KLAUS HERBERS

Diviners and Magicians: Their Reputation in Europe in the

Central Middle Ages
Klaus Herbers1

I. Dantes Divina Commedia and Soothsaying

Dante Alighieri, the great Italian poet, wrote The Divine Comedy in the
beginning of the fourteenth century. It is a monumental work, and it has certainly
not been possible to explore it in any depth in what follows. In the poem, various
people and groups of people are apportioned a place in Hell, Purgatory, or
Paradise. In Christian teaching, these are the places of eternal damnation or
eternal bliss, with Purgatory as the place of purification in between. This division
enables Dante to make carefully differentiated judgments and classifications: he
does not just condemn the evil to Hell and raise the good to Paradise, but
Purgatory, the intermediate stage, has a significance of its own. The poet and
narrator is guided by Virgil, and has a chance to both get a glimpse of the
afterlife and to comment on what he sees. In the twentieth Canto, he encounters
those sad nameless women who used their needle, loom, and spindle for
magic, as well as a series of clairvoyants, magicians, and conjurers (indovini e
sortilegi e ... incantatori), as they are called in the chapter summary. In this
introductory passage, Dante also mentions Michael Scot, one of the most wellknown scholars and astrologers of the European middle ages, who worked at the
court of Emperor Frederick II in Naples in the mid-thirteenth century.2 He
1

Klaus Herbers, Dr. Prof., Deputy Director of the International Consortium for Research in the Humanities,
Universitt Erlangen-Nrnberg.
2
See, among various editions, Dante Alighieri, La Commedia secondo lantica vulgata, ed. G. Petrocchi
(Florence, 1994): Inferno, Canto XX: Canto XX, dove si tratta de lindovini e sortilegi e de lincatatori,
e di loro pene e miseria e de la condizione loro misera, ne la quarta bolgia, in persona di Michele di Scozia e
di pi altri; and Canto XX:115-118., p. 615. On this topic, see recently Thomas Ricklin, Dante zwischen
Zauberern und Divinatoren. Einige mglicherweise nicht nur prosaische Hinweise zu Inferno XX, in
Mantik, Schicksal und Freiheit im Mittelalter, ed. L. Sturlese, Beihefte zum Archiv fr Kulturgeschichte 70
(Cologne, Weimar and Vienna, 2011), 12952, with references. Thanks to Erik Niblaeus (Ph.D) fort the
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appears together with Guido Bonatti and other diviners. We know what fate was
apportioned to these people from illustrations accompanying the Divine Comedy:
Dante and Virgil look into the fourth of the ten bolgie, or ditches, into which the
eighth circle of Hell is divided, and see the soothsayers and magicians with their
heads turned backwards on their bodies. They have to move forwards constantly,
but with their eyes forcedly turned towards their back. Thus, their punishment
becomes a reversal of their life, as they claimed to be able to see further into the
future than their fellow men. Virgil points out many people who had been
condemned to such a fate: in addition to the medieval scholar Michael Scot, they
include characters from classical antiquity; and, at the end of the passage, Virgil
brings attention to the above-mentioned women, who had prepared witches
brews and magic potions, instead of giving themselves to normal feminine
activities.
It is more or less certain that soothsaying and the interpretation of the future
were not Michael Scots primary field of activitythat rather, was a number of
learned traditions, including astrology and astronomy.3 Nonetheless, the Divine
Comedy distils a general tendency of the later middle ages into literary form, and
I would here like to give some examples which can be seen as representative of
this development in the Latin Christian middle ages. I will concentrate on the
medieval reception history first of the person of a learned pope, and second of a
place of learning, Toledo.
II. A learned Pope at the Turn of the Millennium: Sylvester II (9991003)
Did the learned have a hard time in medieval Europe? Certainly, classical
antiquity had a more relaxed approach to the interpretation of the future. The
middle ages were different. From the church father Augustine it was a general
rule that excessive curiosity, curiositas, was a sin. And it was even worse with
those who sought to know such things which only the godsor, in the Christian
era, the One Godcould know. Christian faith and faith in the stars were not
easily reconciled: predestination through the stars, the power of God, and free
will were difficult to bring into harmony. This led to numerous theoretical
debates in the middle ages, often difficult to follow. One of the first successes of
the International Consortium for Research in the Humanities (Fate, Freedom and
Prognostication), is that a volume of articles collected by Loris Sturlese, which
translation of my paper into English.
3
See Silke Ackermann, Sternstunden am Kaiserhof. Michael Scotus und sein Buch von den Bildern und
Zeichen des Himmels (Frankfurt am Main, 2009).
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KLAUS HERBERS
we hope to translate into Chinese in the near future, has begun this work.4
At times, even learning itself could nonetheless become dangerous. This can
be exemplified by the posthumous reputation of a certain pope (that is, the leader
of western Christendom and the successor to the seat of the Apostle Peter at
Rome), who was elected in the year 999. In his previous life, as Gerbert of
Aurillac, he had been a student in the Spanish monastery of Ripoll, where he had
encountered the achievements of Arabic scholarship. The record of a great
scholarly disputation at Ravenna provides clear evidence that Gerbert was both
learned and an experienced teacher.5 Before he became pope, he was archbishop
of Reims and of Ravenna. He was pope for almost four years. After his death,
numerous stories began to spread about his remarkable ascent from Reims via
Ravenna to Rome, which attributed it to a pact with the devil. Some sources
(such as the Annales Palidenses) claim that he became pope through the use of
black magic, others (Martin of Troppau) through satanic assistance. The English
historian William of Malmesbury went even further. According to him Gerbert
was helped to become pope by both the emperor and the devil, as well as by the
discovery of a treasure. Furthermore, a statue, which Gerbert had fashioned from
ore, predicted his election to the papacy. William goes on to tell of how Gerbert
plunged into the innards of the earth in the campus Martius, the Field of Mars in
Rome, in order to find the treasures of the ancient emperor Augustus.6
Other stories refer to the death and end of the pope. 7 In a version told by
Cardinal Beno, the pope was beaten to death whilst celebrating mass in the
Jerusalem church in Rome by his own daemon. This, allegedly, marked the
fulfillment of a prophecy, as the daemon had told him earlier that he would not
die as long as he never celebrated the liturgy in Jerusalem. However, the
prophecy did not refer to the city of Jerusalem, but to the Basilica of the Holy
Cross in Jerusalem, a church situated in Rome.
As time passed, other stories appeared. At times they speak of the popes
tricks or delusions (quibusdam praestigiis), or of the black arts in general.
Sigebert of Gembloux, another historian, claims that Gerbert/Sylvester was slain
by the devil for practising the black arts. The most garrulous man on the subject
4

Loris Sturlese, ed., Mantik, Schicksal und Freiheit im Mittelalter, Beihefte zum Archiv fr
Kulturgeschichte 70 (Cologne, Weimar and Vienna, 2011).
5
See C. Stephen Jaeger, Gerbert versus Ohtric. Spielregeln einer akademischen Disputatio im 10.
Jahrhundert, in Spielregeln der Mchtigen. Mittelalterliche Politik zwischen Gewohnheit und Konvention,
ed. C. Garnier and H. Kamp (Darmstadt, 2010), 95120.
6
See Christa Habiger-Tuczay, Magie und Magier im Mittelalter (Munich, 1992), pp. 74ff.
7
For this and the following paragraphs, see J. F. Bhmer, Regesta Imperii II. Schsisches Haus 9191024.
5: Papstregesten 9111024 (Vienna et al., 1998), Nos +973 und 974 with the relevant references. Accessible
online at www.regesta-imperii.de.
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was the Roman cardinal Beno, mentioned above, who wrote a short work which
proposed that Rome had actually been a school of black magic throughout the
eleventh century. This story was retold and elaborated into the late middle ages,
and was fashioned into variants in which the pope had daily intimate
conversations with Satan himself.
The accusation of black magic also served as weapon in conflicts within the
church. For example Pope Gregory VII, after having been deposited, was
described as by Cardinal Beno and Petrus Crassus as a black magician. One
development is of particular interest: in the twelfth century, the skills in black
magic of which both Gregory and Gerbert/Sylvester were accused were traced to
the same placeto Spain, which was distinguished by both Christian and
Muslim intellectual traditions in the middle ages. Sylvester II was connected
with Crdoba, Gregory VII with Toledo, as the place where he allegedly learned
the dark arts.
III. Toledo, a Centre of Nigromancy in the Thirteenth Century?
We thus reach the subject of the medieval reputation of Toledo. A Cistercian
monk of the early thirteenth century, Helinand of Froidmond, put it as follows:
Clerics go to Paris for the liberal arts, to Orlans for various authors, to Bologna
for law, to Salerno for medicine, and to Toledo for daemons, but nowhere for
good manners. 8
Not only eleventh-century popes, but also other learned men, ran the risk of
this kind of accusations. Whosoever had an interest in exploring the interior of
nature in the twelfth century onward, could be subjected to accusations of being
a magician, wizard, or alchemist. In fact, twelfth-century Toledo was a centre of
translation: important scientific and philosophical texts from classical antiquity
were translated into Latin, via Arabic, and thus made accessible to the medieval
West. Among them were several texts on astrology and astronomy.
Toledos reputation as a centre for translation is commensurate with its
reputation as a centre for the secret sciences. The Cistercian monk Caesarius of
Heisterbach (d. 1240) portrayed the school of Toledo as an international centre of
black magic. In his Dialogus miraculorum, written between 1223 and 1224, he
writes of the black magician Philip, who tells of his time in Toledo. In this city,
Philip says, there were many students of the dark arts, above all men from
8

For this and the following paragraphs, see Klaus Herbers, Wissenskontakte und Wissensvermittlung in
Spanien im 12. und 13. Jahrhundert: Sprache, Verbreitung und Reaktionen, in Artes im Mittelalter, ed.
Ursula Schaefer (Berlin, 1999), pp. 3048, with references.
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Swabia and Bavariathat is, from southern Germanywho one day asked their
master: Master, we wish to see these incredible things of which you have told us
with our own eyes. Their teacher then, after much urging, led them to a field at
the appropriate hour, drew a circle with his sword, and commanded that they
should in no case leave the circle. Then, using the necessary incantations, he
summoned daemons. They first appeared in the guise of warriors, and challenged
the students to a sort of tournament. When the daemons noticed that this was
impossible, they took on instead the guise of the fairest maidens, and through
lascivious movements tried to entice the youths to leave the circle. Finally, as one
of the students was no longer able to resist the tantalizing calls, he grabbed a ring
which had been offered to him several times, and left the circle. Immediately, he
disappeared from the sight of his companions. The students complained to the
master, but he referred only to his previous warnings. The students became
angry, and when he had seen the true wrath of Bavaria, the master realised what
they were capable of, and gave in. After negotiating with the devil-in-chief he
finally managed to retrieve the student to earth. The student told his fellows
colourful tales of Hell. This tale, according to Caesarius, made it clear quite how
opposed to Gods will the dark arts were. The student took leave of Toledo, and
became a Cistercian monk.
Above all the narrative frame in this tale makes manifest the didactic objective
of the Cistercian narrator: not only to warn against the black arts, or to chastise
errant clericsfor mostly clerics trained in liturgy and in exorcism gave
themselves to the black artsbut also to point to the equivocal nature of
Toledos reputation as a place of learning, in particular from the early thirteenth
century onwards. In addition to the so-called exempla literatursthat is, didactic
examples along the lines of Caesarius of Heisterbachs, as well as thirteenthcentury authors such as Alberic of Trois-Fontaines, Stephen of Bourbon, and
others who wrote in Latinalso vernacular literature presented Toledo as a
school of the dark arts, for example Parzival by Wolfram of Eschenbach.
Another author writing in German, Herbort of Fritzlar, wrote that one can still
learn such cunning in the city of Toledo, which is in Spain (noch so lernet man
die list in einer stat zu Tolet die in Yspanigen stet). Toledo is also portrayed as a
centre of magic and the dark arts in epic poetry from France. Even a local, Juan
Manuel, active in the fourteenth century, wrote of how the dean of Santiago de
Compostela, this bastion of Latin Christendom in the region, travelled to Toledo
to get instruction in the secret sciences.
The association of Toledo with the dark arts, prevalent from the late twelfth
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and in particular the early thirteenth century onward, demonstrates not only an
interest in magic, wizardry, and nigromancy, but also shows how suspect the new
scholarship coming out of Toledo appeared to contemporaries. Learning itself
and this appears to have been a novelty of the timewas connected with magic.
The points of connection lay in particular in the fields of astronomy and
astrology. This nigromantic topos reveals a fundamentally divided reaction to
new scholarship and knowledge: on the one hand fear and skepticism, on the
other curiosity and interest in new possibilities. Furthermore, another perspective
can be detected, for example in Wolfram of Eschenbach: learned knowledge has
to be interpreted in a Christian way. Still, the magic arts wereat least in the
reception of scientific texts from the thirteenth century onwards, and based on
Arabic writingsintegrated into the scholarly canon.
IV. Learning and Magic Scholarship and its Dark Side
We end with a return to Italy. The great apocalypticist of the late twelfth century,
Joachim of Fiore, is not condemned to Hell in Dantes Divine Comedy. In fact,
Joachim appears there not so much as a teller of the future, but rather as a
representative of the Christian tradition of alerting and admonishing. 9 Thus, the
future should be foreseen also in Dantefrom a Christian point of view. But
when learned are condemned to suffer among diviners and magicians in Hell, the
great poet was apparently unwilling to grant them such a favourable
interpretation. It should be noted astrology, as practiced by Guido Bonatti or
Michael Scot, both employed at various Italian courts, was by no means
invariably disreputable: at rulers courts, astrological counsel was used to decide
on which days to wage battle, or for other purposes. But important scholarly
achievements, such as those which Michael Scot could accomplish at a court like
that of Frederick II, were challenged in terms of their broader significancealso
in great literature. These people found themselves with their heads reversed,
looking backwards in Dantes Hell. This tension between acceptance and
criticism is an integral part of the scholarly and intellectual upswing of the
central middle ages. To which extent apocalyptic thinking prefigured modernity
is an interesting question, but it is one which here will be left open. 10 It is clear,
anyway, that this tension had its roots in partbut only in partin Christian
tradition. To this day, we keep encountering, and keep having to come to terms
9

Dante Alighieri, Commedia: Paradiso, Canto XII:140.

Cf. Johannes Fried, Aufstieg aus dem Untergang. Apokalyptisches Denken und die Entstehung der
modernen Naturwissenschaft im Mittelalter (Munich, 2001).
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with the dark sides of learning. What can we know, and what are our limits? As
long as we cannot reach a definitive answer to these questions scholarship and
prognosis will always stand in a tense relationship to one another, but hopefully
also a fruitful one.

List of Primary Sources

Alberic of Trois-Fontaines, Chronica, ed. P. Scheffer-Boichorst, MGH SS 23 (Hannover, 1874), 631950.
Annales Palidenses, ed. G. H. Pertz, MGH SS 16 (Hannover, 1859), 4898.
Cardinal Beno et al., Gesta Romanae ecclesia, ed. K. Francke, MGH Ldl 2 (Hannover, 1892), 366422.
Caesarius of Heisterbach, Dialogus miraculorum, ed. J. Strange (Cologne, Bonne, and Brussels, 1851).
Helgald of Fleury, Vita Robert Pii, ed. R.-H. Bautier and G. Labory, Source dhistoire medivale 1 (Paris,
1965).
Helinand of Froidmont, Sermo XV. In ascensione Domini II, PL 212, cols 596611.
Herbort of Fritzlar, Liet von Troye, ed. G. K. Frommann, Bibliothek der gesamten deutschen National
Literatur I:5 (Quedlinburg, 1837, reprinted 1966).
Juan Manuel, El libro de los enxiemplos del Conde Lucanor et de Patronio, ed. J. M. Blecua (Madrid, 1988).
Martin of Troppau, Chronicon pontificum et imperatorum, ed. L. Weiland, MGH SS 22 (Hannover, 1872),
377475.
Petrus Crassus, Defensio Heinrici, ed. L. von Heinemann, MGH Ldl 1 (Hannover 1891), 43253.
Stephen of Bourbon, Tractatus de diversis materiis praeciabilibus ordinatis et distinctis in VII part. sec. VII
dona Spiritus s., ed. (in excerpts) T. Kaeppeli, Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum Medii Aevi III (Rome,
1980), 354f.
William of Malmesbury: Gesta regum Anglorum , ed. and transl. R. A. B. Mynors, R. M. Thomson and M.
Winterbottom (Oxford, 1998).
Wolfram of Eschenbach, Parzival, ed. K. Lachmann (6th ed., Berlin and Leipzig, 1926).
Abbreviations:
MGH Ldl: Monumenta Germaniae historica. Libelli de lite imperatorum et pontificum.
MGH SS: Monumenta Germaniae historica. Scriptores (in folio).
PL: J. P. Migne, ed., Patrologiae cursus completus, 221 vols (Paris, 184464).

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