I consulted one of my favorite trustworthy sources, Jennifer Kolpacoff Deane’s A History of Medieval Heresy and Inquisition (Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2011), and found chapter 6, ‘Medieval Magic, Demonology, and Witchcraft’, to be particularly helpful. I was grateful to find her simple definition of magical practice: ‘the exercise of a preternatural control over nature by human beings, with the assistance of forces more powerful than they’ (185). Right away I saw the key issue – ‘forces more powerful than they’. It’s interesting that she adds that ‘for the historian, magic is particularly tricky to study because (like heresy) it is more concept than reality, and because our sources are (like those on heresy) so often written by authors hostile to their topic’ (186). And she quickly gets to the meat of the issue, that clerical theorists became increasingly worried about how prevalent and accessible all this was as all levels of society, from the healer to the priest to the court astrologer, used a mix of charms, blessings, herbal remedies, signs, and sky for all sorts of situations. They believed that although a monk might be trusted to be using all of this with God’s blessing, an illiterate woman living in the woods might be highly susceptible to evil forces. What was important was not so much what a person did, but who they were. Clerical thinkers delved into esoteric books of magic, alchemy, and astrology, and it was these who attached the concept of demonology to the work of folk healers. What strikes me as absurd about this is that they were the ones flirting with ‘secret’ books, not the midwives and other female healers, who did not have access to libraries housing such items – not to mention being far too busy to spend their days bent over books, and often illiterate. I’m oversimplifying, but for my purposes this helped me think through how the very people who had depended on the character Magda Digby, the Riverwoman, for healing might be persuaded to turn on her in a time of pestilence if they were convinced by someone in whom they placed some authority that her healing skills came to her from infernal sources and God would punish them for seeking her aid.
It would be more than a century before the concept of a witch was fully explicated in the Malleus maleficarum (or The Hammer of Witches, written in 1486). Some might call Magda a witch, but more likely they would consider her a pagan or a heretic, and a danger to their souls.
What do I think? Magda might as easily be described as having some fairy blood as being a witch. She has little patience with charms and spells, and is far more caring and compassionate than many baptized in the Church. If you were to ask her who or what she is, she would smile at the question. She is as you see her. Her calling is to heal.
And yet there is the dragon, her indifference to religion, the air of mystery. Let’s leave it there.
Acknowledgments
This book is dedicated to my friend Joyce Gibb who worked closely with me on every book from The Riddle of St Leonard’s through an early draft of A Choir of Crows. She died on Christmas Eve 2019. There is more than a little of Joyce in the character of Magda Digby, the Riverwoman.
I am grateful for advice, feedback, encouragement, and deep reading from Louise Hampson, Mary Morse, Molly Seibert, Michelle Urberg, and my agent Jennifer Weltz. Mary in particular stepped in to fill the void left by Joyce, discussing early ideas, suggesting sources, cheering me on – a precious gift. Thank you to Sara Rees Jones and the members of The Northern Way project for information about the pestilence in York. Working with the team at Severn House is always a joy – special shout out to my wonderful editor Kate Lyall Grant.
In this crazy time I’ve been fortunate to be sheltering in place with my favorite human, Charlie Robb (thank you for the maps!), and my favorite feline, Maggie, whose kitten energy revs me up and keeps me laughing.
And thank you to all the readers who buoy me throughout the year. Be well!