As such, the blurring of ‘magic’ and science often featured at European courts as something to entertain crowds. Medieval people were not living in constant crippling fear of magic, and magic often featured heavily in chivalric romances – the booming popularity of Arthurian romances that continues even today demonstrates this. Part of the reason magic at court was a dangerous thing to practice was that there was a fine line between acceptable and unacceptable magic, magic that bordered on science, and magic there to entertain. Whilst there is of course substance to some of these ideas (and I have already discussed one case of an alleged royal witch), medieval people at royal courts did enjoy the suspended disbelief of magicians in the same way that we do today.

These people are considered a superstitious bunch, deeply religious, and very suspicious of magic. When people think of the medieval or early modern period, often it conjures images of the witch trials across the western world.

Themed automatrons