Harms Necromancy Early Modern

THANATOS vol.
8 1/2019
© Suomalaisen Kuolemantutkimuksen Seura Ry.
https://thanatosjournal.files.wordpress.com/2019/08/harms_necromancy_early_modern.pdf
ARTICLE
“Thou Art Keeper of Man and Woman’s Bones” –

Rituals of Necromancy in Early Modern England
Daniel Harms
SUNY Cortland
Abstract
In sixteenth and seventeenth-century England, high rates of mortality
and churchyard burial placed the dead very close to the living both
physically and emotionally. Experiments of necromancy, in which a
magician sought to contact the dead by magical means, from the time
have been little examined as historical documents. One such set of
experiments is referred to here as the “Keeper of the Bones” ritual, in
which a magician calls on a spirit to bring the ghost of a dead person in
order to obtain desired information. We will examine these rituals and
connect them with contemporary funerary rituals and practices, as well
as beliefs in the nature of the soul and the role of the dead in early
modern culture.
Introduction
In early modern England, the dead were a matter of deep concern to the living.
Mortality rates were high by modern standards, with a quarter of children dying before
the age of ten (Pollock 2017, 61). The average life expectancy remained close to 38
years, less than half of that in the United States and Finland today, from the mid-
sixteenth century to the end of the seventeenth (Wrigley et al. 1981, 234–236). Not
only did the living fondly remember the many deceased, but their dead relatives and
neighbors often lay in the local parish church or churchyard, binding them to the
center of civic and religious life. Further, the Roman Catholic doctrine of purgatory
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THANATOS vol. 8 1/2019
promised that those in the afterlife could receive succor by all manner of practices,
ranging from private prayer to major endowments for local religious institutions, all of
which led in turn to continued remembrance and visibility of the dead. Most notably,
however, indulgences could be purchased to ease the suffering of the dead while in
purgatory (Marshall 2002, 6–46). The dead, while in this liminal state, could interact
with the living through apparitions that brought warnings or indications of an undone
deed or a hidden crime (Edwards 2012).
Such practices became fodder for Protestant reformers and their supporters, who saw
post-mortem religious practices that channeled money to the Church as exploitation of
the living rather than relief of the dead. The denial of Purgatory, and that of the
connections between the dead and the living that accompanied it, became key elements
of Church of England theology. This dissociation brought change to many different
aspects of remembering and interacting with the dead, ranging from revisions of the
Church’s liturgy to the dissolution of religious endowments to the unparalleled
destruction of tombs, funerary monuments, and bodies. The goal of these efforts was
to close off the world of the dead from the living, save for directing the most general
sentiments of hope and gratitude toward the deceased (Marshall 2002, 93–187).
Nonetheless, popular devotion and belief could not be transformed so easily.

Narratives regarding the re-appearance of those dead continued to circulate, as they
had before. Further, people continued to report dreams in which the dead visited
them, in some cases to provide comfort, in others to warn or provide admonitions
about improper behavior (Schmitt 1998, 42–58). Finally, a small educated population
sought out dream visions through rituals not forming part of acceptable liturgical or
popular practice: the branch of ritual magic known as necromancy1. As Janine Rivière
sums up the situation, “the evidence of popular beliefs and narratives about ghosts
1
The term “necromancy” could have different meanings at this time. Authors sometimes employed it to designate magic
they viewed with disapproval, or that explicitly dealt with demonic rituals, as opposed to “nigromancy,” which was magic
that an author perceived positively (Klaassen 2012b, 10–11). In this article, it is used in the original Greek and Roman
sense of magical operations used to contact the dead, a meaning in which it was also employed in early modern Britain
(Ogden 2001, xxxi–ii; Holland 1590, D4r–v; Perkins and Pickering 1608, 108; Cotta 1616, 37).
indicates a more complex relationship that reflects continuities rather than abrupt
changes” (2009, 104).
Contemporary literature displayed some ambiguity toward necromantic practices,

despite the best effort of divines to dissuade readers from such practices. Educated
authors and readers were familiar with and quoted such Biblical passages as Leviticus
19:31 and Deuteronomy 18:10–11 that set out prohibitions against those who
consulted with the dead or even those who allowed practitioners to live in their
community. The most famous Biblical description of necromancy was the account of
Saul and the Witch of Endor (1 Samuel 28). On the eve of a battle, Saul, King of
Israel, asked a medium to call up the ghost of the prophet Samuel. When the witch
conjured Samuel, he appeared and gave a dire prediction of Saul’s death that was
fulfilled. The plain wording of the passage suggested that the medium was successful in
her magic and that the information the ghost provided was accurate. This did not stop
many interpreters from seeking to explain the passage instead as a demonic illusion or
trick (e.g. Lavater 1572, 127–140; Howard 1620, 89v–90r). Further, with the revival of
the Classics, many learned individuals would have been familiar with the necromantic
rites performed for Odysseus (Odyssey XI), Aeneas (Aeneid VI), and Lucan (De Bello
Civili VI). Such encounters spilled over into theatre, with the most prominent example
being the ghost of Hamlet’s father in Shakespeare’s play, a figure whose ambiguous
nature as ghost, devil, or hallucination drives the play’s dramatic tension (Kapitaniak
2008, 613–680).
Necromancy was not only a phenomenon of Biblical narrative, literature, or

entertainment. Contemporary accounts of necromantic rites are very much in
evidence, even if they might tell us more about attitudes on the topic rather than actual
practice. Edward Kelley, before he engaged in crystal-gazing sessions with John Dee,
was reputed to have called up a dead man in a Lancashire churchyard (Weever and
Cecil 1631, 45–46). We have multiple accounts of cunning people, or local magicians
who set out to address a wide range of local concerns, seeking out ghosts haunting
houses in order to lay them or seek their guidance in finding treasure (e.g. Anonymous
1661, 4–5; 1685, 3). The powerful were not exempt from engaging in necromancy – or
being accused of doing so. The MP Goodwin Wharton, in conjunction with the
cunning woman Mary Parrish, had dealings with her familiar spirit, one George
Whitmore, supposedly an executed man who promised to serve her after his death
(Timbers 2016, 58–70). Henry Caesar, vicar of Lostwithiel, accused Sir Walter
Mildmay, Elizabeth’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, of engaging a magician to call up
the ghost of Cardinal Pole (Rowse 1969, 335–336). The explorers Adrian (c. 1541–
1629) and Humphrey Gilbert (1537–1583), are believed to be responsible for a series
of necromantic rituals for calling up dead magicians, as chronicled in a manuscript now
designated as British Library Additional MS. 36,674 (Klaassen 2012b). These practices
were treated with such seriousness that King James I included in his Witchcraft Act of
1604 a prohibition against those who would “take up any dead man, woman, or child,
out of his, her, or their grave, or any other place where the dead body resteth; or the
skin, bone, or any other part of any dead person, to be imployed, or used in any
manner of Witchcraft, Sorcery, Charme, or Inchantment,” upon pain of death.
(Statutes of the Realm, 1 Jac. I c. 12)
Much of the above is well known to historians of early modern England. What have
remained largely unexamined, however, are the manuscripts and printed works relating
to necromantic procedures found in various repositories in the United Kingdom and
United States. This literature, often transcribed and circulated surreptitiously, often
consists of miscellanies collecting various procedures, ranging from short charms to
rituals of exceeding length and complexity, compiled from different sources. Such
rituals make extensive use of Christian symbolism, imagery, and references, by calling
on which the magician could command or entreat a wide variety of supernatural beings.
Such creatures could assist in obtaining many goals, including the acquisition of wealth,
influence, healing, knowledge, or sex. A small but substantial percentage of these rituals
promises the magician successful contact with the dead (Klaassen 2012a).

Necromancy was a key aspect of the ritual magic literature of the time. The influential
author and magician Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa devoted two chapters of his De
occulta philosophia (1533), the encyclopedic treatise on magic first published in
English in 1650, to the dead and necromantic rituals (Agrippa von Nettesheim 1992,
521–538). After Agrippa’s death, a spurious “Fourth Book” attributed to him
appeared, with its English translation first published in 1655. Its last section expanded
upon the principles in De occulta to lay out necromantic procedures in further detail
(Agrippa von Nettesheim and d’Abano 1655, 69–71). Reginald Scot’s anti-witchcraft,
anti-Catholic treatise Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584), as part of a lengthy catalogue of
magical procedures, provided one ritual to call up a ghost who would in turn contact
the fairy queen Sibilya, and another in which a man to be executed would promise to
serve the magician, similar to the one who supposedly served Mary Parrish and
Goodwin Wharton (Scot 1584, 401–410, 423–429). Scot hoped that revealing magical
rituals would lead to their ridicule; instead, these were supplemented in the 1665
expanded edition, published after his death, with an operation to summon the spirit of
a hanged man (Scot 1665, 217–218). Interest in the topic was reflected in manuscripts
as well, which might include operations for the creation of a Hand of Glory (Sloane
1727, 46), or a sheet with characters that could be placed upon the ground when one
wished to speak with a spirit (Folger V.b.26, 121). One might even summon up spirits
in order to cause the body of a dead person to walk, or to ease their time in purgatory
– even if the Church denied that realm existed. Such rituals appear in manuscripts
alongside those intended to influence angels, demons, unspecified “spirits,” fairies,
thieves, witches, and other creatures (e.g. e Mus. 173, 56r, 45r).
One ghost-summoning ritual, perhaps the most common of those in the manuscript
tradition, appears under several titles (or none), but for the sake of analytical simplicity,
it will be henceforth referred to as the “Keeper of the Bones” rituals. Examination of
these rituals will reveal not only hitherto little-noted examples of early modern ritual
magic, but also draw interesting parallels and contrasts with beliefs and practices

regarding the dead found everywhere from theological treatises to British law to the
printed literature of ritual magic to folk praxis. The aspects covered here include the
role of Azazel, considered to be the keeper of the bones of the dead; the role of
dreaming and the dead; the importance of the churchyard; what items might be taken
away from the grave; the time a spirit could be called to manifest; and the purposes for
such conjurations. In doing so, this demonstrates that explorations of ritual magic texts
might yield important historical insights not accessible through other sources.
The “Keeper of the Bones” Rituals
Many of the manuscripts of early modern British magic have not been systematically
examined as to content, and many more await discovery. Examination of the
manuscript sources available to the author has located fifteen different examples of this
ritual appearing in collections of miscellaneous magical rites, ranging from short
charms to lengthy spirit conjurations for all manner of purposes. The first exemplar,
appearing in Bodleian Library Rawlinson D.252, 67r–v, dates from the fifteenth
century; three more from two manuscripts date to the sixteenth century2, and eleven
from eight manuscripts are recorded in seventeenth century works3. Due to the state of
preservation of these manuscripts, it is unknown whether this signifies a broader
interest in the early modern era for this topic, but it does indicate that individual
copyists found the work of interest for more than two centuries. Notably, in three
cases, multiple versions of the same ritual can be found in a single manuscript, likely as
a safeguard against imprecise procedures leading to failure or other dangerous
2
From London, British Library: Sloane 3884, 47–56; From Urbana-Champaign, University of Illinois: Pre-1650 0102,
68–72, 87–92.
3
From London, British Library: Sloane 3318, 71v; Sloane 3851, 103r–103v; from Oxford, Bodleian Library: Ballard 66,
35–9; Douce 116, 129bis–130, 196–202, 204; e Mus. 173, 73r, 75v; Rawlinson D.253, 139-4; from Chicago, Newberry
Library: Vault Case 5017, 23; from Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland: Guthrie GD188/25/1/3 (not examined),
115–20. In the following citations, truncated references will be given, based on shelfmarks, and page numbers omitted for
rituals that are the sole examples in a manuscript.
The following uncritical versions of this ritual have been published: Sloane 3851 in Gauntlet and Rankine 2011, 235–236;
Rawlinson D.252 in Mathieu 2015, 468–469; Rawlinson D.253 in Skinner and Rankine 2018, 125; the two in e Mus. 173
in Harms and Clark 2019, 293–294, 300.
consequences. If so, it not only indicates that some examples would have been copied
for reasons other than curiosity, but also that different versions of the same rite were
available to the copyists for transcription through their surreptitious networks of
distribution.
Many of these rituals are quite brief, being only a few hundred words, most of which
are invocations that call upon God and holy spirits, individuals, events, and objects to
compel the spirits to obey that are typical of the genre (Kieckhefer 1998, 126–143). If
we were to assemble a common picture summing up these rituals, it might yield the
following picture: The magician, in search of a desired but inaccessible piece of
information, visits the grave of a dead individual; save in one exemplar, the identity or
nature of the dead person is not specified. Calling out to that person multiple times, he
or she then recites an incantation calling upon the spirit Azazel (or some variant
thereof) to grant the magician control of the dead individual. These incantations form
the bulk of most of the text of these ceremonies. One example begins as follows:
O Thou Azazell, as thou arte the keeper of dead mens bones; And
keepest heare the bones of this man N. I Commande the[e] And also
Charge the[e] and I Coniure the[e] by the vertue of almighty god… That
thou come to me, naminge the place and also the time and hower, And
at the enteringe into a the [sic] place to give; 3 knockes so that they may
be perfectly heard… (Pre-1650 0102, 87–88)
Having done so, the magician departs the grave and returns home. The dead individual
either appears to the magician in a dream or appears to him or her later, imparting the
desired information. (Mathieu 2015)
Despite these overall commonalities, considerable differences also appear among these
rituals, particularly in the length and content of the conjurations, the ritual preparations
and tools, and the overall goals of the operation. For example, one set of operations,
consisting of Sloane 3851 and 3884; Douce 116, 196–202; and Pre-1650 0102, 68–72
and 87–92 are longer than the rest, featuring multiple conjurations, an intermediate

stage in which Azazel appears to the magician to negotiate for the dead person to
appear, and sometimes additional accoutrements, such as a magical circle drawn on the
ground or a plate of lead used as a lamina. A few also have elements not present in the
others. One key example, Rawlinson D.252, ends with the magician requesting a Mass
to be said for the dead person. Notably, only one other ritual, Sloane 3851, mentions
this stipulation, and that only to promise the Masses to the spirit in the incantation, with
no instructions at the ritual’s end that they must be included. The lack of mentions in
other manuscripts might be due to different textual traditions, the excising of an
unnecessary step, or removal of a process that, after the Church of England’s critique
of Purgatory and the saying of masses for the dead, would have been seen as heretical
or too difficult to perform. (Marshall 2002, 148–149) Other such variations shall be
explored in the analysis below.
“Keeper of the Bones of the Dead”: The Role of Azazel
Protestant theology placed the souls of the dead in hell and heaven, with their status
determined and governed over by God. Thomas Nashe, however, expressed his
concern that that Devil would deceive Christians to believe that “the bodies and the
souls of the departed rest entirely in his possession” and “the boanes of the dead the
diuell counts as his chiefe treasurie” (1594, B.iii). Our rituals suggest that this was no
idle fear, as they assign both the bodies and souls of the dead to the dominion of a
more ambiguous figure, known by different names and titles. In all cases save but one
(Rawlinson D.253), it is said to have the bones or bodies of the dead in its keeping. In
some rites it bears different and exalted titles, especially “god” (e Mus. 173, 73r, 75v),
“lord” (Sloane 3318, Newberry Vault Case 5017), or “King of the Dead” (Sloane
3851). Its name differs between sources, as it is variously referred to as Fazol, Sezel,
Assachell, Asiel, Azafell, Asacel, or St. S., but in over half the name is given as “Azazel”
or a variant spelling thereof.

Even if Reformed theologians did not recognize Azazel’s dominion over the dead, he
was a familiar figure to them. In Leviticus 16:8, 10, and 26, two goats are designated for
sacrifice in a ritual performed on behalf of the Jewish people. One goat was designated
by lots for Yahweh and the other for Azazel, with the latter being sent away into the
desert. Within the context of Leviticus, Azazel seems to be a personification of chaos
and counterpoint to Yahweh. Later commentators decided the name referred to a
specific spirit at odds with the Old Testament God (Blair 2009, 55–62). Early modern
writers were unaware of the prominent role that Azazel or Asael played in the Book of
Enoch as a rebel angel (Nickelsburg and VanderKam 2012, 25, 28), but they were
certainly aware of the Biblical references, and readers at the end of the early modern
period would have been familiar with Milton’s depiction of him as a “Cherube tall”
bearing the standard of Hell (Milton 1667, 18).
Azazel also possesses associations with the dead outside this group of rituals. Agrippa’s
De Occulta Philosophia maintains that the cadaver remains in the power of the demon
Azazel, as known to the Hebrews4 (Agrippa von Nettesheim 1992, 523). Agrippa had
considerable influence on later occultists, yet Rawlinson D.252, our fifteenth-century
source, pre-dates Agrippa’s work and describes the spirit as “Asacel.” This suggests that
Agrippa might have been adapting an existing tradition from magical literature, counter
to previous speculation that such associations might have been derived from passages
in the compilation of Kabbalistic mysticism known as the Zohar. It could be that the
usage of “Azazel” in these rituals ultimately derives from the Zohar or other Hebrew
sources, but much work remains to be done on the transmissions of magical rituals
from Hebrew to Latin and later vernacular sources that might illuminate this question
(Mesler 2019).
This association between Azazel and the dead can be found elsewhere in magical
practice, if one record of magical operations is any indication. This is the series of
magical experiments recorded in Additional Ms. 36,674 performed by the Gilbert
4
“[U]t dicunt Hebraeorum theologi, linquitur in potestate daemonis Zazelis” (Agrippa von Nettesheim 1992, 523).
brothers. The record of crystal-gazing workings conducted in 1567 does not mention
the “Keeper of the Bones” ritual itself, but it features Azazel as a key figure. In one
session, conducted at sunrise on February 24, “Assasell” appeared with the figures of
several dead magicians, including Solomon, Adam, Bacon, and Tobias, who promised
that they “love man more” than other types of spirits and were therefore ideal for
teaching magic (59r–60r). The following day, the spirit appeared again, this time with
Solomon, Job, Adam, Bacon, and Cornelius Agrippa. This time, Assasel himself
speaks, telling the magicians that “they” – presumably the spirits – were not to “tell
things past, present, & to come,” a common phrase in the magical literature of the time
(49r–50r). Given the procedures outlined elsewhere in the manuscript, and the lack of
access to the graves of these far-flung and illustrious individuals, the Gilberts probably
were not performing the “Keeper of the Bones” ritual itself. It remains to be seen
whether other such usages of Azazel with the dead appear in manuscripts elsewhere,
but this does suggest that these associations were apparent to those beyond the ritual
described here.
“Far Easier, and More Familiar”: Dreaming of the Dead in Early

Modern England
In most of the “Keeper of the Bones” rituals5, the ritual’s intended outcome is to
induce a dream in which the dead individual manifests and provides information to the
magician. Such dream incubation, in which an individual sought a message from a
supernatural source through dreams, was a common element of pagan spiritualities and
carried over into Christian times (Véronèse 2007), with precedents in Biblical stories
ranging from Jacob to Joseph. Saint Augustine addressed the visions of the dead in
dreams, admitting that they could provide correct information, but that this was the
result of angelic intervention rather than the appearance of the deceased (Augustine
1999, 366–369). Later Christian authors treated dreams of the dead with skepticism,
5
All save Sloane 3851, 3884; Douce 116, 196–202; and Pre-1650 0102, 87–92.
but such visions nonetheless possessed an important role in medieval hagiography and
the practice of pilgrims.
The belief in supernatural contact during dreams began to be critiqued by sixteenth-

century British thinkers, and it sustained a full-scale intellectual assault during the
seventeenth century. Many authors, having witnessed the devastation of the Civil War,
inveighed against claims of supernaturally inspired nocturnal visions as being
superstitious and leading to civil unrest (Rivière 2013). Nonetheless, early modern
people, including such notables as Elias Ashmole, Archbishop Laud, and Thomas
Vaughan, continue to report dreams of the dead (Rivière 2009, 111–115), so it is
unsurprising that some believed these to be actual contact with the deceased. The
English merchant Thomas Tryon could assert “it is far easier, and more familiar for
the deceased Souls to communicate their secrets to their living Friends in Dreams, then
to appear thus in external Forms, by cloathing themselves with thin Elemental Bodies”
(Tryon 1689, 74). The antiquary John Aubrey relates three examples of dream visions
of the dead, two of which proved to be true, and the other which led to a mother giving
her daughter a deadly remedy, following her into the next world when she herself took
it to reassure her chambermaid that it was harmless (Aubrey 1857, 52, 74, 56–57).
Given this grudging and caveat-filled official sanction of dream messages, and narratives
and practices involving dream intervention by saints, it is hardly surprising that dream
incubation formed an important technique in the literature of ritual magic, with various
techniques for pursuing nocturnal visions appearing in manuscripts from the medieval
and early modern periods (Véronèse 2007; Chardonnens 2014). A sixteenth-century
manual at the Folger Shakespeare Library details a procedure for invoking an old man
named “Balancus” or “Balanchus” who appears at night to provide the magician with
desired information (Folger V.b.26, 47, 224). Other operations, preserved in the
Newberry Library manuscript mentioned above, stipulate that the magician place either
magical words on a parchment, or the names of the Three Magi on green wax, beneath
their head before sleep to learn the identity of a thief (Newberry Vault Case 5017, 11v).
In a similar manner, the “Keeper of the Bones” ritual often requires a magically potent
item – in this case, dirt from the grave – be placed in the same position in order to
contact the dead. In doing so, it reflects the Biblical, folkloric, and magical beliefs of its
time and place.
“A Right and Due Burial”: The Role of the Churchyard
One commonality within these rituals is their beginning at a grave, the most accessible
location of which would be the parish churchyard. Even if there is no supernatural
manifestation there, the ritual involves a trip to this site to make the initial call. Yet a
reader of the printed magical literature of the time might have some serious misgivings
about this instruction.
Within the works of Agrippa and pseudo-Agrippa, the churchyard was an appropriate,
and yet not entirely desirable, place for such rituals. Agrippa’s De Occulta Philosophia
lists several such locations, while noting that “the holy right of buriall being duely
performed to the bodies, oftentimes prohibiteth the souls themselves to come up, and
driveth them farther off the places of judgement” (Agrippa von Nettesheim 1992, 489).
Following this cue, the Fourth Book lists among “the places most befitting for these
things” the “Church-yards,” although these rank well behind the “execution of criminal
judgements,” places of “publike slaughters of men,” or a location where “some dead
carkass, that came by a violent death, is not yet expiated, nor ritely buried, and was
lately buried” (Agrippa von Nettesheim and d’Abano 1655, 70). It continues by stating
that “the Souls of the dead are not easily to be raised up, except it be the Souls of them
whom we know to be evil, or to have perished by a violent death, and whose bodies do
want a right and due burial.” (Ibid., 71) Thus, we might be surprised that the rituals
make no stipulations in this regard, especially as most operators would have first-hand
knowledge of local burials that might fit the bill.

It remains puzzling why exactly these rituals did not conform to the caveats in the
printed literature. Agrippa’s name and reputation were common knowledge during his
lifetime. His Three Books of Occult Philosophy and the Fourth Book later attributed
to him did not come into print in Britain until 1651 and 1655, respectively, yet
fragments taken from his work are copied into manuscript works of magic from the
time, including some that include the rituals to Azazel (e.g. e Mus. 173, 32v–33r;
Sloane 3318, 147r) and once even within the text of the rite itself (Sloane 3884, 49r).
Thus, at least some of the copyists would have been familiar with Agrippa’s
preferences. A more important factor could be the shift in the localization of the souls
of the dead during the Reformation, with the denial of purgatory. Many theologians,
led by Martin Luther, believed that all of the dead were effectively asleep at the earth
until Judgment. Ironically, even despite the theological push to minimize monuments
and remembrances of the dead, this position of the Church re-focused attention upon
the churchyard as the prime location for the spirits of the dead, no matter their deeds
in life, to take residence. (Boyacioğlu 2016, 218–220)
The performances of such rites in the churchyard might seem less likely due to its
public nature, as many different activities, ranging from markets to sports to cock-
fighting, might take place within (Dymond 1999; Peate 1970). Nonetheless, most of
these rituals require very little in the way of ritualized speech or actions, much of which
might seem to an observer to be prayer for the dead, a practice which found a strong
defense in the writings of the Church fathers (Marshall 2002, 141–148). Further, the
view of the churchyard as a place that “swarmed soules and spirits” and where “a right
hardie man heretofore scant durst passe by night, but his haire would stand upright”
indicates that evenings might have granted more privacy for potential necromantic
rituals (Scot 1584, 462, 153). Given the dangers of travel in the era, such a covert
practice might have been preferable to traveling out into the wilds to perform the ritual
at a more appropriate site (Parkes 1925, 152–192; Monga 1998). Then again, secrecy
also depended upon what the magician needed to acquire at the grave.

“Skin, Bone, or Any Other Part”: The Use of Remains in the “Keeper
of the Bones” Rituals
On December 4–5, 1590, Agnes Sampson confessed to attending a meeting of witches

at North Berwick kirk, at which the Devil’s servants “opened up three graves… and
took of the joints of their fingers, toes, and noses” in order “to make a powder of them
to do evil withall” (Normand and Roberts 2000, 147). King James I, the supposed
target of the North Berwick witches’ spells, later wrote in his Daemonologie of how
“the witches take [a dead body] up and joint it” (ibid., 406). Although the
circumstances behind the drafting of the aforementioned 1604 statute against witchcraft
and magic remain unclear, the king’s displeasure likely led to the stipulation that the
penalty of death should fall upon anyone who would remove any part of a corpse from
its resting place for magical purposes (Statutes of the Realm, 1 Jac. I c. 12).
Despite the official prohibition, the printed literature of magic at the time did refer in
several passages to the use of the corpse or parts thereof in magic. Agrippa assured his
readers that “the souls of the dead cannot be called up without blood and a carkasse:
but their shadowes to be easily allured by the fumigations of these things” (Agrippa von
Nettesheim 1651, 489). The Fourth Book followed him, reiterating that “In raising up
these shadows, we are to perfume with new Blood, [and] with the Bones of the dead…”
along with other substances (Agrippa von Nettesheim and d’Abano 1655, 70). Scot
noted that some considered that the burning of the smoke of “the tooth of a dead
man” could be used to relieve those “bewitched in their privities,” or that the skull of a
slain man might be used to cure epilepsy or rabies (Scot 1584, 82, 243). The rite to
summon the ghost of a hanged man from Scot’s 1665 expanded edition, as noted
above, also required the corpse to be present (Scot 1665, 217–218).
Within the “Keeper of the Bones” rituals, one manuscript, Sloane 3884, seems to
correspond to these requirements. The magician is cautioned to bring a shovel along to
facilitate the process. He or she should be prepared to dig up the entire corpse,
replacing the dirt, and bearing the remains away to a secret place. Having done so, the
magician should remove some part of the body. This could be the heart of a small
child, or a part “in the which she or he did most delyte in & dyd most offend with,”
such as the tongue of an eloquent person or the voice of the lecher. Such a substance
could be used to make a perfume to call up the spirit (Sloane 3884, 48v–49r). This
example, then, is quite close to the instructions given in Agrippa and pseudo-Agrippa.
Yet this gruesome example is an anomaly in our corpus of rituals. The other thirteen
reviewed do not require any part of the dead individual to contact the spirit. Instead,
most of the rituals simply require some dirt from the grave to be carried away. Not only
was this much more feasible to obtain and more lawful, but its use would have had
precedent in funerary ritual. Graveyard earth was already incorporated into the burial
ritual, with either the minister or (later) someone nearby sprinkling it into the grave
while the minister intoned the memorable phrase, “earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust
to dust” (Cressy 2002, 397–398). The scattering of graveyard dirt stood as a symbol of
ecclesiastical control over the death process; John Leech of Essex was
excommunicated after sprinkling dirt on an informal burial in 1589 (Cressy 2002, 405)
and Humphrey Justice of Banbury, Oxfordshire ended up in a physical altercation with
a minister in 1619 when he tried to fill in a grave, with the body being present (Peyton
1928, 298). Thus, taking such earth could be seen as both a symbolic reversal of the
burial process and an undermining of the Church’s control of that process.
Beyond orthodox Protestant theology, the use of graveyard dirt to invoke the power of
the dead, especially in the case of the saints, was a longstanding part of European folk
tradition. Dirt or dust from the grave of saint falls into the category of “tertiary relics,”
items brought into a contact with the saint’s body or items touched by the saint (Sauer
2010, 597). Such practices are known as early as the chronicles of Gregory of Tours
and the Venerable Bede, which describe soil taken from saints’ graves possessing great
power (Van Dam 1993, 134–135, 151–152, 159–160, 244; Bede 1958, 118–119, 170).
As late as the early twentieth century, the dirt from the tomb of St. Ulrich was sold in
Augsburg to ward off rats and mice (Andree 1911, 125). At Rennes and Boistrudan,
linen bags of dirt from the graves of holy individuals were made available to sufferers
(Sébillot and Harou 1900, 156; Orain 1886, 193). In some Western European
folklore, graveyard dirt is seen as having special power to compel the dead. Paul
Sebillot presents a nineteenth-century belief – without a given location, although his
home province of Brittany is likely – that placing graveyard dirt into a sack might aid in
the contacting of the dead (Sébillot 1904, 208). Folklore of the English West Country
held that casting graveyard dirt into the face of a ghost could cause it to change form to
that of an animal, a prelude to commanding the spirit to depart (Brown 1979, 29–30,
58).The magician who practiced the “Keeper of the Bones” rituals was thereby
participating in a broader cultural practice, conducted throughout Western Europe for
over a millennium6.
“Within Thirteen Nights”: Time and the Soul in Early Modern Burial
Although Catholics and Protestants agreed about the immortality of the soul, neither
suggested that some time might elapse between death and the departure of the spirit
from the world. This was nonetheless a component of popular belief, with the spirits of
the wicked or those improperly buried remaining for a longer time. In some narratives
from France, the buried individuals maintained enough of a presence that they could
arise to defend or threaten the living (Muchembled 1985, 63–64). Authors rarely stated
the exact period, and when they did, it was rare to have any agreement. Separate
passages of the Zohar provide different spans of time in which the lower soul, or
nefesh, stays with the corpse: thirty days, seven days of intense connection to the body
followed by twelve months of visitation, or until the body has decayed (Matt 2004, VI:
135–136; III: 362; V: 302). Thomas Tryon was vague on the duration of the soul
remaining on the earth, save to say that “as the moisture and matter of the Body does
6
Given the frequency that these rituals were used to uncover theft – see below – a Welsh practice should be noted in
which a person sleeps on a piece of earth on which the thief has walked, wrapped in a rag and placed under a pillow.
(Trevelyan 1909, 44)
waste, so the Apparition or Ghost does grow weak, and at last vanish” (Tryon 1689,
70).
For most individuals, such questions might have theological or emotional importance,
but those who practiced necromancy would find a pragmatic need in addition to these.
After all, if a spirit has yet to depart for heaven, hell, or Purgatory, or if it merely has
stronger ties to the moldering flesh for a time, those would be ideal times to use a
ritual. The only printed reference to such a magical practice is in Reginald Scot, who
claimed that “The Necromancers affirme, that the spirit of anie man may be called up,
or recalled (as they terme it) before one yeare be past after their departure from the
bodie” (Scot 1584, 141). Given Scot’s hostility toward magicians, however, we might
ask how accurate this information might be.
The operators of our “Keeper of the Bones” rituals take two different stances as to the
elapsing of time. Nine of those examined make no reference to a time constraint
whatsoever. This would have been in line with both Luther’s doctrine that the dead lay
sleeping until Judgment, and many seventeenth-century narratives regarding returning
spirits, who would appear to redress wrongs no matter how much time had elapsed
since their deaths (Boyacioğlu 2016, 227). Others suggest that the spirit should be
contacted soon after burial, whether for an unspecified duration (Ballard 66, Rawlinson
D.252), or for a specific length of time – “first night,” “3 days,” or “within 13 nights”
(Sloane 3851, 3884; Illinois Pre-1650 0102, 87–92; Douce 116, 196–202). This
disparity, along with the lack of agreement between any of these rites and the minimal
links between these and other contemporary sources, suggests that questions of the
soul’s presence near the body were far from settled even well into the seventeenth
century.

The Purpose for Seeking an Audience with the Dead
Sneaking into a graveyard, reciting an incantation, and stealing away something from
the grave – a magician must have had compelling reasons to do such things. Some of
the “Keeper of the Bones” ritual manuscripts remain silent as to what the ritual’s
purpose might be, while others provide multiple objectives. Half of the rituals
examined are for the purpose of uncovering theft (Sloane 3318; e Mus 173, 73r, 75v;
Douce 116, 129bis–130, 196–202, 204; Rawlinson D.252). The next most common
category is the discovery of gold, silver or other treasure, which appears in five cases
(Rawlinson D.253; Newberry Vault Case 5017; Douce 116, 196–202; Illinois Pre-1650
0102, 68–72, 87–92). Ghosts were routinely associated with buried treasure in early
modern times; tales of spirit manifestations in a location were often interpreted as signs
of hidden wealth, and uncovering them led not simply to enrichment, but to
performing the laudable duty of putting a troubled spirit to final rest (Dillinger 2012,
77–79). Three rituals refer more generally to answering questions (Sloane 3318;
Rawlinson D.253; Newberry Vault Case 5017), and one of these cites manslaughter as
a crime to be revealed (Rawlinson D.253). We also have a single example of a ritual in
which the spirit is compelled to “bring the Booke of Magick Science and arte written in
suche a hand and with such Letters that I may reade it well and in such a tonge that I
may well understand it” (Sloane 3851, 103v).
If we see a commonality running through most of those rituals in which a purpose is

provided, it is ensuring that the social order is upheld: thieves are uncovered,
wandering spirits are laid to rest, and killers are revealed. This was very much in line
with many popular narratives in which ghosts manifested due to some injustice
regarding their own murders, or the distribution of property, after their deaths. The
magicians might themselves benefit from such situations; indeed, in the case of the
request for the magical book, it is difficult to argue a direct communal good. Still, these
rituals’ purposes were among those addressed by the local service magicians, today
classified as “cunning folk,” who used experiments similar to others in these
manuscripts as part of a lucrative trade that served communities in the absence of

modern medical, legal, or financial resources (Davies 2007, 84–89, 93–118, 186). If
they performed such rites, the ghosts summoned via the breaking of elite and popular
norms might nonetheless assist in the re-establishment of the social order (Boyacioğlu
2016, 233).
In a manner of speaking, however, these rituals show more adherence to community

norms than the popular narratives. The ghosts in the stories are more focused on their
own wishes, goods, and wrongs, or those done to their immediate families. Those
called up in Azazel’s name, however, are not stated to have limited knowledge, but
instead may be summoned to provide information regarding any violation befalling
members of the community. Although contemporary theology downplayed the dead’s
knowledge of this world, it nonetheless acknowledged that spirits had access to sources
of information not available to the living, such as other dead individuals or angels
(Marshall 2002, 212). Thus, by breaking both elite and popular norms regarding the
relationship between the dead and the living, a magician could find knowledge capable
of reasserting the social order.
Conclusion
One of the key debates in the modern study of magic is whether to treat rituals as
transgressive against, or reflective of, the norms of the broader society. In his
introduction to his edition of Clm 849, Richard Kieckhefer mentioned that the rites
studied therein were “flamboyantly transgressive, even carrying transgression toward its
furthest imaginable limits” (Kieckhefer 1998, 10). More recently, Stephen Clucas has
criticized this approach, stressing the importance of the “normative character of ritual
magic practices” and examining their correspondence with orthodox Christian
devotion and practice (Clucas 2015, 271).

The rituals we have examined above illustrate how both approaches – toward the
transgressive and normative analysis of these rituals – are required to integrate these
works into our historical understanding. They breach the boundaries – whether
spiritual or physical – between the living and the dead, disrupt the prerogatives of the
clergy, and seek to circumvent legal restrictions on their practice. At the same time,
however, they demonstrate how even such practices reflect religious and cultural
norms, and, in some cases, seek to reassert community standards and social harmony.
Further complicating the manner, these rites simultaneously conform to and set aside
the procedures and stipulations that we might consider “normative” within necromantic
practice itself. One passage turns one way, and the next another, with each change
adding nuance to our understandings of macro- and micro-cultures of early modern
Britain, showing how individuals set out to understand and explore the relationships
between heaven and hell (and Purgatory), and between the living and the dead.
Given the explicitly Catholic elements of the fifteenth-century exemplar in Rawlinson

D.252 and their omission from the other manuscripts, one might hypothesize that
scribes removed such elements in order to comply with changing religious sensibilities.
At the same time, the presence of only one exemplar from an earlier period is
problematic, as is the assumption that magical manuscripts could not reflect previous
beliefs later considered heretical or dangerous. The influence of Protestantism is
certainly visible in some magical manuscripts; for example, these sensibilities likely
informed Gilbert and Davis’ rituals in Additional MS. 36,674 (Klaassen 2012a, 349,
351). Yet others referenced Roman Catholic concepts for much longer than it was
publicly expressed. For example, Duffy has demonstrated that even the Books of
Hours used for private devotion had language particular to Catholic beliefs struck out
(Duffy 2011, 151–152), but it was not uncommon for magical texts to reference the
pope, Purgatory, or relics (e.g. e Mus 173, 5r, 52r, 57r; Folger V.b.26(1), 21, 38, 89). It
may be that the discovery of further manuscripts of the ritual, especially any composed
in Catholic countries, might give some insight as to these transformations.

In addition, usage of magical manuscripts in historical analysis must come with caveats.
Due to the variegated and scattered nature of such material across geography and time,
caution should be displayed at attempts to postulate their contents as portraying a
worldview consistent across all scribes. Likewise, we should be careful about
considering these to be rites of an undifferentiated “folk” tradition, not only because
such constructions are problematic in and of themselves, but also due to the
proficiency of many of these copyists with both English and Latin, aligning them more
with the learned members of society.
One question that is difficult to answer is how many of these copied rituals led to ritual
practice by the authors, copyists, and owners of these works. It is certainly possible that
many people copied these rituals out of curiosity or wonder, or held performing them
in abeyance due to fear or lack of opportunity. Perhaps a future discovery of a court
transcript or account of an experiment will help us to explore this question further.
Nonetheless, even a ritual that remains unpracticed does not mean that its composition
and transmission cannot provide valuable information about the beliefs and values of
those who chose to include it in their manuscripts – insights we might not be able to
achieve otherwise, save if we find a way to speak with the dead ourselves.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to the Bodleian Library at Oxford, the British Library in London, the
Newberry Library at Chicago, and the Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University
of Illinois, at Urbana. Special thanks are extended to Daniel Clark, Al Cummins,
Bobbie Derie, Phil Legard, Joseph Peterson, and the anonymous reviewers for their
assistance and comments.

Biographical note:
Dan Harms is a librarian with interests in H. P. Lovecraft and magic in
early modern Britain. He has chapters published in Knowing Demons,
Knowing Spirits in the Early Modern Period (Palgrave Macmillan) and
Magic in the Modern World (Penn State Press), as well as popular
releases including editions of The Long-Lost Friend and the Book of
Oberon (with James Clark and Joseph Peterson). Contact
[email protected].
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Sauer, Michelle. 2010. “Relics.” In Encyclopedia of Medieval Pilgrimage, edited by

Larissa Taylor, 597–599. Leiden: Brill.
Schmitt, Jean-Claude. 1998. Ghosts in the Middle Ages: The Living and the Dead in
Medieval Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Sébillot, Paul. 1904. Le Folk-Lore de France, I. 4 vols. Paris: Librairie Orientale et
Américaine.
Sébillot, Paul, and Alfred Harou. 1900. “Les Cimitières (III).” Revue des Traditions
Populaires 15, no. 3: 152–156.
Timbers, Frances. 2016. The Magical Adventures of Mary Parish: The Occult World
of Seventeenth-Century London. Kirksville, MO: Truman State University Press.
Trevelyan, Marie. 1909. Folk-Lore and Folk-Stories of Wales. London: E. Stock.
Véronèse, Julien. 2007. “Le Rêve Sollicité: Un Thème de La Magie Rituelle

Médiévale.” Sociétés & Représentations 23, no. 1: 83–103.

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Abstrakti:“Sa oot miesten ja naisten luiden haltija”: rituaalinen

nekromantia varhaismodernin ajan Englannissa
1500–1600-luvulla Englannissa korkea kuolleisuusaste ja kirkkomaalle
tehtävät hautaukset vaikuttivat siihen, että kuolleet sijoittuivat hyvin lähelle
eläviä sekä fyysisesti että emotionaalisesti. Tuon ajan nekromantia-kokeilut,
joissa loitsija pyrki maagisin keinoin yhteyteen kuolleiden kanssa, ovat
historiallisina dokumentteina olleet vähän tutkittuja. Yhteen tällaisista
kokeiluista viitataan tässä ”Luiden haltija” (“Keeper of the Bones”) -
rituaalina, jossa magian suorittaja haluamaansa tietoa saavuttaakseen kutsuu
henkiä tuomaan luokseen kuolleen ihmisen haamun. Artikkelissa
tarkastellaan näitä rituaaleja suhteessa hautajaisiin liittyneisiin
aikalaisrituaaleihin ja -käytäntöihin sekä uskomuksiin sielun luonteesta ja
kuolleiden roolista varhaismodernissa kulttuurissa.

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What were common beliefs about the dead in early modern England?

What were common beliefs about the dead in early modern England?

How did Protestant reforms impact beliefs about the dead?

How did Protestant reforms impact beliefs about the dead?

THANATOS vol.

“Thou Art Keeper of Man and Woman’s Bones” –

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Nonetheless, popular devotion and belief could not be transformed so easily.

Contemporary literature displayed some ambiguity toward necromantic practices,

Necromancy was not only a phenomenon of Biblical narrative, literature, or

WWW.THANATOS-JOURNAL.COM ISSN 2242-6280 65(155)

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The “Keeper of the Bones” Rituals

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“Keeper of the Bones of the Dead”: The Role of Azazel

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“Far Easier, and More Familiar”: Dreaming of the Dead in Early

The belief in supernatural contact during dreams began to be critiqued by sixteenth-

“A Right and Due Burial”: The Role of the Churchyard

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On December 4–5, 1590, Agnes Sampson confessed to attending a meeting of witches

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The Purpose for Seeking an Audience with the Dead

If we see a commonality running through most of those rituals in which a purpose is

manuscripts as part of a lucrative trade that served communities in the absence of

In a manner of speaking, however, these rituals show more adherence to community

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Given the explicitly Catholic elements of the fifteenth-century exemplar in Rawlinson

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London, British Library, Additional 36,674; Sloane 3318, 3851, 3884.

Urbana-Champaign, University of Illinois: Pre-1650 0102.

Washington, DC, Folger Shakespeare Library: V.b.26.

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Nashe, Thomas. 1594. The Terrors of the Night, or a Discourse of Apparitions.

Nickelsburg, George W.E., and James C. VanderKam. 2012. 1 Enoch: The

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Cousenors, the Infidelitie of Atheists, the Pestilent Practices of Pythonists, the

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Andree, Richard. 1911. “Katholische Überlebsel beim Evangelischen Volke.”

Clucas, Stephen. 2015. “Exorcism, Conjuration, and the Historiography of Early

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Kapitaniak, Pierre. 2008. Spectres, Ombres et Fantômes: Discours et Représentations

Kieckhefer, Richard. 1998. Forbidden Rites: A Necromancer’s Manual of the Fifteenth

Mathieu, Anne. 2015. “Formules Conjuratoires dans un Rituel de Nécromancie du

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Orain, Adolphe. 1886. “Moeurs et Usages de la Haute-Bretagne: VI. Croyances et

Pollock, Linda. 2017. “Little Commonwealths I: The Household and Family

Rowse, Alfred Leslie. 1969. Tudor Cornwall: Portrait of a Society. London:

Sauer, Michelle. 2010. “Relics.” In Encyclopedia of Medieval Pilgrimage, edited by

Véronèse, Julien. 2007. “Le Rêve Sollicité: Un Thème de La Magie Rituelle

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Abstrakti:“Sa oot miesten ja naisten luiden haltija”: rituaalinen

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