Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: The so-called King Władysław III of Poland’s Prayer Book from the 15th century, found in the Bodleian Library in Oxford, is probably the only preserved relic in European literature which is a combination of a prayer book and a book of magic used for crystallomancy i.e. divination by crystal gazing. The analysis of the prayer book in this paper is supposed to show how the spells included in the prayers function, thus introducing the magical nature of that book, the significance of magical objects, and define the way of combining magical elements with a religious attitude (“white magic”).
Author: Maciej Włodarski
Language: English
Subfield: Archeology
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W4406177933