Dee, John, an alchemist, born in London; a man of curious learning; earned the reputation of being a sorcerer; was imprisoned at one time, and mobbed at another, under this imputation; died in poverty; left 79 works, the majority of which were never printed, though still extant in MS. in the British Museum and other places of safe-keeping (1527‒1608).
Definition taken from The Nuttall Encyclopædia, edited by the Reverend James Wood (1907)
Decretals, The * Defauconpret