UC Riverside

Magic and divine intervention as concepts might at first seem to be wholly separate from material goods and the cultural practices surrounding material objects; miracles occur solely through divine grace, and magic would logically seem to involve making things happen without using physical force. Yet, in the depiction of the supernatural in medieval texts, miracles, marvels, wonders, and magic all depend in some way or another upon material goods.

At the same time, the supernatural has a quite particular role to play in the texts in this study; it functions as an amplifier of signification. Objects become invested with more meaning because they are associated with supernatural power, as in the case of the shield of both Gawain and Aethelstan, which have images of the Virgin on them. Places, particularly in the travelogues and romances, become fraught with marvels and horrors that reflect the concepts with which the lands are associated. Kings and heroes exceed human limitations in ways that are both explained and authorized through their connection with supernatural power. In fact, the texts suggest that these objects, these kings and heroes, could not have the effect that they do without divine sanction or magical intervention. The presence of magic becomes a means of defining the point at which unadorned materiality does not suffice.

This study seeks to explore the medieval concept of materiality, and of its limits, through these connections between the natural and the supernatural. By exploring the various depictions both in texts that are, to one degree or another, fictions and in texts that treat the supernatural forces as quite real, namely a hagiography, a bestiary, an herbal, and a text of ritual sorcery, this dissertation attempts to understand the period's view of the material world, the immaterial forces that affect it, and humanity's role in relation to both.