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Plate
2 from Nova Reperta |
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Partisan
Almanacs |
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The invention of the telescope, the new models of the cosmos, and the increasing authority of personal observation did not diminish the popular zeal for astrology. In England, the publication of almanacs rose steadily from the end of the sixteenth century and they remained extremely popular throughout the following century. After bibles and printed sermons, almanacs were the most commonly published books in seventeenth-century England. They were also heavily used. Never far from hand, they were consulted frequently for personal guidance, planting schedules, and daily information of every sort. There is little variation in the astrological information found in seventeenth-century almanacs. Most of the charts laying out the position of stars and planets in these books are uniform, drawn from standard compendia of astrological data known as ephemeredes. What distinguished particular publications were the various essays and prognostications that accompanied the charts. Gradually, these readings of the past, present, and future became far more significant than the data, and they remain fascinating reflections of social and political positions. Writers of almanacs became particularly strident during the English Civil War. The celebrated protestant astrologer William Lilly (1602-1681) scored some notable successes—and prominence—in foretelling Parliamentarian victories. John Booker secured
his own reputation with his predictions of the deaths of Gustavus
Adolphus and the elector palatine. Parliament appointed him licenser
of mathematical (or astrological) books. His Bloody Irish Almanack,
1646, is less an actual almanac than a prognostication written in
response to the 1641 rebellion in Ireland against the new English
planters and in contestation of an earlier polemical reading of
the stars that had been published in Ireland. Eric Leonidas Suggested Reading Bernal, J. D. The Extension of Man: A History of Physics before the Quantum. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1972. Geneva, Ann. Astrology and the Seventeenth Century Mind. Manchester, NY: Manchester University Press, 1995. Kelly, John T. Practical Astronomy during the Seventeenth-Century: Almanac-Makers in American and England. New York: Garland, 1991. Lilly, William. An Introduction
to Astrology. Hollywood: New Castle Publishing Company, 1972.
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