The Patristic and Early Medieval Heritage
This chapter argues that the heritage of authoritative texts on superstitions tended to be fragmentary and unsystematic. The early medieval accounts anticipated many of the key principles and arguments of the later medieval analysis, but there was lacking a coherent and agreed ‘demonology’ that would explain how superstitious practices worked and what was wrong with them. That coherent explanation would emerge, in abundance, during the most productive period of medieval scholastic theology.
Keywords: superstition literature, medieval scholastic theology, demonology, superstitious practices
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