Magic and Divination in the Middle Ages

Contents: Introduction; Talismans: magic as science? Necromancy among the Seven Liberal Arts; Adelard, Ergaphalau and the science of the stars; Arabic, Greek and Latin works on astrological magic attributed to Aristotle; The translating activity in medieval Spain; The legend of the three Hermes and Abu Ma’shar’s Kitab al-Uluf in the Latin Middle Ages; Hermann of Carinthia and the kitab al-Istamatis: further evidence for the transmission of Hermetic magic; The kitab al-Istamatis and a manuscript of astrological and astronomical works from Barcelona (Biblioteca de Catalunya, 634); Scandinavian runes in a Latin magical treatise; The Conte de Sarzana magical manuscript; The earliest chiromancy in the West; Chiromancy: supplement. The principal Latin texts on chiromancy extant in the Middle Ages; The Eadwine Psalter and the western tradition of the onomancy in Pseudo-Aristotle's Secret of Secrets; Scapulimancy (divination by the shoulder blades of sheep); Arabic divinatory texts and Celtic folklore: a comment on the theory and practice of scapulimancy in Western Europe; Divination from sheep's shoulder blades: a reflection on Andalusian society; An Islamic divinatory technique in medieval Spain; The scapulimancy of Giorgio Anselmi's Divinum opus de magia disciplina; What is the Experimentarius of Bernardus Silvestris? A preliminary survey of the material; A note on two fortune-telling tables; The astrologer’s assay of the alchemist: early references to alchemy in Arabic and Latin texts; An apocryphal letter from the Arabic philosopher al-Kindi to Theodore, Frederick II's astrologer, concerning Gog and Magog, the enclosed nations and the scourge of the Mongols; Index.