![]() Marco Mattei of Gesso and friar Jacopo of Viterbo confessed to taking part in magical practices. One such case in 1444, Inquisitor Gaspare Sighicelli took action against a group active in Bologna. Demonic magic was usually performed in groups surrounding a spiritual leader in possession of necromantic books. Practitioners of necromancy or demonic magic in the late Middle Ages usually belonged to the educated elite, as the contents of most grimoires were written in Latin. Nigromancy contrasts with this as scholarly "high magic" derived from High Medieval grimoires such as the Picatrix or the Liber Rasielis. Chiromancy is the divination from a subject's palms as practiced by the Romani (at the time recently arrived in Europe), and scapulimancy is the divination from animal bones, in particular shoulder blades, as practiced in peasant superstition. The division between the four "elemental" disciplines (viz., geomancy, hydromancy, aeromancy, pyromancy) is somewhat contrived. The seven artes prohibitae or artes magicae, arts prohibited by canon law, as expounded by Johannes Hartlieb in 1456, their sevenfold partition reflecting that of the artes liberales and artes mechanicae, were: John Dee and Edward Kelley using a magic circle ritual to invoke a spirit in a church graveyard
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |