Anxiety, Ambition and Agency: Charms and experimenta as Social Remedies in Late-Medieval England

What might medieval people have done when faced with everyday social challenges such as being the victim of theft, malicious gossip, or the machinations of their enemies? This thesis explores the need to exert agency in the tangled multiplex of social relationships through a hugely popular but still relatively unexplored category of texts: charms and experimenta. These texts have the potential to provide us with new facets of understanding of medieval social relations.

The first chapter constitutes an in-depth analysis of charms and experimenta to address five prominent social concerns or desires: dealing with enemies; uncovering false friends; manipulating the outcome of court cases; preventing malicious speech; and winning favour and influence. Drawing on supporting literary and documentary evidence such as letter archives, poetry, and court records, I interweave these charms and experimenta with case studies of real medieval people - particularly members of the gentry - whose surviving voices reveal the same socio-cultural concerns as those disclosed by my corpus. I argue that these texts represent the desire to assert agency within the confines of existing power structures and social networks, and that they typically operate in a way that is aligned with the social conventions and prescribed behaviours of the time, albeit in a way which ensures that the practitioner comes out on top. The latter half of this first chapter places these texts in context, focusing on three manuscripts likely owned by members of the gentry, and revealing how charms and experimenta to tackle social concerns align with the typical reading patterns of this strata of society.

The second chapter is a case study of the most common charms and experimenta outside of those for healing: ones for theft. Despite the evident popularity of practices to prevent theft or identify a thief after an item had been stolen, no research to date has placed these practices in the social, cultural, and domestic contexts within which they may have been used. This is the role my case study performs, drawing on documentary evidence such as records of criminal activity, while interweaving theory on conflict resolution, object ownership, and social control. This chapter also engages in textual analysis to recover the actual performance of this little-researched aspect of medieval ritual behaviour. Overall, it reveals the specific fears these texts speak to, highlighting the vulnerability of the body, home, and community space.

The final chapter uses six manuscript case studies to demonstrate how charms and experimenta to control women, for example to incite love or lust, to reveal women's secrets, prove virginity, or uncover adultery, are often found in medical manuscripts containing copies of the Trotula texts. I argue that these manuscripts represent a particular type of medical practice, one provided by someone learned and Latinate, who may have collected these texts in response to both client demand and personal interest. This deepens our understanding of the shape and nature of medical practice, and reveals how medieval people might have sought outside help in order to address social concerns, including around their interpersonal relationships.