{"id":11675,"date":"2019-03-14T23:44:38","date_gmt":"2019-03-14T23:44:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/?page_id=11675"},"modified":"2019-10-01T02:27:38","modified_gmt":"2019-10-01T02:27:38","slug":"regan-2019-congress","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/abstracts\/regan-2019-congress\/","title":{"rendered":"Regan (2019 Congress)"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><strong>Vajra Regan<br \/>\n(<em>Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Toronto<\/em>)<\/strong><\/h2>\n<h2>&#8220;<em>Not<\/em> Underground:<br \/>\nLearned Lapidaries and the Reformation of Ritual Magic&#8221;<\/h2>\n<h3>Abstract of Paper<br \/>\nPresented at the 54th International Congress on Medieval Studies<br \/>\n(Kalamazoo, 2019)<\/h3>\n<h4>Session on<br \/>\n\u201cEmbedded in the Mainstream:\u00a0 Ritual Magic Incorporated in \u2018Legitimate\u2019 Texts\u201d<\/h4>\n<h4>Sponsored by the <strong>Research Group on Manuscript Evidence<br \/>\nand the <a href=\"http:\/\/societasmagica.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Societas Magica<\/a><\/strong><br \/>\nOrganized by Vajra Regan<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/2019-international-congress-on-medieval-studies-program\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">2019 Congress Program<\/a><\/h4>\n<p>[<em>Published on 2 April 2019<\/em>]<\/p>\n<p>*****<\/p>\n<h4>Abstract<\/h4>\n<p>The lapidary genre, that is, books purporting to reveal the marvelous properties of stones, was one of the most popular forms of literature in the Late Middle Ages; yet, at the same time, many of these works trespassed overtly on the domains of ritual magic as defined by such authorities as Augustine and Isidore of Seville.\u00a0 Despite these apparent transgressions, lapidaries were rarely censured; on the contrary, they were frequently read at court and studied in the universities.\u00a0 By examining the Latin lapidary tradition in the period 1100\u20131400, this paper seeks to complicate our understanding of medieval magic (more properly necromancy) as a predominately marginal or transgressive activity.<\/p>\n<p>I begin with a brief survey of late medieval authors such as Gervase of Tilbury, Thomas of Cantimpr\u00e9, and Albertus Magnus, and show how they provided a theological and philosophical justification for ritual magic within the context of a science of stones.\u00a0 I then focus on a thirteenth-century lapidary hitherto overlooked by scholars.\u00a0 Known as the <em>De lapidibus <\/em>of Bartholomeus de Ripa Romea, this lapidary enjoyed a pan-European circulation, and its author is named as an authority on gems alongside Albertus Magnus in at least two early modern printed books.\u00a0 Significantly, the <em>De lapidibus <\/em>is one of the oldest Latin texts to assimilate a work of Solomonic ritual magic without actually naming the biblical king.\u00a0 In presenting the <em>De lapidibus<\/em>, I analyze the way its author negotiates the language and conventions of the lapidary genre, so as to reconfigure, and thus legitimize, a number of condemned books of magic.\u00a0 Finally, I argue that late medieval and scholastic lapidaries were one of the main conduits for the transmission of occult beliefs.<\/p>\n<p>*****<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Vajra Regan (Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Toronto) &#8220;Not Underground: Learned Lapidaries and the Reformation of Ritual Magic&#8221; Abstract of Paper Presented at the 54th International Congress on Medieval Studies (Kalamazoo, 2019) Session on \u201cEmbedded in the Mainstream:\u00a0 Ritual Magic Incorporated in \u2018Legitimate\u2019 Texts\u201d Sponsored by the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence and the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":1023,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/11675"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11675"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/11675\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12224,"href":"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/11675\/revisions\/12224"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}