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Between liturgy and magic

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This volume offers a much-needed comparative examination of minuscule texts generated by intercessory, apotropaic and healing practices in the early Middle Ages – ambiguous texts that defy a clear-...
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  • 15 December 2026
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This book offers an examination of a significant number of largely unedited minuscule texts that were transcribed in the marginal spaces of manuscripts and generated by intercessory, apotropaic and healing practices in the early Middle Ages. As they were produced in different languages, these ‘words of power’ have rarely been studied as a single corpus. By placing them into dialogue, this volume allows us to see both typological similarities and cultural differences in their production across Western Europe and the Mediterranean world. The collected essays approach these texts with similar questions, while bringing methodologies and perspectives from different academic disciplines and traditions. In doing so, they provide a timely synthetic analysis of these ambiguous, often overlooked texts located in the grey zone between ‘liturgy’ and ‘magic’.
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Price: £90.00
Pages: 304
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Imprint: Manchester University Press
Series: Manchester Medieval Literature and Culture
Publication Date: 15 December 2026
ISBN: 9781807071936
Format: Hardcover
BISACs:

HISTORY / Europe / Medieval, European history: medieval period, middle ages, HISTORY / Historiography, HISTORY / Social History, Historical research: source documents, Social and cultural history

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Claire Burridge is a Senior Researcher at the University of Oslo
Ildar Garipzanov is Professor of Medieval History at the University of Oslo

Introduction: Minuscule texts and intercessory strategies in the early Middle Ages – Ildar Garipzanov and Claire Burridge
1 Blended rituals: Minuscule texts at the crossroad of the liturgical prayer and incantation – Ildar Garipzanov
2 Blended healing: The intersections of medical recipes and incantations – Claire Burridge
3 Experimental intercession in the margins? Intercessory minitexts in early medieval pastoral compendia – Carine van Rhijn
4 The manuscript contexts of early medieval animal incantations – Tim Hertogh
5 Multilingual verbal remedies: Compilation and transmission of Old High German charms – Eleonora Cianci
6 Incantation, prayer or magical formula? Old High German intercessory minuscule marginalia and the power of language between religion, ‘magic’ and medicine – Tina Terrahe (translated by Philipp Nothaft)
7 Marginal, magical, mainstream? Rituals and verbal formulas in the compilation and development of Bald’s Leechbook and Leechbook IIIDebby Banham
8 English charms and the eleventh-century medical mainstream – Katherine Hindley
9 A medical charm and an angelic prayer – Jacqueline Borsje
10 Marginalised, censored, appropriated: ‘Magical’ elements in Byzantine liturgical codices(Euchologia) – Eirini Afentoulidou
11 Coptic prayers and amulets for healing and protection in early medieval palimpsest manuscripts – Roxanne Bélanger Sarrazin