Katherine Storm Hindley, Textual Magic: Charms and Written Amulets in Medieval England. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2023, xiii, 299 pp., 18 b/w figures.

Focusing on charms in the Middle Ages is virtually a guarantee to attract much attention, and this for good reasons. Charms were not necessarily identical with magic, but they were closely associated with it. However, from early on, the Christian Church did not truly object to the use of charms, as long as they included Christian elements (words or images). We can observe this Christianization process well in the Old High German charms that increasingly left the ‘pagan’ world behind and replaced those elements with the word ‘amen,’ a reference to Christ, or some saints. Ultimately, there was no real difference between a charm and a prayer. However, a charm operates principally with word magic or word spirituality, either orally or in written form (see, for instance, my study “Old High German Missionary Activities by Means of Zaubersprüche – Charms. Anthropological-Religious Universals in the Early Middle Ages,” Kościoły w dobie chrystianizacji (Churches in the Era of Christianization), ed. Mariana Rędkowskiego. Wolińskie Spotkania Mediewistyczne III [Szczecin/Stettin: Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology, Department of Archaeology, 2016], 77–88).