Faire société avec les démons ? Le magicien et la question du pacte aux derniers siècles du Moyen Âge

Abstract

This paper intends to confront the theology of the magic pact with demons such as it is defined in the XIVth century by the inquisitor Nicholas Eymerich – one of the best advocates of the qualification of magic as heresy – with the way the contemporary texts of ritual magic defined for their part the relationship between the magician and the devils. Indeed, the magic books that Eymerich seems to know quite well give to see a much more complex reality that the manichean vision of the theologians between the demonic worship of the apostate magician and the divine worship of the christian believer. The magician who adresses the devils by words and signs is the initiator of a true pact with God, who is the only One who can delegate to him the potestas ligandi necessary to subdue the evil spirits. This pact is based on his faith and on his spiritual purity. But at the same time, and without systematic mind, he turns to practices, such as the sacrifices, which draw a more ambivalent relationship with the spirits and seem de facto to define a kind of secondary pact. Obviously, this type of practices could only feed the traditional negative vision of magic shared by the theologians and the inquisitors at the end of the Middle Ages.