The very learned Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa was one of the greatest magicians of Europe during the sixteenth century. But he always got himself in trouble and was chased from one city to another…
Martín Antonio Del Rio, the Jesuit theologian who was partly responsible for the witch-hunts in the Southern Netherlands, taught for several years theology in the Flemish city of Louvain when Agrippa lived there. He accused the Magister of practising diabolical magic, the awful Black Art. For instance, Agrippa would have paid at inns with pieces of horn and casted an illusion over the senses whereby those who received the pieces took them for real money. It also was Del Rio who told the story of the Demon of Louvain, raised in Agrippa’s study.
One day, when Agrippa had to go outside, he took all of his black magical books, put them in his study and made sure the room was carefully locked. He gave the key to his wife and said that no one was to be allowed in the locked room. Because he still hadn’t found the Philosopher’s Stone and hadn’t succeed in turning lead into gold, he was obliged to rent out a room to make ends meet. His tenant was a student of his, eager to get a peek at the books of the Magus. The young man asked Agrippa’s wife for the key of the study, but she refused. However, being very handsome and saying he just wanted to look around for a few minutes, Agrippa’s wife finally agreed and gave him the key.
The evening was falling when the student entered the study in the light of a flickering candle. He could see the tools of the magician: a crystal ball, magic charms… and many, many old books, some of them real grimoires. One of the books lay open on Agrippa’s desk, the student saw some strange phrases there… he could pronounce them, but he didn’t understand what they meant.
And then… What was that noise? Was that a knock on the door? Startled, the student went into the corridor, but no one was there. He continued to read out loud those strange phrases, it was no Latin, no Greek, no language he knew… and then there was another knock, much louder now.
This time, the student was badly frightened. Trembling he muttered something that sounded like: “Come in…”
And see, the door was thrown open and a huge, evil-looking stranger entered. “Why was I called, Master?”
“I didn’t call you!”
“Oh yes, you did!” cried the creature as it advanced across the room. “Demons are not called in vain! Never! They don’t like to be disturbed!”
The student was frozen in terror, speechless… Accidentally, he had read a magic spell that opened the door to infernal regions. The demon, in rage, grabbed his throat and choked the life out of him.
When Agrippa got home, he found the body of the student on the floor of his study. He saw the open book on his desk and the demon sitting in his chair.
“Why did you kill this boy?” he asked angrily.
“Your student has summoned me with no good reason. He deserved to die!”
The demon was right… and Agrippa had a problem. What did he have to do about the student’s dead body? If he turned it over to the authorities, he would be accused of murder. If he made it disappear, people would wonder what happened with this handsome young man.
There was only one thing he could do… “You have to take over the corpse for a walk in the city,” he said.
While the demon was walking in the body of the dead student, Agrippa made sure his neighbours saw that he was at home. At sunset, the “student” suddenly fell down, cold and lifeless, at the market-place. No one saw the demon disappear in a puff of smoke. No one, except Martín Del Rio, maybe.
At first, people thought the young man died of some sort of sudden stroke. But knowing he had been Agrippa’s tenant, they were suspicious. Del Rio examined the corpse more closely and found marks of strangulation on the neck and marks of the demon’s claws on other parts of the body.
So, Agrippa’s plan to protect his reputation did not succeed… and it was business as usual: he had to leave Louvain in a real hurry.
Image via Wikipedia
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