Caring Conjurers and demonic diviners: gender and the unstable position of peasant magical practitioners in Catalonia, 1300-1330

摘要

This thesis compares visitation records from the dioceses of Barcelona and Tortosa from1303-1330 to analyse gender and peasant magical practises. It argues that peasant magicreflected gender norms that associated nurturance and passivity with women and protectionand activity with men, but also reversed these norms through the greater publicity ofwomen’s magic. Furthermore, bishops’ perspective of women shaped their interpretation ofpeasant magic as either a demonic threat to Christians’ souls or mere foolishness andsuperstition. By examining how the feminine stereotype of peasant magical practitionersdifferently manifested in Barcelona and Tortosa, and contrasting the stereotypical image tothe real numbers of men and women who performed magic, the language of magical practice,and the community roles and characteristics of magical practitioners, this thesis contributes tounderstandings of not only the belief and practise of magic in the medieval world, but alsothe flexibility of medieval patriarchy.