Quidditch Through the Ages

In Quidditch Through the Ages, the flying broom is a motif for the author’s theme of The History and Evolution of Wizarding Society. By describing the invention of the flying broom and tracing its evolution from transportation to sporting equipment, the author reveals more about European wizarding society’s development from the high Middle Ages to modern times.

Rowling shows that the flying broom as a technology has changed a great deal since its invention. For instance, early flying brooms were renowned for being roughly made from raw materials and for being very uncomfortable. She writes of Europe’s first brooms: “A thick knotty handle of unvarnished ash, with hazel twigs bound crudely to one end, it is neither comfortable nor dynamic. The charms placed upon it are similarly basic: it will only move forwards at one speed; it will go up, down and stop” (4). However, the more witches and wizards came to rely on brooms, the more features they added, making brooms safer, more comfortable, and more refined looking as well. As wizarding society developed, so did the flying broom. Rowling explains how changes in the wizarding economy allowed some wizards to specialize in broom-making, thereby improving the technology for everyone. She writes, “By the twelfth century, however, wizards had learned to barter services, so that a skilled maker of brooms could exchange them for the potions his neighbor might make better than himself” (4). In connecting wizards’ broom craftsmanship and their bartering economy, the author encourages the reader to interpret the development of the broom as an indicator of wizarding society’s progress.

Another important step forward for the flying broom was the evolution of magical spells. When Europeans first began using brooms, they simply sat on them, but after centuries, an inventive 19th-century wizard named Elliot Smethwyck came up with a solution: the “Cushioning Charm.” This invisible charm allows the flier to feel as though they are sitting on a cushion while astride their broom. This progress in magic helped transform the broom from a pragmatic tool to a vehicle for fun and sport.

Today, in wizarding Europe, the flying broom monopolizes transportation; Rowling notes that it is “the one object legally allowed as a means of wizarding transport” (3). The author also suggests that broom flying was one of the main cultural features Europeans passed on to foreign cultures. The broom’s popularity around much of the world is the living legacy of the cultural exchange European witches and wizards experienced with foreign continents during their age of exploration, as they passed their flying methods and Quidditch knowledge onto cultures in Africa, North and South America, and Oceania. The fact that many witches and wizards around the world have adopted flying by broom as their main form of transportation shows that, over many eras, the flying broom has greatly improved, much like wizarding society itself.