Skip to content
IUScholarWorks Journals
06.09.16, Skemer, Binding Words

06.09.16, Skemer, Binding Words


Binding Words: Textual Amulets in the Middle Ages appears in the series Magic in History published by The Pennsylvania State University Press. The series includes William Ryan's The Bathhouse at Midnight and Richard Kieckhefer's Forbidden Rites among other worthwhile studies of magic. Don C. Skemer's book collects the widely scattered evidence of writing (prayers, devotions, charms, including a few signs and seals) that was employed for protection primarily by being touched or attached to the body. He defines textual amulets as "brief apotropaic texts, handwritten or mechanically printed on separate sheets, rolls, and scraps of parchment, paper or other flexible writing supports of varying dimensions." Besides an introduction, five chapters, and conclusion, the book contains three appendices, each providing the text of a long amulet, a select bibliography, a list of manuscripts, and an index.

In a manner engagingly medieval, the book runs two discourses side by side. One is the encyclopedic narrative of the main text, which pieces together the fragments of the evidence to create a history of the textual amulet. The other exceedingly rich discourse belongs to the footnotes. They contain detailed bibliographical information, the comments of scholarly authorities, and quotations from primary sources. There one can sample excerpts from Hildegard's letter containing words to staunch a woman's bleeding, Roger Bacon's anecdote about an amulet for epilepsy, or the records of Durham Cathedral regarding amulets carried by Richard, a builder. The reader is afforded the opportunity to test the conclusions in the main narrative by reference to the sources, which Skemer locates precisely. In addition, numerous catalogues of medieval manuscripts have been combed, and the results are passed on to the interested reader in the notes. This spadework will be welcomed by those working in the related fields of charms, experimenta, medicine, ritual practices, theological and legal debates over magic. The footnotes supply a comprehensive bibliography of written amulets.

The Introduction confronts the knotty problem of terminology. As Skemer points out more than once (6, 18) "amulet" was not used during the period between the thirteenth and the fifteenth centuries. Rather, from as early as the fifth century medieval sources refer in Latin to phylacteria/filacteria , ligaturae , loricae , scriptura , brevia , occasionally libella , caracteres , cedulae , and scripta . These items themselves do not come with a label, as charms often do, so the question arises whether every item designated to be tied to the body or evidently folded to a portable size was conceived of by its user or maker as "amuletic" in Skemer's sense of being fundamentally apotropaic, rather than, for example, primarily devotional.

Binding Words covers a broader span of time that its subtitle, Textual Amulets of the Middle Ages , suggests. Chapter 1 begins with an account of pagan magic and offers some responses from early Christian theologians; it identifies sources rejecting pagan amulets found in moral exempla and Byzantine tales, the sermons of Gregory of Tours, Isidore of Seville, and Caesarius of Arles and others through Bede. After a brief summary of five centuries of ecclesiastical legislation suppressing amulets follows evidence for the positive use of them, beginning with an exorcistic amulet written by St. Eugendus before A.D. 510. Dispersion of Christian amulets is documented by the use of Christian Byzantine pectoral crosses of the seventh and eighth centuries and the Gospel Book reputed to be St. Cuthbert's in the twelfth. We learn of Hildegard's letter containing words to be placed on a woman's body and the story of Alfonso X of Spain employing the manuscript of the Cantigas de Santa Maria as a cure of his own illness. The situation regarding amulets grows more complex in the thirteenth century with the introduction of Solomonic seals and pentacles by which spirits were deemed to be controlled. Bacon's and Aquinas's stipulations are briefly treated. The very amulet recommended for inquisitor's protection by the authors of the Malleus maleficarum consisted of the words of Christ during the crucifixion written on a parchment in the shape of the measure of Christ. Does this partly explain the popularity of these words and this relic found in so many amulets dating from the last decades of the fifteenth century and well into the sixteenth, exemplified by the amulets discussed in Chapters 4 and 5? Besides written amulets, Skemer points out that in the late medieval period other objects--a priest's stole, pilgrim badges, the book of the Gospels, jewelry, rings were employed for their apotropaic powers.

Chapter 2 surveys "the principal textual elements in amulets from papyrus to printing." The phrase "written exemplars" in this chapter and elsewhere in the book refers to individual models or collections of prayers or recipes that could, or at some point did, provide texts for written amulets. The term "amuletic texts" includes charms, exorcisms, devotions, prayers that might be used for protection and written to be worn on the body. The first section of this chapter moves roughly chronologically from Anglo-Saxon materials through examples of words, letters, or characters (Latin caracteres ) inscribed on objects from twelfth century manuscripts to general remarks on various non-monastic sources of information on amulets that emerged from the thirteenth century onward. These include Biblical texts inscribed on Byzantine and Coptic amulets, recommended in a twelfth-century English romance, and located in sixteenth and seventeenth German and Italian examples. Skemer provides examples of the use of the opening of the Gospel of John, the most frequently met biblical text written on amulets. We encounter it again in the amulets discussed in Chapter 4. It is clear that the text acquired magical status. Skemer chooses not to address the question of how the magical use of this and certain other biblical passages, such as the words of Christ from the cross, relates to their occurrence in common liturgical forms and lay devotions.

The legend and the letter of Christ to Abgar occurred in many versions, and was often known as "the Charlemagne charm" or "prayer" and thought to have been sent to that monarch. Skemer calls attention to significant instances of its history in the account in the Peregrinatio Aetheriae , its tenth-century association with Byzantium, its early role among Anglo-Saxon prayers and Irish hymns, and its fifteenth-century appearance in elegant books of hours. He mentions one other letter known as the "Sunday epistle", also addressed to Abgar by Christ. The heavenly letter described here is the best known of the devout and curative letters circulating in the the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. In England, for example, a letter brought by the Angel Gabriel to St. Susanne, and one attributed to St. Eustace for his wife, circulated with medical recipes.

Narrative charms receive less attention that one might expect. Skemer discusses the Latin fever charm beginning "Peter was sitting before the Latin gate." Narrative charms are explicitly labeled charms in manuscripts and often come with directions for speaking them, they also frequently include instructions for the sick person to carry a written text with them or hang it around the neck. In this way, they simultaneously recommend use of the same text in both spoken and written mediums.

In addressing the subject of divine names, Skemer proposes that names in and of themselves had protective power in antiquity, late antiquity, and the medieval world. He points to instances in vernacular, courtly literature in which Christ's name or names of God were said to be worn in battle for protection. Skemer observes that protection consisting of divine names was often arrayed in lists, that such lists might be significant numerologically, and that linguistic sources are typically Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. These observations suggest connections might well be made between the heavenly letter (or prayer of Charlemagne), introduced earlier in the chapter, the amulets ascribed to knights in the vernacular poems, and the text of the Burgundian amulet transcribed in Appendix 2. Similarly, devotion to the power of the Name of Jesus, which Skemer particularly associates with St. Bernadino is reflected in the text of the late fifteenth- century Italian amulet that appears in Appendix 3. Piety felt for the Name of Jesus, as revealed in this amulet corresponds in time to the flourishing of the cult of the Holy Name in England, which developed from a popular private devotion into a new feast, which was fostered by the courtly household of Lady Margaret Beaufort in the 1480's.

Finally, in this chapter, Skemer sees the "the vocabulary of textual amulets in the West...enlivened and energized by the spread of pseudo-Solomonic grimoires ." In particular, he links the appearance of seals, magical figures, certain occult vocabulary and names of angels to the influence of explicitly demon-binding magic. An amulet that fits this description appears in Chapter 4. It belongs to Robert Tresilian (executed 1388), as described in the chronicle of his enemy Thomas Favent. While Favent respresented Tresilian's amulet as one intended to bind demons to the owner's service for the protection of his life, the monk John Northwood gives an alternative account, which quotes its contents and reveals that it consists of the names of God sent to Charlemagne for protection against demons and many sorts of sudden death (i.e., without confession). Skemer quotes Northwood's text in his footnote, which allows us a glimpse into Northwood's spiritual interpretation of this amulet. The monk's version affirms its efficacy'even against death by hanging: "whoso names these names on that day, he shall not die, though he were hanged on a tree. And this was proved by Sir Robard Tresylyan." Our first thought is "How proved? Tresilian died by being hanged." Northwood's version of this amulet suggests that he (and perhaps Tresilian, who asserted that he carried something that prevented his death) understood the amulet as preventing death, not of the body, but rather the death or damnation of the soul. In this case, the amulet was evidently understood to insure that if one died violently and unexpectedly, one's soul would not die, but be safe in heaven. How many others might have carried this amulet for spiritual, rather than, physical protection?

Briefly, Chapter 3 covers writing materials (inks and flexible supports such as parchments and paper), methods of construction (rolling and folding) and questions about how amulets were carried or worn, read or kept secret or visualized. The chapter is based on evidence from a wide range of sources including romances, medical books, books of learned magic, and books of hours. Special attention is given to types of enclosures and to amulets occurring in groups.

Chapter 4 focuses on nine surviving amulets including notably one made by St. Francis of Assisi. There are excursions into literary texts for tales of a love amulet, a dubious potency amulet, and other false amulets. Texts found within the metal Ingelby Arncliffe Crucifix imported in the twelfth century were hung on a wall rather than worn on the body. Skemer argues that two pious texts, for headache and "evil and enemies" respectively, and written on the dorse of a charter granting land in Derbyshire were folded in such a way that they were likely "worn on the body in a small sack," then restored to the family archive when not in use. His example of holy names to be written on parchment for the cure of fever recorded in Robert Thornton's remedy book however plays a minor role in Thornton's fever cures. There the amulet appears as an alternative to another remedy in which sacred words are written on wafers (obles) and consumed. It is this consumable cure for fevers that seems to be preferred, since it is recorded more than once in the remedy book. Since Skemer's search for amulets is targeted and intense, no attempt is made to represent amulets as they appear in healing contexts with other ritual or verbal methods of curing and protecting the body.

Most of the amulets described in Chapters 4 and 5 derive from the context of medieval devotions, such as the measure of the side wound of Christ, the length of the savior, and the holy name. The list of the names of God and Christ that often reappear in texts referred to here as variations of the heavenly letter may be found in the Sarum and York Books of Hours. One amulet, by contrast, that exemplifies the combined use of seals and figures alongside characters, magical letters, and traditional Christian texts for healing is the fulsome and complex amulet Canterbury Cathedral Library, Additional MS 23. The texts of Princeton University Library, Princeton MS 138.44 and the "French or Burgundian Amulet Roll" transcribed in Appendix 2 illustrate the problematic relationship between a mainstream piety and an intense form that extends to magical practices. In the case of the Princeton bifolium, its orgins in a book of hours is substantiated by the image of it reproduced in Binding Words on p. 248. Both of these artifacts are described in Chapter 5, which is devoted to rolls and "complex folded amulets" relevant to women. Skemer emphasizes that the collection of special devotions on the Princeton manuscript was utilized primarily as an amulet for childbirth. Further, he argues on the basis of its wrapper and its other contents (a paper copy of the text and its image plus two printed prayers and a printed ribbon) that the whole constituted a birthing kit.

Skemer has undertaken the difficult task of writing a history of textual amulets in Europe from the beginning of the Christian era to the Reformation. The work is based on scattered artifacts and references from many different kinds of sources. The book's strength is that in covering this large territory, it brings together formidable range of references, which represent a great deal of careful research. Moreover, his account is enlivened by a scattering of fascinating historical anecdotes. Such a comprehensive approach does have the drawback, however, of not allowing the author much opportunity to discuss the context of his textual amulets. Thus this work does not lend itself to searching analyses that open up the various mentalities of the producers and users of textual amulets in particular centuries or within different social contexts. Nevertheless, this is a book that will provide scholars with a extraordinarily useful tool for further research in textual amulets.