Grimoires
The Lemegeton’s fourth book compresses varied medieval Almandal and Almadel traditions into a four-altitude celestial apparatus.
The object in the English book
The fourth Lemegeton book is commonly called Ars Almadel. In its English manuscript form an almadel is a small marked wax table associated with four colored “altitudes,” angels, candles, and incense. These details are descriptions of a ritual object in a text, not a verified recipe for contacting angels. Images of its square surface may look like a universal sigil, yet the device sits within a set of differing Latin and vernacular accounts. Peterson’s edition places the Sloane MS 3825 English text beside earlier material and notes discrepancies in names, colors, and the proportion of wax assigned to the table and candle supports. The comparison shows why a modern diagram can preserve one witness’s layout without representing a single stable medieval original.
Earlier Almandal, later Almadel
Related versions reach back at least to the thirteenth century, according to the manuscript survey in Peterson’s revised edition. The family is wider than the four-altitude English form. Some versions called Almandal have stronger Arabic elements and describe a device of metal or a figure traced on the ground; the Christianized Almadel branch emphasizes a wax object. The suggestion of a lost Arabic predecessor is debated and cannot be presented as an established origin story. The English version also compresses earlier altitude arrangements, so the four directional divisions should not be projected backward onto every Latin copy. The historical interest lies in that movement between languages, media, and religious vocabularies. “Solomon” in the title signals claimed authority in the tradition; it is not a manuscript provenance pointing to the ancient king.
How the altitude sequence organizes the rite
The English Almadel makes altitude determine color, angels, time, clothing, wax table, names, and expected vision as incense rises through the device. Earlier Latin witnesses divide the heavens into twelve altitudes linked to zodiacal signs, months, directions, and offices. The English four preserve selected correspondences, converting a celestial geography into a smaller working scheme.
Variants across the manuscript family
The number of altitudes, material of the table, named angels, placement of divine names, and role of scent or light differ across the textual family. A discrepancy may reveal abridgment, mistranslation, an editor’s reconstruction, or a different branch of the work. In the Latin description, candle holders support the table and let fumigation pass beneath it; the English wording about dividing wax between table and candles appears to misunderstand those proportions. Some English witnesses also add a crystal even though the older account expects an appearance above the almadel. These are changes in how the apparatus is imagined, not decorative spelling variants. Peterson identifies modern scholarship by Julien Véronèse on the Latin texts and lists manuscript witnesses in the edition. The work illustrates why the Lemegeton is called a compilation: its fourth part incorporated an older textual family and reshaped it. No single popular illustration represents every Almandal or Almadel branch.
Questions to explore
- How does the English Almadel differ from other Almandal branches?
- Why do the surviving versions have different numbers of altitudes?
- Which details entered through later reconstruction?