necromantia

Forms

necromantīa f (genitive necromantīae); first declension^[1] Also necromantēa.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek νεκρομαντεία (nekromanteía, “necromancy”),^[2][5][6] from νεκρός (nekrós, “corpse”) and μαντεία (manteía, “divination”).^[6][7]

Later manuscripts spell it with ⟨nicr-⟩ and ⟨nigr-⟩,^[5] under the influence of niger (“black”).^[5][8] This form lies behind Old Italian gramanzia and Old French nigremance.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

It first appears in the scholia of Porphyrio and Acro on Horace's fifth epode,^[3] which Köbler dates to the 2nd century AD,^[6] meaning the calling up of the dead.^[3][6]

Semantic evolution

Lactantius and Augustine use it for the evocation of the dead to learn the future.^[2][4] The glossaries explain it as divination by the dead, when a soul is called back from the underworld.^[5]

In medieval Latin it widened to sorcery and black magic in general,^[8] often in the form nigromantia.^[8][7] An English court record of 1331 speaks of the arts of nigromancie of people found in a circle invoking evil spirits.^[8] English took the word around 1300, through Old French nigromancie, as nygromauncy.^[7]

Timeline

• 2nd century AD – The scholia of Acro on Horace use it.^[3][6]
• c. 250–317 AD – Lactantius uses it for the evocation of the dead.^[2][4][6]
• 354–430 AD – Augustine uses it in the City of God.^[2][4][6]
• 639–709 AD – Aldhelm uses it in verse.^[8][6]
• c. 1300 – English borrows it, through Old French, as nygromauncy.^[7]
• 1331 – An English court record uses it of the invocation of evil spirits.^[8]
• 1438 – A letter in Poggio's correspondence speaks of the art of necromantia.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. Necromancy: divination by calling up the dead.^{[2][4][10][8]}
2. (Medieval Latin) Sorcery, black magic.^[8]

Related words

• English necromancy

Usage notes

The medieval variant nigromantia, as if from niger “black”,^[8][7] is treated by Niermeyer as the same word.^[11] Lewis and Short and Gaffiot also cite Necromantea in Pliny the Elder (35.132), of the part of Homer's Odyssey where Ulysses visits the underworld,^[2][4] but the TLL takes this as a false reading for necyomantia.^[5]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b c d Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
4. ^ a b c d e f Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
5. ^ a b c d e f Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
6. ^ a b c d e f g h Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
7. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i Latham, R. E., D. R. Howlett, R. K. Ashdowne, et al. (1975–2013), Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, London: British Academy / Oxford University Press
9. ^ Ramminger, Johann, Neulateinische Wortliste: Ein Wörterbuch des Lateinischen von Petrarca bis 1700, www.neulatein.de
10. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
11. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill