{"id":21412,"date":"2026-05-02T21:21:51","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T21:21:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/?page_id=21412"},"modified":"2026-05-02T21:46:51","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T21:46:51","slug":"dickinson-2026-congress","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/abstracts\/dickinson-2026-congress\/","title":{"rendered":"Dickinson (2026 Congress)"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\">Augustine Dickinson<br \/>\n(<em>University of M\u00fcnster<\/em>)<\/h2>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\">Abstract of Paper<br \/>\npresented at the 61st International Congress on Medieval Studies<br \/>\n(Kalamazoo, 2026)<\/h3>\n<h4 style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/2026-international-congress-on-medieval-studies-program\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">2026 International Congress on Medieval Studies: Program<\/a><\/h4>\n<h3>Session on<br \/>\n&#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/icms.confex.com\/icms\/2026\/prelim.cgi\/Session\/7542\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Chronology and Divination Beyond the Medieval West<\/a>&#8220;<strong><br \/>\n<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><strong>Co-Sponsored by <\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Research Group on Manuscript Evidence<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.uni-muenster.de\/IAEK\/forschung\/aegyptologie\/forschungsprojekte\/bahra_hassab.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">B\u0101\u1e25ra \u1e25ass\u0101b: Knowledge Transmission in Ethiopia and Eritrea from Antiquity to Modern Times<\/a>, at the University of M\u00fcnster<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h4>Organized by<\/h4>\n<h4>Augustine Dickinson (<em>University of <span class=\"topDisplay\">M\u00fcnster<\/span><\/em>)<\/h4>\n<h2>&#8220;Magic and the Intellectual Tradition in Ethiopia&#8221;<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<h3>Abstract:<\/h3>\n<p>Across Christian traditions one encounters a diverse array of texts, artifacts, and practices that cross into the<br \/>\nrealm of &#8220;magic&#8221; or the &#8220;magico-religious.&#8221; Studies have repeatedly shown that, despite initial assumptions,<br \/>\nthese have never been limited to practitioners working outside of an ecclesiastic or monastic context but, on the<br \/>\ncontrary, have in many cases not only been active in them but even required a church education to perform.<br \/>\nRichard Kieckhefer, describing the situation in the Medieval West, coined the term &#8220;clerical underground&#8221;<br \/>\nprecisely to describe networks of clerics, whether monks, deacons, or priests, who also practiced magic and<br \/>\ncopied or exchanged manuscripts containing magical texts (Kieckhefer 2014).<\/p>\n<p>With respect to Ethiopia, the situation was no di\udbc0\udc03erent. The infamous 15th century King Zar\u02bea Y\u0101\u02bfqob decried in<br \/>\nhis polemics against magic that one may observe such practices among all the levels of the clergy. While there<br \/>\nmay be an element of rhetorical exaggeration in this claim, preliminary studies of the manuscript tradition have<br \/>\nshown without a doubt that magical texts circulated in monastic libraries and church schools in Ethiopia. These<br \/>\nrepresent a range of material from simple prayers relying on nomina sacra to pharmacological recipes to<br \/>\ndivinatory works using arithmetical calculations. More than any other, texts of the latter type, which assume not<br \/>\nonly a knowledge of arithmetic but also often the paschal computus and other more sophisticated calendrical<br \/>\ncomputations, suggest that the practitioner had reached the highest levels of education according to the<br \/>\ntraditional, church-centred education system of Ethiopia. Through selected case studies, this paper will examine<br \/>\nthe phenomenon of &#8220;learned magic&#8221; in Ethiopic sources and investigate the extent to which the intellectual<br \/>\ntradition had a role in the practice of magic in Ethiopia.<\/p>\n<p><em>Note<\/em>:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">Richard Kiekhefer, <em>Magic in the Middle Ages<\/em>. Canto Classics (Cambridge University Press, rev. ed., 2014)<\/p>\n<p>*******<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Augustine Dickinson (University of M\u00fcnster) Abstract of Paper presented at the 61st International Congress on Medieval Studies (Kalamazoo, 2026) 2026 International Congress on Medieval Studies: Program Session on &#8220;Chronology and Divination Beyond the Medieval West&#8220; Co-Sponsored by Research Group on Manuscript Evidence B\u0101\u1e25ra \u1e25ass\u0101b: Knowledge Transmission in Ethiopia and Eritrea from Antiquity to Modern Times, [&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\/21412"}],"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=21412"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/21412\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21423,"href":"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/21412\/revisions\/21423"}],"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=21412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}