Response To Birgit Wiedl's Article Magic For Daily Use And Profit

Samantha Schott- Tutorial #5

ML101

Dr. Renée Ward

November 6th, 2014

Birgit Wiedl’s article Magic for Daily Use and Profit explores the ideas of religion based magic, potion making, herbology, spells, divination, and love potions in both the Muggle and wizarding world. According to Wiedl, magic is vital in the wizarding and Muggle world, the main difference is how the Middle Ages treated magic. Throughout Wiedl’s article she argues that magic in the Muggle world was a learned tradition but was important to the daily lives of medieval society. This review will focus on how magic is used on a daily basis and how convincing Wiedl is at proving her thesis that magic is important to the Middle Ages and the Wizarding world although it was a

problematic subject for the Middle Ages.
Wiedl’s article starts out the same way as Harry Potter’s wizarding life began, by learning what it meant by the word magic.

This definition is not as simple and continues to define what magic was through six main ideas concerning the ideas as stated previously. Wiedl uses both medieval anecdotes and examples from Harry Potter to support her idea that magic was a daily occurrence in both worlds. The use of this makes the article seem much more credible since ideas are presented through historical anecdotes, therefore making the article seem more historical than persuasive. With every argument Wiedl finds evidence from both sources with ease and connects them to each other to create a well executed idea. When the wizarding world’s opinion of magic differs from the Muggle world she explains each side clearly and outlines the opposing ideas. She uses clear language and uses straightforward explanations to convey her thesis. Since she uses such diction it is more appealing to a wider variety of readers who many not know much about one of the subject worlds. She also makes Harry Potter characters, characters of her own in her

article:
However much Hermione might turn up her nose at Trelawney’s somewhat eccentric ways of teaching . . . medieval and Early Modern soothsayers would not have gotten their medieval equivalent of knickers in a twist over things as harmless as tea leaves that formed the shape of a dog. (Wiedl 25)
This mesh of the two cultures makes readers draw connections between the Muggle and the Wizarding world. By distancing Trelawney as almost too eccentric by medieval standards it nullifies the modern perception of medieval times being enraged at the idea of magic. This is effective because we can imagine Hermione beside medieval soothsayers critiquing Trelawney’s way of seeing the future. It is at points like this in this article when Wiedl successfully bridges the gaps between the Muggle and wizarding world and allows us to see that the both are similar in the fact that magic was used regularly.
Each medieval example Wiedl uses contributes to her thesis that magic was central to medieval society while adding that it affected all levels of the class system and at certain points made things problematic.

As Wiedl explains even the Christian church in the Middle Ages could not separate where “religion ended and magic began” (12). Daily magic was used to be practical and was suppose to help those who needed to be helped. Since there were no regulations of what magic was it became an increasing problem to define it. As Wiedl remarks, what one person would deem as religious may be deemed as magic to another. As magic became more widespread the word magic was not under the control of anyone and was up the Church to decide if intervention was necessary. Wiedl uses love potions as a specific example and remarks that love magic was often over looked by much of the medieval society because it was not truly dark magic. Most often women were only “vulnerable to this accusation” when women “rose to a higher social status through marriage or concubinage” (31). This is important because we see that magic is affecting all levels of the social hierarchy in medieval times. It raises the question of what is dangerous magic and how should Muggles respond. When the lower class is using the magic it is not a threat but when there is social gain there seems to be a problem. Although it was a problem, the use of love potions is never truly looked into and if passed off as not a

large threat to medieval society. The lack of response shows that magic was of a daily occurrence and not uncommon and could be dealt with when it imposed no real threat to most of the society.
However credible Wiedl’s argument about daily use of magic, she slightly falters on the idea that magical words and spells must be verbally pronounced. In the beginning of the Harry Potter series we do see that spells must be spoken for them to work but as the series progresses we see less spoken spells. A notable example of this is in the Order of the Phoenix when Albus Dumbledore and Voldemort are dueling at the Ministry of Magic. Neither wizard makes any verbal sounds when conjuring spells but they both use spells against each other (Rowling OP). Throughout the series we can see that dueling spells are no longer verbally pronounced and sheer concentration is sufficient enough for spell conjuring. This slight overlook draws away the article because it spell dueling is a vital part to the Harry Potter series. Although Wiedl presents the idea that blessings and magical rituals were dependent on the pronunciation may be true for medieval magical practice but it is not true for the final installments of the Harry Potter series.
On the other hand, she does point out that the wizarding world heavily draws from medieval world, especially when it comes to potion making. Since potion making is the main medical practice Wiedl argues that Muggles would define that cauldron brewing would define the witch. This is a smart choice of words and eliminates the counter argument of the importance of the cauldron in the Wizarding world. Throughout this article her choice in words often eliminates the validity of counter arguments. Her word choice does not allow for large gaps to form and only upon closer examinations can a reader find a loophole.
Throughout this article Wiedl is convincing in her thesis that magic was of a daily use in the medieval world and the wizarding world. With a balance of both source materials Wiedl is successful in conveying the idea that magic was of daily use in the Middle Ages. Although slight doubt arose while reading this article the ease and style of it makes its strengths outweigh its weaknesses. The development makes it apparent that medieval life had just as much magic in its daily business as the wizarding world.

Word Count: 1,134