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When it comes to the transmission of medieval verbal charms like the Heavenly Letter, it should be noted that charm scholarship tends to focus on orality.11 _{Studying charms as part of an oral tradition is not at all}

unjustified. After all, the semantic domain of charms partly overlaps with the domain of song, sound and singing; the word ‘charm’ itself ultimately originates from Latin carmen – ‘song’. Many of the charms in Anglo- Saxon sources make this link between charm and song explicit by introducing the charm as galdor, which can refer to ‘song’ as well as ‘incantation’ in a wider sense.12 _{The Caligula Heavenly Letter charm, for}

example, states that it can be sung, in church, on one’s deathbed, or over butter that should then be rubbed on the body. The often

ceremonial language – whether religious or arcane – of verbal charms makes them suitable for performance in a ritualistic setting, with the user of the charm singing or chanting certain words, irrespective of the language or origin of the words. However, as Heavenly Letter charms emphasize their materiality, it could be that they do not logically fall into the category of charms addressed in the many studies that deal with the orality of these texts. The letter itself – the charm proper – represents a

11 _{E.g., Leslie K. Arnovick, Written Reliquaries: The Resonance of Orality in Medieval English}

Texts, Pragmatics & Beyond n.s. 153 (Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2006);

Roper, English Verbal Charms; Lea T. Olsan, “Latin Charms of Medieval England: Verbal Healing in a Christian Oral Tradition,” Oral Tradition 7 (1992): 116-42.

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combination of the written words or drawn images that make up the contents of the letter on the one hand and the material carrier on which they appear on the other. Contents and carrier were produced in heaven or at least by a divine entity and then transported to an earthly recipient. Heavenly Letters are therefore, by definition, physical objects that require a visible text or image of some form. Written transmission has, in that sense, been a prerequisite for the survival of any medieval charm, but of Heavenly Letter charms in particular.

Aside from being transmitted as original parts of different kinds of material carriers, Heavenly Letters as well as other charms also feature as later additions that were not originally part of the contents of these carriers. This is witnessed in composite manuscripts, for instance, which frequently contain blank spaces where a text or set of texts ends if this text boundary does not coincide with a quire boundary. These blank spaces could be considered a by-product of the division of a book into booklets. Blank folios also occur in the form of flyleaves, and blank spaces may follow texts even if they are not at the end of a quire. Of course, the scribe could choose to cut away empty folios,13 _{but if the}

empty folios were kept in the book or if a folio was only partially empty, the blank spaces could also be filled at another point in time with other texts that were not originally meant to appear in that particular location. Another way by which charms enter medieval books is in the form of marginalia.14 _{Logically, space plays a role here just as it does for charms}

added to the ends of folios or quires: if the margins around a text are large enough, the addition of marginalia becomes possible and perhaps even obvious. The function of marginalia, however, is not easily

established. Even though they do not appear to be random additions, they certainly do not have the same prominence as the central texts

13 _{Pamela R. Robinson, “Self-Contained Units in Composite Manuscripts of the Anglo-Saxon}

Period,” Anglo-Saxon England 7 (1978): 232-33.

14 _{E.g., Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, c.1400-}

c.1580, 2nd _{ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005), 276; T. M. Smallwood, “The}

Transmission of Charms in English, Medieval and Modern,” in Charms and Charming in

Europe, ed. J. Roper (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 17; Lea Olsan, “The

Marginality of Charms in Medieval England,” in The Power of Words: Studies on Charms and

Charming in Europe, ed. J. Kapaló, É. Pócs and W. Ryan (Budapest, New York: Central

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around which they appear. This may suggest that charms and other texts were written down in the margins for later reference or perhaps even for later recopying.15 _{Heavenly Letter charms are not often encountered as}

marginalia. This is perhaps because they are relatively long, consisting of an introduction and a charm proper. Their length, especially if they were combined with an illustration, would not allow these charms to be written down in the confined space of a margin.

Chapter 5 focuses on the material context of charms by investigating how books differ from rolls as carriers of charms. The essential difference between medieval books and rolls as carriers of charms appears to lie in the kind of unity they constitute. A roll featuring charms like the one described in chapter 5 was probably used integrally as a physical protective device, making it the epitome of a functional unity: the whole of its contents combined with the physical writing surface of the roll itself is what defines the use of the roll. A book can certainly also make up a thematic unity, but the functional combination of contents and materiality is not as strongly present. Instead, books containing charms were more likely to have functioned as storehouses of information in a less physical sense. The texts, including the charms, could be consulted separately, and were also more likely to be perceived as such. This would explain why added and deleted texts are more

commonly found in books than on rolls. The intensity of the usage of rolls, especially amulet rolls that were worn on the body, could be one of the reasons why relatively few medieval rolls survive. Ultimately, it was not the carrier that selected the charm, nor was it the charm that selected the carrier. It was an individual’s purpose that determined whether and how a charm was to become part of the contents of a particular material carrier.

Finally, chapters 4, 5, and 6 demonstrate how studying individual charms in their material and textual context leads to better

understanding of the way charms were used and perceived. If an introduction to a charm in a prayer book is crossed out, for example, as

15 _{Sarah L. Keefer, “Margin as Archive: The Liturgical Marginalia of a Manuscript of the Old}

English Bede,” Traditio 51 (1996): 147-77; Peter Dendle, “Textual Transmission of the Old English “Loss of Cattle” Charm,” The Journal of English and Germanic Philology 105.4 (2006): 514-39.

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in one of the charms discussed in chapter 5, this gives rise to the idea that some unease about the use of charms persisted throughout the Middle Ages. The charm discussed in chapter 4, in turn, raises questions about how a charm relates to its neighbouring texts. The more detailed description in chapter 6 of the manuscript featuring that same charm proves how less lavish, awe-inspiring books can offer valuable insights into late medieval lay devotional culture – not only by examining their production and use in the Middle Ages, but certainly also by taking into account their use by later owners.