A Contribution to the Study of Palaeologan Magic

This is an extract from: Byzantine Magic edited by Henry Maguire.

One of the most striking and encouraging things about the study of magic in the Palaeologan period, as compared to some of the earlier phases of Byzantine history, is the fact that there seems to be, relatively speaking, an abundance of riches here. The great advantage of this is that it enables us to gain, in some measure at least, an overview of the greatrange and variety that clearly existed in the Byzantine magical spectrum. We are not confined to isolated and indistinct pieces of evidence which, although fascinating and revealing in themselves, are often incapable of doing more than providing the basis for scholarly speculation.