Of all the epithets popularly attached to the Middle Ages, 'superstitious' is perhaps the most common and most misleading. The eighteenth-century view that the era was represented by the Catholic Church and therefore backward and 'dark', in contrast to their own times which were forward-looking, rational and 'scientific', has created a myth which successive centuries have perpetuated.
This fascinating study challenges the assumption that the medieval period was an age of superstition, offering students a varied collection of documents surveying what people throughout Europe actually thought and believed about the occult sciences at the time. Using translated extracts - many of which appear in English for the first time - from religious, legal, medical and scientific documents, P. G. Maxwell-Stuart presents and explores the various branches of magic, divination, astrology and alchemy which helped people to make sense of their world.
- ISBN13 9781403902900
- Publish Date 20 January 2005
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 4 November 2021
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Macmillan Education UK
- Imprint Red Globe Press
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 264
- Language English