forbidden rites a necromancer's manual of the fifteenth century

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. Others, like Elizabeth Butler, employed modern printed.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. Such is the case with Lynn Thorndike whose monumental History of Magic and Experimental Science treated it as an annoying sideline to his examination of science and magic. Most studies of necromancy have been very cursory or incidental to other projects. This is particularly the case with the most reviled form of magical practice, necromancy, which involved the conjuring, binding, and deploying of demons. 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.

Forbidden Rites: A Necromancer's Manual of the Fifteenth Century, by Richard Kieckhefer.

Forbidden rites a necromancer's manual of the fifteenth century