What would the Medieval Latin translation be for the title "Book of the Black Sacrament"? (Note: black here means dark or evil, not the actual colour.)
Thanks.
1 Answer
If you're looking for a church-flavored phrase, I'd go with Liber de Sacramento Obscuro.
Obscurus can mean "dark (as in black)," but also "hidden," "secret," "disguised," or even "ignoble." It doesn't mean "evil" per se, but it approximates some of the meanings of "dark" and looks like the English word obscure to boot, which would help your readers.
Other just-as-good words for black here include nigro and atro in their inflected form.
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1Occulto could also work for this sense of "black" imo, at least in the context of the New Latin of the Early Modern Period (this is, after all, where we get the sense of the Modern English word occult)– TristanCommented May 15 at 13:33
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2@Tristan That's a good one, too, though perhaps a bit on the nose if this is some sort of book. (Then again, a lot of Medieval-themed books are very much nasal in that way.)– cmw ♦Commented May 15 at 14:15
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1@Tristan If this were ancient and not Medieval, I would even recommend de Sacris Occultis as a nod to the Senatus Consultum de Bacchanalibus.– cmw ♦Commented May 15 at 14:19