Those clauses were basically the alchemists’ operating manual. They gave the trade a legal skeleton—limits on public practice, rules about who could sell what, secrecy requirements—so the experiments stayed within a defined risk envelope. But that same skeleton forced the practitioners to work in shadows, which in turn pushed them to invent tricks, cover‑ups, and coded procedures that read like early stage‑magic. In short, the statutes bound the alchemists’ hands yet sharpened the very skills that made their work intriguing.