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This article introduces and prints two charms from the fifteenth-century English manuscript Nijmegen, Universiteitsbibliotheek, HS 194. Nijmegen 194 is little studied, which is presumably why most of the English items remain unnoticed. Some of these items are hitherto unknown in Middle English scholarship, including the first of the two charms printed here. This first charm is a type of Heavenly Letter that we have termed the Letter of Joseph of Arimathea. The second is a Latin verbal charm that protects its user from a wide range of dangers. After a discussion of the charms as protective devices in the context of accompanying prayers and directions in the manuscript, we analyse their textual traditions and publish the charms from Nijmegen 194.

A manuscript in the British Library, Sloane 3853, is an Early Modern magical miscellany containing substantial extracts from a work of medieval ritual magic called the Liber iuratus Honorii or Sworn Book of Honorius. Sloane 3853 has generally been neglected as a source for the Swork Book, since other British Library manuscripts have better and more complete copies. This article argues that extracts from another text known to be included in the miscellany - the Ars notoria - in fact have the Sworn book as a proximate source. Focusing on the ways the Sworn Book is adapted and used, and especially on the vernacularized instructions given for the Sigil of God, the article goes on to trace how Sloane 3853 reflects the interests of its scribe, who focused on quick and straightforward spirit conjurations, ignoring the larger ritual context of the Sworn Book, in keeping with an interest in practical necromancy.

Dating back to the late antique period, the martyrdom of St. Ursula and the eleven thousand virgins became a focus of devotion in the late medieval and early modern period in continental Europe and the British Isles. Jacobus de Voragine discussed St. Ursula's martyrdom in detail in the Legenda Aurea , which included a prayer instruction that St. Ursula revealed to a dying monk in return for his faithful devotion to her. Taking their cue from St. Ursula's revelation in the Legenda Aurea , late medieval narratives such as the Shropshire Miracle expanded the prayer instruction revealed by St. Ursula and contextualized it in the historical setting of the life of the fifteenth-century English hermit John of Warwick. The Shropshire Miracle, in turn, was embedded in lives of St. Ursula, which were exported from England to Germany, and subsequently imported back into England. The key feature of these late medieval and early modern sources is the prayer instruction revealed by St. Ursula, a form of reciprocated devotion which cemented the reputation of St. Ursula and the eleven thousand virgins on the one hand, and on the other hand ensured protection in this life and access to heaven for the petitioner. While Ursuline prayer instructions survive in large numbers in Latin, the number of instructions in English is limited. The fifteenth-century English manuscript Nijmegen, Universiteitsbibliotheek, HS 194 contains a uniquely attested and re-contextualized version of St. Ursula's prayer instruction that is here situated within the medieval and early modern development of the cult of St. Ursula and printed for the first time.