Love Spells and Lost Treasure: Service Magic in England from the Later Middle Ages to the Early Modern Era

In scholarship surrounding late medieval and early modern magic in England, a gap exists in knowledge regarding “service magicians” (that is, magicians who sell their magic to clients), their clients, and their role in society. To bridge this gap, Tabitha Stanmore’s Love Spells and Lost Treasure examines historical records and literary sources to understand the identities and roles of service magicians in their communities. The book seeks to address three questions: first, to reintegrate magicians into the sociohistorical landscape and establish what position they held in their communities and culture; second, to test what scholars know about practical magic and how confidently scholars can profess that knowledge; and third, to consider whether and how service magicians changed over time (22–24).Echoing other scholars in the field, Stanmore in her “Introduction” reminds us that “magic defies almost any discrete definition: it changes according to individual or official beliefs, the period, the level of knowledge a person or society claims to possess (be that theological or scientific), and the status and authority of the person who wields it” (4). Differences between geographical areas and cultures also present difficulties in defining “magic” more specifically, and Stanmore concedes that “Ultimately, a precise definition of magic is impossible” (8). Stanmore focuses on Western Europe, especially England, in the period from 1350 to 1650 and the lack of scholarship on practical magic practiced during that period. In this context, she defines magic as “ritualised practices performed by humans, to achieve a defined outcome not normally possible through nature and simple human agency” (8–9).Following her introduction, Stanmore divides the book into two parts. Part I, “Service Magic in Popular Society,” includes four chapters, and Part II, “Service Magic Among the Social Elite,” contains two. Chapter 1, “Practical Magic: Practices and Demands,” explores how magic was practiced daily: For example, people might employ service magicians to find thieves or lost goods, obtain success in love, heal sickness, gain favor, or remove a curse wrought by another magic practitioner. The chapter highlights changing attitudes toward magic, particularly in healing magic, which drew attention from secular authorities only when an angry customer brought a case to secular courts and charged the magic practitioner with fraud, which usually occurred either because the practitioner did not deliver the desired product or outcome (resulting in a loss of money for the client) or because the practitioner impersonated a learned physician. Stanmore adduces secular and ecclesiastical records to examine the changes in attitudes toward magic practitioners, particularly those impersonating physicians, and shows how these attitudes drew the English Parliament’s attention in 1511 with the Physicians and Surgeons Act. This act added another punishment in secular courts for magic practitioners who healed people, further stigmatizing magic practitioners and those who employed them. Stanmore notes that popular opinion differed from the official opinion of the courts, and common people still used magicians for healing, most likely due to the high costs for services of university-trained physicians.In chapter 2, “Service Magicians,” Stanmore thoroughly examines the demographics of service magicians, including gender, age, profession, and location, and explores the commodification of magic in late medieval and early modern England. For example, the Westminster area “allowed illicit activities to continue relatively unchecked” and so was a popular area for service magicians and their wealthy clients (102). Stanmore provides an in-depth discussion of the gender and age of service magicians at the beginning of chapter 2, noting that female magicians were more likely to offer contraception magic and simple magic in contrast to male magicians who used not only simple but also complex ritual magic.Chapter 3, “Magicians in Society,” explores how secular and ecclesiastical authorities viewed magicians and how they were portrayed in some literary texts. Just as the trends in service magic varied over time, so did the authorities’ view of service magicians. For example, before the sixteenth century, authorities often did not prosecute service magicians who were not trained as physicians but sold healing services, much like physicians did. These practitioners were not targeted for practicing magic itself but for failing to provide the expected healing. This attitude changed in the sixteenth century, and authorities began prosecuting magicians for using magic regardless of its outcome. Still, as Stanmore notes, the attitudes of authorities and communities differed, and many communities continued to use service magicians for daily needs such as healing and finding lost or stolen goods; in this chapter, she emphasizes that although surviving historical records may show secular and religious courts’ attitudes toward service magicians, little to no records survive that detail changes in everyday opinions about service magicians.Chapter 4, “Clients,” focuses on the commoners who sought out service magicians. The chapter stresses that although some service magicians were respected community members and, therefore, immune to prosecution, most of them occupied positions on the edge of their communities. For this reason, many potential clients would travel great distances to avoid the eyes of curious neighbors, including one woman who made a twelve-hour round trip on foot to a service magician, though the exact reason for the woman’s long journey is unclear (171–72). In this chapter, Stanmore blends the historical and literary, noting that a stereotype arose in literature and drama that suggested magicians’ clients were foolish old women (152). Those texts warned audiences against trusting magicians.Part II opens with chapter 5, “Magic and the Elite,” which focuses on clients in high social classes. While all social classes used service magic, the upper classes—defined by Stanmore as holding the rank of knight or higher, or anyone socially connected to the monarch—favored magic for gaining wealth, social advancement, and other such practicalities. In addition, this chapter highlights some royal and noble women who were accused of magic or involvement in magic, including Elizabeth Woodville and Alice Perrers, the latter of whom, for example, was mistress to Edward III and, given her low birth and apparent unattractiveness, was thought to have used love magic to retain the king’s favor (191). The chapter also notes that the elite who practiced magic or employed service magicians were more likely to come under the scrutiny of authorities, especially if their practices were thought to involve or believed to affect the monarch (197). When magicians and their noble clients did catch the attention of authorities, the magicians were more likely to be blamed than their clients, suffering harsh consequences such as fines, imprisonment, or death (220).While chapter 5 focuses on the types of noble clients and on what types of magic such clients preferred, chapter 6, “Magic on Retainer,” considers the extent of the professional relationship that service magicians had with such clients. Stanmore notes that some nobles retained service magicians in their households, usually not employed under that title but rather as a “confessor” or “physician”; this employment could last from weeks to years, indicating that service magicians were used so frequently that it was necessary not only to have a preferred practitioner but also to have exclusive access to one (224). Because the nobility preferred complex ritual magic, which was necessarily performed by magicians with clerical or university training and could include astrological calculations or knowledge of metallurgy, it stands to reason that they employed magicians for longer periods, as complex magic required more time to prepare and to perform (226). The chapter also reveals what happened to these relationships when secular and religious authorities did get involved: The nobles who employed service magicians would go to great lengths to rescue them from jail, including raising bail and asking for pardons (234). However, this loyalty was not always reciprocated, and the magicians often testified against their employers in court (236).Stanmore’s Conclusion emphasizes that service magic in England from the late medieval to the early modern era was a phenomenon that spanned time, geographical location, and social class. The book brings out the tension between university-trained professions, such as physicians, and healers who were not university-trained, such as magic practitioners, folk healers, and midwives. Overall, Stanmore’s study demonstrates the importance of service magicians to both nobles and ordinary people while showing that such magicians were often integrated into their communities (if also sometimes living on the margins of them). While the book does well in showing where service magicians lived in cities, it suffers from a lack of presentation of source materials, which could have strengthened its arguments and continued the conversation with other experts in the field. This book would be well suited for specialists in medieval and early modern witchcraft with a focus on practical magic and general readers interested in the topic.

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