Conversations with Angels: Essays Towards a History of Spiritual Communication, 1100–1700

357 Pages·2011·3.2 MB·English

by  Joad Raymond (eds.)

Conversations with Angels
Also by Joad Raymond
MAKING THE NEWS: An Anthology of the Newsbooks of Revolutionary England
1641–1660 (edited) (1993)
THE INVENTION OF THE NEWSPAPER: English Newsbooks, 1641–1649 (1996;
2005)
NEWS, NEWSPAPERS AND SOCIETY IN EARLY MODERN BRITAIN (edited) (1999)
MILTON AND THE TERMS OF LIBERTY (edited with Graham Parry) (2002)
PAMPHLETS AND PAMPHLETEERING IN EARLY MODERN BRITAIN (2003)
NEWS NETWORKS IN SEVENTEENTH CENTURY BRITAIN AND EUROPE (edited)
(2006)
MILTON’S ANGELS: The Early-Modern Imagination (2010)
THE OXFORD HISTORY OF POPULAR PRINT CULTURE: Volume one: CHEAP PRINT
IN BRITAIN AND IRELAND TO 1660 (edited) (2011)
Conversations with Angels
Essays Towards a History of Spiritual
Communication, 1100–1700
Edited by
Joad Raymond
Professor of English Literature, University of East Anglia, UK
Selection and editorial content © Joad Raymond 2011
Individual chapters © Contributors 2011
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2011 978-0-230-55203-6
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First published 2011 by
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ISBN 978-1-349-36260-8 ISBN 978-0-230-31697-3 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780230316973
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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Conversations with angels : essays towards a history of spiritual
communication, 1100–1700 / [edited by] Joad Raymond.
p. cm.
Includes index.
1. Angels –Christianity – Early works to 1800. 2. Spiritual life – Christianity.
3. Communication – Religious aspects – Christianity. 4. Angels in popular
culture. 5. Angels in literature. I. Raymond, Joad.
BT965.C66 2011
235′.30902—dc23 2011013816
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11
Contents
List of Illustrations vii
Acknowledgements ix
Notes on Contributors xi
1 Introduction 1
Joad Raymond
Part I Natural Philosophy
2 Strategies of Interspecies Communication, 1100–2000 25
Walter Stephens
3 Angels and the Physics of Place in the Early Fourteenth Century 49
James Steven Byrne
4 Galileian Angels 67
Nick Wilding
5 Newtonian Angels 90
Simon Schaffer
Part II Magic
6 Speaking with Spirits in Medieval Magic Texts 125
Sophie Page
7 F alse Illuding Spirits & Cownterfeiting Deuills:
John Dee’s Angelic Conversations and Religious Anxiety 150
Stephen Clucas
8 ‘ Behold, the dreamer cometh’: Hyperphysical Magic and
Deific Visions in an Early Modern Theosophical Lab-Oratory 175
Peter J. Forshaw
Part III Representation
9 S inging with the Angels: Hildegard of Bingen’s
Representations of Celestial Music 203
William T. Flynn
10 ‘And the angel said ...’: Conversations with Angels in
Early Modern Music 230
Jessie Ann Owens
v
vi Contents
11 Athanasius Kircher’s Guardian Angel 250
Ingrid D. Rowland
Part IV Reformations
12 Catholic Reformation and the Cult of Angels in
Early Modern England 273
Alexandra Walsham
13 The Guardian Angel in Protestant England 295
Peter Marshall
14 Radicalism and Mysticism in the Later Seventeenth Century:
John Pordage’s Angels 317
Joad Raymond
Index 341
Illustrations
1.1 A manuscript of solomonic magic, giving instructions on
how to summon an angel. University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign, uncatalogued manuscript, ‘Crafte of
Cunjureynge’. 12
4.1 Asterism of the belt and sword of Orion, Sidereus Nuncius
(Tommaso Baglioni, Venice, 1610), unnumbered, sig. D5v.
Reproduced with permission from Linda Hall Library of
Science, Engineering and Technology. 75
4.2 A sterism of the belt and sword of Orion (mislabelled as Pleiades),
Sidereus Nuncius (Zacharias Palthenius, Frankfurt, 1610),
unnumbered, sig. B9v. Reproduced with permission from Linda
Hall Library of Science, Engineering and Technology. 76
4.3 P ortrait of Galileo, Istorie e dimonstrazione intorno alle macchie
solare. Reproduced with permission from the Museo Galileo. 78
4.4 Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Saint Matthew with
the Angel. Oil on canvas, 223 x 183 cm. Inv. 365.
Gemaeldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Germany.
Reproduced with permission from Bildarchiv Preussischer
Kulturbesitz/Art Resource, NY. 82
4.5 Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Saint Matthew and the
Angel. S. Luigi dei Francesi, Rome, Italy. Reproduced with
permission from Scala/Art Resource, NY. 83
5.1 William Blake: design for Edward Young, Night Thoughts,
Night the Ninth, lines 1866–1869. Reproduced with permission
from the British Library. 91
5.2 George Bickham, The apotheosis of Isaac Newton, first
published 1732, republished in this version in 1787. 96
5.3 Daniel Defoe, Refléxions sérieuses et importantes de Robinson
Crusoe: suivi d’une vision du monde angélique. Amsterdam
(i.e., Paris), 1721. 104
5.4 William Whiston, Scheme of the Seven Heavens (?1745).
University Library Cambridge, 1.48.25. 114
7.1 Dee’s ‘Shew’stone’, mounted on a wooden cradle.
British Library, Sloane MS 3188, f. 9r. 153
7.2 The ‘Enochian’ or ‘angelic’ alphabet. British Library,
Sloane MS 3188, f. 104r. 155
7.3 The ‘Heptagonum stellare’: one of Dee’s talismanic
‘instruments’. British Library, Sloane MS 3188, f. 48v. 156
vii
viii List of Illustrations
7.4 O ne of the angelic ‘Kings’ who governs ‘enchanters,
Coniurers, witches [and] wicked spirites’. British Library,
Sloane MS 3188, f. 57r. Courtesy of the trustees of the
British Library. 167
8.1 O ratory-Laboratory engraving from Heinrich Khunrath,
Amphitheatrum Sapientiae Aeternae. By courtesy of the
Department of Special Collections, University of
Wisconsin-Madison. 176
8.2 Painting from British Library Sloane Ms. 181 ‘Tabulae
Theosophiae Cabbalisticae’. Courtesy of the trustees of
the British Library. 184
10.1 Text and Performing Forces in Rosso, Missus
est Gabriel angelus 235
10.2 Antiphons in Regis, Missa Ecce ancilla 236
10.3 J uxtaposition of Antiphons and Mass Ordinary
in Regis, Missa Ecce ancilla, Credo 239
10.4 Placement of Cantus firmus in Relation to the Gospel 242
10.5 ‘Tota pulchra es’ as a Refrain 243
10.6 ‘Total pulchra es’ as a Descant 243
11.1 Pietro da Cortona, painting of two guardian angels,
Palazzo Barberini, Rome 251
11.2 Athanasius Kircher, Itinerarium Extaticum Coeleste 259
Acknowledgements
This volume began life with a conference entitled Conversations with Angels,
held at the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities at
Cambridge University from 9 to 10 September 2005. The conference was
supported by, and would not have taken place without, awards from the
British Academy and from CRASSH, and I gratefully acknowledge them
here. I co-ran that conference with Lauren Kassell in the Department of
the History and Philosophy of Science at Cambridge. I would like to thank
Lauren, who was also involved in the early stages of editing this volume:
regrettably she withdrew to focus on other commitments. Thanks also
to Professor Ludmilla Jordanova, the Director of CRASSH, for her help in
organizing the conference, and for her contributions to discussions, and
to Catherine Hurley, CRASSH administrator, for her unfailing assistance.
Other speakers and respondents not represented in this volume helped
make the conference a stimulating event: they are Stuart Clark, Catherine
Rider, Juliet Fleming, Anthony Grafton, Kate Harvey and Frank Klaassen. I
would also like to thank those who attended the conference and contrib-
uted to its intellectual culture as well as its spirit. Ruth Ireland, my editor
at Palgrave Macmillan, has been very patient; I hope the wait was worth it.
My father, Pete Raymond, supplied the original artwork on the cover, ‘Light
and Dark Angels’.
Joad Raymond
Swaffham Prior, April 2011