forbidden rites a necromancer's manual of the fifteenth century

As a result, historical studies have yielded only the most limited perspective on the practice of late medieval literate magic.

Still fewer would furnish any detailed information about magical practices such as demon conjuring. Similarly, few late medieval writers openly practised, much less promoted, magic of any kind. As a result, the grossly imprudent or falsely accused tend to be over-represented in the legal sources. Those brought up on charges of magic, if they were in fact practitioners at all, were usually in court because they had been very public about their interests or because charges of sorcery had been added to a list of more credible seditious crimes. The perspective which these sources offer is generally not that of a magical practitioner. The history of literate magic in the middle ages has tended to be based upon records of court cases or views of magic in literature and philosophy. University Park, Pennsylvania, Penn State University Press, 1997. 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.Forbidden Rites: A Necromancer's Manual of the Fifteenth Century, by Richard Kieckhefer. 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. Like many medieval texts for the use of magicians, this handbook is a miscellany rather than a systematic treatise. The result is the most vivid and readable introduction to medieval magic now available. 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. 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 a necromancer's manual of the fifteenth century