The Sworn Book of Honorius

The Liber iuratus, or Sworn Book, is one of the most important texts of medieval ritual magic. Its prologue tells how, when the pope and cardinals resolved to destroy all magic books and their owners, a general council of magicians from Naples, Athens, Toledo and Thebes chose Honorius, son of Euclid, to condense their art into a single volume of ninety-three chapters, which was to be copied only under oath and entrusted only to tested disciples. Scholars date the work to the thirteenth or early fourteenth century; its relationship with the Ars notoria, whose prayers it reuses, suggests it is the later of the two. The book’s highest aim is not command over demons but the beatific vision: the sight of God, of the angelic hierarchies and of the soul’s place in heaven, obtained through a long regime of confession, fasting, prayers and the use of the Sigillum Dei, the Seal of God, whose construction it describes in detail. Further sections deal with the angels of the planets and heavens, spirits of the air, earth and elements, and practical operations. The text survives in several English manuscripts, one of which, Sloane 313, belonged to John Dee, whose own Sigillum Dei Aemeth was a revision of the seal described here. Berengar Ganell quoted it extensively in 1346. Modern critical work by Gösta Hedegård and Jean-Patrice Boudet, and Peterson’s full edition of 2016, have made it one of the best-studied grimoires.

What it contains

• Prologue: the council of magicians and the oath of transmission
• Construction and consecration of the Sigillum Dei
• Purifications, confession, fasting and prayers
• The operation for the beatific vision
• Angels of the heavens and planets; spirits of air and earth
• Suffumigations and further practical operations