Overview
The Grimoire of Pope Honorius is a pseudonymous French conjuration book directly witnessed in a 1670 edition. It claims the authority of Pope Honorius III, but the pope died in 1227 and no authenticated papal manuscript, decree or ecclesiastical authorship supports the claim. The text combines a supposed papal constitution granting magical authority to clergy with fasting, consecration, Masses, psalms, divine names, Latin formulas, exorcistic speech, circles, pentacles, Solomonic material, conjurations of named spirits and collections of household or rural charms. Its defining feature is th…
Historical Origins
A full-view 1670 French edition held by the Bavarian State Library contains 132 pages. Its Roman date and papal name belong to the work’s pseudonymous authority rather than reliable provenance. The Bibliothèque nationale de France catalogues the text under the conventional title Livre des conjurations du pape Honorius. Later eighteenth- and nineteenth-century editions reworked titles, inserted popular secrets and widened circulation. The supposed papal constitution authorising conjuration is fictional. No Vatican decree supports it. The attribution exploits the authority of priesthood, liturgy and papal office in the same way other grimoires exploited Solomon, Agrippa or ancient sages. Éliphas Lévi described the work in extremely hostile terms and helped establish its reputation as a profane or sacrilegious grimoire. Later occult publishers repeatedly marketed it as an example of “black magic”. Scholars instead place it within pseudonymous print, clerical magic and the reuse of Catholic ritual language. The text’s remedies, animal materials and bodily procedures reflect early-modern popular medicine and magical belief. Historical presence is not evidence of safety or efficacy.