Once I was a clever boy learning the arts of Oxford... is a quotation from the verses written by Bishop Richard Fleming (c.1385-1431) for his tomb in Lincoln Cathedral. Fleming, the founder of Lincoln College in Oxford, is the subject of my research for a D. Phil., and, like me, a son of the West Riding. I have remarked in the past that I have a deeply meaningful on-going relationship with a dead fifteenth century bishop... it was Fleming who, in effect, enabled me to come to Oxford and to learn its arts, and for that I am immensely grateful.


Monday 5 June 2023

Medieval conjuring tricks


Last week I linked in two posts to articles about recent research that gives some idea of medieval comedy performance by an English minstrel in the Midlands about 1480. There is another similar summary at Scholars may have an authentic manuscript of a medieval comedy show — and it's pretty funny

To continue with the theme of medieval types of entertainment I saw that Medievalists.net has a post about magic tricks set out in the Secretum Philosophorum which was written about 1300. The instances given in the article do indicate an awareness of what today we would term elementary chemistry and physics. A somewhat similar trick - in that case how to carry water in a sieve - is featured in Robertson Davies’ very entertaining novel The Rebel Angels.

With the proviso that some of these tricks should probably not be tried at home, the article can be read at 13 Magic Tricks from the Middle Ages

It also has a select bibliography that looks to be useful for those who want to look further into the place of magic in medieval life.


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