Duke is one of several noble titles the Ars Goetia borrows from European feudal ranks to order its seventy-two spirits, sitting below king and above earl in the traditional sequence. Manuscript traditions do not agree on every assignment, and a handful of spirits appear as dukes in one copy of the Lemegeton and under a different rank elsewhere.
Facts
Origins
Whose Classification This IsThe rank ladder is the Ars Goetia's, compiled in England in the mid-seventeenth century from older material including Johann Weyer's Pseudomonarchia Daemonum of 1577. Manuscripts differ, and some give a spirit more than one rank. 2Tradition: Ars Goetia (Lemegeton), mid-17th century Overview
What Defines This GroupingThe spirits the Ars Goetia ranks as dukes, the most numerous rank in the book. Rank is a literary grade assigned by the grimoire, borrowed from the titles of an earthly court; it says nothing about any spirit's standing in any religion. 2 Learn More
The Goetic Dukes
This group holds the spirits ranked as Dukes among the seventy-two demons of the Ars Goetia of the Lesser Key of Solomon. Dukes are the most numerous rank in the hierarchy, which assigns each of the seventy-two spirits a courtly title in imitation of a feudal court.
The browser will find the spirits of ducal rank. The atlas describes each spirit's attributes and seal as the seventeenth-century grimoire gives them, treating the material as a historical textual tradition.
All Dukes
Sources
1. Divinity Atlas Directory Taxonomy, First Edition Category Tree
2. Grimoires: A History of Magic Books
Owen Davies, Oxford University Press, 2009ch. 3, on the Lemegeton and the Solomonic grimoiresView the Source Divinity Atlas Directory Prose, First Edition Category Descriptions
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