Scholarship
8 secondary sources, each read and summarized directly — not paraphrased from an abstract. See About for the provenance discipline this portal follows.
Kieckhefer, Richard, Magic in the Middle Ages (2014)
The standard survey of medieval magic, supplying the field-wide context (necromancy, clerical underworld, the categories of licit/illicit ritual) within which John of Morigny's own practice and condemnation make sense. Not focused on John specifically.
Bibliographic info
Richard Kieckhefer, Magic in the Middle Ages, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014).
Argument and contribution
Provides the field's standard framework for distinguishing categories of medieval magic (natural magic, learned/ritual magic, necromancy) and situating clerical practitioners of ritual magic within an educated, often university-adjacent "clerical underworld." Used in this portal chiefly as context for John's own milieu at Orléans rather than as a source of John-specific claims.
Key passages
Not yet targeted-read for specific John of Morigny content; used here as general field context, CONTEXTUAL relevance.
Reception
Widely regarded as the standard survey in the field; not independently assessed here.
Klaassen, Frank, The Transformations of Magic: Illicit Learned Magic in the Later Middle Ages and Renaissance (2013)
A manuscript-based study tracing shifts in learned ritual magic across the later medieval and Renaissance periods, offering longue-durée context for where John's own moment sits within the wider transmission history of texts like the ars notoria.
Láng, Benedek, Unlocked Books: Manuscripts of Learned Magic in the Medieval Libraries of Central Europe (2008)
A study of learned-magic manuscripts surviving in Central European libraries, useful mainly for comparative manuscript-transmission context rather than for John-specific content.
Page, Sophie, Magic in the Cloister: Pious Motives, Illicit Interests, and Occult Approaches to the Medieval Universe (2013)
A study of monastic engagement with occult and magical texts in medieval England, offering comparative context for how a professed monk like John could licitly own, copy, and use ritual-magic material without necessarily seeing this as contradicting monastic vocation.
Fanger, Claire, and Nicholas Watson, The Prologue to John of Morigny's Liber Visionum: Text and Translation (2001)
The first substantial English-language scholarship on John of Morigny's text (Esoterica 3, 2001). Historiographically important in its own right: this is the article whose Chartres and Sens location attributions Fanger's 2015 Rewriting Magic preface explicitly retracts as manuscript-reading errors, a documented case of the field's own self-correction. Not available on this portal's machine; cited only via Fanger's own retraction of it.
Bibliographic info
Claire Fanger and Nicholas Watson, "The Prologue to John of Morigny's Liber Visionum: Text and Translation," Esoterica 3 (2001).
Argument and contribution
The first substantial English-language scholarly treatment of John of Morigny's text following the early-1990s manuscript rediscoveries, offering an edition and translation of the Liber florum's prologue. Its lasting significance for this portal is historiographical rather than content-based: Fanger's own 2015 preface to Rewriting Magic explicitly retracts two claims first published here — the location of John's ars notoria experiments at Chartres (corrected to Orléans) and the location of the 1315 "Barking Dogs" condemnation at Sens (now treated as unlocated) — citing a manuscript-reading error in the original work (Rewriting Magic, p.x). This portal treats that retraction as a feature of the field's evidentiary discipline worth narrating explicitly, not a flaw to smooth over.
Access note
Not available on this portal author's machine at build time; described here only via Fanger's own 2015 retraction of it, not independently read.
Fanger, Claire, Rewriting Magic: An Exegesis of the Visionary Autobiography of a Fourteenth-Century French Monk (2015)
Fanger's own monograph-length study of John of Morigny, and the single work this portal draws on most heavily. Reads the Liber florum as visionary autobiography and traces its composition, condemnation, rewriting, and post-1323 survival, correcting several of Fanger's own earlier published claims (Bridget's name, the ars notoria's likely location at Orléans not Chartres, the "Barking Dogs'" location) in a candid 2015 preface.
Bibliographic info
Claire Fanger, Rewriting Magic: An Exegesis of the Visionary Autobiography of a Fourteenth-Century French Monk (University Park: Penn State University Press, 2015).
Argument and contribution
The book's central move is to read the Liber florum celestis doctrine as visionary autobiography — a genre claim that licenses treating John's own account of his visions, his relationship to the ars notoria, and his repeated rewriting under condemnation as a coherent, interpretable literary and devotional project rather than as incidental biographical noise around a magic text. Fanger traces the work's two-stage composition (Old and New Compilations), the specific 1315 and 1323 condemnations that shaped it, and argues that its post-1323 manuscript survival challenges standard assumptions about the effectiveness of medieval book censorship (see Book condemnation is not effective censorship).
Key passages
- Preface (p.ix–xii): candid retraction of Fanger's own earlier claims — Bridget's name corrected from "Gurgeta/Georgette" to Burgeta; the ars notoria experiments relocated from Chartres to Orléans; the "Barking Dogs'" location at Sens retracted as a manuscript-reading error.
- p.1–3: opening frame — the ars notoria, the "plundering the Egyptian treasure" trope, the two condemnations.
- p.xiv–xvi: the Liber florum's own structural table (Books of Visions/Prayers/Figures).
- p.20–22: the historiography-of-erasure chain and the censorship argument.
- p.105, p.118: 1315 condemnation detail; internal revision strata predating 1315.
Reception
Not independently assessed for this portal beyond the book's own internal claims and its clear status as the current standard monograph on John of Morigny.
Fanger, Claire (ed.), Invoking Angels: Theurgic Ideas and Practices, Thirteenth to Sixteenth Centuries (2012)
An edited volume on theurgic and angel-invoking practices across three centuries. Two chapters bear directly on John of Morigny: Fanger's own ch. 5, "Covenant and the Divine Name," comparing the Liber iuratus and the Liber florum; and Julien Véronèse's ch. 1 on the ars notoria tradition (translated into English by Fanger), the single place this portal accesses Véronèse's own scholarly voice directly.
Bibliographic info
Claire Fanger, ed., Invoking Angels: Theurgic Ideas and Practices, Thirteenth to Sixteenth Centuries (University Park: Penn State University Press, 2012).
Argument and contribution
As an edited volume, its contribution to this portal is chapter-specific rather than a single thesis. Julien Véronèse's opening chapter, "Magic, Theurgy, and Spirituality in the Medieval Ritual of the Ars notoria" (translated by Fanger), lays out the ars notoria's textual structure, founding myth, and condemnation history in detail — this portal's Ars Notoria and Notae concept entries draw directly on it. Fanger's own chapter 5 undertakes a comparative reading of the Liber iuratus Honorii and the Liber florum around the shared theme of covenant and the divine name — not independently read in full for this Phase 1 build, flagged as a priority for a future pass.
Key passages
- Véronèse, ch.1, p.37 (opening), p.41–44 (ars notoria structure, founding myth, condemnation).
Reception
Not independently assessed for this portal.
Fanger, Claire (ed.), Conjuring Spirits: Texts and Traditions of Medieval Ritual Magic (1998)
The edited volume containing Nicholas Watson's essay that first announced the modern manuscript rediscovery of John of Morigny's text to the field of medieval-magic scholarship — the opening publication of the 1990s rediscovery chain. Not available on this portal's machine; cited here only via Fanger's own back-matter cross-references in Rewriting Magic, never independently read.
Bibliographic info
Claire Fanger, ed., Conjuring Spirits: Texts and Traditions of Medieval Ritual Magic (University Park: Penn State University Press, 1998).
Argument and contribution
Contains Nicholas Watson's essay "John the Monk's Book of Visions of the Blessed and Undefiled Virgin Mary, Mother of God: Two Anonymous Reworkings, and Oswald de Corda" — per Fanger's own later cross-references, the essay that first brought the rediscovered Liber florum manuscript tradition to the field's attention. This portal has not read the volume directly; its existence, date, and role are established only via citation in Rewriting Magic's own back matter.
Access note
Not available on this portal author's machine at build time. See about.html on the built site for the full list of sources in this position.