The Twelve Rings (Douze Anneaux, Lansdowne MS 1202)

The Douze Anneaux is a short French treatise on twelve magic rings included in British Library Lansdowne MS 1202, the eighteenth-century manuscript of the Clavicules attributed to Armadel. Each entry specifies the metal of the ring and the lunar mansion in which it should be made, a stone and an image to be engraved, a divine name to be written in dove's blood on virgin parchment and set beneath the stone, and the substance used to fumigate the finished ring. Each ring has a declared purpose: to obtain a familiar spirit, to become invisible, to heal, to catch fish or birds, to defeat enemies or to win a ruler's favour. The treatise also includes an opening prayer, an exorcism and a summary table. It belongs to a long medieval tradition of ring magic tied to the twenty-eight lunar mansions, a tradition derived from Arabic astral magic and found in the Picatrix, in ring texts attributed to Messalah and in the Italian Necromantic Rings of Solomon. The legend of Solomon's own seal ring lends the genre its authority. Joseph Peterson transcribed the text from microfilm in 2004, and the archive pairs it with Talia Felix's English translation of 2015. The Douze Anneaux shows how small specialised treatises travelled alongside the Key of Solomon and were absorbed into the large compilations prepared for eighteenth-century French collectors.

What it contains

• Twelve rings with metals and lunar mansions
• Stones and engraved images
• Divine names written in dove's blood beneath the stone
• Fumigations for each ring
• Purposes from familiar spirits to invisibility and favour
• Opening prayer, exorcism and table of properties