When the layperson considers necromancy, they easily find themselves falling into the well-known tropes. Necromancers are sinister, warped and twisted figures perfecting their arts in the dark and hidden corners of the world. They secrete themselves away from society until they have amassed the knowledge and power needed to unleash their dread armies upon the wider world, using the legions of the dead to impose their will over the living. There are probably bats involved, for some reason.

However, in this paper I will show that this image of necromancers, while fitting the most notorious necromancers of years gone by, such as Marvin the Bonelord and Ethel the Partially Rotted, the reality is very different. Most “necromancers” have little desire to rule the world and instead raise the dead for many and varied reasons, the majority of which would be familiar to the general peasantry, citizenry, gentry and nobility of modern kingdoms. These range from loneliness and grief, all the way to academic research itself. Using judicial and ecclesiastical records, along with some first hand case studies, I hope to show the breadth and depth of the necromantic activity around us.

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Throughout this paper I will be using “necromancer” and “necromancy” purely when referring to those individuals who use their necromantic activity to build themselves an army. More broadly, the terms “necromantic practitioner” and “necromantic activity” will be used, as these have fewer connotations in the mind of the reader. After all, this paper is intended to show that necromantic activity is more common than society would expect, and that the vast majority of necromantic practitioners are not only (or even primarily) defined by their interactions with the dead. Instead, they might be hobbyists, researchers, clerks and investigators.

They might even be somebody you know.