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Heptarchia Mystica: Dee’s Sevenfold Angelic Manuscript

The seven-chapter manuscript orders weekday kings and princes without folding them into later Enochian tables.

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John Dee’s De Heptarchia Mystica survives in his own handwriting at British Library Sloane MS 3191, folios 32r–51r. Its seven chapters assemble accounts of a sevenfold angelic government from earlier sessions, with prayer, figures, named kings and princes, and Dee’s claims about their offices. The manuscript is a historical witness to what he recorded; the reported supernatural origin and effects are claims in that record.

Engraved design of John Dee’s Holy Table printed in 1659
Dee’s Holy Table as engraved in the 1659 Relation. This is a later printed design, not Sloane MS 3191 or the lost painted wooden original. Public-domain file record ↗.

One volume, three manuscript sections

The British Library separates the Angelical Keys at ff. 1r–13r, Liber Scientiae at ff. 14r–31r and again after the Heptarchia, and this seven-chapter work at ff. 32r–51r. Its catalogue points back to conferences beginning in November 1582 in Sloane MS 3188. The manuscript guide maps their dates, arrangement, and copies.

THE SURVIVING TEXTDe Heptarchia Mystica: Manuscript, Dates, and Seven ChaptersSeven edited chapters form a working sequence within Sloane MS 3191. →WEEKDAY REGISTERThe Seven Heptarchic Kings and Princes by WeekdayRead the weekday list as a layered hierarchy whose aliases, blank entries, and minister companies resist a tidy modern chart. →SOURCE BOUNDARIESIs Heptarchia Mystica the Same as Enochian Magic?Related records share Dee’s archive, while their organizing grammars, objects, dates, and manuscript witnesses remain distinct. →

The seven weekday headings

Chapter seven visibly assigns these pairs to Sunday through Saturday. It also includes unheaded Blvmaza and Bralges before Tuesday. Our weekday guide explains why the extra names should remain visible instead of being forced into a tidy modern chart.

Weekday headingKingPrinceChapter-seven locator
SundayBobogelBornogoSloane MS 3191, ff. 46v–47r
MondayCarmaraHagonelff. 47r–47v
TuesdayBabalelBefafesff. 48r–48v
WednesdayBnaspolBlisdonff. 48v–49r
ThursdayByneporButmonoff. 49r–49v
FridayBaligonBagenolff. 49v–50r
SaturdayBnapsenBrorgesf. 50r

Where the Heptarchia fits

The manuscript shares Dee and Kelley’s wider Angelical history with the Calls, Great Table, and Liber Loagaeth. Their surviving folios and dates differ. The source-boundaries guide compares them with the wax discs and later printed image. A modern diagram belongs to a later stage unless a named manuscript, folio, or edition preserves that exact form.

Core records

  1. British Library, Sloane MS 3191 ↗The catalogue assigns De heptarchia mystica to ff. 32r–51r and distinguishes the Keys and Liber Scientiae in the same volume.
  2. British Library, Sloane MS 3188 ↗Earlier conference record, including the 1582–83 sessions excerpted in the later handbook.
  3. John Dee, De Heptarchia Mystica, edited by Joseph H. Peterson ↗Modern copyrighted transcription with manuscript folio markers; cited for chapter sequence and weekday names, not reproduced.
  4. John Dee, Compendium Heptarchiae Mysticae, edited by Joseph H. Peterson ↗Related draft witness used to flag differences in order and formulation.
  5. Wikimedia Commons, Holy Table engraving from the 1659 Relation ↗Public-domain printed image; this is a later engraving, not an image of the Heptarchia manuscript.

Historical image: 1659 Holy Table engraving, marked public domain in its linked Commons file record.