[MUSIC] During the first medieval centuries, the new Christian authorities would try to convince people to abandon their magical beliefs and practices, often portrayed as pagan superstitions. The ecclesiastical elites condemned superstition repeatedly in their councils and in their pastoral works, while the Christian rulers promulgated their own legislation against such beliefs and practices among their subjects. This kind of sources are precious for us historians, since they describe, while condemning them, the different kinds of magical activities performed at that time. When we dive into those sources, magic usually comes to the surface. We can find legal ordinances against those who perform acts of divination in order to predict the future or to unravel the fate of kings and their subjects. The sources call them <i>divini</i>, or <i>divinatores</i>. This is clairvoyants or diviners, and condemn those who consulted them. We also find condemnations against those who could influence the weather, the so-called <i>tempestarii</i>, considered capable of controlling thunder and lightning through magical incantations. Other sources mention the so called necromancers from greek <i>necros</i>, the dead, and <i>manteia</i>, divination. Thus, the people capable of mediating with the dead in order to get some answers or even to provoke evil among the living. The dangerous nature of premonitory dreams is also attested to in the sources, as well as the diabolical nature of the magical rituals performed by the <i>magi</i> or the <i>sortilegi</i>. This is, the sorcerers and sorceresses, to whom people used to go to with the aim of avoiding bad fortune, seeking counsel about future endeavors, healing sickness, and attracting or preventing another person's love. Many of those anti-superstition laws were aimed against women, mostly for performing a wide range of magical activities, mostly healing practices, with herbs, potions, magical knots, charms, and amulets. Apart from the magicians themselves, many sources condemned those who consult them or seek their assistance. They also legislate against common magical practices performed by most of the folk, such as believing in the influence of stars and planets, composing or wearing amulets and written formulas, performing some magical rituals on trees, water sources, or graves, believing in spiritual figures such as fairies or nocturnal armies, and leaving them food and drink during the night, using magical rituals to protect children or cattle, and a long etcetera. Despite the efforts shown by some ecclesiastical authorities, the wide range of magical activities performed by our medieval ancestors keep appearing in the sources throughout all the Middle Ages. That fact shows their deep rooting among people and also the difficulty experienced by Christian authorities in their aim to eradicate them. We will see an example taken from the 14th-century series of pastoral visitations carried out in the principality of Catalonia, the head of the Iberian Crown of Aragon. For those who do not know, pastoral visitations were a common practice at that time in many Christian territories. They consisted in the annual inspection of the parishes carried out by their bishops. During those inspections, the bishops or their envoys asked the people and the local priests about the state of the cult among them and the behavior of the parishioners. Did they follow the church rules, or were they quarrelsome, adulterous, blasphemous or even superstitious? Let's see what did those Catalan parishioners answer during those 14th-century visitations. In 1310 during the pastoral visit of the diocese of Barcelona, people were asked about the presence of sorcerers and diviners among their parish. The neighbors of the village of Badalona, a village near to Barcelona, told the bishop that a woman called Nadala was <i>divinatrix et sortilega</i>, and that people used to go to her for different purposes, and that she performed her incantations with a strap, and also with enchanting symbols carved in the soil. The original document says, <i>facit coniurationes suas <i>cum corrigia et in terra cum signis coniuratoribus</i>. In other the villages the neighbors informed about women, often called <i>sortilegas</i>, <i>divinatrices</i> or <i>coniuratrices, that is, sorcerers, diviners, and conjurers. Women that made some kind of sorcery with bread, wheat grains, knives, herbs, or stones, and that were capable of binding the souls of men and women, of healing sickness, enchanting animals, curing or preventing the evil eye and other bad spells, predicting the future or finding lost objects through some magical rituals, and even wandering by night what some female spirits, commonly known as "the good ladies", the fairies of the night. All those magical activities had been condemned by ecclesiastical laws since the first medieval centuries. And still, the pastoral visitations from the late Middle Ages showed a deep rooting among people who used to turn to those <i>sortilegas</i>, <i>divinatrices</i> and <i>coniuiratrices in order to cure the illnesses for those of the family and cattle, to solve a love or sexual problems and to recover lost objects or stolen goods. Nevertheless the attempts to change people's attitude towards magic, would begin to payoff at the end of the medieval times. The reasons? Mainly two. The renovated evangelization efforts undertaken by the Church, and the emergence of neo-scientific and theological paradigms issued by medieval universities. [MUSIC]