Another problem was posed by non-Latin letters like K and W. The result was that multiple versions of the Sphere survive with different number-letter correlations and different remainders in the centre. This led to confusion as medieval Latin translators and copyists tried to find the ‘correct’ original and ascribed numbers to letters without any rationale. Every Greek letter has a corresponding number, but not every Latin letter does.
3 However, there was an inherent problem with translation into Latin. It was translated, and the earliest surviving example in Latin dates from around 805 CE. The Sphere is first attested in a Greek papyrus made in the fourth century CE, but it probably has much older roots. Photo: © Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford The three columns of numbers indicate whether recovery or death will be quick, medium or slow.Ī Sphere of Pythagoras. If the remainder is in the top hemisphere, the person will live, if in the bottom, they will die. These three numbers are added into a grand total and divided by 30. Add the number of the day of the moon on which they first fell sick (a number between 1-30), and the number of the planetary weekday (each day has a corresponding number, usually located in or next to the diagram). The six-line verse at the bottom of the page instructs the operator to take the name of the sick person and convert the letters of their name into numerical equivalents (which are found in the two outer rims of the diagram). The Sphere is most often used to predict whether a sick person will live or die, but is also used for any question about an individual requiring a yes/no answer. 1375, now Oxford Bodleian Library MS Digby 46. Here is an example from a manuscript produced in England c.
To demonstrate how onomancy works, I will use the example of the most commonly-occurring variety in medieval manuscripts, the Sphere of Life and Death or Sphere of Pythagoras. Onomancy falls into the first category, along with other types of divination such as geomancy (drawing dots), chiromancy (palm-reading) and bibliomancy (randomly opening books, usually the Bible). 2 There are many forms present in medieval sources, which fall into two categories – ‘active’, or set up (such as dice throwing) and ‘passive’, or spontaneous (such as omens and portents). Benedek Láng provides a succinct definition: it is ‘the procedure of foretelling the future and discovering hidden knowledge through the interpretation of signs’. 1 Divination is an ancient and cross-cultural phenomenon. Onomancy – haplological for onomatomancy – means ‘divination by names’, and, if surviving manuscript numbers are any indication, the most common form of divination in the later Middle Ages. Here, I will describe a divinatory practice called onomancy. What can our names tell us about our fate? According to some modes of medieval thought, quite a lot. Joanne Edge, Latin Manuscripts Cataloguer at the John Rylands Library, University of Manchester What’s really in a name? Onomancy in the Middle Ages (Part 1) Dr. Edge’s PhD research focused on “onomancy”, a type of medieval magic based in a person’s name, a topic we thought would be of interest to readers of the blog! Editor’s Introduction: The DMNES staff are super delighted to host a two-part guest blog by Dr.
0 kommentar(er)
