Lesson 2 and description here, lesson 3 here.
Original: Love magic can be considered, as Kieckhefer described, to cause issues when applied. There were examples illustrating how one might use love magic to interrupt or gain advancement in the line of royalty. Such rivalries occurred quite often in Medieval court life; therefore a lot of suspicion arose. At the same time magicians were employed in the court and as Kieckhefer nicely states “courtly society was ridden with magic and fear of magic.” Magic, as we learn in lecture and readings, was generally considered evil, but in the genre of romantic magic, this evil had its “allurements.” In turn, this would imply that people during the Middle Ages may have possibly been suspicious of these alluring people or acts. Temptations are often described in romantic literature of those times and as they are often associated with acts of magic would create this general view for the society against temptations. In a sense, I can see how taboos and negative views of actions and people could have come about, whether they are actually “bad” or not. I find it particularly interesting that although love magic was often feared in the court, it was still used. An example would be when gems were used to reassure the love of an emperor and his empress. Not only that, but the Church still emphasized magic as engaging with the devil, would that then make the emperor and his wife evil or associated with evil? Clearly, it does but magic was apparently accepted in the court. There seems to be quite a conflict of interests in this time, especially when magic became more widespread as it became more difficult to separate from other similar acts.
Student response #1: You have a very interesting perspective here. Although you point out a lot of good features of today’s society, I do not totally agree. I don’t feel that we are more fearful of magic and all things involved than those people living in the Middle Ages. I feel we have more of a fascination, and even an obsession, with such things as Vampires, Werewolves and such. The occult falls under the category of the unknown and as humans we are very fascinated and drawn to the unknown. But fear, although it definitely still exists, is not to the extent that it was in the Middle Ages. People, at least in American culture, are not severely punished or sentenced to death for any such so called magical practices. The punishments for magic are a very important aspect of that time period and of the history of magic that I feel is something to definitely be taken into consideration when thinking about today’s culture.
Student response #2: You make an excellent argument and I do agree that love magic definitely has its ethical implications as you have mentioned. While reading your post, I started to wonder also how they could even prove “love magic”? What if someone was punished for love magic when really the simple act of choice was, in fact, made and magic was not used. This could also mean, given the situation that one couple was torn apart when one left the other for a third person, that abandoned person may accuse one of magic. The person may even get convicted and punished and for what? Being chosen? This creates a humorous picture in my mind of what “drama” may have been in those days. Middle Ages soap opera story line right there.
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