Love Spells and Lost Treasure : Service Magic in England from the Later Middle Ages to the Early Modern Era

Magic is ubiquitous across the world and throughout history.Yet if witchcraft is acknowledged as a persistent presence in the medieval and early modern eras, practical magic by contrast – performed to a useful end for payment, and actually more common than malign spellcasting – has been overlooked.Exploring many hundred instances of daily magical usage, and setting these alongside a range of imaginative and didactic literatures, Tabitha Stanmore demonstrates the entrenched nature of 'service' magic in premodern English society.This, she shows, was a type of spellcraft for needs that nothing else could address: one well established by the time of the infamous witch trials.The book explores perceptions of magical practitioners by clients and neighbours, and the way such magic was utilised by everyone: from lowliest labourer to highest lord.Stanmore reveals that – even if technically illicit – magic was for most people an accepted, even welcome, aspect of everyday life.