quinity

English

Etymology

From Latin quīnitās, from quīnī (“five each”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈkwɪnɪti/

Noun

quinity (countable and uncountable, plural quinities)

1. Synonym of quintet: A group of five.
   • 1997, Ernst Kantorowicz: Erträge Der Doppeltagung Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt‎^[1], page 100:

     His subject is a "strange image" among the llth century drawings of the Winchester school, which he calls a quinity. But what is a quinity? Let me explain it in his own words: "It is a Quaternity of God the Father, the Son, St. Mary, and the Holy Ghost; or, if we add the Infant on the lap of the Virgin, we face the seemingly unique representation of what logically must be called a Quinity".

   • 2001, Kantorowicz: Stories of a Historian‎^[2]:

     In 1947, for example, in a wonderful study of the "quinity" of Winchester, Kantorowicz interprets an astonishing sketch in a book of offices (officia) copied in Winchester at the beginning of the eleventh century. He invents the term quinity to describe a curious composition showing the Holy Family, in which there appear two identical representations of the divinity side by side.

   • 2004, Scriptoria in Medieval Saxony: St. Pancras in Hamersleben‎^[3], page 142:

     It is thus of particular interest to find the Trinity and the Incarnation combined in one medallion in the so- called Quinity of Winchester, of 1023-1035 (fol.75v- fig. 119)195. The Virgin and Child, who holds a book, is next to the two similar figures of God the Father and God the Son, who are sitting on a bow and also holding books. The Holy Ghost alights on Mary's crowned head, and all but she have crossed haloes.

   • 2008, Queens and Queenship in Medieval Europe: Proceedings of a Conference Held at King's College London, April 1995‎^[4], page 13:

     Plate 3 shows Mary as part of what has been called a heavenly Quinity; not the traditional trinity of father, son and holy spirit, but a fivesome where the usual three are joined by Mary and her infant

2. Synonym of fiveness: The state of being five or having 5 parts.

Coordinate terms

• quinary
• unity (oneness)
• duality (twoness)
• trinity (threeness)
• quaternary (fourness)