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5. Anathema Sit: Condemnation and Punishment

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Onomantic Divination in Late Medieval Britain
This chapter is in the book Onomantic Divination in Late Medieval Britain
5Anathema Sit: Condemnation and PunishmentWhy on earth should we respect a set of silly rules made by some men one day and changed by some more the next?1In 1150 CE, the tenets and structures of the Latin Church were far from established. So the ‘rules’ – what was and was not permitted behaviour for Christians – were anything but consistent, and were still being worked out as the Middle Ages progressed. Theologians in the universities that were growing in the twelfth century wrestled with a volume of often contradictory decisions from church councils that had taken place since the early days of Christianity, starting with Nicaea in 325 CE. Attempts were made to synthesise sprawling and inconsistent texts, and many of the edicts from such councils were clearly in response to very specific questions from the bishops in attendance. It is also important to bear in mind that, just because pious Christians were not sup-posed to do something, they refrained from doing so. Societies and the people within them have always been as diverse as they are today. People break the rules. Sometimes the rules vary from place to place. Sometimes nobody cares if you do something you’re not supposed to. Nevertheless, what we can broadly say is that onomantic divination was generally not approved of by medieval church authorities, but at the same time it does not seem that anybody caught in the act would have been punished particularly harshly.Chapter 4 established that onomancies are extant in a large corpus of man-uscripts produced in late medieval Britain. However, as discussed in Chapter 1, onomancy belongs in the category of divination, a practice which had been condemned since the time of the late Roman Empire. This had not always been the case: in ancient Greece and Rome the systems of divination and polytheistic religion were not at odds with one another. In fact, certain forms of divination were a key part of Greek and Roman religion. It was with the rise of monotheistic Christianity as the principal religion of the Latin West 1C. Perkins Gilman, ‘According to Solomon’, in The Yellow Wall-Paper and Other Stories (Oxford, 1995), p. 127.
© 2024, Boydell and Brewer

5Anathema Sit: Condemnation and PunishmentWhy on earth should we respect a set of silly rules made by some men one day and changed by some more the next?1In 1150 CE, the tenets and structures of the Latin Church were far from established. So the ‘rules’ – what was and was not permitted behaviour for Christians – were anything but consistent, and were still being worked out as the Middle Ages progressed. Theologians in the universities that were growing in the twelfth century wrestled with a volume of often contradictory decisions from church councils that had taken place since the early days of Christianity, starting with Nicaea in 325 CE. Attempts were made to synthesise sprawling and inconsistent texts, and many of the edicts from such councils were clearly in response to very specific questions from the bishops in attendance. It is also important to bear in mind that, just because pious Christians were not sup-posed to do something, they refrained from doing so. Societies and the people within them have always been as diverse as they are today. People break the rules. Sometimes the rules vary from place to place. Sometimes nobody cares if you do something you’re not supposed to. Nevertheless, what we can broadly say is that onomantic divination was generally not approved of by medieval church authorities, but at the same time it does not seem that anybody caught in the act would have been punished particularly harshly.Chapter 4 established that onomancies are extant in a large corpus of man-uscripts produced in late medieval Britain. However, as discussed in Chapter 1, onomancy belongs in the category of divination, a practice which had been condemned since the time of the late Roman Empire. This had not always been the case: in ancient Greece and Rome the systems of divination and polytheistic religion were not at odds with one another. In fact, certain forms of divination were a key part of Greek and Roman religion. It was with the rise of monotheistic Christianity as the principal religion of the Latin West 1C. Perkins Gilman, ‘According to Solomon’, in The Yellow Wall-Paper and Other Stories (Oxford, 1995), p. 127.
© 2024, Boydell and Brewer

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter i
  2. Contents vii
  3. List of Illustrations viii
  4. Acknowledgements ix
  5. Introduction 1
  6. 1. ‘A Certain Foretelling of Future Things’: Divination and Onomancy, Definitions and Types 18
  7. 2. Platonic Relationships: Onomancy’s Intellectual and Visual Contexts 38
  8. 3. Lost in Translation: Greek Beginnings and Latin Corruptions, c. 400–c. 1125 59
  9. 4. Body of Evidence: the Manuscript Corpus 76
  10. 5. Anathema Sit: Condemnation and Punishment 94
  11. 6. Certain Death? Onomancy and the Physician 112
  12. 7. Trial and Error: Onomancy and the Nobility 134
  13. 8. A Numbers Game: Onomancy at the University 151
  14. 9. Morbid Curiosity: Onomancy in the Monastery 165
  15. 10. Reformations: Onomancy c. 1500–c. 1700 180
  16. Conclusion 209
  17. Appendix I. Transcriptions and Editions of ‘Sphere of Life and Death’ Texts 214
  18. Appendix II. List of Manuscripts Containing Onomancies of British Provenance, 1150–1500 237
  19. Bibliography 239
  20. Index 259
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https://doi.org/10.1515/9781787447820-008

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter i
  2. Contents vii
  3. List of Illustrations viii
  4. Acknowledgements ix
  5. Introduction 1
  6. 1. ‘A Certain Foretelling of Future Things’: Divination and Onomancy, Definitions and Types 18
  7. 2. Platonic Relationships: Onomancy’s Intellectual and Visual Contexts 38
  8. 3. Lost in Translation: Greek Beginnings and Latin Corruptions, c. 400–c. 1125 59
  9. 4. Body of Evidence: the Manuscript Corpus 76
  10. 5. Anathema Sit: Condemnation and Punishment 94
  11. 6. Certain Death? Onomancy and the Physician 112
  12. 7. Trial and Error: Onomancy and the Nobility 134
  13. 8. A Numbers Game: Onomancy at the University 151
  14. 9. Morbid Curiosity: Onomancy in the Monastery 165
  15. 10. Reformations: Onomancy c. 1500–c. 1700 180
  16. Conclusion 209
  17. Appendix I. Transcriptions and Editions of ‘Sphere of Life and Death’ Texts 214
  18. Appendix II. List of Manuscripts Containing Onomancies of British Provenance, 1150–1500 237
  19. Bibliography 239
  20. Index 259
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