Additional Astronomical and Astrological Content

Table of Contents:

Almanacs frequently included basic or advanced instruction on astrological principles. In this, they complemented other popular printed guides

Prognostication 127 to astrology aimed at the literate layman and described in Chapter 1.4, such as Boorde’s The Pryncyples of Astronamye and Dariot’s Breefe and most Easie Introduction. Some compilers, including William Bourne, Thomas Hill, John Dade, and John Booker, included in their almanacs printed descriptions of the “nature, disposition, and qualities of the seaven planets” (Hill, Almanack Published at Large, E3r). In his 1614 almanac, Gervase Dauncy presented in florid verse the qualities of the planets as they follow the seven ages of man (Blv-C4v). George Gossene organized his overview of planetary qualities by the seven days of the week, “which raigne and govern the influences...unto the dayes” (1571, Blr-C3r). Patrick True’s brief cosmological overview in a 1636 almanac is described as “A short view of Astronomy, to give satisfaction to the Vulgar” (C5v). If readers already knew the Lord of their nativity horoscope, they might have benefited from Cuningham’s assessment of the outlook for those governed by each planet for 1558; for example, the “gentle Jovist shalbe in good estate the Winter season,” but “subject to sycknes” in the Spring (B7r).

Other almanacs included miscellaneous astronomical and astrological information such as that provided by Digge’s Prognostication. That might describe “how farre each Planet is distant from the Earth” (Carre 1593, B7v), explain the reasons for lunar and solar eclipses, sometimes with diagrams, or describe the relative size of the planets (Hewlett 1627, B7r). The annual almanacs varied considerably in the amount of additional astronomical and astrological information they included; some of the most frequent additional categories are listed below.

Planet and Star Tables

In addition to the standard information about planetary aspects and locations of the Sun and Moon in the Zodiac, some compilers added more elaborate astronomical or astrological tables. One example is a table provided by Abraham Grammar in a 1628 almanac: “A Table of the Houre and Minute of the Moones coming to the South every day this year” (B8v). Other compilers provided instructions on how to tell the time at night by the Moon; Thomas Kidman’s almanacs of the 1630s supply “A table to finde the coming to the South of the Moon, Planets, and fixt Starres” (1631, B3r), information replicated in Jonathan Dove’s Cambridge almanacs of the 1620s. Arthur Hopton, that master of mensuration, included in his 1613 almanac “A Table of the Semidiurnall arke of the 12.Signes” (1613, C3r). In the 1630s, John White included single-page calendars suitable for cutting out and putting on a wall, which gave the location of the moon in the Zodiac for every day of the year (Figure 2.9).

Such tables (and their variants) suggest the ingenuity and thoroughness with which compilers attempted to package the astronomical information that appears to have been of increasing interest to their readers.

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Figure 2.9 Calendar for the Year, John White, White 1633: A New Almanack and Prognostication, C4r. Photograph by Phebe Jensen, from the collection of the Folger Shakespeare Library, STC 527.23.

Planetary Hours

Another category of astrological information that appeared in almanacs more frequently as the seventeenth century progressed concerns the calculation of the planetary or unequal hours. Such instructions can be found in the 1591 Triple Almanac compiled by J.D and in almanacs compiled by William Mathew (1602-1614), George Gilden (1616-1632), and William Hewlett (1627-1629), as well as in standard guides to popular astrology

Prognostication 129 such as those by Boorde, Askham, Dariot, and Fine, and in an anonymous 1598 broadsheet, A Table Declaring What Planet Dooth Raigne Every Day and Houre Enduring for Ever.

George Simotta’s 1631 Theater of the Planetary Houres provided an extensive guide to using this information in physic. The principle itself, discussed in more detail in Chapter 1.1 above, was a simple one, with each planet assigned an hour beginning with the Sun on the first hour of Sunday, moving inward in the Ptolemaic scheme (Venus, Mercury, the Moon), then jumping outward to end the cycle (Saturn, Jupiter, Mars). The trickiest part of the calculation involved discovering the length of the hour for every day, since the planetary hours were dependent on the unequal hours that fluctuated in length throughout the year. The increasing appearance of instructions for the planetary hours in seventeenth century almanacs appears to be yet another index to an increase in astrological literacy.