Caring Conjurers and demonic diviners: gender and the unstable position of peasant magical practitioners in Catalonia, 1300-1330

This thesis compares visitation records from the dioceses of Barcelona and Tortosa from 1303-1330 to analyse gender and peasant magical practises. It argues that peasant magic reflected gender norms that associated nurturance and passivity with women and protection and activity with men, but also reversed these norms through the greater publicity of women’s magic. Furthermore, bishops’ perspective of women shaped their interpretation of peasant magic as either a demonic threat to Christians’ souls or mere foolishness and superstition. By examining how the feminine stereotype of peasant magical practitioners differently manifested in Barcelona and Tortosa, and contrasting the stereotypical image to the real numbers of men and women who performed magic, the language of magical practice, and the community roles and characteristics of magical practitioners, this thesis contributes to understandings of not only the belief and practise of magic in the medieval world, but also the flexibility of medieval patriarchy.