In an otherwise illuminating article on the use of dowsing by water companies (Water firms admit they still use ‘medieval’ dowsing rods, 21 November), you refer to dowsing as “a discredited medieval practice”. Additionally, a quotation referring to dowsing as “medieval witchcraft practices” was provided without clarification.
While dowsing is undoubtedly discredited, it is incorrect to describe it as medieval. In fact, records of dowsing do not begin until the 16th century, and its popularity does not appear to have peaked until the 19th and 20th centuries. Although there is no universal system of periodisation in use today, most scholars would distinguish between the medieval and the Renaissance or early modern periods using a cut-off date at some point before the end of the 15th century. Dowsing is evidently a modern phenomenon.
In this article, “medieval” was used as a pejorative and emotive term, rather than a historically accurate one. Doing so allows us to preserve the erroneous idea of modernity as a time of exemplary rationality; the modern existence of pseudoscience, mysticism and religious fundamentalism can be written off conveniently as a medieval bygone. Ironically, inappropriate use of “medieval” is itself an irrational and pseudohistorical practice.
Neville Mogford
PhD candidate in medieval English, Royal Holloway, University of London
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