Dear Rob,
No one on this list is more linguistically or lexicographically
challenged than am i, so your post sent me to the O.E.D., L.E.D.,
duCange, Niermeyer and whatever else i could lay paws on, with the result that
i am little less ignorant than i was before i started, but have a very nice
headache indeed.
i entirely agree with you that the usage of the English word
"desecration" *should* reflect its Latin roots and mean, simply,
"de[con]secration".
alas, the editors of the O.E.D., bless them, could find no such *unambiguous*
usage in the history of the word in our common language:
"DESECRATE: v. In Lat. _desecrare_ or _desacrare_ meant to consecrate,
dedicate [!!]... Still in Cotgr. (1611) 'to profane, violate, unhallow' = It.
_dissa[c?-can't read my own hand]rare- 'to unconsecrate, unhallow'
(Florio)....
"trans. To take away its consecrated or sacred charater from anything; to
treat as not sacred or hallowed; to profane."
in the earliest examples --from 1677, 1678 ["desecrating"], 1721, etc., the
O.E.D. offers, *all* have the negative connotations of "profanation," while
*none* have the unambiguous sense of simple "unhallowing" or, as it were,
"deconsecrating."
likewise:
"b. To divert from a sacred to a profane purpose, to dedicate or devote
to something evil... (1825)."
and
"c. "To dismiss from holy orders (arch[aic].)... 1674."
though these last two meanings would seem to be irrelevant to our
purposes here.
in short, i could find no unambiguous instance of the use of the word in the
fashion you quite reasonably propose.
i did find the mention of the original, classical usage as "to
consecrate, dedicate" to be particularly interesting, though the O.L.D. only
seemed to have a single example of this usage from the classical sources, and
that one was beyond my poor ability to comprehend completely (it is also
mentioned by the encyclopedic duCange, btw).
this sense of the word seems *not* to have passed into medieval usage,
however.
indeed --and this is *particularly* curious and important to our
purposes, it seems to me-- Niermeyer fails to have any mention of the
word in any form which i could find (though perhaps my vision was impared by
making my fingers stumble through the white pages of the "micro" edition of
the O.E.D.).
Lathem's _Wordlist_ does note a very late ("1517") mention of _desecro_, with
the meaning of "to unfrock (eccl.);" but there was probably quite a good bit
of desecro-ing going on in England around about that time, i
would suppose.
most interesting, St. duCange notes, under _desacrare_ *only*
"...Martinus [?] habebat: 'Desacro, quod sacrum erat, profanum facio.'"
(i wonder what was the meaning of _profanum_ in "Martinus'" time?)
and, that's it.
at least as far as i could find (and i certainly invite correction from any
memeber of this learnéd list).
as i say, i find this *lack* of a use of the word in the M.A. to be (to me)
quite an extraordinary and unexpected development --surely the *idea*
of "desecration" (in the sense that the word is used in common, contemporary
English/American parlance) was alive and well amongst the middlevils --but
what word did they use for it???
and "desecration," in any Latin permutation i could find, was not in use in
the sense that you would suggest we English speakers apply it.
(somewhere in the data i have hidden on a hard drive which i cannot
access at present is the text of an 11th c. charter in which there is mention
of a priory of Marmoutier in the Beauce having been "desecrated" [but what was
the word used --i can't recall] by a certain knight who
rode his horse into the church and cloister in protest over some
perceived affront by the monks. there was, apparently, no actual change in
the material fabric of the place involved in this action.)
i *know* that there were appropriate rituals for the "re-"consecration
of profaned ("desecrated," again in modern English usage) churches, chapels,
altars [?], etc.
i just can't lay hands on them --nor does anyone on this learned list
seem to be able to, alas.
how could it be that there was --or appears to have been-- no such ceremony
in, say, *every* Pontifical, for the "decomissioning" of
churches, chapels, altars, etc. slated for sure destruction (to make way for
new construction) or simple emminent disuse (as in the case of the "abandoned
villages" of the 14th and later centuries)?? there must surely have been
some decades when the number of churches or chapels in need of
"de[con]secration" was at least equal --or even exceeded, for goodness sake--
the number which were, _de novo_, consecrated. there is
a ceremonial text for the latter; why not the former???
it's a mystery to me.
in any event, it has long been my hope that the editing heirs and assigns of
C.T. Onions presently toiling away on the upcomming New Edition of the O.E.D.
will prove to have the sense to be monitoring the archives of this good list
so that i might have the satisfaction, sometime in my fast-approaching Golden
Years, of seeing references to all the many Neologisims which i have inflicted
upon it.
if you honestly feel, Rob, that you are owed an apology from me for not
realising from your first post what it was that you intended to mean by this
word, please be assured that you have it herewith.
best to all from here,
christopher
p.s. i'm wintering in sunny california, and it ain't chilli out here, at
all.
>....An examination of the latin roots of the words 'con-secration' and
'de-secration' will reveal that they are, in fact, opposites. Desecration is
the technically correct term for what is being referred to on the list as
'deconsecration'. Unfortunately English has also added the meaning of
'pollutio' to the word, but the usage is incorrect.
>Cheers
>Rob
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