Pseudomonarchia Daemonum vs. Ars Goetia

The two catalogues overlap heavily, but they are not the same book. Date, language, order, total, and the visual seal tradition all need separate labels.

Weyer appendix: Printed 1577
Weyer catalogue: 69 entries
Goetia list: 72 entries

Question	Weyer’s Pseudomonarchia	Later Ars Goetia
Document	1577 Latin printed appendix	Lemegeton manuscript tradition
List size	69 entries	72 entries
Pruflas	Fourth entry	Absent
Additional names	No Vassago, Seere, Dantalion, or Andromalius entries	Includes those four
Familiar seal gallery	Not present in this printed appendix	Preserved in separate later visual witnesses

A compact comparison

Weyer’s Pseudomonarchia is a Latin appendix in a sixteenth-century printed work. The Ars Goetia is the first part of a later Lemegeton manuscript tradition. Joseph H. Peterson’s edited comparison counts sixty-nine entries in Weyer’s catalogue and seventy-two in the Goetia. The numbers are a useful orientation, but they are not a claim that each name maps one-to-one, or that the larger number is inherently more original.

The Goetia is often presented online as a list of seventy-two fixed, timeless entities with one definitive spelling each. The surviving textual trail is messier. Editors compare manuscript copies, Scot’s English adaptation, and Weyer’s Latin printing. Rank, name form, sequence, and descriptive wording can vary. An alphabetical modern directory is a practical navigation aid, not an early modern foliation or an argument about a historical ranking.

Pruflas and the four additions

One especially clear difference is Pruflas, also called Bufas in a variant spelling. He appears as Weyer’s fourth entry but is absent from the later Goetia list. Peterson notes that Scot’s 1584 English list also lacks this entry, while acknowledging that the point at which the omission arose has not been fixed. The omission is evidence of transmission; it does not prove that a particular unnamed copy was the sole direct source of every later manuscript.

The Goetia, conversely, includes Vassago as its third spirit and Seere, Dantalion, and Andromalius at its end; these four do not appear as entries in Weyer’s sixty-nine. Subtracting Pruflas and adding four produces the familiar seventy-two total. This arithmetic is helpful, yet it still leaves the substantial reordering and other differences to explain. Readers should compare actual entries instead of inferring textual identity from the overall count.

Names, seals, and what an image proves

The seal gallery associated with the Goetia belongs to a later visual manuscript and print tradition. A seal placed beside a name on a modern page should not silently be presented as though it were copied from Weyer’s 1577 appendix. The printed catalogue is valuable for names and descriptions, while later Goetia witnesses are the source category to consult for the familiar sigils. Keeping the two labels visible prevents a modern composite page from masquerading as a sixteenth-century facsimile.

For comparison, begin with Weyer’s 1577 scanned edition, Scot’s 1584 printed English book, and a documented Goetia manuscript or critical edition. The British Library describes Sloane MS 3648 as containing Lesser Key material, although a catalogue description is not a line-by-line transcription. Peterson’s transcriptions and apparatus are useful research aids, but his editorial writing and images are copyrighted; this reading room links to them rather than copying them.

Source records and editions

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