Arnau de Vilanova’s Reprobation of Necromancy
For centuries, the name of physician and spiritual reformer Arnau de Vilanova (c. 1240-1311) has been linked to many occult arts, such as magic, necromancy, astrology, alchemy and oneiromancy.
In fact, he became an archetypal master of occult arts, and many works in those fields were spuriously attributed to him. However, Arnau's true interest in the occult went no further beyond the oscillating boundaries drawn by the intellectual elite of his time. Certainly, Arnau was one of the physicians who led the process to incorporate and rationalize therapeutics from natural magic and astrology into Galenist medicine.[755] [756] But, of course, this is not contradictory to the fact that one of his earliest preserved writings is a systematic attack on the intellectual foundations of necromancy. Its title is Epistola de reprobacione nigromantice fccionis (Epistle on the reprobation of the deception of necromancy), but it was improperly known in the past as De improbatione malefciorum.[757] Naturally, the author understands necromancy in the broad medieval sense of magic directed at supernatural beings (i.e. demons, angels and spirits, all of which were indistinctly considered demons in Christian orthodoxy), which is why Nicolas Weill-Parot recently called it ‘addressative’ magic.[758] Arnau's short text reaches us in form of an epistle addressed to the Bishop of Valencia, in all probability Jaspert de Botonac. The dedication to Jaspert, which constitutes the first part of the work (ll. 5-24), is the clue that dates the letter to the period when this person was bishop of Valencia, from 1276 until his death in 1288. An early dating, prior to 1281, seems more likely within this period, since in that year Arnau moved from Valencia to Barcelona. So, this is Arnau’s earliest surviving text with the sole exception of De amore heroico, which is cited in the epistle against necromancy, as we will see. It appears from the dedication that Arnau had written De reprobacione shortly before sending it to the bishop, by request of the members of a religious community that gave him lodgings while he was waiting for good sailing conditions. The last sentence of the text suggests that it originated from a discussion in which he attacked the “vulgar opinions” of undetermined opponents, who we can suppose were in favor of necromancy (ll. 289-292). The debate may have been held with some monks from that community, if we consider that the main milieu in which ritual magic was cultivated was the clerical underworld.The core of the epistle is a scholastic questio in which Arnau denounces necromancy by denying its fundamental principle: the necromancer’s ability to summon and compel a spirit or demon to do his bidding in order to find out hidden or future facts or to perform his wishes. Within a natural-philosophical framework, the author's argumentation intends to show that there is no natural or supernatural power available to human beings in general, and especially to necromancers, to master spirits. With this purpose in mind, he reviews all the possible natural and supernatural resources used to subjugate demons and gives reasons to discard them one by one. The conclusion is that necromancers are deceived by demons, who simulate that they are being dominated by their invokers, in order to make them lose themselves and be led away from the correct path. The epistle ends by considering how the necromancers' belief that they can master demons is a symptom of the melancholic disease from which they suffer.
Throughout the above, Arnau shows that he has firsthand knowledge of the magical tradition, because he quotes two necromantic books: Liber de fantas- matibus (l. 106) and Libri centre et circumferencie (l. 128). He claims to have read the latter in Arabic. Although he does not mention any particular author or work, he also shows his familiarity with the literature against necromancy, because he uses arguments that can be retraced to other scholastic authors who had attacked it, especially Thomas Aquinas.