Vampires & Werewolves & Others [information]

Grimoire info

A later book also claiming to have been written by Solomon was originally written in Greek during the 15th century, where it was known as the Magical Treatise of Solomon or the Little Key of the Whole Art of Hygromancy, Found by Several Craftmen and by the Holy Prophet Solomon. In the 16th century this work had been translated into Latin and Italian, being renamed the Clavicula Salomonis or the Key of Solomon. Also in Christendom during the Medieval, grimoires were written that were attributed to other ancient figures, thereby supposedly giving them a sense of authenticity because of their antiquity. The German Abbot and occultist Trithemius (1462–1516) supposedly had in his possession a Book of Simon the Magician, based upon the New Testament figure of Simon Magus. Magus had been a contemporary of Jesus Christ's, and like the Biblical Jesus had supposedly performed miracles, but had been demonised by the Medieval Church as a devil-worshipper and evil individual. Similarly, it was commonly believed by Medieval people that other ancient figures like the poet Virgil, astronomer Ptolemy and philosopher Aristotle had been involved in magic, and grimoires claiming to have been written by them were circulated. However, there were those who did not believe this, for instance theFransiscan friar Roger Bacon (c.1214-1294) stated that books falsely claiming to be by ancient authors "ought to be prohibited by law".

Early Modern period

As the Early Modern period commenced in the late 15th century, many changes began to shock Europe that would have an effect on the production of grimoires; the historian Owen Davies classed the most important of these as being the Protestant Reformation and subsequentCatholic Counter-Reformation, the Witch Hunt and the advent of printing. The Renaissance saw the continuation of interest in magic that had been found in the Mediaeval period, and in this period, there was an increased interest in Hermeticism amongst occultists and ceremonial magicians in Europe, largely fuelled by the 1471 translation of the ancient Corpus hermeticum into Latin by Marsilio Ficino (1433–1499). Alongside this, there was also a rise in interest in a form of Jewish mysticism known as the Kabbalah, which was spread across the continent by Pico della Mirandola and Johannes Reuchlin. The most important magician of the Renaissance was Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa (1486–1535), who widely studied various occult topics and earlier grimoires, and eventually published his own, the Three Books of Occult Philosophy, in 1533. A similar figure was the Swiss magician known as Paracelsus (1493–1541), who published Of the Supreme Mysteries of Nature in which he emphasised the distinction between good and bad magic. A third such individual at the time was Georg Faust, upon whom several pieces of later literature were written, such as Christopher Marlow's Faust, that portrayed him as consulting with demons. The idea of demonology had remained strong in the Renaissance, and several demonological grimoires were published, includingThe Fourth Book of Occult Philosophy which falsely claimed to having been authored by Agrippa, and the Pseudomonarchia Daemonum, which listed sixty-nine different demons. To counter this, the Roman Catholic Church authorised the production of many works of exorcism, the rituals of which were often very similar to those of demonic conjuration. However, alongside these demonological works, grimoires on natural magic also continued to be produced, including Magia naturalis, written by Giambattista Della Porta (1535–1615).

The advent of printing in Europe meant that books could be mass-produced for the first time, and could reach an ever-growing literate audience. Amongst the earliest books to be printed were magical texts; the nóminas were one example of this, consisting of prayers to the saints used as talismans. It was particularly in Protestant countries such as Switzerland and the German states, which were not under the domination of the Roman Catholic Church, where such grimoires were published. Despite the advent of print however, hand-written grimoires remained highly valued, as they were believed to contain inherent magical powers within them, and they continued to be produced. However, with increasing availability, people lower down the social scale and women began to have access to books on magic; this was often incorporated into the popular folk magicof the average people, and in particular that of the cunning folk, who were professionally involved in folk magic. These works also left Europe and were imported to those parts of Latin America controlled by the Spanish and Portuguese empires and the parts of North America controlled by the British and French empires.