Eridanis
Bard 7/Mod (ret) 10/Mgr 3
Thought this would be interesting to some. The estimate for this auction was 8 to 12 thousand pounds, but it went for 48,000. Here's the description:
LOT 1
MAGIC.
MANUSCRIPT GRIMOIRE
8,000—12,000 GBP
Lot Sold. Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium: 48,000 GBP
DESCRIPTION
containing conjurations, incantations, and folk remedies, in an elizabethan secretary hand, illustrated with magical diagrams, pentacles, and two pages of sigils including those of the planets with angelic seals, in English with some conjurations and invocations in Latin and crudely drawn Hebrew characters, some passages in cipher with decoded text occasionally provided, some words and phrases rubricated, with occasional annotations in several hands (early notes in a secretary hand in brown ink, later notes in pencil and ink), foliated in brown ink (fols ([122]-136) and paginated in blue pencil (pp.206-235), 30 pages, folio, each leaf separately laid down in a modern blank album, modern blind tooled calf with blind lettering ("Key of Solomon"), slip case, late 16th century, incomplete, pages cropped at head often with loss of top line of text, wear and tear to edges professionally restored including five pages remargined and one tear resulting in the loss of two sigils, red ink faded
PROVENANCE
Robert Lenkiewicz, artist (1941-2002)
CATALOGUE NOTE
"This experiment that followethe is to overcom any enemies and to gett favour of all men & if thou wilt beare these Caracters with the & say this every day before thou either eate or drinke, & it is true & proved by Frier bacon, who ever used this..."
a richly illustrated elizabethan magical anthology and an important and unique source of occult material, containing a wide range of spells and conjurations. The "experiments" provide an array of instructions: how to draw a magical eye that will identify and punish a thief; "To finde treasure of the yearthe make this Figure followinge with the blude of a blacke whelpe..."; how to summon any elemental spirit; "Experimentem amorem, true & proved of Many, Take a Frog ... & putt him into a pott..."; "To cause a spirit to appear in thy bed chamber"; how to summon a spirit into a crystal ("...Here it will appeare like as it were a Clawe [sic] in the Cristall..."); and many more.
This is a sourcebook of practical magic as practised in early modern Europe. The early pagination shows that these leaves once formed part of a much longer manuscript. Many of the spells are to find treasure and prevent theft ("...to make theives to stand aswell by night as by day, thou shalt at every corner of the house whear the goodes dooe stand say this orasion following..."), services commonly offered by itinerant practitioners of magic. It also contains a number of folk remedies for such ailments as toothache and labour pains.
This manuscript is not, despite the title presumably provided by Lenkiewicz and a one page modern description that has been tipped in, a copy of the Key of Solomon (Clavicula Salomonis), but rather an eclectic and personalised anthology drawing on a range of Solomonic and other sources. Manuscripts of the Clavis Salomonis from the period vary considerably and elements taken from the Solomonic tradition include the use of a sword in ritual magic and the conjuration of elemental spirits. Traces may also be found of the Lemegeton (including the Goetia), and the Liber Juratus. Other spells, such as the ritual eye, seem much more idiosyncratic. Much of the text is set within a Christian framework - in line with reform of the occult arts proposed by John Dee and others. The Trinity and saints are frequently invoked, crosses often replaced stars, and the text is interspersed with Biblical passages (including Peter 5:8 and John 1:1). There are also a signs of an older and darker tradition in the use of blood rituals and, on one occasion, a reversed pentacle.
The principal authority claimed by the writer is, as was common in the period, Roger Bacon ("Friar Bacon"). Much more distinctive, however, is a passage that provides a genealogy of some spells from a certain Thomas Drowre, a scholar of Divinity at Orleans, Oxford, and Cambridge, and a "master of the high sciens under god". Drowre, working in conjunction with four others and with the "helpe & counsell" of Bacon, obtained great powers. The story continues: "...Now this Clarke in Divinitie ... Thomas Drowre ... at godes callinge of him before his departinge of his life, out of this worlde, gave his full powre & authoritie at the requeste & Harty desire of his stewarde, asked of Charitie he gave fully all there powers to him..."
Link (registration required)
LOT 1
MAGIC.
MANUSCRIPT GRIMOIRE
8,000—12,000 GBP
Lot Sold. Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium: 48,000 GBP
DESCRIPTION
containing conjurations, incantations, and folk remedies, in an elizabethan secretary hand, illustrated with magical diagrams, pentacles, and two pages of sigils including those of the planets with angelic seals, in English with some conjurations and invocations in Latin and crudely drawn Hebrew characters, some passages in cipher with decoded text occasionally provided, some words and phrases rubricated, with occasional annotations in several hands (early notes in a secretary hand in brown ink, later notes in pencil and ink), foliated in brown ink (fols ([122]-136) and paginated in blue pencil (pp.206-235), 30 pages, folio, each leaf separately laid down in a modern blank album, modern blind tooled calf with blind lettering ("Key of Solomon"), slip case, late 16th century, incomplete, pages cropped at head often with loss of top line of text, wear and tear to edges professionally restored including five pages remargined and one tear resulting in the loss of two sigils, red ink faded
PROVENANCE
Robert Lenkiewicz, artist (1941-2002)
CATALOGUE NOTE
"This experiment that followethe is to overcom any enemies and to gett favour of all men & if thou wilt beare these Caracters with the & say this every day before thou either eate or drinke, & it is true & proved by Frier bacon, who ever used this..."
a richly illustrated elizabethan magical anthology and an important and unique source of occult material, containing a wide range of spells and conjurations. The "experiments" provide an array of instructions: how to draw a magical eye that will identify and punish a thief; "To finde treasure of the yearthe make this Figure followinge with the blude of a blacke whelpe..."; how to summon any elemental spirit; "Experimentem amorem, true & proved of Many, Take a Frog ... & putt him into a pott..."; "To cause a spirit to appear in thy bed chamber"; how to summon a spirit into a crystal ("...Here it will appeare like as it were a Clawe [sic] in the Cristall..."); and many more.
This is a sourcebook of practical magic as practised in early modern Europe. The early pagination shows that these leaves once formed part of a much longer manuscript. Many of the spells are to find treasure and prevent theft ("...to make theives to stand aswell by night as by day, thou shalt at every corner of the house whear the goodes dooe stand say this orasion following..."), services commonly offered by itinerant practitioners of magic. It also contains a number of folk remedies for such ailments as toothache and labour pains.
This manuscript is not, despite the title presumably provided by Lenkiewicz and a one page modern description that has been tipped in, a copy of the Key of Solomon (Clavicula Salomonis), but rather an eclectic and personalised anthology drawing on a range of Solomonic and other sources. Manuscripts of the Clavis Salomonis from the period vary considerably and elements taken from the Solomonic tradition include the use of a sword in ritual magic and the conjuration of elemental spirits. Traces may also be found of the Lemegeton (including the Goetia), and the Liber Juratus. Other spells, such as the ritual eye, seem much more idiosyncratic. Much of the text is set within a Christian framework - in line with reform of the occult arts proposed by John Dee and others. The Trinity and saints are frequently invoked, crosses often replaced stars, and the text is interspersed with Biblical passages (including Peter 5:8 and John 1:1). There are also a signs of an older and darker tradition in the use of blood rituals and, on one occasion, a reversed pentacle.
The principal authority claimed by the writer is, as was common in the period, Roger Bacon ("Friar Bacon"). Much more distinctive, however, is a passage that provides a genealogy of some spells from a certain Thomas Drowre, a scholar of Divinity at Orleans, Oxford, and Cambridge, and a "master of the high sciens under god". Drowre, working in conjunction with four others and with the "helpe & counsell" of Bacon, obtained great powers. The story continues: "...Now this Clarke in Divinitie ... Thomas Drowre ... at godes callinge of him before his departinge of his life, out of this worlde, gave his full powre & authoritie at the requeste & Harty desire of his stewarde, asked of Charitie he gave fully all there powers to him..."
Link (registration required)
