An important early trial for necromancy was that of Bishop Guichard de Troyes, who
was alleged to have used such magic to kill Queen Jeanne in 1305 and was tried on this
charge 1308–15. He was said to have consulted both a sorceress and a friar skilled in
necromancy. When the friar succeeded in conjuring a demon, the bishop paid the demon
homage and heard how they should proceed. All three went in disguise to a hermitage,
where they baptized a wax image in the queen’s name and then pierced various parts of
the image. The queen fell ill, and her physicians could not treat her. But even when the
bishop had the sorceress repeatedly pierce the image, the queen still did not die.
Exasperated, the bishop broke the image asunder, trampled it, and cast it into a fire,
whereupon the queen expired.
Further trials involving the crown occurred in succeeding years. In 1315, Enguerran de
Marigny was charged with using image magic, in part to harm Louis X, although his
defenders said the magic was intended rather to gain the king’s favor. In 1316, Cardinal
Francesco Caetani engaged the services of a cleric and a former member of the Templars,
who professed expertise in necromancy and who assured him that with the proper
equipment and sufficient time they could conjure a demon who would teach the secrets of
alchemy; when they informed against Caetani, they charged him with wishing to harm
the king and others.
Under Pope John XXII (r. 1316–34), there was a series of cases involving necromancy
ostensibly directed against the pope. Bishop Hugues Géraud of Cahors, who was being
investigated for simony and other corruption, was tried in 1317 for trying to kill John and
his close associates by importing into the papal palace at Avignon wax figures baptized in
their names. In the following year, John ordered an investigation of several men, mostly
cler-ics, who allegedly used books of necromancy to invoke evil spirits while standing in
circles. By such means, the pope reported, they could ruin people’s health, or they could
make demons captive in mirrors and other objects so that they might inquire about past or
future events. In 1320, the Visconti of Milan were charged with using nec-romantic
image magic against Pope John. Not all the trials for necromancy were political in nature,
however. The Carmelite Pierre Recordi confessed in 1329 that he had used wax images
and made sacrifices to the Devil for the sake of having sex with women (or, if they
refused, doing them harm). A notary named Geraud Cassendi at Carcas-sonne in 1410
and a priest of Tournai ca. 1472 were accused of invoking demons for the same purpose.
The charge of necromancy recurred sporadically in later decades. When Charles VI
became mad in the 1390s, more than one individual was charged with using image magic
or other techniques, evidently necromantic, to harm him. Around the turn of the century,
concern with necro-mancy and related arts preoccupied French theologians; the
theological faculty at Paris condemned these arts in 1398, and four years later Jean
Gerson incorporated the conclusio of the Paris theologians in his treatise De erroribus
circa artem magicam. In 1406, two members of a clerical necromantic conspiracy against
Pope Benedict XIII and the king of France, inspired by fear of “diabolical spirits,”
disclosed the plot to the pope.
While necromancy usually involved a command of Latin and a knowledge of ritual
forms expected only among the clergy, the basic concept of invoking demons is found at
times among laity as well. For example, one Johanneta Charles was tried at Geneva in
1401 for conjuring a demon to determine the circumstances of a theft. And a trial in the
diocese of Soissons in 1460 disclosed that a priest had gone to a sorceress for means to
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