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The First Necromancer - How a Medieval Sorcerer Combined Astrology & Black Magic

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Overview

The video argues that medieval European “necromancy” persisted even under severe persecution of magical practice. It centers on a rare 14th-century text that systematizes both astrological methods and demonic/“Solomonic” conjuration into a single framework.

The presenter emphasizes three reasons the work is especially striking:

  1. It survives in only one manuscript.
  2. The author’s name is known.
  3. The author appears to claim firsthand involvement in forbidden practices—yet he likely avoided persecution.

Why Medieval Magic (Including Necromancy) Is Hard to Reconstruct

  • Officially, magic was treated as a criminal/diabolical art, and practitioners were sometimes executed (e.g., burned alive).
  • Despite this, scholars can still recover small fragments and surviving texts describing practices.
  • The video highlights a patchwork of traditions, including:
    • Jewish angel-summoning practices
    • Arabic astral/demonic material, including alleged connections to Solomon
    • Hermetic astrology, used for talismans and image-infusing
    • other strands that later converged

Key Case Study: De ultis at manifestes (Antonio de Mondo / de ultis at manifestes)

A single 14th-century manuscript contains a compact but systematic treatise on “astral necromancy.” The presenter frames the author as a medieval scholar/astrologer:

  • Italian, educated in arts/philosophy/medicine
  • Professor at Bologna, including a chair in astrology
  • Later at Padua
  • Wrote about horoscope casting, including for Emperor Charles IV

Comparison to Chico/Zecho Doli

The video contrasts Antonio with Chico/Zecho Doli, a famous astrologer/necromancy teacher who was burned in 1327. Antonio’s named work survives without evidence of prosecution, suggesting he may have kept closer to writing and academia than public lecturing.

Background: How “Necromancy” Changed Meaning

The video argues medieval “necromancy” no longer primarily meant contacting the dead for knowledge (as in classical antiquity). Instead, it became a general term for:

  • conjuring
  • binding
  • delivering actions

through demonic beings (or demonic intermediaries), often connected to astrology.

Medieval Cosmology: Where Demons Are Located

According to the presenter:

  • Demons are not only placed in Hell, but also in the air/sub-lunar regions beneath the moon and above Earth.
  • Biblical language is used to support this framing (e.g., Satan as ruler of the “kingdom of the air”).
  • The text connects demonic activity to astral rays from planets/stars, which are depicted as structuring and energizing these beings.

Thus, “astral necromancy” is presented as:

  • using astrological timing/elections to activate demonic intelligences
  • using ritual objects or conjuration techniques to bind/control them

The Text’s Major Claim: A Unified Astrological + Solomonic/Demonic System

The presenter’s core analysis is that Antonio’s work is unusually systematic, laid out like a scholastic argument with staged sections:

  1. Theory: the nature/location/mechanisms of the intelligences (demons)
  2. Operation: how to make them work via occult means (often without direct visibility)
  3. Manifestation: what the work claims about how they appear when conjured
  4. A practical “how-to” section: possibly incomplete or lost

The “Intelligences” (Demons/Spirits) Classified by Astrology

Antonio’s system divides intelligences into ordered sets linked to celestial structure:

  • Directional intelligences tied to cardinal directions and zodiac triplicities
  • Zodiac-associated intelligences, with ambiguity about whether some are “good angels” in rank—yet they function in practice within the conjuration system
  • Planet-linked intelligences corresponding to the traditional planets

The presenter notes that the system resembles a transition from ancient pagan divine beings into Christianized demonology.

Additional claims about compatibility and timing

The text also claims:

  • intelligences can be antagonistic or cooperative depending on astrological placement, so incompatible types should not be summoned together
  • their power varies by time, with the cosmos acting like a clock that increases/decreases their potency

Practical Ritual Logic: Timings, Optics, Purity, and the Magician’s Condition

The video highlights recurring “mechanics” in the text:

  • Astrological elections are crucial—starting from a specific zodiac sign (Cancer) and using particular nighttime hours for summoning and defense.
  • Why some beings appear and others don’t:
    • intelligences may manipulate visibility
    • appearance may depend on the practitioner’s purity
  • Why virgins/children are more likely to be approached:
    • they are framed as “more akin” to the beings due to sexual/“impurity” categories
  • Why appearances occur in water/crystals:
    • the text emphasizes optical reflection and “medium-like” conditions
  • The operator must be:
    • Catholic/orthodox (presented as “surprising,” but emphasized)
    • ritually clean (e.g., recently bathed)
    • learned/eloquent
    • above all confident, linked to medieval medical ideas about the efficacy of will/state
  • Place and setting matter:
    • secret, remote locations
    • notably crossroads, using microcosm/macrocosm reasoning

How Objects and Images Gain Power

Antonio’s system combines:

  • astrological influence absorbed by talismanic objects and images
  • demonic influence imposed via conjuration/binding and the use of divine names/ritual characters, often associated with Solomonic/clavicle-type traditions

The video describes the logic as sympathetic influence:

  • human bodies at birth retain astrological “traits” (likened to wax/ink)
  • crafted objects with the right astral character can therefore compel or affect the person

Orthodoxy vs Demonology Framing

The text remains consistent with orthodox demonology in tone and claims:

  • it treats intelligences as evil
  • it cites Augustinian ideas about demons deceiving through “illusion” leading to doom
  • yet it simultaneously insists the techniques can produce real effects

This produces a paradoxical moral/risk framing:

  • “purity” is required to resist or endure terror
  • but the system also implies demons may reveal themselves more readily to someone “up to no good,” since the demons’ aim is condemnation of souls

Why Antonio’s Work Is Under-known

The video concludes with reception history:

  • the treatise survives in only one manuscript
  • it was fully critically studied and translated only relatively recently in modern scholarship (critical edition/translation dated to 2012)
  • it remains technically niche, explaining why many people haven’t heard of Antonio, despite the text being portrayed as one of the earliest major syntheses of European magic

Presenters / Contributors

  • Dr. Justin Sledge (host/presenter; Esoterica channel)

Original video