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suddenflamingword's review
3.0
Somewhere between scholarly marginalia and state of the field, it's just too shallow to be more than reference material. To be fair, the introduction more or less says this will be the case: "the authors in this volume are in a sense pioneers who have entered relatively uncharted territory of magic in the Byzantine middle ages." I'll assume that's true.
What it does best (and this may be due more to the awkward distance between us and Byzantium than to a conscious editing effort) is highlight how over-determined (and heavily Catholic) the modern distinction is between religion and magic. To a lesser extent, it does the same for the modern distinction between religion/magic and science/technology.
Yes: Alexander Kazhdan, John Duffy, Marie Therese Fogen
Consider It: Matthew Dickie, Richard P.H. Greenfield, Robert Mathiesen
Eh: James Russell, Henry Maguire
What it does best (and this may be due more to the awkward distance between us and Byzantium than to a conscious editing effort) is highlight how over-determined (and heavily Catholic) the modern distinction is between religion and magic. To a lesser extent, it does the same for the modern distinction between religion/magic and science/technology.
Yes: Alexander Kazhdan, John Duffy, Marie Therese Fogen
Consider It: Matthew Dickie, Richard P.H. Greenfield, Robert Mathiesen
Eh: James Russell, Henry Maguire
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