Analyzing a 15th-century necromancer's book of experiments doesn't sound like gripping reading. Actually, it's quite fascinating reading, though this is definitely a geekbuy for the scholar of magic, mysticism, and religious trends.

Simply, this book takes a largely complete necromantic manual and analyzes it in context of the time, history, and what the owner may be like. The manual in question thus becomes a touchstone for understanding a period in time, traditions, and ideas - and how they came to be.

It does so quite well. There's a myriad of marvelous insights, informative information, and catalogues information, all tied together in comprehendible ways.

If there is a flaw, its that the manual is included in the book - but with no translation! It's clearly aimed at scholars in that regard, but I have to wonder if a translation would have made it more useful in general.

Despite this flaw, even if a near half of the book is in latin, it's really quite an interesting buy for a scholar of such things. If one has read the other books in the series, then this one is definitely worth it for its well-done contuinuing scholarship.

Professor Kieckheffer is one of the greatest authorities on medieval magic. It is especially ceremonial magic that he has placed firmly on the map of medieval intellectual history. The necromancer's manual is a fascinating text accompanied by Kieckheffer's high quality scholarship regarding social and intellectual contexts. I highly recoomend for anybody interested in the history of medieval and Renaissance magic.

People who are interested in works in the Latin language ought to take a special note of this book. It is one of the more curious and obscure things in print, and we're thankful for it.

This reproduces in its entirely a fifteenth century manual containing someone's collection of magic spells. Unlike the fabled Necronomicon, this one's real. The spells themselves, as Prof. Kieckhefer's commentary points out, fall into a number of predictable patterns.

Their basic premise seems to be that by using a mish-mash of sacred names in Hebrew and Greek, or invoking an even more unrecognisable congeries of infernal spirits, we can invoke the power of God to summon demons and make them do our bidding. Putting this unlikely theology into practise, though, seems frequently to require the sacrifice of a hoopoe, making the spells somewhat difficult to use for the North American reader. Good luck.

What makes this book stand out is that, unlike similar collections of magical material, this one reproduces the entire original text in fairly easy mediæval Latin. I would have some nits to pick with the editing (it seems unlikely the fellow really meant to write "eciam" so often), but having this fascinating and obscure material to peruse in the original more than compensates for any such minor flaws. Original pages are often reproduced, showing the all-important sigils and arcane symbols.

Serious diabolists may find this a must-read. Folks like myself, just interested in late Latin literature, will find it a hoot. Hope you're not a lip-reader, though.

This book has about 200 pages of information. At best, I would call it an OVERVIEW, but by no means complete. I was really disapointed by the lack on information regarding Pagan ties to magic. The total number of pages relating to that topic is 7. 7!!! Thats pathetic! Divination is barely touched on... this is just an extremely breif book. I honestly wouldn't recommend this book to anyone unless they wanted a concise text about Magic in Literature of the Middle Ages. That is honesly the only topic explained enough.

This seems to be the only way I can communicate to Amazon.com. WHY DON'T YOU PRINT THE NUMBER OF PAGES IN YOUR BOOKS? You give all kinds of other information, but not the no. of pages. I am not going to buy a lot of books if I do not know the number of pages. Can you help me?

Richard J. Hoskins rhoskins@schiffhardin.com

Richard Kieckhefer's "Magic in the Middle Ages" is a relatively short but comprehensive scholarly summary of the long and fascinating history of magic during Europe's middle ages and its relationship to witchcraft. The author analyzes the many varied influences on magical beliefs from classical literature, folk beliefs, magical texts, biblical sources, and contemporary scholarly and theological treatises. He shows how the beliefs in magic changed over time and how each area influenced the popular and scholarly beliefs in magic and the supernatural. Ultimately, he shows that beliefs in magic, like relgion to which it is closely related, changes over time as people's perceptions change. He also shows the relationship between magic and witchcraft and how they both played roles in the witch craze of the early modern period. This book is required reading in many witchcraft and medieval studies classes and justly so.