Abstract
In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, learned magic texts of Arabic and Jewish origin were translated into Latin, introducing new ideas about angels to medieval Europe. Although the Christian Church accepted the existence of invisible spirits, scholars were engaged in uneasy debates over their corporeality, man’s ability to comprehend them and the nature of their influence in the sublunary world. The imported magic texts, on the other hand, were full of tangible certainties. They gave angels names, attributes and locations, revealing a vivified cosmos in which temporal divisions – the hours, days, months and seasons – and physical elements – fire and the air, winds, sea, stars and earth – were ruled over or personified by spirits. This was a pragmatic cosmology: the attributes of a spirit told the magic operator what purpose it would be useful for, its name gave him the power to speak to it directly, and descriptions of the spirit’s relationship to the physical world instructed him in the best materials and times for his operation. From the thirteenth century, ecclesiastical authorities condemned learned magic texts for encouraging interaction with demons rather than for presenting fraudulent operations; that is, the authorities accepted that the spirits described in the texts had real powers but classified them as demonic. This allowed elaborate and alien hierarchies to be absorbed into the Christian cosmos. For readers and operators of magic texts, however, it was always possible to regard the angels and spirits of magic texts as good or neutral beings rather than evil demons.
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Notes
A well- known medieval discussion of these two genres is in the Speculum astronomiae ch. 11, P. Zambelli, C. F. S. Burnett, K. Lippincott and D. Pingree, eds (Dordrecht, 1982), 240–51. Here ‘abominable’ Hermetic magic is especially associated with suffumigations and invocations, while ‘detestable’ Solomonic magic is linked to inscribing characters and exorcising them by certain names. On this distinction, see D. Pingree, ‘Learned Magic in the Time of Frederick II’, in Le scienze alle corte de Federico II, Micrologus, 2 (1994), 39–56
N. Weill-Parot, Les ‘images astrologiques’ au Moyen Age et à la Renaissance. Spéculations intellectuelles et practiques magiques (Paris, 2002 ), 40–62.
See C. Burnett, ‘The Establishment of Medieval Hermeticism’, in The Medieval World, eds, P. Linehan and J. L. Nelson (London and New York, 2001 ), 111–30
P. Lucentini and V. Perrone Compagni, I testi e i codici di Ermete nel Medioevo (Florence, 2001 )
V. Perrone Compagni, ‘I testi magici di Ermete’, in P. Lucentini, I. Parri and V. Perrone Compagni, eds, Hermetism from late antiquity to humanism (Turnhout, 2003 ), 505–33.
On astral magic see D. Pingree, ‘Some of the Sources of the Ghayat al- Hakim’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 43 (1980): 1–15
N. Weill-Parot, ‘Dans le ciel ou sous le ciel? Les anges dans la magie astrale, XIIe- XIVe siècle’, in J.- P. Boudet, H. Bresc et B. Grevin, Les anges et la magie au Moyen Âge, Mélanges de l’Ecole Française de Rome, 114 (2002), 753–71.
Significant ritual magic texts which claim an association with Solomon–the Liber Razielis, Liber Almandal, Liber sactratus sive iuratus and the Ars notoria–are discussed in J.- P. Boudet and J. Véronèse, ‘Le secret dans la magie rituelle médiévale’, Il Segreto, Micrologus, 14 (Firenze, 2006), 101–50.
See, C. Fanger, ed., Conjuring Spirits: Texts and Traditions of Medieval Ritual Magic ( University Park, PA, 1998 )
on angel magic and R. Kieckhefer, Forbidden Rites (University Park, PA, 1997) on necromancy.
On this work and Alfonso’s involvement in its production, see A. García Avilés, ‘Alfonso X y el Liber Razielis: imágenes de la magia astral judía en el scriptorium alfonsí’, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, 74 (1997): 26–39
MS Rome, Biblioteca Vaticana, Reg. lat. 1300 (s.xiv), and MS Halle, Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Sachsen- Anhalt, 14. B. 36 (s.xiv) contain the fullest surviving copies of the Liber Razielis. Paris MS Lat. 3666 (s.xiv ex–s.xv in) contains the Latin prologue most closely related to the Hebrew Sefer Raziel ha- Mal’akh (ed. Isaac ben Abraham, pr. Amsterdam, 1701). On the vernacular versions, see F. Secret, ‘Sur quelques traductions du Sefer Razi’el’, Revue des Études Juives, 128 (1969): 223–45.
I have used the fourteenth- century copy of the Almandel in MS Halle, 14. B. 36, ff. 239–43. On this text see J. R. Veenstra, ‘The Holy Almandal. Angels and the Intellectual Aims of Magic’ in J. N. Bremmer and J. R. Veenstra, eds, The Metamorphosis of Magic (Groningen, 2002), 189–229 which includes a transcription of a seventeenth- century English copy of the text.
On MS Oxford, Rawlinson D. 252 see F. Klaassen, ‘British Manuscripts of Magic 1250–1500: A Preliminary Survey’, in Fanger, ed., Conjuring Spirits, 3–31 at 21–24, and J.- P. Boudet, ‘Deviner dans la lumière. Note sur les conjurations pyromantiques dans un manuscrit anglais du xve siècle’, in D. Pichot, S. Cassagnes-Brouquet, and L. Rousselot, eds, Religion et mentalités au Moyen Age (Rennes, 2003 ), 523–30.
On Christian formulas for commanding spirits see Kieckhefer, Forbidden Rites, ch. 6; on prayers to the planets in the Hermetic tradition, see V. Perrone Compagni, ‘Una fonte ermetica: il Liber orationum planetarum’, Bruniana & Campanelliana, 7 (2001): 189–97
on the power of words generally see C. Fanger, ‘Things Done Wisely by a Wise Enchanter: Negotiating the Power of Words in the Thirteenth Century’, Esoterica, 1 (1999): 97–132.
M. D. Swartz, Scholastic Magic: Ritual and Revelation in Early Jewish Mysticism (Princeton, 1997 ), 166–70.
Liber Sameyn, ch. 20, MS Halle 14. B. 36, ff. 89–89v: ‘Ad videndum solem de nocte aperte quod respondeat certe ad interrogationem tuam’. On the two Helios adjurations in the Sefer ha- Razim, the Jewish text on which the Liber Sameyn is based, see R. Lesses, ‘Speaking with Angels: Jewish and Greco- Egyptian Revelatory Adjurations’, Harvard Theological Review, New Series, 89 (1996): 41–60, esp. 49–51 and 54.
On magic circles, see, Kieckhefer, Forbidden Rites, 170–76. On the ritual provocation of a dream or vision: Liber iuratus, ed. Hedegård (Stockholm, 2002); John of Morigny, Prologue to Liber Visionum [c. 1304–18], trans., ed. and intro. C. Fanger and N. Watson, Esoterica, 3 (2001)
F. Klaassen, ‘Magical Dream Provocation in the Later Middle Ages’, Esoterica, 8 (2006): 120–47.
J. F. Nagy, Conversing with Angels and Ancients: Literary Myths of Medieval Ireland (Ithaca, NY, 1997 ).
Adomnán, Vita Columbae, ed. and trans. A. O. Anderson and M. O. Anderson (1961, repr. Oxford, 1991), 3.18, p. 208.
MS Florence, Biblioteca Laurentiana, P. 89, sup. Cod. 38, ff. 256v–260, transcribed in J. J. Wood Brown, Life and Legend of Michael Scot (Edinburgh, 1897 ), 231–34.
On the use of boy mediums to speak to demons, see Kieckhefer, Forbidden Rites, esp. ch. 5, and C. Fanger, ‘Virgin Territory: Purity and Divine Knowledge in late Medieval Catoptromantic Texts’, Aries 5.2 (2005): 200–44.
Necromantic experiments entitled pro amore are better categorized as ‘erotic magic’, see, R. Kieckhefer, ‘Erotic Magic in Medieval Europe’, in J. Salisbury, ed., Sex in the Middle Ages (New York and London, 1991), 30–55. Experiments to bind women and and speak to spirits were considered complimentary goals by the scribe of MS Florence Plut. 86, sup. 38 who copied many experiments of both types.
Caesarius of Heisterbach, Dialogus miraculorum, ed. J. Strange (Cologne: J. M. Heberle, 1851), book 3, ch. 26, book 5, ch. 10, p. 290 and chs 36–37, pp. 319–23.
Articles 1 and 23: L. Thorndike, University Records and Life in the Middle Ages (New York, 1944 ), 261–66.
Gerald of Wales, Journey through Wales, pt 1, ch. 5, trans. L. Thorpe (London, 1978), 116–121.
Liber Theysolius, MS Halle, 14. B. 36, ff. 135–51, inc: ‘Dixit Theysolius hic incipio dicere de angelis iiii partium mundi’ and at ff. 235–235v, ‘Capitulum ultimum Theyzoli philosophi super Razielem’. Theyzolius is likely to be a variation of Toz Grecus whose name was often attached to Arabic image- magic texts. This text is discussed at greater length in S. Page, ‘Magic and the Pursuit of Wisdom: the “Familiar” Spirit in the Liber Theysolius’, La corónica, 36.1 (Fall, 2007): 41–70.
Sermon eleven on Psalm 90, verse 11, in S. Chase, ed. and trans., Angelic Spirituality: Medieval Perspectives on the Ways of Angels (New York, 2002), 113.
See D. A. Wilmart, Auteurs Spirituels et Textes Devots du Moyen Age (Paris, 1932), 537–58 on prayers to guardian angels.
Oratio ad angelum (tenth century?), ed. Wilmart (1932), 543.
Oratio ad proprium cuiusque angelum (s.xii), ed. Wilmart (1932), 549–50.
Item ad proprium angelum alia oratio (s.xv), ed. Wilmart (1932), 55: ‘Appare michi, carissime, et move et doce me facere voluntatem dei et mandata eius custodire’.
On divine possession see N. Caciola, Discerning Spirits: Divine and Demonic Possession in the Middle Ages (Ithaca, NY, 2003 ), esp. 54–75. Mystical technologies are here understood to include both orthodox and suspect techniques used to increase the likelihood of a spiritual experience. The latter are the subject of a forthcoming edited volume by Claire Fanger (see n. 7 ).
A. Boureau, Satan the Heretic. The Birth of Demonology in the Medieval West, trans. T. L. Fagan (Chicago, 2006), ch. 6.
Thorndike, University Records, 261–66 and Jean- Patrice Boudet, ‘Les condamnations de la magie à Paris en 1398’, Revue Mabillon, 12 (2001): 121–58.
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Page, S. (2011). Speaking with Spirits in Medieval Magic Texts. In: Raymond, J. (eds) Conversations with Angels. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230316973_6
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