. Term widely used in the later Middle Ages for the conjuring of demons with the intent to harm enemies, to secure the favor of powerful individuals, to learn future or secret things, to gain wealth, to succeed in romantic exploits, or to create illusions. Necromancers (or “nigromancers”) typically stood inside magic circles and recited conjurations, otherwise known as “adjurations” or “exorcisms” and often virtually identical to the exorcisms used for expelling demons; frequently, they used fumiga-tions, astrological symbols, and other elements of the as-tral magic that had been imported from Arabic culture. They often combined these techniques with image magic—piercing wax images with needles or melting them over fire. Necromancy seems to have been chiefly a clerical form of magic, but clergy who engaged in it appear often to have done so for clients, and frequently these clients were public figures of some prominence.
Important trials for necromancy occurred in France during the early 14th century. In any particular case, it may be questioned whether necromancy was in fact being practiced, whether the charge was a fiction cynically used to attack political adversaries, or whether it expressed the sincere but erroneous apprehensions of potential victims. What we can say is that necromancy was studied (manuscripts survive giving detailed guidelines for conjuring “malign spirits”) and surely at least sometimes practiced by members of a kind of clerical underworld.
An important early trial for necromancy was that of Bishop Guichard de Troyes, who was alleged to have used such magic to kill Queen Jeanne in 1305 and was tried on this charge 1308–15. He was said to have consulted both a sorceress and a friar skilled in necromancy. When the friar succeeded in conjuring a demon, the bishop paid the demon homage and heard how they should proceed. All three went in disguise to a hermitage, where they baptized a wax image in the queen’s name and then pierced various parts of the image. The queen fell ill, and her physicians could not treat her. But even when the bishop had the sorceress repeatedly pierce the image, the queen still did not die. Exasperated, the bishop broke the image asunder, trampled it, and cast it into a fire, whereupon the queen expired.
Further trials involving the crown occurred in succeeding years. In 1315, Enguerran de Marigny was charged with using image magic, in part to harm Louis X, although his defenders said the magic was intended rather to gain the king’s favor. In 1316, Cardinal Francesco Caetani engaged the services of a cleric and a former member of the Templars, who professed expertise in necromancy and who assured him that with the proper equipment and sufficient time they could conjure a demon who would teach the secrets of alchemy; when they informed against Caetani, they charged him with wishing to harm the king and others.
Under Pope John XXII (r. 1316–34), there was a series of cases involving necromancy ostensibly directed against the pope. Bishop Hugues Géraud of Cahors, who was being investigated for simony and other corruption, was tried in 1317 for trying to kill John and his close associates by importing into the papal palace at Avignon wax figures baptized in their names. In the following year, John ordered an investigation of several men, mostly cler-ics, who allegedly used books of necromancy to invoke evil spirits while standing in circles. By such means, the pope reported, they could ruin people’s health, or they could make demons captive in mirrors and other objects so that they might inquire about past or future events. In 1320, the Visconti of Milan were charged with using nec-romantic image magic against Pope John. Not all the trials for necromancy were political in nature, however. The Carmelite Pierre Recordi confessed in 1329 that he had used wax images and made sacrifices to the Devil for the sake of having sex with women (or, if they refused, doing them harm). A notary named Geraud Cassendi at Carcas-sonne in 1410 and a priest of Tournai ca. 1472 were accused of invoking demons for the same purpose.
The charge of necromancy recurred sporadically in later decades. When Charles VI became mad in the 1390s, more than one individual was charged with using image magic or other techniques, evidently necromantic, to harm him. Around the turn of the century, concern with necro-mancy and related arts preoccupied French theologians; the theological faculty at Paris condemned these arts in 1398, and four years later Jean Gerson incorporated the conclusio of the Paris theologians in his treatise De erroribus circa artem magicam. In 1406, two members of a clerical necromantic conspiracy against Pope Benedict XIII and the king of France, inspired by fear of “diabolical spirits,” disclosed the plot to the pope.
While necromancy usually involved a command of Latin and a knowledge of ritual forms expected only among the clergy, the basic concept of invoking demons is found at times among laity as well. For example, one Johanneta Charles was tried at Geneva in 1401 for conjuring a demon to determine the circumstances of a theft. And a trial in the diocese of Soissons in 1460 disclosed that a priest had gone to a sorceress for means to bring vengeance upon his enemies. She had him baptize a toad and feed it a consecrated host. Then she tore the toad to pieces and from it made a poison that caused the enemies to perish.
Yet the cases that attracted most attention were those involving collaboration of clergy and prominent public figures. In 1440, Gilles de Rais, who as marshal of France had fought alongside Jeanne d’Arc at Orléans, was tried for consulting necromancers, most importantly a Florentine priest called François Prelati, in an effort to regain his squandered fortune.
Driscoll, Daniel, trans. The Sworn Book of Honorius the Magician. Berkeley Heights: Heptangle, 1983.
Hyatte, Reginald, trans. Laughter for the Devil: The Trials of Gilles de Rais, Companion-in-Arms of Joan of Arc (1440). Rutherford: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1984.
Barber, Malcolm. The Trial of the Templars. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978.
Butler, Eliza Marian. Ritual Magic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1949.
Harvey, Margaret. “Papal Witchcraft: The Charges Against Benedict XIII.” In Sanctity and Secularity: The Church and the World, ed. Derek Baker. Oxford: Blackwell, 1973, pp. 109–16.
Jones, William R. “Political Uses of Sorcery in Medieval Europe.” Historian 34 (1972):670–87.
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