Prologue and acknowledgements:

This is not by any means the original reading of this matter to have been posted here on the site. To be sure, the current version has been in development along the same trajectory for the past few years, but it has been a long, and sometimes strange trip.

Soon after the site’s major comprehensive redesign (even then not the original version of the site) was uploaded at the end of April 2004, I found myself directed to two excellent theory/analysis sites by other people, JK Rowling gave us fairly major interview (Edinburgh Book Festival, August 2004) and I stumbled across a perfectly splendid little gem of a hypothetical pivotal incident for the possible history of the Potterverse tucked away in the backstory of a fanfic (beautifully scaled and impeccably placed). The fanfic, ‘The Prefect’s Portrait’, is now to be found in the Publications area of the site.

After taking all of these new pieces of information under consideration, the earlier iteration of this overview seemed no longer even remotely adequate. I realized that some fairly major retrofitting was in order.

More recently, I am also further indebted to a LiveJournal user whose online name is Sollersuk for her corrections to a number of the statements made in the older versions of the collection regarding the history of the classical period and later antiquity depicted here and in the companion piece ‘The History of Magic’.

Therefore, this. Which is in the way of being about version 10.5 of my rendering of a projected backstory of the development of the social history of the Potterverse. In it, I am attempting to return to this world the history that Rowling excised.

This article eventually needed to be split into two parts, since it had gotten much too long to really be able to edit effectively in GoLive. A division has been made at the point of the establishment of statutory Wizarding Secrecy and the withdrawal of the wizarding world from greater Western human society. Which seemed an appropriate place for it.

I. On the Perception of Magic in Human Society:

One thing that is necessary for us to keep reminding ourselves is that the Potterverse is not really a representation of our own world. In our world, there is no functioning system of Magic. Such an element would produce sweeping changes.

However, that the Muggle society shown in the background throughout the Harry Potter series is so similar to our own appears to be a clear indication that the development of the state of society envisioned for the late 20th century Potterverse could, and perhaps should reasonably be assumed to have developed along roughly parallel lines to ours, even in the face of Rowling’s up-ending of much of Western history, which would in the normal way of things totally preclude any such development. Consequently, in attempting to extrapolate an historical background for the Potterverse, it is both reasonable and irresistible to try to base it upon the generalities of the historical development of our own society.

Our own Western-style, English-speaking society, that is. What we have been shown of the Potterverse is unapologetically Euro-centric, in fact, quite literally Anglo-centric. Which in itself is bound to have incorporated at least some distortion of its underlying truths. It stands to reason that not all wizards in the Potterverse are British.

Rowling has stated in her joint interview with the founders of Mugglenet.com and TheLeakyCaldron.com in the summer of 2005, after the release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, that she envisions the Potterverse as taking place in parallel to our own. Although from what we have been shown in the text as of the release of HBP, the parallel was far from exact.

Socially speaking; in the Potterverse, wizards and Muggles clearly lived together pretty much cheek by jowl for most of human history, and continue to do so however unacknowledged this fact may be. It is only over the last 300–400 years that there has there been any more-or-less enforced separation between the magical and mundane societies. It was only some 299 years prior to our first introduction to 10-year-old Harry Potter that it became unlawful for a wizard to live out among Muggles as a wizard. (It should be noted that for no as yet clear reason, the date of the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy, formerly stated as 1692, was, in DHs arbitrarily shifted to 1689. The reason for this change has not been given.)

For that matter, it gradually becomes apparent to the reader that this separation not only pertains chiefly, in fact, perhaps only to Europe and nations whose governing bodies were originally European settlements, but that this separation is far less total than it first appears, given that even some such uncompromisingly wizardly types as Mad-Eye Moody lived in close enough proximity to Muggles for there to be a great deal of concern about the behavior of his dustbins, and that even the Gaunt’s hovel was accessible to anyone who chose to go there. The existence of such portals as the barrier on Platform 9 3/4 in King’s Cross Station and The Leaky Cauldron in London may serve only to lull the wizarding public into the belief that they are somehow safe behind a solid barrier where Muggles cannot find them. But in fact it appears that wizards are far more typically scattered across the Muggle countryside, attempting to hide in plain sight.

However, it is also plain from the statements made by various characters throughout the series, that there has clearly been a faction of wizarding society in Britain which has been determinedly attempting to isolate itself from Muggles since at least the Middle Ages.

I propose that if there was no formal separation between wizard and Muggle in the Potterverse before the end of the 17th century, this is most likely to have been either because the state of magical technology had not yet reached a degree of power and sophistication that would make such a separation possible, or that prior to the fallout of the religious upheaval brought about by the Protestant Reformation in Europe, there was no widely perceived need for it, save in the views of a small isolationist faction of the wizarding population. That, in fact, most known wizards to that date had probably performed an acknowledged and useful function in greater human society, earning their living as magical “professionals”. As was, in fact, the case in our own history.

It is also probably safe to assume that at various periods the lives of wizards and the lives of Muggles would have been closer to one another than at others. And that, in addition, the wizarding community’s own outlook has probably gone through periodic cycles in its level of tolerance for its non-magical neighbors. Or, more probably, that the wizarding community’s tendency to demonize “the other” has periodically shifted from Muggles to other, rival magical species, notably Giants or Goblins.

In Historic times, the two sectors of human society would, at various periods, even have shared their research projects (often, quite possibly, between family members within those families which were neither all magical nor all Muggle). Few of the results from such early periods are likely to be still regarded as significant in the history of the Science of the mundane world. We have no way of determining whether this is also the case regarding magical research. Among Muggles, to whom any magical component is either inaccessible or excessively hazardous, any remnants of such cooperative scholarly research and philosophy would probably only provide historical oddities to modern-day researchers and historians.

****

It practically goes without saying that a historical cycle of periods of assimilation alternating with periods of persecution was probably as widely experienced by wizards as they have been endured by any other group which has been identified as not comprising a part of the “norm”. But until the level of Magical “technology” reached the point that this portion of the population were able to seal themselves off from their neighbors there would have been no escape from at least some level of participation in Muggle society, and much of wizards’ survival would have been dependent upon their ability to “fit in”.

And, for that matter, the specific and widespread “hunting” of witches was quite a late development in European history. Not that witches had not at various times been arrested, condemned, and executed since — at least — the 12th century, for we know this to have been the case. But, prior to the Reformation, these incidents were usually very local affairs and had not necessarily taken place under government sanction.

In contrast to the inflated and misleading statements made in Bagshot’s ‘History of Magic’; in our world, there were no more than about 25 recorded witch executions over the course of the whole 14th century, and witches in England were never burned at any point in English history. They were hanged. And they were typically hanged for conventional criminal offences which were defined as capital crimes at whatever the given point in time. They were usually not prosecuted for merely being witches. It was perfectly legal to be a witch.

But being witches sure didn’t do them any favors in a court of law.

Those incidents in which a magic user ran afoul of the local citizenry would usually have been those cases where a local wizard or witch had managed to set his or her neighbors off into a mob howling for his or her blood. In which case any such mob justice would have generally been undertaken without necessarily having first bothered to assure that such an act had the sanction of either the State or the Church. In our own world’s history, in fact, there is documented evidence of legal sanctions having been taken against the persecution of suspected witches recorded in various European nations during the Middle Ages. It is even more likely that this would have been the case in the Potterverse.

And, indeed, before the Renaissance, the primary concern of the law was to keep order, and the primary concern of the Church was not to destroy witches, but to root out heretics. It was not until the rather advanced date of 1484 that witchcraft was formally declared by a reigning Pope to even be a form of heresy.

Prior to that date, a solitary witch or wizard practicing their craft on their own authority was usually able to fly under the Church’s radar. In most cases it was only those who were more than usually reckless, or vindictive, or who had backed the wrong side politically who drew the Church’s attention to themselves.

This was primarily because the Church’s greatest concern vis-a-vis heretics was that their heretical doctrines might encroach upon its own authority. The early church had little tolerance for competing religions, and the practice of witchcraft and wizardry, once the original pagan nature worships had fallen out of use, was hardly to be regarded in this sense by persons who had simply been born able to channel magical energy. Most witches and wizards were almost certainly regular churchgoers in accordance with the rest of their local communities.

Even the reflection that most of the miracles cited by their priests could have been duplicated with little effort by magic would have only established in the mind-set of wizards that the established Church was also the Church of wizards — who had their own rightful place in it. That one of the House ghosts of Hogwarts Academy is identified as a Friar ought to be indication enough that this was indeed the case. In Britain, the secure, hidden location of Hogwarts Academy (in what was, until the 17th century, a foreign country) would itself have eliminated most of the danger of any witch or wizard instructing the young in their magical studies being perceived to be preaching a doctrine which conflicted with that of the established Church. It could even go some way towards explaining the complete void of religious instruction available at Hogwarts.

Furthermore the traditional option of choosing between an independent life as a professional magic user or entry into the priesthood remained open to wizards throughout most of European history. A choice in which a life dedicated to the Church was often the option taken. Much of the wonder-working for remarkably trivial purpose attributed to the early Celtic saints was exactly the sort of thing that in the Potterverse would have been readily undertaken by wizards. It was widely accepted that for a priest to use magic was perfectly in keeping with his calling, so long as he did no trafficking with demons.

****

The issue of trafficking with demons is another pair of sleeves altogether. And one which really throws the cat among the pigeons. I find myself going out on a limb with yet another unsupported theory at this point. But if it is on target it would explain something of the underlying attitudes toward magic which not only is in keeping with the changing perceptions of our own history as regards Magic, but which would have contributed heavily to the conditions which ultimately drove the wizards of the Potterverse into hiding.

It has blown right past us, thanks in chief to Rowling’s commendable restraint (over the first 6 book, in any case) regarding the presentation of overt dogma and her deliberate choice to only reference the most secularized forms of cultural Christianity in her work, that JK Rowling’s Potterverse does, in fact, admit to the existence of demons.

Nearly a half a dozen of the creatures referenced in ‘Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them’ are clearly identified not merely as beasts, or as monsters, but as *demons*. Water demons in most cases. And in at least one case as rather minor ones. Three of these; the Kappa, the Kelpie, and the Pogrebin appear to be identified as demons because they are identified as demons in the source folklores from which Rowling has clearly imported them. I do not know whether the Grindylow and the Nogtail are also imports from existing folk traditions, but seems very likely that they are.

It is possible that to have imported demons into her world from existing folk traditions without redefining them as something else was merely a lapse of judgement, or a lapse of attention on Ms Rowling’s part that slipped past her when she did it, and that what she is implying about her world by that act was not her intention. But we cannot depend on that having been the case. She confirmed the demonic status of the Grindylow (and possibly the Kappa as well) in the actual text of PoA, so her inclusion of demons may have been quite deliberate. And if it was deliberate, we need to admit the possibility that it was also significant.

None of the specific types of demons encountered in these sources are regarded as particularly intelligent, or they would not be listed in a compendium of Beasts rather than Beings. But a precedent has now been set, and the certain presence of unintelligent demons in a fictional universe is a very poor guarantee for an absence of intelligent ones.

Which, if nothing else, has me looking slantways with more than my usual dismay at the probable nature of Dementors. Although since they evidently breed, they can presumably be killed, which is at least some cause for hope.

But, this whole line of reasoning raises a perfectly appalling consideration regarding psychic activity in humans.

Only persons who are psychically active to at least some degree are able to see and communicate with creatures native to the spirit “plane”. In common parlance this usually translates as the ability to see ghosts. But this may apply to demons as well. (It certainly applies to Dementors.) And if offered something that they want, it is possible that the demons of the Potterverse will indeed be willing to negotiate a bargain with whoever offers them one. And it might not require the ability to actually channel magic in order to do so.

We know that wizards in the Potterverse have no need to traffic with demons in order to perform magic.

We know that at least some Squibs are able to see and communicate with ghosts.

It is my contention, explored in the companion piece entitled ‘Magic & Wizards’ that a great many supposed Muggles are in fact the equivalent of Muggle-born Squibs.

What if a few, a very few, very rare Squibs (either wizarding or Muggle-born) are also able to see and communicate with demons?

A Squib would need demonic assistance in order to perform magic.

And maybe, just maybe, some of them have attempted it.

With just about the results you might expect.

We have been given every reason to believe that in the Potterverse, Merlinus Ambrosius was a real person.

Perhaps so was Dr Johanus Faustus.

Adding demons to the equation opens the likelihood that at least a few wizards over the ages would be sure to have gotten the same bright idea. But the fact that we have heard nothing of demon handling, even among the darkest of Dark wizards suggests that the inability to keep demons under control for any significant amount of time is not a Squib thing, but a human thing. And that it is widely understood in the magical community that trying to bargain with demons is a Really Bad Idea, that no one with a brain in their head would attempt.

Or is it? Just what was the nature of the Ministry’s deal with the Dementors?

****

One thing that we do know, however, is that at a certain point in our own world’s History a long-established understanding that to perform magic is perfectly acceptable so long as there is no traffic with demons involved began to give way to the view that to perform magic was not possible without the assistance of demons.

This shift in the paradigm did not happen overnight but once it was in play, it slowly gathered support as time went on.

And just when did this new perception of the nature of magic begin to take hold in the public perception?

It took hold during what is now referred to as the early Middle Ages.

Right after wizards in the Potterverse had finally figured out the secret of “Light” magic (aka; modern wizardry) and magic had finally become safe to casually indulge in. On top of 1200-1500 years of a documented human history of wizards publicly going rogue and having to be restrained, as often as not. The price of losing oneself in Dark magic had finally earned its inevitable payoff in the hearts and minds of the neighboring Muggles.

Or, in other words, modern wizardry had not been developed a minute too soon. In fact it is arguable as to whether it had already been developed too late. This was also, if you remember, just about the point that four prominent British witches and wizards decided to find an out-of-the-way location and establish a school.

Nothing, of course, was going to serve as a safeguard for a practicing witch or wizard who has managed to get the local Muggles up in arms against them. Nor would it have saved a witch or wizard who too openly made use of their ability to channel magic to meddle in mundane politics. In our world, the “Maid of Orleans” was burned as a heretic (and a witch) in the early 15th century (when the perception that magic is a form of trafficking with demons had had some centuries to become well established) for the crime of convincing others to obey the voices in her head. It has not been determined whether the Joan of Arc equivalent of the Potterverse (if such existed) was actually a witch, or merely a Muggle with great charisma. There is a strong probability that if she existed, she may in fact have been a Squib, psychically active to some degree, but unable to actually channel magic.

It must also be acknowledged that this matter was to at least some extent a class thing. Where a local witch or cunning man might well arouse the ire of the neighborhood against them, bringing the wrath of the Church down upon their heads for having been perceived to be infringing upon the Church’s authority in that region, scholarly wizards (and it was always specifically *wizards*, never witches) continued to make a very good living under the patronage of the royal Court or members of the Nobility for some centuries afterwards. Such official Court Wizards were in a precarious position, however, and by the 16th century were rapidly disappearing from public view.

II. Wizards in Human Society:

Once one stops to consider it. It is obvious that the Modern Wizarding World is an anomaly, made up of a self-isolated group of people who have been officially out of touch, to a greater or lesser extent, with the Real World for most of the last 400 years. And, as if that weren’t enough in itself, this group is entirely made up of people for whom the physical laws of nature simply do not work as they do for Muggles. This being the case, it would be remarkable if they hadn’t managed to develop some very odd notions in the interim. Even their understanding of their own history is likely to be among these peculiar notions.

I contend that one of these odd notions is the modern interpretation of the concept of Muggle-born wizards and witches being somehow different from pure-blood wizards and witches. I suggest that prior to the era of Seclusion, much less concern was applied to such considerations — except among those pure-blooded isolationists who comprised a comparatively small segment of the wizarding population of Europe.

This particular faction has undoubtedly been a continuing source of dissension and, frequently, opposition, to any setting or changing of policy, since well before the Middle Ages. Such individuals and their families were probably originally comprised of descendants of the sort of bitter fanatics who had at some point suffered greatly in one of the outbreaks of persecution against wizards. Their current signature is a refusal to admit that wizards and Muggles are both human, and they are inclined to take strong exception to any wizards or witches who either establish or retain contact with Muggles for any reason. This lunatic fringe’s influence has waxed and waned in accordance to external as well as internal conditions and events in what is now the wizarding world, but the isolationists are an intrinsic part of wizarding culture and they have set their stamp upon wizarding history.

A similarly wizarding-dominant, but subtly opposed faction, harbors the belief that having magical powers qualifies wizards to rule Muggles. They are also fixated upon exclusivity. The more extreme elements of this faction not only take exception of wizards of mixed blood, but to any magical Being who is not a pure-blooded human wizard or witch, and even such human wizards who have managed to become “contaminated” by certain socially disapproved magical maladies. Where the isolationists are traditionally committed to the establishment and maintenance of a separation between wizarding and Muggle societies, the supremacists have a disturbing tendency to adopt ideologies and rhetoric which would ultimately dissolve any such separation. Nor is it always evident which of the two factions with which one is actually dealing, united as they are by their conviction of Muggle inferiority. The supremacists appear not to have been a significant or organized political problem prior to the adoption of the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy. In its brief history, however, it has demonstrated a great willingness to attempt to legitimise its position by adopting and warping traditional isolationist rhetoric. Both groups tend to attract young people from pureblood families who are of all the wizarding world the least likely to have any real knowledge of either Muggles or Muggle society.

Prior to the establishment of Seclusion, I seriously doubt that anyone had ever attempted to take an effective census of wizards. Given that those who were known to exist were too few, and too widely dispersed to have been truly able to maintain completely self-sufficient households, even with magic at their disposal, and with the state of transportation, — most significantly the transportation of bulk goods and materials — at extremely primitive levels, we can conclude that wizards traditionally (i.e., prior to the passage of the International Act of Wizarding Secrecy) must necessarily have lived and interacted very closely with Muggles in order to survive in any degree of comfort.

And at such an early period, most acknowledged wizards, apart from their years in attendance at Hogwarts (or some other wizarding Academy on the Continent), would probably not have known who, or where other wizards in Britain (or whatever their country of origin) were even likely to be found — other than the handful or so others whom they might know of locally. Which, for many of them were limited to the members of their own family. Under such conditions, below a certain socioeconomic level intermarriage with the local mundane population would have been not merely common, but the norm.

Nor would they have had any idea of just how many other wizards might actually exist, given that their only experience of wizards in groups was limited to only those who had also been in attendance at their Academy during their own years there. The secluded exclusively wizarding districts and Ministry-sponsored conveniences of the present day would have had no real equivalents at such an early point in their history. These are all developments which were forced upon the wizarding world by the requirements of Seclusion itself. The wizarding community most likely did not already have them in place at its establishment. Nor, at that point in history, were all of those who today would be known as Muggle-born wizards ever identified and trained.

This leads me to suspect that in earlier periods, when the population, both wizarding and Muggle of these islands was far smaller, Hogwarts castle and its environs may have held a more prominent and central position for the governmental authority of wizarding Britain than it does today. At least during those portions of the year that those who were able to remove themselves from the generally unhealthy environs of London during the summer traditionally did so.

I will explore the ramifications suggested by this possibility in greater depth, in the following section.

III. Points of Origin: Wizards in Britain from Prehistory through the Middle Ages

A. Early Wizarding Presence in Great Britain

If the traditional folklore of the British Isles is to be considered seriously as an indication of the history of the region that the Romans later identified as Hibernia, wizards had never been all that rare among the aboriginal peoples, or, for that matter, among the earliest groups of invaders who had settled the isles prior to the Romans’ invasions. During the period before the Roman conquest, the support of wizards was actively sought by the Chieftains of the Pictish and Celtic tribes (in those cases where the Chieftains were not wizards themselves, which was — as one might suppose — far from unusual) and wizards frequently served as Priests for their communities.

There is a good deal of question as to whether the actual percentage of wizards among the general population was, in fact, significantly higher among the Picts, Celts, and other early Britons than has been the case since this period, but there is certainly enough circumstantial evidence recorded in the legends of this era to raise such an argument. It should be noted that the current ratio of one wizard (allowing for an overall population of 3,250 wizards. Rowling’s estimate of 3,000 is just a little low, given an annual Hogwarts intake of about 40) to approximately 20,000 Muggles in Great Britain and Ireland today suggests that in a period that the population of the islands was around a million, a population of no more than about 50 witches and wizards would scarcely allow for any sort of communication between them. And when you factor in the number of magic workers which show up in the early folklore of the islands, the chances of there having been a higher percentage of wizards within the general population begins to look rather more likely than otherwise.

Wizards were rarer among the Roman conquerors. There was no official function reserved for wizards built into Roman society. But there were, nevertheless wizards among the Romans. In fact, by the time of the Roman Emperors, wizards were experiencing one of the periodic cycles of persecution to which they have at times been subject throughout pre-Seclusion history. The reason for this appears to be that, unlike the way in which such matters were viewed in a later, predominately Christian Europe, although the Emperors of Rome might readily employ various wizards for their own purposes, they had no tolerance for the existence of wizards who were not under their personal control. Indeed, their intention appears to have been to establish an Imperial monopoly regarding the practice of magic, and some of their drive for the conquest of outlying cultures was in the service of eliminating the threat represented by foreign wizards.

Yet wizards continued to be born, both within Roman holdings and abroad. It is suspected that by the later Roman era, many wizards from regions under Roman control, believing their gifts to be mark of some God’s favor, had exercised their option and dedicated their lives to one or other of the religions which had always proliferated in Rome. But, nevertheless, despite the Emperors’ official disapproval of independently-practicing wizards, the Romans had a major impact upon wizarding culture. Regardless of Roman society’s general hostility toward magic, the greatest part of the everyday social fabric of wizarding society today is a closer extrapolation of the interdependent networks of “Patrons” and “clients” as practiced by the Romans in classical times than it is of any more recent social contract as practiced among Muggles in western Europe since the period that Rome ruled most of Europe, at a distance.

For a more detailed examination of one interpretation of the underlying social fabric of the Potterverse as a Patron/Client system, please allow me to direct you to Pharnabazus’s excellent ‘Expecto Patronus: or How the Wizarding World Really Works’. I do not necessarily agree with all of the author’s interpretations, but more than half of them look like they have a better handle of the probabilities than some of my own earlier notions did. It dates from the period between OotP and HBP, but the basic tenants still hold up quite well.

http://www.livejournal.com/users/pharnabazus/715.html.

(Scroll back to the first posting in the Journal.)

In their initial dealings with the Roman conquerors, the wizards of Britain may have at first felt that they argued from a position of at least some strength, for under the military technology of the day, it would have been difficult in the extreme to counter the British wizards’ powers should they choose to mount a determined opposition. And that the Roman Emperors were known to have greatly limited the number of wizards at their own disposal is likely to have also been a factor. But not a deciding one. The Roman wizards’ use of the cored wand rather than the traditional staff would have rapidly disabused the native wizards of their misapprehension that they were in a position of superiority. Nevertheless, the Roman conquest of Britain was a protracted process. And that the Romans did ultimately make, or force a lasting agreement upon the wizards of Britain is reflected by the lingering Patron/Client social order among British wizards today.

After the withdrawal of the Roman legions from Britain, some centuries later, the wizards of Britain appear to have been in full support of the confederation of British Chieftains who governed the islands in the Romans’ wake. Wizards seem to have been welcome among these Chieftains, much as wizards had been welcome in the tribal period before the Romans came, and it must have appeared that here was a chance to re-establish the “old order”. But the centuries under Roman rule and the continuing migration of other peoples into the islands had thinned the concentration of magical traits within the local gene pool, and it is unlikely that there was as high a percentage of wizards in Great Britain as there had been before the Roman conquest, even though the overall population was probably not significantly higher.

The most widely-known historical figure of this period is the wizard known to us as Merlinus Ambrosius whose support of the British Chieftain Athor is credited in extending the resistance of Britain against the Saxon invasions (which may well have been a cultural invasion, rather than a military one) for more than a generation. The wizard Merlin, in fact appears to have dedicated his life to the cause of preserving Britain from the English.

The Saxon leaders were a good deal less magic-tolerant than their native British predecessors, but they were certainly more so than the Romans had been. We can readily conclude that the Saxons ultimately also made the necessary treaties for dealing with the wizards of Britain.

Our most obvious relic that such an arrangement indeed existed is shown in the over-government of the wizarding world today. The Saxon Kings were selected from the available candidates, and advised in their policies by a body of (Muggle) nobles/Chieftains/Thanes who were collectively known as the Witenagemote. It requires far more effort than is forthcoming to try to convince oneself that the original Wizengamot was not formed to serve the equivalent purpose as advisors to the Saxon Kings serving the interests of British wizards.

Given that the population of the islands was still not much over a million, and, after successive waves of incomers, the Muggle gene pool had probably diluted much of its original concentration of magical traits, the fact that the Wizengamot is a body of some 50 witches and wizards leads one to suspect that it is possible that every witch and wizard in Great Britain at that period may have participated in it. Which raises the question as to whether a seat on the Wizengamot today denotes descent from (or adoption by, or marriage into the family of) one of the original holders. It is a tempting conclusion to draw, but I will not do so.

It was late in the period of Saxon (and Danish) rule that the formulation of the principles pertaining to, and the initial practice of “Light magic”, i.e., modern wizardry, or perhaps more accurately, domesticated magic were developed and began to spread across Europe and the Middle East. Over the ensuing generations the benefits of the processes used in modern wizardry toward increasing the physical well-being, and possibly lengthening the effective lifespans of wizards would have begun to be noted. The corresponding lessening of the danger to one’s sense of proportion, to say nothing of one’s grip on reality, inherent in immersing oneself in the Dark Arts, and the corresponding lessening of any prior restraints upon wizards’ willingness to casually indulge in the channeling of Magical energies would have begun to be noted soon afterwards.

The Muggle perception of these developments would probably have been of a sense that there had been an increase in the number of wizards and witches around them. This would have been accompanied by a corresponding increase of opportunities for Muggle anxieties concerning wizards or (in particular) witches resulting in the aforementioned local outbreaks of the persecution of magicals.

Particularly given the fairly new, but steady spread of the Muggle belief that magic could not be accomplished without demonic aid, which seems to have become a popular belief among Muggles of this era. It is likely that the tendency among wizards to withdraw, as far as they were able, from Muggle communities may have been the result. Which would have only increased the Muggle perception that wizards were up to some dire doings which were not in the community’s best interests. At this period, such a withdrawal could not have been particularly great. Wizards numbers were far too low for them to be altogether self-sufficient and they could not have lived in an acceptable level of comfort without at least some interaction with Muggles.

A far more sweeping upsetting of everyone in Britain’s apple cart would have come with the Norman conquest. Which to modern perception seems to have been unnecessarily brutal. The Normans divided their prize up among themselves and set about to rule it with an iron fist, complete with subjecting the Saxon people to curfews, serfdom — i.e., effective enslavement, and a systematic oppression intended to subdue any attempt at rebellion, which prevailed for at least a generation. Nor was this Norman rule particularly stable in itself, leading to its first civil war, between the “Empress” Matilda and her cousin Steven, within the first hundred years after the conquest, and which lasted off and on from 1135 to 1154, and which only ceased with the establishment of the Plantagenet dynasty.

...Which, in turn, without restraints upon the power of the Kings ultimately conducted itself so egregiously badly that the Barons themselves forced the Magna Carta upon King John in 1215, before the Plantagenets had even held the throne for two full generations.

From the standpoint of wizards, whose lifespans had lengthened to the point that they passed their century mark as often as not, this political instability may have been regarded as a growing cause for concern. Those families who were ultimately to adopt the stance of the wizarding isolationist faction, would have begun active withdrawal from participation in Muggle society at some point around, or not much following this period. Although, once again, the degree of actual withdrawal would have been slight.

Our most current, close-up, and purest example of this faction in canon; the Noble House of Black, appears, from our vantage point in the late 20th century to have been one of the families to have done this. The Black family’s presumed disdain for the Muggle government, and indeed for Muggles themselves, is credited with having prompted them to actively seek to marry only from within the magical community beginning at some point in the 13th century. It is generally assumed that they would have also gone on to withdraw from meddling in Muggle affairs as well.

This last assumption may be at least partially in error, however. That the family’s genealogical tapestry includes a family motto in French suggests that the Blacks must have adopted at the very least some degree of protective coloration by mimicking the speech, style, and behavior of prominent Normans, suggesting that their withdrawal from their Muggle neighbors was far from complete. It is also entirely possible that the tapestry itself was, in fact, only created anything up to a century and a half later than the earliest dates recorded on it and that at the point of the tapestry’s creation the family history was filled in as a retrofit taken from other sources, or even only from living memory or otherwise unconfirmed family tradition. This possibility would place the commissioning of the tapestry by the members of the House of Black as occurring very much in concert with the widely-noted preoccupation over hereditary status, pedigree and “nobility” which was also obsessing upper-class Muggles by the middle of the 14th century.

B. Hogwarts Castle

However, apart from a few early isolationist exceptions, throughout the pre-Seclusion period, the greater part of wizarding society remained completely in step with mundane (Muggle) society, if only for no better reason than that it was still quite actively a part of it.

Even the date of the establishment of the great Wizarding Academies is in keeping with the social dynamics at work in the mundane world. I am indebted to the Fan writer (pen name; Barb) who flagged the following quote as a chapter heading in one of her works;

The medieval castle originated in the ninth century in the Frankish Empire (what is now modern France, western Germany, and northern Italy) as nobles began building fortifications in response to increasing insecurity in the region... The Carolingians (Charlemagne’s dynasty) divided their lands among royal heirs, and this custom led to a multiplicity of kings and to civil wars. The new institution of feudalism (which usually involved cavalry service in return for land — the fief — and political rights) resulted in an increase in lordships held under the kings... Political instability and invasion by outside forces resulted in a breakdown in law and order and a sharp decline in the effectiveness of central government. Consequently, power fell into the hands of whatever lords or strongmen were able to protect local populations effectively. But the strongmen also had to protect themselves, and the result was the building of defensive structures that over time evolved into castles.

—Robin S. Oggins, Castles and Fortresses

It is easy to suppose that such widespread instability in local government and the progressive rise in the willingness of such strongmen to war with each other may have had considerable influence upon the four founders of Hogwarts’ decision to establish a school where wizarding children could be collected into a secure location for their training, even while Britain was still under Saxon rule. The increasing instability after the Norman conquest might also have heavily contributed to Salazar Slytherin’s subsequent and growing concern over the possible breech of security represented by children from backgrounds that considered such dysfunctional social dynamics normal. To say nothing of the fact that the Muggles’ problematic growing association of magic with demon handling was continuing to spread. This association all four of the founders must have regarded with extreme disquiet.

And if the possible effects of the influences upon the young examined in the companion article below entitled ‘The Premature Prediction’ had ever been noted at that early period, Salazar may have felt he had ample reason to be concerned over the advisability of admitting into the wizarding safe zones such as Hogwarts Academy, magical children who had been raised out among Muggles without the advantages of the guidance and protection of trained, adult wizards.

Another issue which must also be brought up at this point is that the Hogwarts castle of the original Founders is unlikely to have been the same physical entity as the Hogwarts castle of the modern day.

A castle as large and as complex as modern Hogwarts is the product of centuries’ worth of development. Castles are growing and “living” entities. Particularly ones which remain in continual use. This is almost certainly even more true in the case of castles which are maintained and occupied by wizards than ones owned and occupied by Muggles. The Founders’ Hogwarts, by the end of the 20th century, is bound to be surrounded and probably encased in a collection of additions and reconstructions dictated by the changing needs of a growing population over thousand years of uninterrupted habitation.

Another consideration that we must also take into account is that the current Muggle population of Great Britain is at one of its highest points in history today. With this in mind, it seems likely that the magical population of Great Britain and Ireland may be at an historical peak as well.

Considering this probability, it seems highly unlikely that the population of 270–300 or so students currently served by Hogwarts (extrapolated from Rowling’s establishment of an incoming class of 40 students in Harry Potter’s year, and her recently stated total population estimate of 3,000. Her claim that the school serves some 600 students is untenable with a base population this small) has been the case throughout the school’s history. It is much more likely that, given the isolation of magical communities and the slowness of communication, as well as the absence of anything like the Hogwarts quill which records all magical births, the original academy probably served no more than a few dozen students, if that. Indeed, the entire magical population of Great Britain probably did not number more than a couple of hundred.

(Yes, yes, I know. As I pointed out at the outset of this piece, Rowling’s Potterverse takes place in a district adjacent to Storybook Land, and in her mind it’s wizarding population has probably always numbered around 3,000. I am trying to extrapolate a plausible history which isn’t completely out to lunch and takes account of the fact that the population of the British Isles has not always numbered around 65 million.)

Which raises the question of why the Founders chose to house their new school in a castle, when a cluster of cottages in a similarly out-of-the-way location would probably have served the purpose admirably