Practical Necromancy: Raising the Dead for Fun & Profit

Our profession is a unique and somewhat strange one. We are paid, fundamentally, to give voice to the voiceless. History is taking the people of the past and breathing into their lungs, letting them speak and act again even though they are long dead. [excerpt

Retelling the Future: Don Juan Manuel's "Exenplo XI" and the Power of Fiction

In this paper I look at how “Exenplo XI” is both product and reflection of the various traditions and cultures of medieval Iberia and how Juan Manuel forges a new version of this story from these inherited traditions in order to showcase problems of concern to his fourteenth-century audience, namely, the tension between ecclesiastical and Andalusi systems of thought and their representatives and how the author’s manipulation of the frame and the power of fiction itself echoes Don Yllán’s manipulation of magic to test the dean’s mettle. Then I turn to the lessons of “Exenplo XI” regarding the transmission of knowledge and who controls it, as well as the function of speculative fiction and its ability to explore alternative realities and potential futures for both fictional audience (Conde Lucanor) and contemporary twenty-first-century readers

Front Cover and Publication Information, Volume 19, Number 4

Front cover and publication information for this issue

The lady who served the potion: botanical symbolism behind the mysteries of Eleusis

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The Invention of Papahurihia : A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History at Massey University, Albany, New Zealand

Historians portray Papahurihia as the first Māori prophet and founder of a syncretistic religion that combined elements of Judaic and Christian theology with Māori beliefs. They also say he observed a Saturday Sabbath and that his followers were known as Jews. This thesis disputes those conclusions. It re-examines the commentaries of the CMS missionaries in the Bay of Islands from the context of 1830s Protestant evangelicalism and draws on the texts of the Wesleyan and Roman Catholic missionaries and European settlers to show how Papahurihia behaved in various situations. It argues that historians have failed to take account of the way that Protestant and Catholic writers saw Papahurihia through the lenses of their own religions. The thesis recreates Papahurihia in the context of the Ngāpuhi seasonal cycle and links him to the persistence of ceremonies like the hahunga. It argues that historians have overlooked the extent to which he operated on a Māori concept of time and how the missionaries and Europeans made assumptions about the behaviour of Papahurihia and his followers based on the Christian calendar. The thesis concludes that Papahurihia responded to the advent of Christianity in a way that was consistent with the behaviour of tohunga at the time, rather than as the founder of a syncretistic religion. It also concludes that the historiography on Papahurihia ultimately went awry because historians interpreted the missionaries’ comments about him from a secular perspective

De la jurisdicció secular a la jurisdicció eclesiàstica. El procés contra Lorenç Portugalès, menstre en arts, i també tonsurat, i la seva amant Joana d'Oriola, portuguesa, acusats ambdós de robatori i Lorenç Portugalès de nigromància

In 1420 a penal process of secular jurisdiction took place in Barcelona. A master in arts, whose name was Lorenç, originate from Portugal, and his lover named Joana, also portuguese, were charged. The offense commited was a currency theft. During the process it was fi nd out that the defendant Lorenç was a clergyman who often practised magic and necromancy. That’s why the criminal case of Lorenç, master in arts and clergyman, passed to the ecclesiastical jurisdiction.In 1420 a penal process of secular jurisdiction took place in Barcelona. A master in arts, whose name was Lorenç, originate from Portugal, and his lover named Joana, also portuguese, were charged. The offense commited was a currency theft. During the process it was fi nd out that the defendant Lorenç was a clergyman who often practised magic and necromancy. That’s why the criminal case of Lorenç, master in arts and clergyman, passed to the ecclesiastical jurisdiction