Among the grimoires of early modern Europe, the Clavicula Salomonis, or Key of Solomon, is perhaps the most famous. The name evokes a secret knowledge kept by the biblical king, but the real history of the text is more complex and, in some ways, more interesting than the legend.
Solomon, king and magician
The idea of Solomon as lord of the spirits is old. Late antique Jewish tradition already credited the king with a wisdom that extended to nature and to demons, and texts such as the Testament of Solomon portray him commanding spirits through a sealed ring. In the Middle Ages and the Renaissance his name became almost a mark of authority: attributing a book to Solomon meant declaring it ancient and powerful.
The Clavicula belongs to this long current, but the text we know does not date from biblical times at all.
A history of manuscripts
The Clavicula is not a single, stable book but a family of manuscripts with varying contents. The surviving copies are in Latin, Italian, French and other languages, and they spread above all from the Renaissance onwards. Many French copies date from the eighteenth century, when copying grimoires became almost a trade.
Scholars have identified an important forerunner in the Greek magical treatises attributed to Solomon, known as the Hygromanteia or Magical Treatise of Solomon, preserved in Byzantine and post-Byzantine manuscripts. These texts already contain elements we find again in the Clavicula: planetary hours, prayers, the preparation of instruments. The Clavicula thus appears as the Western heir of a tradition that crossed the Mediterranean.
The text is also attested in the archives of the Inquisition, especially in sixteenth-century Venice, where it appears among the books seized from people practising magic. This tells us it was not a library curiosity but a book that was actually used and feared.
Mathers' edition
The form in which the text is best known today is the one published in 1889 by Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers under the title The Key of Solomon the King. Mathers, who would become one of the leading figures of the Golden Dawn, worked on several British Museum manuscripts, compared them and produced a composite version. This is important to know: Mathers' edition is a reconstruction, useful but not identical to any single manuscript.
What it contains
In the most common arrangement the text is divided into two books.
Book one: the operations
The first book presents the opening prayer, the value of planetary hours and days, the confession and preparatory prayers, and a series of operations with different aims. A key section is devoted to the pentacles: circular figures, each associated with one of the seven planets, combining divine names, biblical verses, letters and signs.
Book two: the preparation
The second book concerns the preparation of the operator and the instruments. Here we find:
- fasting, purifications and ritual baths;
- garments and shoes;
- knives, distinguished by the colour of their handles, and other instruments;
- pen, ink and parchment;
- water, fumigations and fire;
- the tracing of the circle.
What is striking is the meticulousness. Every object must be prepared at a set hour, consecrated with specific prayers and kept with care. The grimoire is first of all a manual of discipline.
The meaning of preparation
Read carefully, the Clavicula reveals a precise conception: the operation is not an isolated gesture but the culmination of a long work of purification. The operator prepares for days, regulates body and speech, and orders space and time. The circle separates inside from outside; the planetary hours tie the gesture to the rhythm of the heavens; the prayers, often deeply devout in tone, frame everything within a religious setting.
This is why many modern readers, even with no interest in the operative side, find in the text a reflection on the relationship between ritual and inner order.
Variants and related texts
Around the Clavicula orbits a small universe of related texts. The best known is the Lemegeton, also called Clavicula Salomonis Regis or the "Lesser Key of Solomon", which nonetheless has different contents and a history of its own. There are also eighteenth-century French grimoires that freely rework Solomonic material, sometimes mixing it with popular elements. These works should not be confused with one another simply because they bear the same king's name.
How to approach the text
Anyone who wants to study the Clavicula should remember three things: that it is a manuscript tradition and not a single book; that the most widespread edition is a nineteenth-century reconstruction; and that the text must be read in the religious context in which it arose, steeped in Christian prayer and in elements of Jewish and Greek origin.
In short
- The Clavicula Salomonis is a family of manuscripts that spread mainly from the Renaissance onwards.
- It has forerunners in the Greek magical treatises attributed to Solomon, such as the Hygromanteia.
- It is also documented in the proceedings of the sixteenth-century Venetian Inquisition.
- Mathers' 1889 edition is a reconstruction from several British Museum manuscripts.
- The text insists on preparation: purifications, instruments, planetary hours, pentacles and the circle.
