Week 2 & 3: "Religion & The Decline of Magic" by Thomas

In week 2 and 3 our cohort read Keith Thomas's magisterial text on early modern magical belief Religion and the Decline of Magic. Its mind-boggling number of primary sources continues to be a treasure trove for early modern historians.

I was taken aback by the number of editions the text had gone through. Here is a selection of covers of various editions since its initial publication in 1971.

The last two images are of a lavish new

two-volume edition  from the Folio Society! 

Here's novelist Hilary Mantel's review.

Thomas's text covers a dizzying array of magical systems. Aleister Crowley's definition of magic as activities that "bring about change in conjunction with will" is well matched with Thomas's argument that early modern people were subject to such difficulties in their often brief, miserable lives that ANY remedy held out as a possible respite from suffering was most welcome. Thus "magic" may be broadly defined as a way of turning the wheel of fortune, or bending the course of circumstance. Magic is any kind of ritual act or special recipe that utilizes unseen forces or invisible powers to ameliorate a less-than-desirable state of affairs. This encompasses a vast range of practices.

Here's the table of contents from my well-worn 4th edition paperback!

Thomas is a master of the "nitty gritty" when it comes to primary resources buried away in ledgers, public trial records, broadsheets, polemics. He also includes references from folklore compendiums from the 18th and 19th centuries that- until the 1970's- were often overlooked by historians. Although his use of the idea of  "the primitive" smacks of the now outmoded Malinowski style anthropology (societies evolving through the stages of magical to religious to secular), one must consider Thomas's own cultural background and the time in which he was educated. This was a ground-breaking book and Thomas shows how all of these magical practices served early modern people's social and cultural needs.

MY SLIDESHOW OF IMAGES TO ACCOMPANY CHAPTERS 1-11

Reviews of the book by Thomas's contemporaries

1. Review by Mary Ellen Bowden
2. Review by Brian Copenhaver
3. Review by Rossell Hope Robbins
4. Review by Alexander R. Rysman