A first-person account from off the beaten track, as told to Anne Ford.
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“Or if you had a lover who decided to marry somebody else, there are magical techniques you could use to make the new spouse impotent or infertile. There were also people who used magical formulas to conjure demons. That was much more frowned upon.
“The people who are using that kind of magic are chiefly clergy. There were clergy misbehaving in the Middle Ages, just as there are some clergy misbehaving today. In the Middle Ages, exorcism and conjuration meant basically the same thing. If you were a priest authorized to get rid of demons, that’s one thing, but if you were conjuring demons to kill people or drive them mad or learn about the future or find out who stole your money, that was not approved.
