Magic and the Supernatural in Medieval English Romance (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Magic and the Supernatural in Medieval English Romance Carolyne Larrington Corinne Saunders , Magic and the Supernatural in Medieval English Romance. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2010. Pp. 312. ISBN: 978-1-84384-221-7. $95. Corinne Saunders' substantial new study of medieval English romances comprises two short books in one volume: an introduction to medieval magic and an analysis of the functions of magic and the supernatural across a wide range of English romances. The book's central premise is that however 'rich and strange' magic might be, 'it is always grounded in cultural reality' (2). The first half of the volume—the two chapters concluding on p. 116—offers a condensed but lucid history of magic in the West. The first chapter examines classical evidence for different kinds of beliefs and magicians, and the Old and New Testament treatments of magic and its practitioners. The second chapter covers medieval thinking about magic and the supernatural, from Augustine, via Isidore of Seville to evidence from Anglo-Saxon and post-Conquest England. The high medieval period essentially distinguishes between natural magic, a magic which harnesses the unseen powers of plants, stones and other God-created objects in a pseudo-scientific analysis of causes and effects, and 'nigromancy,' understood as derived from Latin niger (black) rather than the Greek necros (dead) and thus not, as in classical sources, the re-animation of the dead for divinatory purposes. Saunders includes the operations of the supernatural, both divine and diabolical, thus making analytical space for the activities of demons and for God's countervailing interventions in the form of angelic messages and of miracles. After establishing the main outlines of the understanding of 'nigromancy' as contained in books and made operational in incantation and ritual, and of natural magic, inhering in stones and plants, the book examines magical technology. Building on Helen Cooper's crucial insight into the importance of 'magic that doesn't work'— supernatural assistance which the hero must discard or disregard if he is to achieve [End Page 131] heroic status—the third chapter culminates in astute readings of Chaucer's Squire's Tale and Franklin's Tale, noting that the Franklin himself seems to take a more conservative view of magic than Chaucer, whose interest in astrology has strong affinities with natural magic. These tales, and the Canon's Yeoman's Tale, invite the audience of The Canterbury Tales to debate the morality and limitations of magic. The next chapter investigates 'nigromancy,' the darker aspect of magic, used to effect the manipulator's will, to interfere with destiny. Here the distinction between the two types of magic is usefully complicated by reference to intention: enchantresses and other practitioners achieve diametrically opposed effects by broadly similar methods. What matters is the intended outcome, whether the romance's hero is helped or hindered by such interventions. Shape-shifting and other transformations, even, in late texts such as Valentine and Orson, the summoning of demons, can be licit if the ends are justifiable. Chapter five deals with the Other World, with Avalon and with faery, contrasting the operation of fairy mistresses who shower riches on their chosen lovers and fairy knights whose methods include rape and abduction. The main discussion of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, a text with marvelous objects as well as Other World settings, occurs here. The following chapter examines the interventions of the demonic and the divine in romances as various as Amys and Amylion, Havelok, and the various romances labeled as 'penitential' by Andrea Hopkins. Discussion here of the demonic siring of Merlin introduces the book's final chapter, an examination of Malory's treatment of magic and the supernatural. There is an illuminating discussion of Hallewes the Enchantress and the episode in which she figures and thoughtful consideration of Balin and Balan and of the Grail. Saunders effectively refutes the view that Malory is not interested in magic and the supernatural simply because he reduces what occurs in his French sources, by showing how 'the supernatural lightens and shifts within the narrative of [Malory's] world, which is coloured and challenged by the powers of magic and enchantment, human and otherworldly' (260). The epilogue shows...