Though Christopher Marlowe’s famous play Doctor Faustus does involve necromancy to those ends, Kieckhefer says that may have more to do with medieval interest in antiquity than in contemporary ideas about the possibilities of black magic. Kieckhefer has studied 14th and 15th century trial records extensively and says he just doesn’t see cases of people explicitly trying to bring others back from the dead. Although “necromancy” in pop culture is often used to refer to bringing someone back from the dead, the idea of reanimating the dead was generally not a thing. One thing that was not a key part of real medieval ideas about necromancy might surprise Thrones fans.
That’s historically appropriate for the maesters of Game of Thrones, who in that fantasy world are trusted with the work of healing Qyburn in particular is noted for his medical skill. “So it’s a pejorative term that gets used kind of loosely for magic of various types.”Īnother area of confusion is that the line between magic and healing at that time was “very blurry,” Kieckhefer says. “The term can also be used more broadly for just magic generally, but when it’s used for magic generally, to call it necromancy is to say, ‘Ooh, that sounds awfully naughty or risky,” Kieckhefer says. Or, alternatively, they could just be pretending to try, happy to take people’s money to put on a sort of magic show. Later, however, that idea became basically interchangeable with something else: what might be called “black magic.” The medieval church held that those who were successful at conjuring the spirits of the dead were - intentionally or not - getting demons instead, Kieckhefer explains, and by the 15th or 16th century, around the period from which Game of Thrones takes many of its historical cues, a “necromancer” would usually have meant a person who was summoning or attempting to summon demons or fallen angels.
In antiquity, necromancy was the practice of conjuring ghosts in order to predict the future that’s what the roots of the word mean, from the Greek for death and divination. If you don't get the confirmation within 10 minutes, please check your spam folder. Click the link to confirm your subscription and begin receiving our newsletters.
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