Almanacs and Prognostications
Calendars, Latin almanacs and ephemerides were among the first books to emerge from continental presses at the beginning of the age of print. Gutenberg printed an almanac in 1457, and the famous astronomer Regiomontanus produced multiple calendars, almanacs, and ephemerides in Nuremberg in the 1450s and 1460s. By the early decades of the sixteenth century, popular almanacs in the vernacular were among the best-selling books in Germany, and gaining popularity in France and the Netherlands. In England, however, annual almanacs and prognostications were slower to catch on. This was certainly a function of the delayed development of the printing industry in England, and possibly also of lower demand due to lower levels of astrological literacy.1 Before the 1540s, a majority of almanacs and prognostications—as well as primers—were printed abroad for the English market; most were also written by foreign compilers, including the Antwerp-based Laet family who produced English almanacs for multiple generations. Only in the 1540s did English printers and compilers begin to dominate the production of English almanacs.2
This chapter begins with a description of three kinds of almanacs and prognostications that, together with the primer calendars discussed in Chapter 2, served English calendar needs before the 1540s: multi-year almanacs, single sheet almanacs, and single-year prognostications. It then traces the development of the combined annual book form almanac and prognostication in the middle of the sixteenth century, recounts the sudden increased popularity of the almanac following the incorporation of the Company of Stationers in 1557, describes the impact of licensing and monopolies on the almanac’s fortunes in the Elizabethan era, and concludes with an overview of the history of the almanac from 1603 to 1640, when almanacs were part of the English Stock.
Multi-year Almanacs
Because they were perpetual, the calendars in the printed primers did not by themselves provide all the information needed to navigate time and ascertain basic astronomical data (such as the conjunctions and oppositions of the Sun and Moon) for particular years. For that, additional annual information was needed that provided the date of Easter, the golden number, and the dominical letter for a particular number of years. This was usually given in the single-page tables included in many primers titled “Almanacs,” that were in fact early modern versions of medieval Paschal tables (see Figure 1.2.3). From the first decade of the sixteenth century enterprising printers also produced separate multi-year almanac tables, applicable for a range of years. These could be used in conjunction with the perpetual calendars in primers to transform the latter into annual calendars.
The oldest surviving example of a multi-year almanac is the anonymous Almanack for Twelve Years, printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1508 (STC 387)? This tiny book (32°), printed in English, targets a literate but unlearned audience. The preface provides instructions on how to use the charts in the almanac, explaining basic terminology such as the fact that the conjunctions and oppositions are the same thing as the new and full Moons. For the next thirty years, multi-year almanacs (all with anonymous compilers) in this format were produced by the same printers who were also in the primer trade. Two years after De Worde’s almanac ran out in 1519, he printed another one covering 1522-1527 (STC 389). Richard Faques’ Almanacke for, xv, yeres (STC 390) covered 1525-1540, Robert Wyer’s 1539 Almanacke for xiiii years (STC 392.3) covered 1539-1552, and Richard Grafton’s An Almanacke Moste Exactly Sette Foorth for the Terme of xiiii Yeres (STC 393) covered 1544-1557. At that point, the annual combined almanac and prognostication obviated the need for these multi-year almanacs.
The primer calendars and the multi-year almanacs were complementary. The multi-year almanacs provided the movable feasts and phases of the Moon, the dominical letter and the dates of Easter. The perpetual calendars in the primers supplied permanent information such as the fixed holy days, general rules for astrological physic, and in some cases, the light calendri-cal poetry and images traditionally attached to calendars. The almanacs printed by de Worde and Faques would be useful for the owners of older primers for which the calendar had fallen out of date, or for the owners of primers that did not list conjunctions, oppositions, and movable feasts. But even when used together, the primer and multi-year almanacs provided only a small percentage of the calendar information that would later be gathered together in the annual combined book form almanac and prognostication.
