The corpus of charms – spoken or written formulae for healing and other purposes – found in medieval and early modern English manuscripts share many commonalities, in terms of both function and motifs, with those from mainland Europe, suggesting a continent-wide circulation of popular healing material. This paper will consider the migration of charm texts from several perspectives: geographical, chronological, and functional. By tracing the antecedents of these texts, sometimes as far back as antiquity, this paper will demonstrate that these texts not only crossed borders but traversed eras too. It will explore how such movements through time and space can lead to a change in purpose or utility, and will demonstrate that these ‘migrations’ render charm texts dynamic and fluid, never static.
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Heather Taylor is a final year PhD candidate in the Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Studies at the University of Kent. Her research, funded by a Vice Chancellor’s scholarship, examines ‘non-medical’ charms and experimenta in late-medieval manuscripts, with particular focus on those which seek to control aspects of social relations. Her research explores what these reveal about the prominent concerns of the period and how they resonate with our broader understanding of social attitudes and anxieties in the Middle Ages.