THE
Magic of the Middle Ages
BY
VIKTOR RYDBERG
Translated from the Swedish
BY
AUGUST HJALMAR EDGREN
NEW YORK
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
1879
Copyright 1879,
BY
Henry Holt & Co
CONTENTS.
| PAGE. | ||
| I. | The Cosmic Philosophy of the Middle Ages, and its Historical Development | 1 |
| II. | The Magic of the Church | 56 |
| III. | The Magic of the Learned | 95 |
| IV. | The Magic of the People and the Struggle of the Church against it | 158 |
I.
THE COSMIC PHILOSOPHY OF THE MIDDLE AGES, AND ITS HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT.
INTRODUCTORY.
It was the belief of Europe during the Middle Ages, that our globe was thecentre of the universe.
The earth, itself fixed and immovable, was encompassed by ten heavenssuccessively encircling one another, and all of these except the highestin constant rotation about their centre.
This highest and immovable heaven, enveloping all the others andconstituting the boundary between created things and the void, infinitespace beyond, is the Empyrean, the heaven of fire, named also by thePlatonizing philosophers the world of archetypes. Here “in a light whichno one can enter,” God in triune majesty is sitting on his throne, whilethe tones of harmony from the nine[Pg 2] revolving heavens beneath ascend tohim, like a hymn of glory from the universe to its Creator.
Next in order below the Empyrean is the heaven of crystal, or the sphereof the first movable (primum mobile). Beneath this revolves the heavenof fixed stars, which, formed from the most subtile elements in theuniverse, are devoid of weight. If now an angel were imagined to descendfrom this heaven straight to earth,—the centre, where the coarsestparticles of creation are collected,—he would still sink through sevenvaulted spaces, which form the planetary world. In the first of theseremaining heavens is found the planet Saturn, in the second Jupiter, inthe third Mars; to the fourth and middle heaven belongs the Sun, queen ofthe planets, while in the remaining three are the paths of Venus, Mercury,and finally the moon, measuring time with its waning and increasing disk.Beneath thi