Leap Year, Meridian, and Pole Arctic
Almanac title pages often indicate the year’s position in the four-year cycle of leap years, usually using the term bissextile (discussed in Chapter 1.2).
Early modern printed almanacs emphasize a fact that modern time zones tend to obscure: that the astronomical time differs significantly even over relatively short distances. The small difference between Oxford and
London matters for astrological calculations. Noon, or the point when the sun reaches its highest position in the sky, of course varies according to longitude, while the number of hours of daylight—important information in all almanacs—varies according to latitude. The positions of all the planets and stars vis-a-vis the earth, so central to horoscopes, varied depending on an observer’s geographical location on the globe.2'
All almanac compilers, then, had to make their calculations for a particular location, whether or not they publicized that fact in their almanacs. As Alison Chapman has shown, compilers increasingly broadcasted this information.24 Locations were not usually given in multiple year almanacs, perpetual almanacs, stand-alone prognostications, or very early book form annual almanacs. But beginning in the late 1550s, annual almanacs by English compilers began to specify location more regularly, a trend that continued and intensified in the seventeenth century. An early example can be seen on William Cuningham’s 1558 almanac, which notes on the title page that it was “Made for the meridian of Norwich and pole articke lii degrees serving for all Englande” (Plate 4.1). Meridian is a contemporary term for longitude, though it was not often given as a number—indicated in degrees and minutes—but as here, indicated with a town (on Cuningham’s almanac, Norwich). Greenwich would not be set as the prime meridian until 1851, and it is rare, though not unheard of, to find English compilers using the prime meridian proposed by Regiomontanus (Budapest). The pole arctic is an early modern term for latitude; it is expressed (for northern locations) in degrees above the equator, so that any position on the earth north of the equator is called an elevation (or sometimes sublimity) of the pole artic. By identifying the meridian of Norwich with its pole arctic of fifty-two degrees, Cuningham is indicating longitude and latitude. Almanacs practiced what Chapman has termed a significant “spatial pinpointing” that has profound implications for our understanding of early modern ideas about time and space.25
London is the most cited location for calculation in English almanacs. But many compilers calculated for their own cities (or even villages), and some calculated for more than one site over their careers. The almanacs of John Securis and Henry Low were calculated for Salisbury, Cuningham cast for London as well as Norwich, and Lewes Vaughan calculated for Gloucester. Alexander Mounslowe cast one almanac for Oxford in 1561 (perhaps when he was a student), and a second batch for Chester in 1576-1581. William Farmer wrote almanacs cast for Dublin, while Walter Gray calculated almanacs for Dorchester. Compilers whose names had been invented by the printers, or real people whose names were posthumously appropriated, could become unmoored from particular locales. While alive, Gabriel Frende calculated almanacs for Canterbury, but after his death at the turn of the century, someone put his name to another series for 1614-1623, calculated for London. Edward Pond, a prolific compiler who wrote almanacs for London, Chelmsford, Stanford, and Peterborough, died in 1629, but his name was subsequently appropriated for almanacs published for the rest of the century, calculated ultimately for Saffron-Walden, Essex.26
Most (though not all) surviving book form Elizabethan almanacs specify—on the title page—the particular location for which the almanac was cast. Over time, that information became even more precise. For example, Alleyn’s almanack for 1608 was “calculated speciallye for the Latitude and Meridian of the ancient towne of Petworth in Sussex, which may verie fitly serve for the Cittie of Chichester, the Borowes & townes of Arundel, Horsham, Midhurst Haselmore, & generally for all England.” Earlier almanacs, such as Cuningham’s of 1558, indicate the pole arctic by degree, but some almanacs add minutes, such as Johnson’s almanac for 1624, which was “Calculated for the Meridian of the most Honorable City of London, where the Pole Articke is elevated 51 grad, [degree] 32 min” (title page).
In almost every case throughout the period, however, the almanac compiler (or the printer) was also careful to balance the precision of the location with the assurance that the almanac could be used anywhere in England, as is the case in Cuningham’s 1558 almanac. Precision was valued, in other words, but so was expanding the market for a particular almanac. The degree of precision needed probably depended on the uses to which the almanac would be put. For example, the series of almanacs now in the Huntington Library, bound together for the years 1616-1620 and annotated by a single hand (by a relative of Sir Henry Montague), includes almanacs compiled for London, Derby, and Chester.27 The owner might have had little choice among available almanacs, or perhaps they took to heart the assurance that the almanac for Derby “may serve generally, for the most part of Great Britaine” (Allestree 1620, title page).
