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The Least Stable Title in the Catalogue

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The Least Stable Title in the Catalogue

Seven of the seventy-two are ranked Prince in this collection, commanding 260 legions between them: Vassago, Sitri, Ipos, Gaap, Stolas, Orobas and Seere.

Prince is the title the manuscripts handle least consistently. Several of the seven carry a second rank in the Ars Goetia text itself. Gaap is given as a President and a Prince together, and Ipos as an Earl and a Prince, so where they are filed depends on which of the two titles a compiler decided to lead with. The Latin and English witnesses of the tradition also vary between Prince and Prelate for some entries, a substitution that quietly moves a spirit from the court to the church, and the two words are near enough in an abbreviated manuscript hand for the variation to be an accident as easily as a decision.

What the seven have in common is not military. Vassago is asked about things past and to come and about things hidden. Stolas teaches astronomy and the properties of herbs and stones. Orobas is credited with giving true answers about past, present and future, and, unusually for the book, with not deceiving the operator or permitting others to. Ipos is said to make men witty and bold, Gaap to teach philosophy and the liberal sciences.

That is a cluster of offices concerned with knowledge and disclosure rather than with force, and it fits the legion counts, which run from 20 to 66 and never approach the numbers given to the kings.

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