Medieval Curses: How to Ruin Your Enemy’s Life with a Turnip and a Prayer

The Surprisingly Real World of Medieval Magic and Petty Revenge

Forget sleek spellbooks and wand duels. In the Middle Ages, cursing your enemies was often as low-tech as a carved wax figure, a muttered prayer, and maybe… a stolen chicken bone.

Medieval Europe was teeming with everyday magic — folk rituals, curses, hexes, and protection charms — used not just by witches or clergy, but by your average peasant with a grudge.

Cursing was both a spiritual act and a practical tool. Couldn’t afford a lawyer? Call on St. Cyprian. Suspect your neighbor stole your firewood? Bury a doll under their doorstep.

From love spells to livestock sabotage, these “low magic” acts were part of real daily life, and sometimes landed people in court — especially if the curses actually seemed to work.

What Did a Medieval Curse Actually Look Like?

✍️ The Language of Hexes

Medieval curses weren’t vague. They were wildly specific, often calling down disease, madness, impotence, or divine justice. Some examples from court records and grimoires:

“May worms eat your tongue, and demons drag your bones to hell.”
“May your beer turn sour in your belly, and your sheep birth no lambs.”
“May St. Peter close the gates of Heaven to you and yours.”

These weren’t metaphorical — people meant them literally. They were sometimes written out, buried, or even nailed to church doors.

🕯️ Common Tools of the Cursing Trade

• Wax figures or poppets: Representing the victim, pierced with pins or melted.
• Herbs: Like hemlock, mandrake, or henbane — used in ritual “curse bundles.”
• Dirt or hair: Personal items made the spell more effective.
• Turnips: Yep. Hollowed, carved, and used like dolls. Cheap and plentiful.

Some curses were delivered with an incantation, others with a symbolic act (like turning your back and spitting three times). Written “curse tablets” were sometimes thrown into wells or nailed inside barns.

The Church’s Complicated Relationship with Magic

🛑 Forbidden… but Familiar

The Catholic Church officially condemned cursing and magic. But parishioners still mixed Christianity and folk magic, often invoking saints or using holy water in their rituals. Some monks even moonlighted as healers — or lowkey hexers.

In fact, many curses in surviving texts beg God or the saints to carry out the revenge. A typical example might read:

“O Lord, blind his horse and rot his barley for the wrong he hath done.”

This made curses spiritually defensible, if not totally legal.

Protective magic was just as common as curses. People buried witch bottles under thresholds or hearths, believing the mix of pins and herbs would ward off harmful spells.

But when crops failed or neighbors sickened, suspicion often fell on the person thought to be dabbling in such practices.

⚖️ When a Curse Lands You in Court

Sometimes curses worked a little too well. A man’s crops would fail, a woman would lose a child, or livestock would drop dead — and suddenly, everyone remembered that one angry neighbor muttering outside their door last week.

In 14th-century France, a woman named Margot de la Barre was tried after three neighbors she’d cursed with “sour milk and shriveled loins” all fell mysteriously ill. She confessed under pressure and was executed.

In England, a 1324 case involved Alice Kyteler, accused of killing her husband with magical powders and invoking demons. She was one of the first people in Europe to be tried for witchcraft. (Her maid was flogged and burned.)

Not All Curses Were Evil

🕊️ Protection Magic and Defensive Hexes

People also used “blessing magic” to ward off the evil eye, protect cattle, or safeguard childbirth. Some farmers would:

• Sprinkle salt and ash in doorways
• Hide iron nails under cribs
• Sew written prayers into children’s clothing

These were considered “white magic” — tolerated unless they failed, in which case suspicion bloomed.

✝️ Saints as Spiritual Enforcers

Medieval people often outsourced vengeance to saints. Saint Wilgefortis, a bearded woman saint (yes, really), was invoked by scorned wives. Saint Apollonia was called on to curse someone’s teeth.

You could pay a monk to pray a justice-themed psalm for your enemies daily. Divine justice — with a service fee.

So… Did the Curses Actually Work?

From our modern view, probably not. But in a world with no germ theory, no legal recourse, and a sky full of omens, curses made a kind of sense. If your cow died or your child got sick, it was easier to blame a rival’s evil eye than admit it was chance. Belief alone made curses powerful.

And let’s be honest: sometimes the placebo effect (or fear of retaliation) did make people sick, anxious, or full of regret. One German bishop in the 1200s outlawed cursing because “the common man believes it more than the laws of God.”

Final Thoughts: Medieval Curses as Catharsis

Medieval curses weren’t always about cruelty. They were a form of expression — poetic, dramatic, spiritual justice for the powerless. In a world full of injustice, a well-placed curse gave people a sense of control.

Even if it was just a turnip under a pillow.

Sources

British Library Manuscript Blog
https://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2019/10/cursing-in-the-middle-ages.html

History Today
https://www.historytoday.com/archive/witchcraft-and-magic-medieval-europe

Oxford Reference – Cursing in Folklore
https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095608970

Witchcraft and Magic in Europe: The Middle Ages (Book)
https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9780485891043