Liber Iuratus Honorii: A Critical Edition of the Latin Version of the Sworn Book of Honorius

The Liber iuratus Honorii, or the Sworn Book of Honorius, as it is often called, has been the focus of a steadily growing interest ever since the occult revival in the late 19th century. This exponent of pseudo-Solomonic magic has been mentioned from time to time in the literature on magic up to the present day. Unfortunately, scholars have hitherto had to rely far too much upon a poor edition of a partial English translation of this work, which is, in fact, originally in Latin. The contents of the book include complex magic rituals, a list of one hundred names of God, presentations of angels, spirits, and demons of diverse orders, instructions on how to prepare and use magic seals and circles, etc. The present work is the editio princes of the Latin text, and it is accompanied by an index of so-called voces mysticae and of and of divine, angelic, and demonic names. Furthermore, a partial edition of the Ars Notoria text Flores aurei Apollonii, which has turned out to be one of the sources of the Liber iuratus Honorii, is appended. The introduction includes a description of the manuscript tradition, a discussion of the date and attribution of the text and of its relation to other texts within the same genre, an analysis of its contents and structure, and a description of how the rituals contained in the book were performed. One of the conclusions reached is that the three extant Latin manuscripts represent a closed recension which can be described in stemmatic form, and that even other witnesses to the text can be fitted into this tradition. It is further proved that the Flores aurei Apollonii is one of the major sources of the Liber iuratus Honorii.