Astrological Guides
Almanacs depend on a certain level of knowledge of Ptolemaic astronomy and astrology, and during the time they gained in popularity, many vernacular works, of various degrees of scientific or medical credibility, were also published to explain that science. These guides sometimes included calendars, or more often, general seasonal or monthly guides to physic.
Putting almanacs into the context of this material allows us to see them as part of a body of work that both reflected and enhanced growing popular literacy concerning astrology and astrological medicine in later Tudor and early Stuart England.
An early work in this vein is Thomas Moulton’s This is the Myrour or Glasse of Helthe, first published before 1531 by Robert Wyer. Moulton’s book reviews aspects of astrological medicine such as the qualities of men born under each of the twelve signs and the timing of medical interventions depending on planetary ruler (C4r-Elr); it was published at least a dozen times by ten separate printers before 1550.11 In the 1540s and 1550s, two almanac compilers wrote brief but accurate guides to astrology, perhaps attempting to increase the market for their annual productions: Andrew Boorde in The Pryncyples of Astronamye (c. 1547) and Anthony Askham in Litell Treatyse of Astronomy, very necessary for Physyke and Surgerye (1550). Another book that served a similar purpose, though at a higher academic level, was the English translation of the French astrologer Oronce Fine’s Righte Ample Documentes, Touchinge the Use and Practise of the Common Almanackes, printed twice in 1558 and again in 1570. Over one hundred pages in octavo, Fine’s work not only provides descriptions of astral and planetary qualities and astrological medicine; it is also a high-level how-to guide for practicing judicial astrology. A similar book is Claude Dariot’s A Breefe and Most Easie Introduction to the Astrologicall Judgement of the Starres, printed in 1583, 1598, and (in a revised edition) 1653. Another astrological guide less directly connected to the astrology of the almanacs was John Maplet’s The Dial of Destiny, a treatise on the planets and their influence published in 1581 and 1592.12 Much later, George Simotta’s A Theater of the Planetary Houres for All Dayes of the Yeare(1632, STC 22561) explained the use in astrological medicine of the planetary hours that by then were a standard part of the annual almanacs.
The works listed above are directly focused on either the almanacs or the Ptolemaic astrological practices of lunar and judicial astrology they communicated. Astrology also received explication in longer works of mathematics and natural philosophy. Robert Record’s The Castle of Knowledge (1556), a learned work on the sphere primarily aimed at mathematical practitioners, also provided basic astrological information in the vernacular.13 The Cosmographical Glasse (1559), by the almanac compiler William Cuning-ham, was a scholarly and ambitious work that includes basic information on astrological principles and calculations. The late medieval encyclopedia De Proprietatibus Rerum, with its extensive overview of Ptolemaic astrology and Galenic medicine, was reissued in 1582 under Stephen Batman’s name, as Batman upon Bartholome. Brief discussions of astrology are included in John Blagrave’s The Mathematical Jewel (1585) and Robert Tanner’s A Mirror for Mathématiques (1587), which provides instructions for constructing a horoscope and calculating the location of astral bodies with an astrolabe and other instruments. Finally, the polymath Thomas Blundeville’s M. Blundeville His Exercises, with its handy “plaine Treatise of the first principles of Cosmographie,” was first printed in 1594 and reprinted six times up until 1638. 4
Another category of publications related to almanacs are ephemerides, the charts delineating the relative position of the stars necessary for writing an almanac. Almanac compilers must have mostly obtained their ephemerides from foreign sources, as only a few printed in England survive for the century from 1540 to 1640. The earliest printed in England are by John Field; his ephemerides (one for 1557, another for 1558-1560) adapt the tables of Copernicus and Erasmus Rheinhold. Another ephemerides by an English compiler is the Calendaria by the minister and almanac compiler George Hartgill, published in two editions (English and Latin) in 1594, a work that also included a significant defense of astrology on Christian and indeed explicitly Protestant grounds. In the next century John Searle’s An Ephemeris for Nine Yeeres (1609) provided both the astral charts needed for almanac compilation and related tables, at least one of which subsequently found its way into an almanac (Figure 2.7).
All the works described above represent concepts that were mainstream and widely accepted as part of mathematics and natural philosophy, though translated from high academic language into ordinary, more accessible terms. But these works flourished amidst more dubious guides to astrology and prognostications. In lower level publications, standard astrological belief mingled with what is more clearly lore and superstition, though the line was drawn differently for early moderns than it is for us today. The most popular of the lower level publications was The pron-ostycacyon for ever, of mayster Erra Pater, first published in c. 1540 by Robert Wyer and reprinted thirteen times before 1639. Erra Pater became a symbol of astrological ineptitude; in the seventeenth century, John Booker and William Lilly “labelled each other ‘Erra Pater’ as a term of abuse.”15 The book certainly contains dubious calendar lore: the brontologies, the Esdras or dominical letter prophecies, and the good and evil Egyptian days are all included (even though presumably they must conflict in any given year). Yet, the various editions of Erra Pater also provide a basic yet accurate overview of Ptolemaic cosmology along the lines of The Compost of Ptolemy. Erra Pater reveals its kinship to almanacs and prognostications by accumulating in later editions some of the tables typical in almanacs; for example, the 1605 edition includes a list of principal fairs, and the 1609 edition includes a chronology and the rules for determining law terms. In 1622, Gervase Markham attempted to salvage the book by producing a new version, Verus Pater, clearly meant to capitalize on the original’s popularity and raise its academic credibility. Yet the spurious original continued to be reprinted, while Markham’s revision was not.
Another popular astrological guide at the lower end was the Briefe introductions, bothe naturall, pleasaunte, and also delectable, unto the Art of
Chiromancy, attributed to the fifteenth century French priest John Indagine and first published in England in 1558. The third of three sections in this volume is a perfectly adequate account of Ptolemaic astrology, titled “A compendious description of Naturall Astrologye, never so briefely handeled before” (L2v), which lays out the basic qualities of the planets, signs, and houses, the section on chiromancy having earlier explained how the signs and planets manifest in the human face. Indagine’s work was printed twice in 1558, four more times by 1633, and in five additional editions before the end of the seventeenth century. A similar work, first printed in English in the early 1560s and published fifteen times before 1679, is The Most Excellent, Profitable, and Pleasant Booke of the Famous Doctor and Expert Astrologien Arcandam or Aleandrin, popularly known as Arcandam, and attributed to Richard Roussat. This is an enduringly popular astrological treatise of seriously doubtful credibility that, among other things, encourages the use of the Sphere of Apuleius for assessing individual destiny, and (like Indagine) explores the connection between the stars and human physiognomy. Arcandam is focused on astrological nativities rather than the revolutions, eclipses, and elections of the almanacs and prognostications, but in addition to its more questionable elements it also contains standard descriptions of the qualities of the Zodiac signs.
Finally, at the farthest reach from the academic astrology of a Digges or a Cuningham was the material that appears in books of secrets and other miscellaneous prognostications. Books of secrets attributed to Aristotle in the sixteenth century usually have little astrological content except for a general description of the four seasons, but as mentioned in Chapter 1.1, two books ascribed to the philosopher repeat the days of the Moon prognostications, Esdras prophecies, and brontologies: these are the De Cur-sione Luna (1528), and Here Begynneth the Nature, and Dysposycyon of the Days in the Weke (1554). The most popular book in this category was the Boke of Knowledge attributed to Godfridus (first published c. 1554), which includes plenty of calendar lore (the Esdras prophecies, Egyptian days, days of the Moon, etc.) and almost no true astrological material. Published twice in the 1550s and once in 1585, when it was reprinted in 1619 it also included an excerpt from Proclus’ eminently respectable Treatise on the Sphere, as well as The Husbandmans Practise, first published separately in 1585, another hodgepodge that included the Esdras prognostications.16 The Godfridus Boke of Knowledge enjoyed quite astonishing popularity in the seventeenth century, with a total of seventeen separate editions between 1619 and 1700. Another publication in this category, I.A.’s A Perfyte Prognostication Perpetual! (c. 1556), includes an almanac for the date of Easter from 1556 to 1570, followed by the Esdras prognostications based on the day of the week of New Year’s Day. These are given not only in text, but in emblems that prefigure the later Trevelyon dominical letter prognostications; the predictions are sometimes (but not always) consistent between these two versions. The anonymous author’s stated goal for the book is to communicate these important prophecies concerning plenty and dearth, the abundance of fruit and wine, and the likelihood of war, to “the Ig-noraunt people, that is not skylled on the Booke” (A2v), but in truth, the emblems are quite indecipherable without the text.1 The Boke of Secretes of Albertus Magnus, printed in English in 1560 and approximately seven more times before 1684, includes a description of the planetary hours, and the 1599 edition adds a mainstream description of the qualities of the seven planets.
