Chronology · Timeline
Chronology
Middle Ages
41 moments, c. 8th–9th century to c. 1380–1410.
- c. 8th–9th century
Emerald Tablet appears in Arabic
The terse alchemical text 'as above, so below' first surfaces in the Arabic Book of the Secret of Creation attributed to Balinas (Apollonius).
Liber XI · Hermeticism - c. 801
Death of Rabi'a al-'Adawiyya
The Basran woman ascetic, remembered for teaching pure love of God without hope of paradise or fear of hell, becomes a model saint of Sufism.
Liber VIII · Eastern Mysticism - c. 9th century
Vasugupta and the Shiva Sutras
Tradition holds that Vasugupta received the Shiva Sutras in Kashmir, founding the non-dual Shaiva lineage later systematised by Abhinavagupta.
Liber VIII · Eastern Mysticism - c. 9th–10th century
The Jabirian alchemical corpus
Hundreds of Arabic treatises credited to Jabir ibn Hayyan set out the sulphur–mercury theory of metals and numerical 'balance', later read in Latin as Geber.
Liber I · Alchemy - 922
Execution of al-Hallaj
The Sufi mystic who declared 'I am the Truth' is executed in Baghdad, becoming a byword for ecstatic union and its dangers.
Liber VIII · Eastern Mysticism - c. mid-10th century
Bogomil movement in Bulgaria
The priest Bogomil preaches a dualist Christianity rejecting the material world as the devil's work, a current that later feeds the Cathars.
Liber IX · Gnosticism - c. mid-10th century
Ghāyat al-Ḥakīm (Picatrix) compiled
An Andalusian compendium of astral magic, talismans and Hermetic lore is assembled; scholars now attribute it to Maslama al-Qurṭubī.
Liber XII · High Magick - c. 10th century (date debated)
The Sword of Moses
A Hebrew manual of divine names and adjurations of angels, of uncertain date, exemplifies practical Jewish magic between antiquity and the Middle Ages.
Liber II · Ancient Magic - c. 1000
Abhinavagupta's Tantrāloka
The Kashmiri polymath composes his encyclopedic 'Light on the Tantras', the summit of non-dual Shaiva tantric philosophy and practice.
Liber VIII · Eastern Mysticism - c. 1027
Kalachakra Tantra reaches Tibet
The 'Wheel of Time' tantra, with its astronomical and yogic system, enters Tibet; its sixty-year calendar cycle is counted from this year.
Liber VIII · Eastern Mysticism - c. 11th century
The Amṛtasiddhi
This Buddhist-influenced text is the earliest known to teach physical techniques later called hatha yoga, aimed at retaining the vital essence.
Liber VIII · Eastern Mysticism - 1075
Zhang Boduan writes the Wuzhen pian
'Awakening to Reality' becomes the foundational poem of Taoist internal alchemy (neidan), using furnace language for inner transformation.
Liber I · Alchemy - 1111
Death of al-Ghazali
The theologian whose Revival of the Religious Sciences reconciled Sufism with orthodox Islam dies in Tus.
Liber VIII · Eastern Mysticism - 1151
Hildegard of Bingen completes Scivias
The German abbess records twenty-six visions with symbolic illuminations, a landmark of medieval visionary mysticism.
Liber IX · Gnosticism - c. 1167
Cathar council of Saint-Félix
Dualist churches of southern France meet, reportedly with a Bogomil bishop from Constantinople, to organise their dioceses.
Liber IX · Gnosticism - c. 1177
Attar's Conference of the Birds
The Persian poem allegorises the Sufi path as birds crossing seven valleys to find the Simurgh, only to discover it in themselves.
Liber VIII · Eastern Mysticism - c. 1180s
Sefer ha-Bahir appears in Provence
The 'Book of Brightness', the first classic of Kabbalah, introduces the sefirot as divine attributes and the idea of a feminine Shekhinah.
Liber XIX · Kabbalah - c. late 12th century
The Ars Notoria emerges
A Latin Solomonic art promising instant learning through prayers and figures (notae) appears in Italy and spreads rapidly despite condemnation.
Liber XXVII · Solomonic Magic - c. 1200
Isaac the Blind in Provence
The Provençal master of contemplative Kabbalah teaches meditation on the sefirot; his circle passes the tradition to Girona in Catalonia.
Liber XIX · Kabbalah - 1209
Albigensian Crusade begins
Pope Innocent III's crusade against the Cathars opens with the massacre at Béziers, beginning two decades of war in Languedoc.
Liber IX · Gnosticism - c. 13th century
Latin Clavicula Salomonis takes shape
Scholars believe a Latin 'Key of Solomon' circulated by the thirteenth century, though no complete copy from that era survives.
Liber XXVII · Solomonic Magic - 1240
Death of Ibn Arabi
The 'Greatest Master' of Sufi metaphysics, author of the Meccan Revelations and Bezels of Wisdom, dies in Damascus.
Liber VIII · Eastern Mysticism - 1244
Fall of Montségur
After a siege, more than two hundred Cathars are burned below the mountain fortress, breaking organised Catharism in Languedoc.
Liber IX · Gnosticism - c. mid-13th century
Liber iuratus Honorii (Sworn Book)
A Latin grimoire attributed to Honorius of Thebes teaches how to obtain the vision of God and command spirits; its date is debated.
Liber XXVII · Solomonic Magic - 1256
Picatrix translated at Alfonso X's court
The Arabic Ghāyat al-Ḥakīm is put into Castilian for the Learned King, and soon into Latin as Picatrix, the West's chief manual of astral magic.
Liber XII · High Magick - c. 1260
Speculum astronomiae lists Solomonic books
A treatise attributed to Albertus Magnus distinguishes licit astrology from 'detestable' image magic, naming several Solomonic necromantic texts.
Liber XXVII · Solomonic Magic - 1267–70
Roger Bacon on the books of Solomon
The Franciscan scholar complains of magical 'books of Solomon' used to invoke demons, while defending a legitimate science of nature.
Liber XXVII · Solomonic Magic - 1273
Death of Jalal al-Din Rumi
The poet of the Masnavi dies in Konya; his followers form the Mevlevi order, known for the turning ceremony of the whirling dervishes.
Liber VIII · Eastern Mysticism - 1274
Ramon Llull's illumination on Mount Randa
On Majorca, Llull receives the idea of his combinatory Art, using letters and rotating figures to demonstrate divine attributes.
Liber XXIX · Symbols - 1277
Paris condemnations
Bishop Tempier condemns 219 philosophical propositions and books of necromancy and geomancy, marking clerical anxiety over learned magic.
Liber XII · High Magick - 1280
Abraham Abulafia seeks the pope
The founder of ecstatic, letter-permutation Kabbalah travels to Rome to meet Nicholas III, who dies before the audience; Abulafia narrowly escapes execution.
Liber XIX · Kabbalah - c. 1280s–1290s
Moses de León and the Zohar
In Castile, Moses de León circulates Aramaic texts attributed to Simeon bar Yohai; scholars see the Zohar as the work of his circle.
Liber XIX · Kabbalah - c. 1290s
Gikatilla's Gates of Light
Joseph Gikatilla's Sha'arei Orah links each sefirah to divine names, becoming a classic key to the Tree of Life.
Liber XIX · Kabbalah - 1303–10
Earliest reference to a Clavicula
Peter of Abano's Lucidator mentions a 'Clavicula' of Solomon, the first known allusion to the work by that title.
Liber XXVII · Solomonic Magic - 1310
Marguerite Porete burned in Paris
The beguine author of The Mirror of Simple Souls, describing the annihilated soul united with God, is executed as a relapsed heretic.
Liber IX · Gnosticism - 1314
Jacques de Molay burned
Seven years after the 1307 arrests, the last Templar Grand Master dies at the stake in Paris, seeding legends later adopted by Masonic and occult orders.
Liber XXIV · Secret Societies - 1323
Liber florum burned in Paris
John of Morigny's visionary prayer book, a reworking of the Ars Notoria, is condemned and burned as superstitious.
Liber XXVII · Solomonic Magic - 1329
Meister Eckhart condemned
The bull In agro dominico condemns propositions of the late Dominican mystic, whose teaching of the soul's ground and the birth of God endures.
Liber IX · Gnosticism - 1346
Ganellus's Summa sacre magice
Berengarius Ganellus compiles a vast compendium of ritual and Solomonic magic, an important witness to learned magic in the fourteenth century.
Liber XII · High Magick - c. late 14th century
The Cloud of Unknowing
An anonymous English guide to contemplative prayer teaches approaching God through a 'cloud' of unknowing, in the line of Dionysius.
Liber IX · Gnosticism - c. 1380–1410
Earliest Clavicula fragment (Trento)
Two leaves in Trento's chapter library with excerpts from Book 2 of the Clavicula are the oldest known witnesses to the Key of Solomon.
Liber XXVII · Solomonic Magic