jennyg@compuserve.com New Books on Medieval Magick Jenny jennyg@compuserve.com Tue Oct 6 14:36:25 1998 The Pennsylvania State University Press has started a series called "Magic in History", which publishes new research on European magick as well as reprints of hard-to-find occult texts. I recently picked up two.*p*One is _Conjuring Spirits: Texts and Traditions of Medieval Ritual Magic_, edited by Claire Fanger. It's a collection of essays on such diverse topics as Christian appropriation of Jewish occultism, a survey of English magickal manusripts from 1300-1500, a fragmentary German divination device, and analyses of a couple of grimoires (Secretum philosophorum, the Sworn Book of Honorious of Thebes, and the Book of Angels).*p*Interesting if dense stuff. Just so you know, this is all on ceremonial (or ritual) magick, not Witchcraft.*p*The second book was by one of my favorite scholars, Richard Kieckhefer: _Forbidden Rites: A necromancer's Manual of the Fifteenth Century_. Kieckhefer found a 15th century German manuscript which had escaped scholarly notice until now. It's ceremonial magick again, with a wide variety of spells.*p*The first 200 pages of the text comprises a general analysis of the book, with translations of many sections. Kieckhefer compares the manuscript to other grimoires, placing it in the larger context of European ritual magick.*p*The second 200 pages are the (enormous!) text itself. The good news is, it's all here and it's in its original language (medieval Latin). A detail fanatics like me appreciate. <g>*p*The bad news is, it's NOT translated. (Yeah I'm a fanatic -- but I'm a lazy fanatic. I still like to have a translation at hand.)*p*Worse, the rubrics (chapter and spell titles) are translated -- but the text isn't. So you look at page 236, see "The mirror of Floron, for Revelation of Past, Present and Future" and think, "Wow, that sounds cool." But when you go to read how to make this critter, it's all "Habeus corpus, sic et non, etc., etc."*p*So if you don't read Latin, half the book won't do you any good. I can see why Penn State chose not to include a translation -- it would have made this an unwieldy book (600+ pages...). But the end result is mainly aimed at a specialist audience. Kieckhefer's 200 page introduction may be worth the price of the book by itself, but I think it would still be very disappointing not to be able to read the text itself.*p*One other random note: Keith Thomas' magisterial work, _Religion and the Decline of Magic_ is now out in reprint! This is a fantastic introduction to the world of popular magick in England. It can be dense (I recommend reading it in chunks, a little at a time.) But it's one of the best guides to what life was like for the *average* Witch -- the vast majority of them who never got accused of "witchcraft".*p*Jenny