Ars Almadel: the wax tablet and the four altitudes

Among the treatises gathered in the Lemegeton, the Ars Almadel is the shortest and one of the oldest in origin. It takes its name from the almadel, a wax tablet decorated with divine names and symbols, around which the entire practice described revolves. The term is probably of Arabic origin, but its etymology remains debated; this linguistic clue, too, suggests roots in the great transfer of knowledge from the Islamic world to medieval Europe.

A text with a long history

A book entitled Almadel, attributed to Solomon, was already circulating in late medieval Europe and is attested in Latin and Italian manuscripts earlier than the English compilation. The title also appears in the lists of magical works drawn up by scholars of the early sixteenth century, who classed it among the texts of ceremonial magic to be rejected. The Lemegeton version is thus the last link in a tradition already at least two centuries old.

As with other Solomonic texts, the versions differ in details, in angelic names and in their indications about materials. The seventeenth-century English text is the best known only because it was preserved in the collections of the British Library and then published in modern times, not because it is the most faithful to a supposed original, which nobody can reconstruct with confidence.

The altitudes and their princes

The treatise organises the angelic world into four «altitudes» or «choirs», heavenly regions associated with the cardinal points and the seasons of the year. Each altitude is governed by a number of angelic princes, twenty in all, to whom the text assigns different domains, from the fertility of the earth to knowledge. Unlike the Goetia, the Almadel does not deal with demons: it presents itself as a form of communication with angels, conducted through prayers of a religious tone.

The division into four regions recalls the Theurgia-Goetia, but the design is different: there is no dense hierarchy of servants, only a small number of heavenly intelligences described with luminous attributes. This angelic character explains why compilers considered it compatible with Christian piety, even though for theologians it remained an illicit practice.

The object and the book

What sets the Almadel apart is the central role of an object. Much medieval ritual magic relied on instruments, circles and seals, but here a single wax tablet, with its apparatus of signs, gives its name to the whole art. Wax, the material of liturgical candles and of the seals that authenticated documents, carried strong symbolic value in medieval culture as a sign of purity and of impression.

The link between an object and a sacred name inscribed on it is a theme running through the whole history of magic, from the engraved gems of the Roman imperial age to Arabic talismans and devotional medals. The Almadel belongs to this long history, in which writing itself, traced on a material support, was perceived as a bearer of power.

Historians see the Ars Almadel as evidence of medieval angelic magic surviving into the early modern period. Its presence in the Lemegeton shows that seventeenth-century compilers did not distinguish between recent and ancient texts: anything bearing Solomon's name could enter the same collection, alongside demonic catalogues and astral angelologies of quite different origin.