![]() The core of the necromancer’s ritual stayed curiously consistent for many centuries. The attempt to conjure spirits, thus, can be interpreted as a speech act with which someone tried to compel the addressee-the spirit-to do something specific. For example, one must utter the sentence “I do” in order to seal a marriage. According to the speech act theory developed by John Austin, language is able not only to express an idea but also to perform an action. The power to conjure spirits and force them to do certain things lay within the words and actions performed during a ritual. In the above-mentioned case from 1727, the ultimate aim of the ritual was to uncover hidden treasures, whereas other books focused on gaining knowledge about the future or casting a spell on someone. It contains detailed instructions on how to perform rituals to communicate with spiritual entities. It is a so-called grimoire as it served a magical purpose. ![]() The necromancer’s handbook is distinctive in many respects. This circumstance affords the opportunity not only to analyze the handling of these books but also to investigate their content. It is a stroke of luck that, along with court documents, manuscripts of necromancer handbooks are preserved in the archives. Staats- und Stadtbibliothek Augsburg, 2 Phil 57. “On the Discovery of Treasure”, woodcut in Francesco Petrarca, Von der Artzney bayder Glück (Augsburg, 1532), fol. At the same time, the treasure hunter would do something good by releasing the poor souls who had owned the riches from their torment. There was an opportunity to suddenly become very rich. In these cases, conjuring spirits served a dual purpose. Consequently, they were doomed to walk the earth as unruly spirits until the living uncovered their buried secrets. In court documents, we often find the assumption that people hid treasures while still alive but then calamitously died before they could retrieve their money. Much more important, however, was the relation between treasures and the spirits of the dead. Many people believed that such treasures were guarded by evil spirits who could be outsmarted and forced to reveal the riches under their watch. Third, traditionally there existed a strong semiotic connection between the apparition of spirits and hidden treasures. Second, people assumed that it was possible to influence both the physical and the supernatural world (spirits) through spells and rituals. The existence of ghosts and spirits was taken for granted in early modern Europe. First, there was a belief in the existence of invisible entities, which the living could communicate with. Three preconditions enabled the circulation of and desire to consult such books. Read more posts in this series, and check out the conference website. Tweet or email us links to related discussions. Join the conversation on Twitter with the hashtag #lbtb18 or on this blog with a post of your own. Such handbooks became the center of attention at such trials as the authorities were eager to track them down and place them in safe custody. This is just one of the many stories that can be found in early modern court documents about treasure hunters trying to conjure spirits. Another man stated that he had come into possession of this book and copied various parts of it with his friends. ![]() Said man supposedly received the book from a Venetian. Jacob Schaffner, a shoemaker, stated on record that he had obtained his knowledge of how to conjure spirits from a book he had bought from a Saxon some time ago. There was a rumor that some of them had attempted to find hidden treasures by performing nocturnal ceremonies to conjure spirits that could uncover and release the concealed money. In 1727, fourteen men and women stood trial before the court of Basel for alleged treasure hunting. The scholar Faust and the demon Mephistopheles, woodcut from the title page of The Tragicall Historie of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe (London, 1620), via Wikimedia Commons.
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