 While the term "grimoire" is originally European and many Europeans throughout history, particularly ceremonial magicians and cunning folk, have used grimoires, the historian Owen Davies noted that similar books can be found all across the world, ranging from Jamaica to Sumatra.He also noted that in this sense, the world's first grimoires were created in Europe and the Ancient Near East.It is most commonly believed that the term "grimoire" originated from the Old French word "grammaire", which had initially been used to refer to all books written in Latin.