Abstract/Summary

The use of archaeology as source material for medieval magic raises a number of methodological and theoretical issues. Many of the rituals of common magic revealed by archaeology were never (or rarely) documented in medieval texts. The lack of correlation between texts and material culture has been regarded as problematic for historians; to the contrary, these complementary sources permit access to social contexts and agents that are under-represented in texts, particularly women and other practitioners who operated in a domestic environment.