Early medieval charms invoke the service of the Visitation of the Sick through the use of liturgical elements central to that rite, as Chapter 4 argues. Charms import the singing of psalms, sprinkling of holy water, praying of anointing and healing formulas, imposing of hands, anointing of the body, and the chanting of antiphons and litanies. Once present in charms, these and other sacred practices serve as indices of the Visitation of the Sick. When allusions to the Visitatio Infirmorum are successfully recognized or evoked, charms invoke the liturgy. Because recognition proves crucial, the question of charm participants’ familiarity with the Visitation of the Sick leads us to assess the resonance of Visitatio references through the construct of a continuum. At one end we find charms containing references to the Visitation of the Sick that seem subtle in light of their brevity or context. At the opposite end we find charms with numerous, lengthy utterances based in the sacramental rite. Over all, associations with Christ’s healing and liturgical Unction are meant to transform faithful charm participants in their time of need.

Liturgical prayer plays a significant role in Anglo-Saxon healing remedies. It is not, contrary to recent studies on prayer, “relatively rare in medical remedies” (Thomas 2020: 224). Chapter 1, “Invoking Baptism,” argues that charms borrow crucial verbal and physical components of the baptismal liturgy in order to invoke the sacrament and its celebration. The most vital of the texts gathered as incantations is the Creed, which lies at the foundation of Baptism. Alongside the Creed appears the Pater Noster, anti-demonic utterances and exorcistic gestures, water and its use for washing, and the Sign of the Cross or Triune blessing. The allusive force of these liturgical artifacts is clear and strong enough, especially when they act as a collective, to evoke the liturgy. The act of recalling the liturgy within the performance arena results in the summoning of the liturgy’s power as a force for healing. Through the manipulation of baptismal forms, charms translate Baptism’s ability to heal the soul into the ability to heal the body. While charms do not exorcize the devil or baptize people in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, as is done at Baptism, the sacrament is so essential to the people’s spiritual welfare that healers harness its associations and apply them medicinally in traditional remedies.

Chapter 4 focuses on the dynamics whereby God rejects Saul as king, including the pressures on Saul, the mistakes he makes, the way David emerges on the scene as Saul’s potential replacement, and the relationships and dynamics in the royal family.

The complex interaction of different Christian systems created a series of uncertainties: about how to coordinate different ritual systems (e.g. baptism and the ritual year), about hierarchy (e.g. relation of the chain of command to status hierarchy), about the relation between the clerical elite and the monastic elite, and about the ritual status of heretics.

The coronation of Louis XIII is generally recognized as a turning point in the history of dynastic continuity. Just hours after his father Henri IV was assassinated, Louis was proclaimed king; this chapter describes, therefore, how Louis XIII’s coronation some weeks later was concerned, for the first time, with more than just marking his accession to the throne. Instead, a complex series of ceremonies reinforced the idea that, like David, Louis acted as an agent of the Holy Spirit. At a ceremony the day before the coronation, he received the sacrament of confirmation at Vespers of the Holy Spirit. During the coronation ceremony itself, he was anointed with oil brought down from heaven by the dove of the Holy Spirit and celebrated the Mass of the Holy Spirit. On the following day, he was inducted as a member and Grand Master of the Knights of the Order of the Holy Spirit. The fiery symbolism of the Holy Spirit found a vivid counterpart in the Phoenix, one of the emblems of the order, understood to reflect the perfect continuity between father and son, and a symbol (along with the flames of the Holy Spirit itself) that underpinned both Louis XIII’s and Louis XIV’s appearances as a fire demon or the sun itself.