Faire société avec les démons ? Le magicien et la question du pacte aux derniers siècles du Moyen Âge

Abstract

This paper intends to confront the theology of

the magic pact with demons such as it is defined in the

XIVth century by the inquisitor Nicholas Eymerich – one

of the best advocates of the qualification of magic as heresy

– with the way the contemporary texts of ritual magic

defined for their part the relationship between the magician

and the devils. Indeed, the magic books that

Eymerich seems to know quite well give to see a much

more complex reality that the manichean vision of the

theologians between the demonic worship of the apostate

magician and the divine worship of the christian believer.

The magician who adresses the devils by words and signs

is the initiator of a true pact with God, who is the only

One who can delegate to him the potestas ligandi necessary

to subdue the evil spirits. This pact is based on his

faith and on his spiritual purity. But at the same time, and

without systematic mind, he turns to practices, such as the

sacrifices, which draw a more ambivalent relationship

with the spirits and seem de facto to define a kind of secondary

pact. Obviously, this type of practices could only

feed the traditional negative vision of magic shared by the

theologians and the inquisitors at the end of the Middle

Ages.