Earl is the least common title among the Ars Goetia's borrowed noble ranks, held by only a handful of the seventy-two catalogued spirits. It mirrors an English peerage rank rather than a Continental one, a small reminder that the whole hierarchy is a human classification laid over the spirits rather than something the texts describe the spirits claiming for themselves.
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 earls, a title some manuscripts give instead as count. 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 Earls
This group holds the spirits ranked as Earls (or Counts) among the seventy-two demons of the Ars Goetia of the Lesser Key of Solomon, one of the noble ranks the grimoire uses to order the spirits.
The browser will find the spirits of this rank. The atlas describes each spirit's attributes and seal as the grimoire gives them, treating the material as a historical textual tradition.
All Earls
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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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