Death and the Burning of Jews,” 27).
Image of priest instructing the sick (lepers). James le Palmer, “Omne Bonum” in The British Library, Royal 6 VI f.301r.
Of course, in the earlier medieval period, when plague descended and church authorities—with all their medical knowledge and spiritual wisdom—were without a cure, medieval people might understandably turn to the other major source of authority in their lives, their kings and secular rulers, for guidance. We see this phenomenon manifest in the medieval belief that French and English monarchs (including saint-kings such as Saint Louis IX and Edward the Confessor) possessed miraculous healing powers. In time of plague, this gesture served to legitimize royalty as divinely sanctioned and win favor with the people, who could understandably become more restless during times of epidemic and pandemic.
Although kings and queens were often unskilled with respect to medical knowledge, especially by comparison to the clergy and university doctors, this sort of magical thinking and desire to imbue a leader with supreme knowledge and boundless inherent wisdom (despite their often limited information and experience) presents a totalitarian image of a ruler, which relies on public ignorance in order to reinforce the notion of a divinely organized, rigidly hierarchical society. It is a form of hero worship which knows no bounds.
The Royal Touch, in British Library, Royal 16 G.VI, f.424v.
As J. N. Hays points out, “the healing touch was a product of political motives, at least in part. But it coincided with a widespread belief in kings as magicians, endowed with near-divine powers” (The Burden of Disease, 33). This political motive leveraged popular belief in the royal touch to solidifying the claim that monarchs were chosen by God and thus superior in both the spiritual and political realms.
If the king’s touch failed to heal, or one simply did not have access to a royal hand, there was always the other—unspoken and taboo—source of power: magic and witchcraft. As Catherine Jenkin notes “During Venice’s plague outbreaks, notably 1575–1577 and 1630–1631, the population, desperate for a cure, turned to both sanctioned and unsanctioned healers. The wealthy consulted physicians; the less wealthy consulted pharmacists or barber-surgeons; the penitent consulted clergy; and the poor or desperate consulted streghe, or witches” (“Curing Venice’s Plagues: Pharmacology and Witchcraft,” 202). Desperate times called for desperate measures, and without any effective treatments available, everything was on the table.
Image depicts the two witches on a broomstick and a stick, in Martin Le Franc’s “Ladies’ Champion”, 1451; see W. Schild. Die Maleficia der Hexenleut’, 1997, S. 97.
Still, the Middle Ages suffers from a somewhat inaccurate reputation with respect to religious and learned views on the magic, which until the later period regarded folk healing and herbal remedies as mere superstitions, though throughout the period, “witchcraft was universally illegal under both sacred and secular law and even healing magic might be considered heretical” (Jenkins, 204). Nevertheless, folk traditions were generally considered relatively unthreatening by church authorities, especially compared to popular medieval heresies, which argued for unorthodox, though often quite learned, interpretations of Christianity, such as the Catharism & Lollardy, and heretical groups such as the Knights Templar, Hussites & beguines to name a few that drew special attention in the period prior to the advent of the Protestant Reformation.
Furthermore, folk healing was sometimes efficacious, and Helen Thompson has recently argued for a connection between herbal remedies and modern pharmacies and drug markets.
Old English medical practices, The British Library, Cotton Vitellius C III, f.22v.
Richard Kieckhefer famously categorizes magic in the Middles Ages as either “natural” or “demonic” in orientation. Folk healers, and most so-called witches, (especially during the earlier period) are regarded by Kieckhefer as practitioners of the former, while seemingly more learned necromancers, who adapt and pervert Christian rituals, are considered practitioners of the later category of magic (and feature later in the period). Scholars such as Aberth, Kieckhefer, Jenkins, Brian Levak and others have each demonstrated a relationship between a rise in magic and the Black Death in Europe (Aberth, The Black Death; Kieckhefer, European Witch Trials; Jenkins, “Curing Venice’s Plagues: Pharmacology and Witchcraft”; Levak, The Witch Hunt in Early Modern Europe).
Desperate people might pursue illicit measures to procure a remedy for pestilence, and as a result interest in magic cures, protections, spell, talismans and wards increased alongside demand. Indeed, it is possible that this contributed to theories that witches poisoned wells and ultimately the hysteria surrounding early modern witch-hunts.
Annales de Gilles Le Muisit, Black Death at Tournai, 1349; France Bruxelles, Bibliothèque royale.
It is important to note that, while the church authorities generally maintained that magic was demonic illusion, the rise of universities gave way to a learned study of “natural magic” in the form of the pursuit to unlock the occult powers in the natural world [i.e. God’s creation]. Hayes observes how “Natural magic, which attempted to understand the hidden powers of nature, was bolstered by philosophy as well as by religion. These relations were clearest in the late Middle Ages and the period of the Renaissance, when neo-Platonic doctrines gained wider currency among thinkers. Neo-Platonic beliefs insisted on the complete interrelation and mutual responsiveness of the different phenomena of the universe” (The Burdens of Disease, 81).
This approach became more widely acceptable leading up to and during the scientific revolution, especially the medical theories of the ancient physician Galen [130-210 CE], and so what Kieckhefer might categorize as natural magic in the later period bifurcates into two distinct subtypes—the highly learned, quasi-medical and folk traditional healing practices. Moreover, the university study of medicine rooted in classical theories of the four humors remained a medical authority, and one which generally held the approval of the church authorities and royal authorities alike. It is worth acknowledging that none of these authorities appear entirely “correct” by modern medical standards, and even the most learned methods involved practices that were toxic and harmful to the body.
Physician letting blood from a patient. Attributed to Aldobrandino of Siena: Li Livres dou Santé. France, late 13th Century. The British Library, Sloane 2435 f.11v.
Still, while some medieval and early modern medical practices were undeniably ineffective or even counterproductive, it’s worth pointing out that some practices were helpful, such as quarantine measures during plague. Even the spooky plague doctoroutfits from the early modern era—equipped with cloth masks and a leather suit for personal protection—reveal growing awareness with respect to contagion by contact (prior to germ theory), which overlapped with conventional medical theories that alleged the classical notion of miasma or “bad air” was polluting infected spaces with plague and pestilence.
Mark Earnest contends that “Despite its fearsome appearance, the plague doctor’s costume—the ‘personal protective equipment’ of the Middle Ages—had a noble purpose. It was intended to enable physicians to safely care for patients during the Black Death” (“On Becoming a Plague Doctor“). The plague doctors‘ cloth beak contained perfumed herbs to purify the miasma, their waxed robe were designed to shield the practitioner, and their cane allowed physicians a quick means by which to measure their proximity and maintain distance from sick patients during examinations and treatments. Although Earnest seems to regard plague doctors as a medieval phenomenon, historical evidence suggests that these practitioners were primarily a fixture of the early modern period.
Paulus Fürst’s 1656 satirical engraving called ‘Doctor Schnabel von Rom,’ or ‘Doctor Beaky from Rome.’
Although there is ample evidence for widespread medieval belief in learned scientia “science” (often knowledge from classical sources or universities), many historians maintain the narrative that since the scientific revolution in the early modern era, there has been a gradual trend toward belief in science and medical professionals, and the public has generally come to accept doctors’ advice over the opinions of political leaders, when it comes to issues of health and medicine. However, even if one were to accept this notion of historical progress, today’s pandemic problematizes this grand narrative by demonstrating how similar medieval and modern people can be. Like so many established institutions and professional authorities in the age of (dis)information and the rise of Trumpism in America, medical professionals are under attack, and their recommendations and expert advice have become limited by the president of the United States.
As during some medieval and early modern monarchies, it seems that the political leader of the United States feels his position entitles him to an opinion on everything and bestows him with innate wisdom. And, like the royal touch, Trump is not afraid to offer his own unconventional and unsubstantiated remedies for the novel coronavirus which has resulted in an unprecedented global pandemic during his presidency. Despite no medical training or credentials, Trump has publicly sparred with NIAID (National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease) Director, Dr. Fauci, and with his own CDC (Center for Disease Control) guidelines and recommendations. The use of personal protective equipment (PPE), known to slow the spread of this highly contagious and robust virus, has become politicized in the president’s attempt to deny the issue and deflect blame and responsibility by minimizing the perceived impact and threat of the disease.
US President Donald Trump and Anthony Fauci, director of the NIH National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases attend a meeting at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland on March 3, 2020, following up on the COVID-19, coronavirus, outbreak. Photo by Brendan Smialowski /AFP via Getty Images.
Indeed, our modern pandemic is not without its scapegoats, as president Trump continues to refer to the coronavirus as the “China virus” in a racially-loaded reference to the place of the virus’ origin in Wuhan, China (briefly referenced in my recent blog on internet trolling). Additionally, calling the coronavirus the “Chinese” or “Wuhan virus” fuels conspiracies theories, including that the virus was engineered in a lab in Wuhan. In addition to xenophobic scapegoating, today’s imaginative responses include now-discredited virologist Judy Mikovits, who asserts that the novel coronavirus is being wrongly blamed for many death and even implicates Fauci in a “plandemic” that alleges masks “activate” the virus.
There is no evidence for viral engineering, nor any “plandemic” orchestrated by Fauci, but nevertheless these modern conspiracy theories persists online and ultimately in the minds of those persuaded by their unsubstantiated claims.
CREDIT: COURTESY OF CDC/ ALISSA ECKERT, MS; DAN HIGGINS, MAM.
The president’s second and more startling suggestion was that perhaps an “inside injection” of disinfectants, such as Lysol and other Bleach products, directly into the body might do the trick, considering these chemical we so effective at killing the virus (and also people who ingest them). Trump then pointed to his head, adding: “I’m not a doctor. But I’m, like, a person that has a good you-know-what.” As expected, the CDC and Poison Control (as well as manufacturers and eventually social media platforms) responded by contradicting the president’s objectively harmful recommendation, enthusiastically pushed by some of his more ardent supporters.
Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies CEO Martin Meeson [right], speaks as President Donald Trump wears a face mask during a tour of Bioprocess Innovation Center at Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies, Monday, July 27, 2020, in Morrisville, N.C. AP Photo/Evan Vucci.
Even some at the conservative media outlet Fox News, often friendly to Trump and his agenda, in this instance challenged the president’s uninformed suggestion. Fox Business Network’s Neil Cavuto described Trump’s recommendations as “unsettling,” and the news anchor plainly acknowledged that “The president was not joking in his remarks yesterday when he discussed injecting people with disinfectant.” Cavuto also delivered a sober warning to his viewers: “From a lot of medical people with whom I chat, that was a dangerous, crossing-the-line kind of signal that worried them because people could die as a result.”
Indeed, when viewed in this light, Trump’s continued magical thinking with respect to covid-19 seems to mirror medieval responses to plague and the Black Death in certain ways, especially in the tendency to reach for unconventional remedies, from often unqualified authorities, in the search for a cure. But, as president Trump explains, if you’ve got the virus, already: “what do you have to lose?”
Murray, J., H. Rieder, and A Finley-Croswhite. “The King’s Evil and the Royal Touch: The Medical History of Scrofula.” The International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (2016).
