Sixty-nine and seventy-two are counts of different surviving texts. They are not two rival measurements of a single fixed population. A few traceable variants show how a catalogue could change as it was translated and compiled.
The counts refer to printed and manuscript lists
Weyer’s 1577 appendix numbers sixty-nine entries. His story attached to Belial nevertheless refers to seventy-two kings in a vessel. Scot translated the catalogue into English in the 1584 Discoverie of Witchcraft, with changes and omissions. The later Goetia numbers seventy-two entries, expands the surrounding ceremony, and supplies individual seals. A numerical match between Belial’s story and the final Goetia count does not prove that Weyer secretly printed a seventy-two-entry list. The counted units differ: one is a catalogue as printed, the other is a number inside its narrative. Treat the Goetia’s seventy-two as an editorial state with its own witness history.
Pruflas disappears while Vassago appears
Weyer’s fourth entry is Pruflas, also called Bufas in his list. Peterson observes that Pruflas is missing from Scot’s English rendering and has no corresponding entry in the Goetia. The absence may belong to Scot’s copy of Weyer or to his translator’s handling; the available comparison does not settle which. Vassago, by contrast, is the Goetia’s third spirit and is absent from Weyer’s numbered list. Three more Goetia figures occur at the end without Weyer equivalents. This is the clearest way to understand the arithmetic: four additional Goetia entries and one Weyer entry not retained produce a net difference of three.
Sequence can change without erasing an office
The first two names, Bael and Agares, occupy matching opening positions in Weyer and the Goetia. Farther on, a familiar description may be moved. Weyer’s Gamygyn is his forty-seventh entry but appears as Goetia number four, usually spelled Gamigin. Weyer places Belial at twenty-three; the Goetia puts him at sixty-eight. Such movement makes a simple number-based join unreliable. Name variants and attributed offices can connect the entries, while each work retains its own number. Peterson’s comparison table is an editorial tool for showing those relationships, not a claim that every spelling or rank in the two texts is identical.
A vessel changes material in translation
In Weyer’s Latin Belial account the vessel is glass: the phrase is “vase vitreo.” Scot’s English text gives a brass vessel. The later Goetia presents the brass-vessel story and adds its own graphic and ritual setting. This small material difference is a powerful textual marker because a translation choice or reading can move forward into a new compilation while the earlier Latin remains available for comparison. It is not evidence that one vessel was physically discovered. It is evidence that retelling and reuse changed an object in the legend. The two-word Latin phrase is quoted solely to make this limited comparison checkable.
Seals belong to their witness
Weyer’s printed Pseudomonarchia does not give an individual sigil for each numbered spirit. The Goetia manuscript tradition does. Peterson notes earlier manuscripts with spirit signs, including a Florence witness, but their signs are not the Goetia’s set. A modern chart pairing every Weyer name with a familiar Goetia seal is therefore a cross-witness reconstruction, not an image of Weyer’s appendix. This distinction matters for the 72-profile reference on this site: the familiar seals come from Goetia witnesses and later editions rather than from Weyer’s appendix. A spirit description and a seal can have different documentary histories even when they are presented together on one profile.
Selected names and features by witness
This table summarizes named editions and a later manuscript tradition; it is a reading aid, not a complete diplomatic collation.
| Topic | Weyer, 1577 | Scot, 1584 | Goetia manuscript |
|---|---|---|---|
| Numbered catalogue | 69 entries in the 1577 appendix | English adaptation of Weyer; Pruflas absent | 72 numbered entries |
| Pruflas / Bufas | No. 4 | Absent in the edited 1584 text | No corresponding entry |
| Vassago | Absent | Absent from the Weyer-derived catalogue | No. 3 |
| Gamygyn / Gamigin | No. 47 | Gamigin in the English catalogue | No. 4 |
| Belial | No. 23; glass vessel in Latin | Brass vessel in English | No. 68; brass-vessel tradition |
| Individual spirit seals | Not supplied | Not supplied with this catalogue | Supplied in the manuscript tradition |
References
The catalogues identify the surviving objects, while modern transcriptions expose wording and editorial expansions that do not appear in every witness.