Online summaries often give a confident single number of Liber Loagaeth tables while using “leaf,” “page,” and “table” as synonyms. The surviving record is less tidy. The British Library supplies the physical shelfmark and a folio range, but its catalogue does not declare a simple total of forty-nine finished grids. James R. Davila describes the early revealed holy book as forty-eight pages in 49 by 49 grids. Peterson’s edited transcription discusses a forty-ninth instruction, a separate sheet, and problems of row numbering. These statements speak to different stages and units.
- Grid form
- 49 rows × 49 columns in the catalogue
- Early scholarly summary
- 48 pages (Davila, 2018)
- Physical witness
- Sloane MS 3189, ff. 1r–65r
Leaves, faces, pages, and grids
A leaf is one sheet with a front, called recto, and a back, called verso. A folio number identifies that leaf and face in a bound manuscript. A “page” can mean one written face, but it can also describe a stage in Dee’s narrated transmission. A table is a ruled arrangement on such a face; a table may have blank cells, letters, numbers, or exceptional text layouts. Multiplying an asserted number of leaves by two and calling the product “complete tables” assumes that both faces survive, both carry the same grid format, and an editor is counting them in the same order. None of those assumptions follows from the bare phrase “forty-nine leaves.” The British Library’s ff. 1r–65r is a location for the work in the physical volume, not a direct claim that 65 leaves are grids.
Why forty-eight appears in scholarly accounts
Davila’s 2018 study places a holy book in late March and early April 1583 and describes forty-eight pages, each with a 49 by 49 grid. He then moves forward in the chronology to the 1584 Keys or Calls. This phrasing establishes a counted stage of the revelation as he summarizes it. It does not assert that every face in today’s bound Sloane MS 3189 is an identical, fully populated square. The British Library’s catalogue instead describes grids as appearing largely from folio 10r onward and names other material within the object. When a website silently changes “forty-eight pages” into “forty-eight surviving leaves” or “ninety-six intact tables,” it has changed the unit and the scope of the source.
What the forty-ninth instruction changes
Peterson reproduces and comments on Dee’s June 1583 record of the command to write a forty-ninth item after forty-eight already existed, and on a separate opening text connected with the name Loagaeth. The narrative raises questions about dictation order, manuscript order, and what constitutes a table. A first or last leaf in the narrated arrangement is not necessarily first or last in a later binder’s sequence. Peterson also explains that some early text was recorded in words rather than a tidy one-letter-per-cell diagram and that subsequent rows required editorial reconciliation. His numbered transcription is a modern scholarly aid shaped by those editorial choices.
The front and back are different textual fields
Peterson labels the two faces of each editorially numbered leaf “a” and “b,” but the paired faces do not behave like an original and its translation. Leaf 2a begins “alla opnay qviemmah”; Leaf 2b begins “zvrebth aho dan lanfal cramza.” Each heading leads into a different character matrix, and neither face carries a parallel English version of the other. Counting one numbered leaf therefore yields two textual fields without proving that either field is a self-contained message. The recto-verso relationship is physical and sequential. Any claim that the back decodes the front adds a rule that the surviving layout itself does not supply.
Worked count: three different things called first
The June 1583 conference record says the first transmitted leaf is the last of the book, directs the book to be written backward, and then orders a forty-ninth item because only forty-eight had been written. Peterson’s modern sequence begins with Leaf 1a and Leaf 1b, yet his transcription later marks Leaf 29a with the manuscript phrase “the first of the leaves.” The British Library, meanwhile, locates the bound work by physical folios and says grids occur largely from folio 10r. A worked count must therefore name its axis: 1a is first in the editor’s navigation, 29a carries a historical “first” label inside that navigation, and 10r is the library’s first stated point for the main grid run. None can be substituted for the other to produce a total.
Why no single table total settles the question
Sloane MS 3189 contains material arranged largely in 49 by 49 grids, according to the British Library. Davila’s forty-eight pages describe a stage of the reported revelation. Whitby’s physical inventory instead separates an opening prose table, ninety-five filled and two empty small tables across forty-eight leaves, and four later tables drawn twice as large. Peterson’s discussion of a forty-ninth item and an exceptional opening text concerns the narrated sequence and its modern transcription. These totals disagree because they count revelation stages, written faces, leaves, and layouts. The forty-eight Angelical Keys belong to Sloane MS 3191 and a later period; their number describes applications of the Calls, not a fresh inventory of Loagaeth’s square pages.
Sources and witness notes
- British Library, Sloane MS 3189 catalogue ↗Shelfmark, folios, Kelley attribution, physical description, provenance, and current image availability.
- James R. Davila, “The Ninety-Four Books of Ezra and the Angelic Revelations of John Dee” (2018) ↗Academic chronology and separate discussion of the holy book and subsequent Calls.
- Christopher L. Whitby, John Dee’s Actions with Spirits (PhD thesis, 1982) ↗Scholarly manuscript study and transcription of Sloane MS 3188, with a material inventory and analysis of Loagaeth and the later Keys.
- Joseph H. Peterson, edited transcription of Liber Loagaeth ↗A modern editorial transcription with an introduction explaining textual and numbering problems; editorial work remains copyrighted.
- British Library, Sloane MS 3191 catalogue ↗The 1584 Keys and later Liber Scientiae material in a separate manuscript.