Murray, Catriona

Richardson, C.M.

Reynolds, Madeleine

2025-10-10T13:11:35Z

2025-10-10T13:11:35Z

2025-10-10

This dissertation uses material culture methodologies to examine the self-fashioning of Dr John Dee (1527-1609), a renaissance mathematician, philosopher, and court intellectual, who gained the patronage of the Tudor elite and of European royalty. In addition to his academic endeavours, Dee was also known for his magus-like persona, which often acted as a hindrance to the advancement of his scholarly career. Though he died in isolation, rejected from the court of Elizabeth I, and from that of her successor, James I, Dee’s historical legacy of magic, alchemy, and mystery inspired seventeenth-century antiquaries, bibliophiles and scholars to locate and study his immense collection of books, manuscripts, and objects in an attempt to understand the workings of his personal philosophy. This work propelled him into the popular imagination as the archetype of the renaissance magician, a reputation that defined his image until the scholarly reconstruction of his life and career in the twentieth century. Scholarship surrounding Dee has been primarily dependent on text, relying on his written works, diaries, and marginalia, as well as his collection of books and manuscripts to assess his self-fashioning. This thesis builds on that work, although it also brings material culture and materiality to the analysis of Dee’s public persona. My research highlights how Dee employed material languages to promote history, tradition, and prophecy as the foundations of his authority. Through these tools, he underlined his legitimacy and credibility, countering or deterring claims made against him for conjuring. The dissertation is comprised of two chapters focusing on objects made, designed, or acquired by Dee. The first chapter considers a genealogical roll of his own making containing his family tree, and the second analyses a larger collection of ritual objects used in his divinations. I argue that Dee manipulated the ‘memory effects’ of these emotional objects, through his creation, staging, and performances with them. In fact, Dee strove to ‘stimulat[e] the consciousness of the past’ by evoking nostalgia, creating a sense of familiarity and trust in his complex and often enigmatic persona.

https://hdl.handle.net/1842/44059

http://dx.doi.org/10.7488/era/6585

en

The University of Edinburgh

Material culture

Visual culture

John Dee

Occult identity

Self-fashioning

Practical magic: material and visual culture in the fashioning of John Dee’s occult identity (1527-1609)

A practical magic: material and visual culture in the fashioning of John Dee’s occult identity (1527-1609)

Thesis or Dissertation

Masters

MPhil Master of Philosophy