Library Lecture: Folk Magic in Medieval and Early Modern England by Dr Tabitha Stanmore

’There’s method in the magic’: the theory behind folk magic in medieval and early modern England. Lecture given on 22 January at Cecil Sharp House as part of the 2020 Vaughan Williams Memorial Library lecture series by Dr Tabitha Stanmore Magic in pre-modern England took many forms, but among the most common was ’practical’ magic: spells and rituals which brought about useful solutions to everyday problems. This talk explores what people commonly used magic for, and interrogates the spells themselves: why were certain words or items used? Were the rituals non-sensical, as has previously been claimed, or was there a method to folk magic which gone unrecognised?