Forbidden Rites
eBook - PDF

Forbidden Rites

A Necromancer’s Manual of the Fifteenth Century

  1. English
  2. PDF
  3. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

Forbidden Rites

A Necromancer’s Manual of the Fifteenth Century

About this book

Preserved in the Bavarian State Library in Munich is a manuscript that few scholars have noticed and that no one in modern times has treated with the seriousness it deserves. Forbidden Rites consists of an edition of this medieval Latin text with a full commentary, including detailed analysis of the text and its contents, discussion of the historical context, translation of representative sections of the text, and comparison with other necromantic texts of the late Middle Ages. The result is the most vivid and readable introduction to medieval magic now available.

Like many medieval texts for the use of magicians, this handbook is a miscellany rather than a systematic treatise. It is exceptional, however, in the scope and variety of its contents—prayers and conjurations, rituals of sympathetic magic, procedures involving astral magic, a catalogue of spirits, lengthy ceremonies for consecrating a book of magic, and other materials.

With more detail on particular experiments than the famous thirteenth-century Picatrix and more variety than the Thesaurus Necromantiae ascribed to Roger Bacon, the manual is one of the most interesting and important manuscripts of medieval magic that has yet come to light.

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Yes, you can access Forbidden Rites by Richard Kieckhefer in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Theology & Religion & European Medieval History. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. COVER front
  2. Table of Contents
  3. Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION: MAGICAL BOOKS AND MAGICAL RITES
  4. Chapter 2: THE MUNICH HANDBOOK OF NECROMANCY: Clm 849
  5. Chapter 3: BANQUETS, HORSES AND CASTLES: ILLUSIONIST EXPERIMENTS
  6. Chapter 4: LOVE, FAVOUR AND MADNESS: PSYCHOLOGICAL EXPERIMENTS
  7. Chapter 5: LEARNING HIDDEN AND FUTURE THINGS: DIVINATORY EXPERIMENTS
  8. Chapter 6: FORMULAS FOR COMMANDING SPIRITS: CONJURATIONS AND EXORCISMS
  9. Chapter 7: DEMONS AND DAIMONS: THE SPIRITS CONJURED
  10. Chapter 8: THE MAGIC OF CIRCLES AND SPHERES
  11. Chapter 9: CONCLUSION
  12. The Necromancer’s Handbook in Clm 849: Fols 3r–108v
  13. PLATES
  14. INDEX