YALE STUDIES IN ENGLISH ALBERT S. COOK, Editor LX THE MEDIAEVAL ATTITUDE TOWARD ASTROLOGY PARTICULARLY IN ENGLAND THEODORE OTTO WEDEL Instructor in English in Yale University NEW HAVEN: YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS MDCCCCXX JOitli r. John F. Bcnloa YALE STUDIES IN ENGLISH ALBERT S. COOK, Editor LX THE MEDIEVAL ATTITUDE TOWARD ASTROLOGY PARTICULARLY IN ENGLAND BY THEODORE OTTO WEDEL Instructor in English in Yale University A Dissertation presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Yale University in Candidacy for the Degree of ' Doctor of Philosophy NEW HAVEN: YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS MDCCCCXX PREFACE Mediaeval astrology has long suffered a neglect which, judged intrinsically, it deserves. Little more than a romantic interest now attaches to a complex divinatory art that for centuries has been looked upon as one of the aberrations of the human mind. When viewed historically, however, astrology is seen to have occupied a place in art and philosophy which many a later science might envy, and which, consequently, it is not well to ignore. Ancient astrology, indeed, has already received in recent years close and appreciative study. The poem of Manilius has never lost its appeal for the classicist; and the prominence of astrological thought in ancient philosophy and ethics has frequently aroused the curiosity of scholars. A history of mediaeval astrology, on the other hand, still remains to be written. Yet for the men of the thirteenth century, even more than for the poets and philosophers of Greece and Rome, the rule of the stars over human destinies was an indisputable fact, entering into their every conception of the universe. In that sudden revival of Aristotelian and Arabian learning which, in the twelfth century, heralded the scholastic age, astrology was hailed as the chief of the sciences. Although a long warfare with theology had to precede its acceptance by mediaeval orthodoxy, its final triumph was complete. Theologians dared to credit the stars with a power second only to that of God himself. When Chaucer, in lines echoing Dante's Inferno, exclaims O influences of thise hevenes hye! Soth is, that, under God, ye ben our hierdes, he is expressing the conviction of the best mediaeval thinkers. Astrology, offering, as it did, a reasoned explana- iv Mediceval Attitude tozvard Astrology tion of an infinite diversity of physical phenomena, and including in its scope psychology and ethics, made possible even in the Middle Ages dreams of a universal science. I have endeavored in this dissertation to trace the devel- opment of mediaeval thought concerning astrology from Augustine to the fifteenth century, and to interpret refer- ences to it in mediaeval English literature. The larger purpose was a direct outgrowth of the second — a summary of astrological passages in Old and Middle English proving barren without an interpretative background. It will be easily recognized that the treatment of mediaeval astrology as a whole is cursory and incomplete. A field so little explored as that of Arabian and Jewish science offers countless difficulties to the novice. But the general trend of astrological opinion in the Middle Ages seemed not impossible of discovery, and called for at least a tentative explanation. The recent investigations of several scholars have encouraged my interest in the present work. Professor Tatlock's studies on the astrology of Chaucer were respon- sible for my first intelligent view of the problem. Some twenty pages of incidental exposition in his Scene of the Franklin's Tale Visited constitute the most suggestive monograph of mediaeval astrology with which I am acquainted. The earlier volumes of Duhem's Systeme du Monde also aided me in matters bibliographical, and in out- lining the evolution of scientific ideas from Aristotle to modern times. Although my introductory discussion of ancient astrology is based upon Bouche-Leclercq's Astrol- ogie Grecque, I have endeavored to interpret the early his- tory of the science in the light of its later development. The principal contribution of the present study, in fact, will be found to consist in an attempt to explain the mediaeval attitude toward astrology as the result of a combat between an ecclesiastical hostility, inherited from the ancient Church, and the increasingly insistent demands of Arabian science. Preface V My thanks are due to the officials of the Library of Yale University, who secured for me many of the books here cited; to Professor J. S. P. Tatlock, of Leland Stantord University, and Professor T. F. Crane, of Cornell Univer- sity, for courteous replies to queries ; and to Professor C. C. Torrey and Professor Williston Walker, of Yale University, for aid in solving problems of Oriental bibliography. My gratitude to Professor Albert Stanburrough Cook, under whom this dissertation was written, must be left largely unexpressed. Professor Cook helped me everywhere, always ungrudging of his time, and always ready with sympathetic counsel. A portion of the expense of printing this thesis has been borne by the Modern Language Club of Yale University, from funds placed at its disposal by the generosity of the late Mr. George E. Dimock, a graduate of Yale in the Class of 1874. Yale University, November, 1919. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. Ancient Astrology i II. Astrology in the Early Mediaeval Centuries 25 III. Astrology in Old English Literature 42 IV. Arabian Astrology 49 V. The Mediaeval Acceptance of Astrology . . 60 VI. Astrologers in Mediaeval England 90 VII. Astrology in the Mediaeval Romances .... 100 VIII. Astrology in Middle English Literature .. 113 IX. Astrology in Gower and Chaucer 132 Bibliography 157 Index 161 CHAPTER I ANCIENT ASTROLOGY I Little is definitely known of the history of astrology before its advent in the Greek world at the time of the Alexandrian empire. Arising somewhere in the Chaldean East, and spreading early over Egypt, it won its first foot- hold in the West in a school of astrologers founded by Berosus on the island of Cos. Astrological divination among the Babylonians seems to have been of a primitive sort, confining itself to eclipses, and to general prophecies concerning kings and realms. It was in the hands of the Greeks that astrology developed into that intricate science of divination, fortified by the best philosophical thought of the time, which we encounter in the classic texts of Manilius and Ptolemy.^ Though astrology entered the Greek world late, it found a soil prepared for its reception. Popular superstitions regarding lucky and unlucky days have been current among all peoples; Hesiod had sung of them in his Works and Days. Astrology, furthermore, won ready converts among the philosophers. Though the contemporaneous Stoic school was the first openly to espouse its doctrines, astrology discovered many points of contact in the systems that had preceded. Pythagoreanism, with its mystic numbers, seemed expressly made for the new science. The four elements of Empedocles found here a new home. And of the utmost importance for its later history were the relations which astrology formed with the philosophical systems of Plato ^ The authoritative study of Greek astrology is Bouche-Leclercq's L'Astrologie Grecque, Paris, 1899. Chaldean astrology is dis- cussed on pp. 35-72. The best short account of ancient astrology is the article Astrologie by E. Riess, in Pauly-Wissowa's Real- encyclopddie der Classischen Alterthumswissenschaft (Stuttgart, 1896) I. 1802-28. Mediceval Attitude toward Astrology and Aristotle. With Platonism, astrology experienced little difficulty. The Timceus became in later times a veritable breviary, not only for astrologers, but for teachers of magic of all sorts. The myth of the Dpmiurge, creating the world as a living organism, every part of which was intimately related to every other, presented the very principle that with the Stoics became the comer-stone of the ancient faith in divination. Man, as a microcosm, the Stoics said, merely reflected the great world about and above him. Moreover, the picture in the TimcBus of the soul descending from the upper heavens by way of the planetary gods, each endowing it with its proper gifts, was admirably fitted for astrological interpretation at the hand of the commentator.^ To be sure, when astrology later allied itself with astronomy, and took on a more scientific aspect, Platonism, with its myths, was found less adaptable. So simple an astrological doctrine as that concerning the evil influence of the planet Saturn baffled the philosophers. How could a beneficent planetary god be the source of evil? The Neoplatonist, Plotinus, solved such difficulties by saying that the stars were not causes of anything, but signs only. This easy explanation became general among Platonists. It is found as late as the scholastic, William of Auvergne, and the Renaissance philosopher, Marsilio Ficino. While astrology discovered a ready ally in Plato, it found only an indifferent one in Aristotle. To those familiar with ^ Bouche-Leclercq, pp. 9-25. The commentaries on the Timceus by the Neoplatonists, Porphyry and Proclus, contain much astro- logical matter. By way of Chalcidius and Macrobius (see below, p. 26), these astrological explanations of the Timceus became acces- sible to the early Middle Ages. The mediaeval popularity of the TimcBus itself is well known. The Platonic myth of the descent of the soul, together with its astrological interpretation, found its way, in the twelfth century, into the De Mundi Universitate of Bernard Silvestris. Chaucer drew upon this work for a stanza in the Man of Law's Tale (99-106). See below, pp. 33-5, 146. Ancient Astrology 3 mediaeval astrology, this seems strange indeed. In the scholastic writers of the thirteenth century, the cosmology of Aristotle furnished the very axioms of the science; it was the authority of Aristotle, more than anything else, that caused its theoretical acceptance by the Church. Thus Aristotle's theory of the fifth essence, teaching that the substance of the stars was of a nobler order than that of the sublunary sphere, was found admirably fitted to form the basis of a science ascribing to the stars the arbitrament over human destinies. This view also found support in Aristotle's physics of motion. All the transformations undergone by physical bodies here on earth, it taught, trace their origin to the local motion of the imperishable beings which constitute the fixed stars. It is this motion, received by the heavens from the Prime Mover himself, and trans- mitted to the lower spheres, that causes all earthly growth and change. The earth,' says Aristotle,^ 'is bound up in some necessary way with the local motions of the heavens, so that all power that resides in this world is governed by that above.' And in the locus classicus for mediaeval astrology— the tenth chapter of the second book of the De Generatione et Corruptione — Aristotle develops this theory even further. The motion of the heavens, to which all change on earth is due, is twofold, and has a twofold efifect on sublunary matter. The perfect diurnal motion of the fixed stars from east to west constitutes the principle of permanence and growth; whereas the motion of the planets, running their annual courses at irregular paces from west to east, athwart the diurnal motion of the fixed stars, constitutes the principle of earthly change. When once interpreted astrologically, Aristotle's physics of motion was all that was needed to fasten upon the Middle' Ages that exaggerated belief in the importance of the stars which lay at the basis of the faith in astrology. ^ Meteorologica i. 2. Mediceval Attitude toward Astrology There are signs that even in the ancient world the pos- sibiHties of the Aristotehan cosmology as a fundamental postulate for an astrological science had begun to be recog- nized. The Peripatetics, Alexander Aphrodisias and Adrastus, based upon it their faith in stellar influence; and when Claudius Ptolemy, in the second century of our era, gave to astrology its final definition as a science, he employed several Aristotelian doctrines. It was Aristotle who had formulated the theory of the four elements— the hot, the cold, the dry, and the moist— which constituted the basis of Ptolemy's physics. By placing these four qualities under the sway of the various planets and con- stellations, Ptolemy could explain scientifically the mani- festations of stellar influence. From the Peripatetics, too, Ptolemy borrowed his masterly solution of the problem of scientific determinism, which, as we shall find, disarmed many critics. Ptolemy, approaching astrology from the side of astronomy, and not from that of mysticism and religion, could in general claim kinship with the spirit of Aristotelian science. But one looks in vain in Ptolemy's proof of the existence of stellar influence^ for a mention of Aristotle's theory of motion. He speaks on the subject with no such dogmatic sureness as did the scholastic writers twelve centuries later.^ Ptolemy, however, comes at the close, not at the begin- ^ Tetrabihlos i. 2. ^Astrology and early Aristotelianism are discussd by Boll, in Studien uber Claudius Ptolemdus, pp. 156-162 (Jahrbiicher fiir Philologie und Pddagogik, Supplement 21). For Ptolemy's debt to the Peripatetics, see Boll, p. 161, and Bouche-Leclercq, pp. 26-7. Bouche-Leclercq takes Boll to task for the statement that Aris- totelianism was in itself favorable to astrology. Platonism, he says, was much more so. From the point of view of ancient astrology, Bouche-Leclercq is probably right. But the history of mediaeval astrology proves, I think, that the alliance of astrology with Aris- totelianism was the more permanent. It discarded the astrological mythology of Plato, and substituted for it a rational explanation of the universe which captivated the best scientific minds down to Ancient Astrology 5 ning, of the history of Greek astrology. In the earlier centuries, no necessity manifested itself of basing astrology upon a scientific conception of the universe. Astrology looked for its first support, not to science, but to philosophy and to religion; and the Chaldean diviner found his first friends, not among the astronomers, but the soothsayers and oracle-mongers. Ptolemy was the first astronomer of note to pay serious attention to astrology. To the Stoics — the one philosophical school that became its staunch ally — astrology was merely a form of divination, accepted and defended along with augury and oracles. In that long controversy of the schools on the subject of divination which is preserved in such writings as Cicero's De Divina- tione, little mention is made of cosmological principles. The physical influence of the stars, it is true, played a part in the argument. Cicero tried to deny the stars the power to influence human life by saying that all celestial bodies above the sun and moon were too distant.^ Astrology made answer that the sun and moon were distant, too; yet their influence was manifest. The power of their rays differed only in degree from that exerted by the other heavenly bodies. Ptolemy, preserving for us the arguments of Posidonius, the most important Stoic defender of astrol- ogy, points to the influence of the moon upon the ocean, and that of the sun upon the seasons, and then leaves the matter with the assertion that the other heavenly bodies act in a similar manner.^ Some influence of the stars upon human life was usually taken for granted, and the war was fought out on other issues. The central principle with the Stoics was that of the solidarity of the universe, the resem- the time of Kepler and Tycho Brahe. The influence of the Aris- totelian cosmology upon the later centuries is clearly traced in P. Duhem's Le Systeme du Monde: Histoire des Doctrines Cosmolo- giques de Platon a Copernic (s vols., Paris, 1913-7) ; see especially I. 164; 2. 277, 300, 334, 368 ff., 389; 3. 248, 342, 351. ^De Divinatione 2, 43, ^ Tetrabiblos i. 2. 6 Medieval Attitude toward Astrology blance of the part to the whole, the unity of microcosm and macrocosm. With this principle they could defend, not only astrology, but likewise augury from the flight of birds and the entrails of animals, and the various kinds of omens which played so large a part in the superstitious beliefs of the ancients. The defense of astrology by the Stoics, therefore, con- cerned itself, not so much with astrology, the science, as with astrology, the art. Their chief opponent on the sub- ject of divination appeared in the person of Carneades (219-126 B. c), a member of the New Academy. Car- neades launched against astrology a series of arguments which remained standard for centuries. These were repeated again and again by the Sceptics, were taken over almost bodily by the Church, and reappear unchanged in Petrarch and Pico della Mirandola. The attack, clever though it was, can not be termed wholly successful, and the followers of Carneades were slow to fashion new weapons. An able defender of astrology appeared with the Stoic, Posidonius (135-50 b. c.) ; and when Ptolemy had finally undertaken its justification in the sane and moderate open- ing chapters of the TetraUhlos, very few of the arguments of Carneades remained unanswered. Philosophers and theologians of the opposing school, however, content with the brilliant dialectic of Carneades, remained oblivious of these new developments. The work of Carneades himself is no longer extant, but his attack on astrology has been preserved by many later writers — in the second book of Cicero's De Divinatione, in the fifth book of Augustine's De Civitate Dei (based upon a lost portion of Cicero's De Fato), in the writings of the late Sceptic philosopher, Sextus Empiricus, and in the excerpts from the rhetorician Favorinus found in the Nodes Ambrosiance of Aulus Gellius.^ *For the attitude of Stoicism to astrology, see Bouche-Leclercq, pp. 29-34, 593 ff. The Stoic defense of divination, as a whole, is Ancient Astrology 7 The opponents of the Stoics were concerned above all with combating astrological fatalism. Their weapons were plain assertion and the dictates of common sense. They even went far in admitting a rule of the stars over externals, so long as the inner citadel of man's free will remained inviolate. Favorinus declares it intolerable that any one should dare to impute to the heavens the power to intervene in the acts of our own free choice, and to transform man from a reasoning being into a marionette. Closely allied to the argument that astrology was unethical, was the one that it was useless as well. Tf ,' says Sextus Empiri- cus, 'human events are ruled by three things — necessity, chance, and free will — it is useless to foresee what must necessarily happen anyway, and impossible to foresee what is dependent upon chance and the will of man.'^ But to assert the uselessness and the impiety of astrology was not to discredit it as a science. The Stoics, in fact, faced astro- logical fatalism without flinching, and dismissed in short order the contention that astrology was useless. According to Posidonius — whose argument is preserved in the third chapter of Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos — prophecy is naturally welcome when the thing foreseen is pleasurable; when, on the other hand, the thing foreseen is painful, its predic- tion prepares the soul to bear misfortune with equanimity.^ discussed in the same author's Histoire de la Divination (i. 59 ff.). A study of the controversy between the Stoics and the New Acad- emy on the subject of divination has been made by A. Schmekel, in Die Philosophie der Mittleren Stoa (Berlin, 1892). Sextus Empiri- cus, Favorinus, and Cicero, and their joint dependence on Carneades, are discussed on pp. 321-3. Ptolemy's dependence on the Stoic school, and on Posidonius in particular, has been proved by Boll {op. cit., pp. 131 i¥.). ^ Bouche-Leclercq, p. 596; Schmekel, pp. 156, 159. ^ 'Sed prasvisio futurorum animum componit et moderatur medita- tione absentium tanquam prsesentium, et prseparat ad excipienda ventura cum tranquilitate et constantia' {Tetrabiblos i. 3 : Claudii Ptolemcei Omnia qua extant Opera, Basel, 1551, p. 381). 8 MedicBval Attitude toward Astrology Ptolemy himself adds another argument to the one just quoted, in which the utility of astrology is even better defended. Only the movements of the stars themselves, he says, are under the rule of necessity. Happenings on the earth are variable, and subject to other influences, in addition to those exerted by the heavens. A great physical catastrophe, such as a flood or an earthquake, may upset the predictions of a thousand horoscopes. Ptolemy draws a parallel between the astrologer and the physician. The latter may in certain cases be assured that a disease is incurable ; in others he may admit the possibility of improve- ment, if medicines are applied in time. The magnet fur- nishes another illustration. The law that a magnet always attracts iron is universally accepted; but it is none the less true that if the magnet be rubbed with a piece of garlic, it will refuse to work. Ptolemy argues, to be sure, that if the science were perfect, and if all factors involved in human affairs were known, a predicted destiny would be ines- capable. In more general prophecies, indeed, such certainty is already attainable. No one supposes that a prediction of the approach of summer or winter admits of modification. But this does not prevent men, even at the coming of cold weather, from preparing to mitigate its rigors. And if such general predictions are so eminently useful, why should not minute predictions be equally welcome? Does the countryman or the sailor disdain to regulate his daily tasks according to the phases of the moon P'^ ^ Claudii Ptolemcei Opera, pp. 381-2. A short outline of the astrological system of Ptolemy will serve as a convenient key to the technical terms used in the following pages. Astrology is divided by Ptolemy into two main parts : i. That which deals with general predictions (t6 KaOoXiKov) regarding war, pestilence, earthquakes, floods, storms, hot and cold weather, and fertility; 2. That which deals with predictions regarding the individual (ri yeve6Xia\oyiK6v) , his parents, brothers, length of life, health, riches, profession, marriage, children, and friends. For the purpose of Ancient Astrology 9 While, with respect to its philosophical principles, astrol- ogy placed itself in an increasingly impregnable position, general prognostications, the earth was divided into seven 'climates,' each of which was governed by its particular constellations and planets. Thus the advent of an eclipse or a comet could be said to forebode evil for this or that country, according to the constellation in which it first appeared. Ptolemy asserted that the system of general predictions was the surest part of his science. In practice, however, its importance was far less than that which undertook prophecy regarding the fate of the individual. For this genethlialog- ical astrology, the planets were divided into good (Jupiter and Venus) and bad (Saturn and Mars), while Mercury varied his nature as he stood near a good or a bad neighbor. Some planets ruled over the day (Sun, Saturn, Jupiter), others over the night (Moon, Mars, Venus) ; some were classed as masculine (Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun), others as feminine (Moon, Venus). Mercury was variable in each case. The signs of the zodiac were divided into masculine and feminine (alternately beginning with the masculine Aries). Constellations and planets were also characterized as cold or hot, dry or moist. The constellations stood to one another in various relations — in conjunction, opposition, sextile, quadrature, and trine. Some of these 'aspects' were held to be lucky (e. g., sextile and trine) ; the rest unlucky. The planets, in their courses along the zodiac, could stand similarly in good or bad relations to one another. To each planet a constellation was assigned as its 'house' (domi- cilium), another as its 'exaltation' (altitudo)., still another as its 'fair or 'dejection' (dejectio). Each sign of 30°, furthermore, contained a number of smaller divisions (faces, terms, decans), which were allotted to the planets as so many miniature 'exaltations' and 'dejections.' The horizon and the meridian were also of importance ; their points of intersection were called the four pivots : I. the ascendant, i. e., the point of the ecliptic on the eastern horizon at a given moment (the Greek name for this point, wpoffKowos, has come to be applied to the whole process of determining the fate of an individual at birth) ; 2. the intersection of the ecliptic with the lower meridian (imum ccelutn) ; 3. the culminating point (medium ccelum), or intersection of the ecliptic with the upper meridian; 4. the descending point (occidens, occasus), or the point of the ecliptic vanishing on the western horizon. The arcs of the ecliptic contained between these pivots were each divided into three equal parts by means of circles of declination ; the ecliptic was lo MedicBval Attitude toward Astrology it was not so successful with respect to its practical details. The inherent absurdity of many of its doctrines was, in fact, only too evident. 'What,' says Sextus Empiricus, 'have the arbitrary names given to the constellations of the zodiac to do with the actions and habits of man? What possible connection can exist between the celestial Lion and a warrior's bravery, or between the Virgin and a white skin? Can anything be more absurd than to make of the Bull a feminine sign?' Astrology had to admit that the names of the constellations were arbitrary. The name, astrology contended, served as a metaphor to indicate the nature of a constellation's influence — and this, in turn, had been discovered in the course of long experience.^ Such an answer, however, stumbled against another embarrassing question: What about the vaunted age of the science? Astrologers claimed for it centuries of careful experiment, thus composed of twelve sections, called the twelve celestial houses, which formed the basis of every astrological calculation. The astrologer, in reading a horoscope, first determined the position of the planets and constellations at the exact moment of birth, with reference to these twelve celestial houses — a task of no slight difficulty, since a planet shifts from one house to the succeeding one in the space of two hours. Each house ruled over a particular phase of man's life; one represented wealth, another sickness, another marriage, and so on. If, for instance, an evil planet (Saturn or Mars) stood in the house which represented wealth, the astrologer would have to predict poverty for his client, or at least advise thrift. If a beneficent star, such as Venus, happened to stand in the house of marriage, he might prophesy that riches would come by way of a dowry. The complex relations which planets and con- stellations were supposed to hold toward one another at a given moment, and the infinite variety of interpretations to which any horoscope could be subjected, served admirably for maintaining that judicious vagueness characteristic of all astrological predic- tion, which prevented it from being submitted to a final pragmatic test. ^ Bouche-Leclercq, pp. 579-80. To ridicule the names given to the constellations became the fashion with the Church Fathers. See below, p. 20. Ancient Astrology II and named as its founders the gods themselves. 'Some pretend,' says Cicero, 'that the Chaldean astrologers have verified the nativities of children by calculations and experi- ments over a period of 470,000 years.' This, he maintains, is clearly impossible. 'Had they been in the habit of doing so, they would never have given up the practice. But, as a matter of fact, no author remains who knows of such a thing being done now, or ever having been done.'^ Still, assertion could be met by assertion, and there was no dearth of astrologers who were willing to cite texts of any desired mythological age. Before the tribunal of an uncritical public their word was seldom questioned. Nowhere could the critics find a more alluring oppor- tunity to attack the doctrines of astrology than in connec- tion with judiciaP astrology itself. An art founded upon wrong axioms must of necessity fail in the execution; hence astrology, when practised commercially, has always tempted the satirist. The opponents of astrology con- fronted the reader of horoscopes with the bold assertion that his art was impossible. How, it was asked, could the astrologer ascertain with sufficient exactness the moment of birth, or the precise point of the heavenly sphere appear- ing above the horizon? To determine both of these to the minutest fraction was surely necessary: how else explain the unlike fates of twins? H the heavens moved so swiftly that twins could be born under totally different horoscopes, was it not clearly impossible to cast any nativity whatso- ever? And if the moment of conception, as the astrologers asserted, had an importance only second to that of birth, the question of twins became in itself puzzling,^ Again, ^ Cicero, De Divinatione 2. 45. ^ The term usually applied to the practical art of predicting the future from the configuration of the stars at birth. ' Schmekel, pp. 156, 159 ff. ; Bouche-Leclercq, pp. 588 ff. The argument concerning twins was exceedingly popular. It is found 12 MedicBval Attitude toward Astrology why limit predictions by the stars to the human race? *If/ says Cicero, 'the aspect of the stars influences the birth of every human being, it should, by parity of reasoning, deter- mine the fates of beasts as well; yet what can be more absurd?' Sextus Empiricus pictures the discomfiture of an astrologer faced by a man and an ass, both born under the same sign ; and Favorinus smiles at the consistent astrologer casting the horoscopes of mice and flies.^ None of these objections, however, greatly embarrassed the defenders of astrology. The difficulties of observation, no one more willingly conceded than the astrologer him- self. He was thereby assured an escape when his predic- tions failed, and a double glory when he was successful. Ptolemy frankly admitted that the practice of judicial astrology was difficult, but contended, too, that the mistakes of charlatans should not be laid at the door of the science. The question of twins, furthermore, troubled only the theorists. For the popular mind it was enough that a double birth deserved a double horoscope. The attempt, finally, to ridicule astrology by demanding that it extend its functions to include the animal kingdom, was only a proof of the critic's ignorance. Astrology in time extended its sway, not only over the animal kingdom, but over the vegetable and mineral as well.^ One criticism directed against judicial astrology by Carneades and his followers remains to be considered. It occupied an important place in the argument, and was after- wards employed effectively by the Church. It asked of astrology this question: If the destinies of all men are determined by the stars, how explain the similar fates of large groups of individuals born in the most various cir- in Cicero (Divin. 2. 43), in Favorinus (Aulus Gellius 14. i. 26). and in Sextus Empiricus. We shall find it again in Augustine (Civ. Dei 5. 6), who popularized it for the Middle Ages. ^ Bouche-Leclercq, pp. 585-6; Cicero, Divin. 2. 46. ^ Bouche-Leclercq, pp. 586, 591. Ancient Astrology 13 cumstances? 'Were all those who perished at the battle of Cannse,' demands Cicero, 'born under the same star?' 'Were all the barbarians killed at Marathon,' asks Sextus Empiricus, 'born under the arrow of Sagittarius, and all the heroes drowned at Salamis, under the sign of the Water-carrier?' Again, if the constellation Virgo bestows upon those born under its domain a white skin, must one conclude that no Ethiopian is born in the month of August? These questions were perplexing — astrology did not answer some of them successfully until it had embodied in its doctrine a system of astrological ethnology, such as is found in the second book of Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos. We have already seen that, in his introductory defense of astrology, Ptolemy claimed for general catastrophes an unequivocal precedence over all individual destinies. And in the second book, a solution is offered of the geographic problem as well. Ptolemy placed the various divisions of the globe under the dominion of separate planets and con- stellations, and these geographic influences he pronounced of greater potency than the horoscopes of the individual. In favor of his system, Ptolemy cited precisely the black skin of the Ethiopian, and the white skin of the Teuton and the Gaul.^ Like Hydra or Proteus, astrology remained after each assault stronger than ever. In truth, its foundations had been hardly shaken. Belief in astrology could be destroyed only by an attack on its source — either by proving that an influence of the stars on human life did not exist, or by demonstrating that such an influence was unknowable. The opponents of astrology, by expending their energies in assaults on the outposts, and failing to attack the citadel, only strengthened the belief that the latter was uncon- querable. ^ Bouche-Leclercq, pp. 581 f¥.; Schmekel, p. 157; Cicero, Divin. 2. 44 ; Claudii Ptolemcei Opera, pp. 392 ff. On Ptolemy, see also Boll, pp. 181 ff. 14 MedicBval Attitude toward Astrology During the first centuries of our era, while Christianity's attack upon it was still in preparation, astrology spread everywhere through the Roman world.^ Emperors from Augustus to Alexander Severus consulted the Chaldeans, and among the common people its vogue was universal. None of the ancient arts of divination remained free from its taint. Poets from Juvenal to Ammianus Marcellinus satirized the extravagant worship paid to it by the fashion- able public. Astrological ideas were in the air. Cicero, who as philosopher fulminated against astrology, as rhetorician subscribed to its principles. When, in the S omnium Scipionis, he calls Jupiter 'a star that brings health and prosperity to the race of men,' and Mars 'a planet red, and feared on earth,' he accepts the very axioms of the science.^ Seneca, being a Stoic, is naturally a firm believer in astrology; Tacitus, though he satirizes the astrologers of the court, is only half convinced that astrol- ogy itself is a deception.^ And when, in the second century, it won as a convert the greatest astronomer of the ancient world, little was left for it to conquer ; with Ptolemy ancient astrology found its last and most famous spokesman. The late prose writer, Firmicus Maternus, though he has left in his Mathesis the longest ancient treatise on astrology, and contributes— especially in the first and eighth books — to our knowledge of the philosophical defense of the science, really offers nothing new. With the almost universal theoretical acceptance of astrology was joined, however, a general distrust of the astrologer himself. The commercial practitioner stood low in the social scale, and was often a mere charlatan. Astrol- ogy in practice, furthermore, was seldom dissociated from necromancy and vulgar magic, and the astrologer in time ^ Bouche-Leclercq, pp. 146-80. " Somn. Scip., chap. 4. Annates 6. 22. Ancient Astrology 15 became a public nuisance. As early as Augustus, laws were enacted against the Chaldm and the mathematici, and suc- ceeding rulers issued decrees of increasing severity. An emperor might himself wish to make use of the astrologer, but feared him when in the employ of new candidates for the throne. At times a distinction was made between the practice and the science — professionem eorum, non notitiam, esse prohibitum, reads one enactment^ — but after the close of the third century the absolute interdiction of astrology, formulated by Diocletian, and embodied in the Theodosian code, remained permanently on the statute-books. ^ In the eyes of the public, of course, persecution of the astrologer only enhanced the value of his art, and in itself implied belief in its efficacy. The strange inconsistency of the ancient attitudes toward astrologers is best preserved, per- haps, in the famous sentence of Tacitus, in which he calls them 'dangerous to princes, and a fallacious reliance to ambitious subjects — a race of men which in our state will ever be both shunned and retained.'^ II So it was that when Christianity, at the close of the second century, began to assume a position of prominence in the social and intellectual life of the Roman Empire, it found astrology everywhere, battening on the superstitions both of populace and kings. The Church attacked astrology with all available weapons. The reasons for its hostility are fairly obvious. As a part of paganism, the practice of all divinatory arts was forbidden the Christian; and, in the writings of the earlier apologists, astrology is hardly ^ Bouche-Leclercq, p. 566. 'Ibid. ^Tacitus, Hist. i. 22: 'Genus hominum potentibus infidum, speran- tibus fallax, quod in civitate nostra et vetabitur semper et retinebitur.' 1 6 MedicBval Attitude toward Astrology differentiated from soothsaying, oracles, and magic. In its philosophical dress, astrology was even less acceptable. The fatalism implied in the belief that the stars are arbiters of human destinies never found more unyielding opponents than the Church Fathers. The methods of attack varied somewhat through the centuries, and the conclusions arrived at by the Western Church differed considerably from those reached by the writers of the more scientific East. The Christian apologists, moreover, seldom satisfied the demands of strict logic itself; the reader is often surprised to find astrology readmitted into orthodox doctrine by some unguarded concession. But the war, though often waged with naive and unscientific arguments, was always per- sistent; and its success was such that after Augustine, in his trenchant condemnation of astrological divination, had finally formulated the doctrine of the Western Church, astrology virtually disappeared from the social and intel- lectual life of western Europe for eight centuries.^ The Christians maintained, in general, that all divinatory arts, and, above all, astrology, were inventions of the devil, and could be carried on only by the aid of demons. This theory arose early, and remained throughout the Middle Ages the argument of last resort. A belief in the power and prevalence of demons was universal in primitive Chris- tianity. Paul identifies the fallen angels (i Cor. 20-iY with the heathen gods ; the Old Testament stories of Saul and the witch, and of the Egyptian magicians, were cited as proof that they were concerned in occult arts. It was an easy saving of argument, therefore, to admit at the outset the possibility of astrological prediction, and, at the same ^The final pages of Bouche-Leclercq's L'Astrologie Grecque (pp. 609-27) contain a concise discussion of the combat of the early Church with astrology. On the attitude of Christianity toward ancient divination as a whole, cf. Bouche-Leclercq, Histoire de la Divination i. 92-104. ''Cf. Lev. 17. 7; Deut. 32. 17; 2 Chron. 11. 15. Ancient Astrology 17 time, to prohibit its use by asserting that it could only be accomplished through diabolic aid.^ But danger lurked in pushing this theory too far; for how could even demons read the future in the stars unless it was written there? And how distinguish between a pre- diction through the help of evil spirits and one sanctioned by God?^ The first chapter of Genesis (i. 14) could be cited to prove that the heavenly bodies were placed in the sky for the express purpose of serving as signs ; and there were examples in Biblical history where God himself had made use of astrological predictions : witness the miracle of Hezekiah's pillar, the star of the Magi, the darkening of the sun at Christ's death, and the celestial signs which were to announce his return. The star of the Magi, in particular, was a stumbling-block, and many were the attempts to explain it. The early Fathers, Ignatius and ^ The texts are many. Lactantius {Divinarum Institutionum 2. 17) affords a convenient quotation : 'Eorum [dsemonesj inventa sunt astrologia, et aruspicina, et auguratio, et necromantia, et ars magica, et quiquid prseterea malorum exercent homines, vel palam vel occulte' (Migne, Pair. Lat. 6. 336). According to Tatian (Oratio ad GrcEcos, chap. 9), demons, impersonating the heathen gods, made people believe that they had been carried to the sky, and were embodied in the planets and constellations. Origen {Comment, in Matth. 13. 6) explains the apparent success of cures effected by medical astrologers as due to demons, who watch the phases of the moon to enter their victims. We shall meet the theory fully devel- oped in Augustine; see below, p. 23. Cf. Bouche-Leclercq, p. 610. ^A belief, arising among certain Christian sects, that there were good demons as well as bad, rendered the Church doctrine extremely dangerous. The Priscillianists — a sect of the fourth century — made patriarchs of the signs of the zodiac, and angels of the planets. A special canon at the council of Braga, in 561, was directed against them. In the Middle Ages, the magic of the Jewish Cabala and the learned necromancy of the Moors rested upon a similar belief that the world of spirits could be rendered innocuous. Cf. Bouche- Leclercq, pp. 623-4 ; La Ville de Mirmont, L'Astrologie chez les Gallo- Romains, p. 113 (Bibliotheque des Universites du Midi, Vol. 7). 1 8 MedicBval Attitude toward Astrology Tertullian, did not deny that it went far toward sanction- ing astrology. According to their theory, all divinatory arts had been permitted by God until the coming of Christ, when an end was put to the rule of demons over the world. In the persons of the Magi, therefore, astrology had come to abdicate at the cradle of the Redeemer; the return of the Magi to their home by a different route indicated that henceforth its employment was forbidden.^ But the orthodoxy of Tertullian's naive admission became suspect in the later centuries, and more uncompromising arguments were deemed necessary. In the Church of the East — especially in the writings of Basil and Chrysos- tom — a new exegesis was put forth, in which it was asserted that the star of the Magi was no ordinary star at all, nor even a planet or comet. Chrysostom cleverly turns against the astrologers their own doctrines. It is the task of astrology to predict the destinies of the child after it is born, not to prophesy the birth itself. The appearance of the star, he says, was a miracle, and outside the normal course of events. Proof that it was no common star con- sisted in the fact that it moved, not from east to west, but from north to south — the way Palestine lies with regard to Persia.^ ^Ignatius, Epist. ad Ephes. 19; Tertullian, De Idolatria, chap. 9: 'Sed magi et astrologi ab Oriente venerunt. Scimus magiae et astrologise inter se societatem. Primi igitur stellarum interpretes natum Christum annuntiaverunt, primi muneraverunt. Quid tum? Ideo nunc et mathematicis patrocinabitur illorum magorum religio? De Christo scilicet est mathesis hodie ; Stellas Christi, non Saturni et Martis et cuj usque ex eodem or dine mortuorum observat et praedicat At enim scientia ista usque ad Evangelium fuit concessa, ut, Christo edito, nemo exinde nativitatem alicujus de cselo inter- pretaretur' (Migne, Pair. Lat. i. 672). The last sentence of this quotation constitutes a portion of Isidore's definition of astrology (Etymol. 8. 9. 23). It was repeated many times through the Middle Ages. Cf. below, pp. 27-8, 30-2. ^ Basil, Horn. 25 ; Chrysostom, Horn, in Matth. 6. For other citations, see Bouche-Leclercq, p. 613, note i. Ancient Astrology 19 The Eastern Church, in general, formulated a more scientific doctrine concerning astrology than that current in the West. Origen, together with the Gnostics, even effected a compromise between astrology and Christianity, so that, when purged of fatalistic doctrines, it was allowed to exist without interference. Origen's one concern was to disprove a deterministic influence of the stars ; even divine fore- knowledge, he maintained, did not abrogate free will. That the stars cannot be the cause of human destinies, Origen proved by an ingenious argument. It is the characteristic of every cause that it precedes its effect. Now, inasmuch as the configuration of the stars does not precede, but is at best concomitant with, the birth over which it presides, how can the stars be the cause of the child's fortunes? Origen accepts with no remonstrance, however, the Neo- platonic doctrine that the stars, though not causing human events, constitute the signs by which they can be foretold. This theory, developed fully by Plotinus, goes back through Philo to an astrological interpretation of the fourteenth verse of the opening chapter of Genesis. Origen, to be sure, like the Neoplatonists, was wise enough not to attempt its proof.^ Origen and the Gnostics did not yield to a compromise with astrology before they had exhausted the ancient store of arguments against it. We meet again the dispute con- cerning twins, the argument that astrological observation is impossible, and the contention that the judicial astrologer takes no account of geographic and racial considerations. The last argument even received a clever enlargement — perhaps the one contribution of Christian writers to the ^The fullest statement of Origen's attitude toward astrology is found in Eusebius' Prceparatio Evangelica 6. 11 (Migne, Pair. Gr. 21. 478 &.). Plotinus' compromise with astrology (Bouche-Leclercq, p. 600; Zeller, Phil, der Griechen 3. 567) tempted many Church writers. See below, pp. 22, 38, 57. 20 Mediceval Attitude toward Astrology discussion. Astrology had explained similarities of race by means of a system of astrological geography, placing each country under the sway of separate planets and stars. But, said the Christian writers, are racial characteristics really dependent upon geography? The Jews circumcise on the eighth day in Rome as in Palestine ; have they carried the Judsean stars with them, or have they been freed from their influence? And the Christians, are they not scattered over all the globe, and yet suifer the same for- tunes? It is not worth while to ask how astrology might have replied to these new questions. Inasmuch as Origen and the Gnostics ended by virtually accepting astrology, a refutation was, perhaps, deemed unnecessary.^ In the Western Church, the one great opponent of astrol- ogy was Augustine. Coming in contact with astrologers early in life, as he tells us in his Confessions, he was at first attracted to them, preferring them to the soothsayers, because they invoked no spirits. Even the warning of a physician, who told him that astrology was a fraud, passed unheeded. Only after a friend had set him to pondering over the astrological problem concerning twins did Augus- tine, too, decide that astrological divination was a mere matter of chance.^ Henceforth astrology had in him a sworn enemy. Again and again he attacked it in his writ- ings, repeating the dialectic of Carneades,^ and adding the ^The discussion of astrology by the Gnostic Bardesanes (Euse- bius, PrcBp. Ev. 6. lo: Migne, Pair. Gr. 21. 467 ff.) parallels that of Origen almost throughout. It is Bardesanes who asks the question concerning the Jews (Migne, Patr. Gr. 21. 475). A third series of similar arguments is found in the Recognitiones of Clement (9. 12—10. 13). Cf. Bouche-Leclercq, pp. 534-5, 615-6. " Confessions 4. 3, and 7. 6. * Augustine points to the absurdity of putting faith in the arbitrary names given to the constellations (De Doctr. Christ. 2. 21)— an argument found in other Christian writers; cf. Tatian, Oratio ad Grcecos, chap. 9; Hippolytus, Refutatio Omnium Hceresium 4. 24; Basil, Horn, in Hex. 6. 6. Augustine also questions the right of Ancient Astrology 21 vehemence of his own rhetoric. Especially did he never tire of illustrating the problem of twins ; one is compelled to smile at the seriousness with which he employed this mediocre argument. He confronts the astrologer with the historic case of Jacob and Esau, and asks him how the heavens can be held to account for the enormous difference in the destinies alloted to two children born so nearly at the same time. He ridicules the theory that the movement of the spheres is swift enough to make of the one a desert- wanderer, and of the other the father of a mighty people. Twins, again, are sick at the same time. The fact is explained by the physician, Hippocrates, as due to a simi- larity of temperaments, and by the Stoic, Posidonius, as due to an identity of horoscopes. Augustine sees here an opportunity to confute the astrologer with his own doctrine. 'Why,' he asks, 'were they both sick of the same disease, and at the same time, and not the one after the other in the order of their birth, inasmuch as they could not have been born simultaneously? Or, if the fact of their having been born at different times does not necessarily imply that they must be sick at different times, why do the astrologers contend that the difference in the time of their births was the cause of their difference in other things?'^ It is not necessary to examine the score of ways in which astrology might have answered Augustine's questions. In general, it probably refused to quarrel over such minutiae, and might have considered it a sufficient answer to ask Augustine, in turn, whence, if not from the stars themselves, could come astrologers to deny horoscopes to animals (Civ. Dei 5. 7). He has something to say on the star of the Magi in Ad Faustum (2. 5). ' Civ. Dei 5. 4-5 (Migne, Pair. Lat. 41. 144) ; cf. De Genesi ad Litteram 2. 17 (Migne, Pair. Lat. 34. 278). A. Schmekel (Die Philosophie der Mittleren Stoa, pp. 162 ff.) has proved that the refutation of astrology found in the first chapters of Augustine's De Civitate Dei is based on a lost portion of Cicero's De Fato, which, in turn, like the De Divinatione, goes back to Carneades; see above, p. 6. 22 Mediceval Attitude toward Astrology that general similarity of temperament which, in the alternative theory of the physician, he himself accepted. What end, one may ask, did Augustine have in view in his struggle against astrology? Was it the same as that of the pagan Sceptics and Origen — to defend the freedom of the human will? It may appear so at first. Augustine, too, maintains that the actions of man are free from the arbitrary rule of the stars, and praises the pagan philoso- phers for defending the ethical responsibility of man.^ But it soon becomes clear that his purpose is only that of replac- ing astrological fatalism by an even more stringent deter- ministic doctrine — the theory of predestination and divine foreknowledge. Those who, like Cicero, deny prediction of the future altogether, receive at the hands of Augustine a more violent condemnation than the astrologers them- selves.^ So occupied, in truth, is Augustine with combating fatalism, that he is almost ready to accept astrology when, in the Neoplatonic form, it rids itself of this noxious doc- trine. He objects to the theory of Plotinus, however, on the score that no astrologer actually accepts the stars as mere indicators of events, and that it, too, does not obviate the practical difficulties involved in the matter of twins.^ In spite of his denunciation of astrology as a fatalistic science, and his contention that it is impossible in practice, Augustine never seriously defends the scepticism once expressed in the Confessions. After exhausting his dia- lectic powers in destroying astrology as a legitimate art, ^ Ad Faustum 2. 5; De Gene si ad Litter am 2. 17; Civ. Dei 5. i. ''Augustine {Civ. Dei 5. 9) mentions Cicero by name. He detested him even more than the Stoics, simply because, in denying the possibility of divination, he denied the existence of God : 'Multo sunt autem tolerabiliores qui vel sidera fata constituunt, quam iste, qui tollit praescientiam futurorum. Nam et confiteri esse Deum, et negare praescium futurorum, apertissima insania est' (Migne, Patr. Lat. 41. 149). 'Civ. Dei 5. 1 (Migne, Patr. Lat. 41. 142). Ancient Astrology 23 he ends by accepting the possibility of astrological predic- tions if made by the help of demons. 'AH these things considered' — so Augustine closes the discussion — 'we have good reason to believe that, when the astrologers give very many wonderful answers, it is to be attributed to the occult inspiration of spirits, not of the best kind, whose care it is to creep into the minds of men, and to confirm in them false and noxious opinions concerning the fatal influence of the stars, and that it is not due to their marking and inspecting of horoscopes, according to a kind of art which in reality has no existence.'^ With Augustine, in fact, the discussion of astrology in the early Church returned to its point of departure. For Augustine, as for Tertullian and Lactan- tius, astrology was merely one of many nefarious practices with which the hosts of fallen angels tried to cheat mankind. In a special treatise — the De Divinatione Dcemonum — Augustine crystallized the doctrine of the early Church regarding the powers of demons, and laid the foundation for those mediaeval superstitions which bore malignant fruit in the magic and witchcraft of the fifteenth century. Astrology, refused the name of a science, was forced to live under its ignominious stigma until, in the thirteenth century, it forced a revision of the Church's verdict.^ An observant eye, however, might have discovered even in the De Civitate Dei the germs of that new compromise between Christianity and astrology which was to find expression in the Summa Theologies of Thomas Aquinas and the Divina Commedia of Dante. In his preoccupation * Civ. Dei 5. 7 (Migne, Pair. Lat. 41. 147). ^ Bouche-Leclercq, L'Astrologie Grecque, p. 623 ; Bouche-Leclercq, Histoire de la Divination i. 99 ff. The De Divinatione DcEwionum (Migne, Patr. Lat. 40. 581) explains how the demons obtain knowl- edge of the future by reason of their superior spiritual powers, and by permission of God himself. On the importance for later witchcraft of the Church-doctrine concerning demons, see J. Hansen, Zauberwahn, Inquisition, und Hexenprosess im Mittelalter (Munich and Leipzig, 1900). 24 Mediceval Attitude toward Astrology with the practical details of astrology as a divinatory art, Augustine failed to note his own unconscious concessions to it as a physical science — concessions which could be made the basis for an almost complete rehabilitation. Into the midst of his discussion of the astrological dilemma con- cerning twins, he inserts this passage : 'It is not altogether absurd to say that certain sidereal influences have some power to cause differences in bodies alone. We see, for instance, that the seasons of the year vary as the sun approaches and recedes, and that certain things are increased or diminished in size by the waxings and wanings of the moon, such as sea-urchins, oysters, and the wonderful ocean- tides. But it does not follow that the wills of men are subject to the configuration of the stars. Though in the form of a negative statement, this passage contains in embryo the solution of the astrological problem as it was formulated by the theologians of the thirteenth century. ^ Civ. Dei 5. 6 (Migne, Patr. Lat. 41. 146). An admission that the stars influence the atmosphere, and consequently may produce modifications in the physical constitution and habits of man, is made also by Sextus Empiricus (Bouche-Leclercq, p. 595, note i). On the basis of such a concession, a clever psychologist could restore almost the entire science. CHAPTER II ASTROLOGY IN THE EARLY MEDIEVAL CENTURIES In the general decline of learning which overtook West- ern Europe during the first mediseval centuries, no science suffered a more complete eclipse than astrology. Even in its popular manifestations, astrology was a learned super- stition, and demanded a high state of civilization for its development — a condition which manifestly could not exist at a time when barbarians ruled the Roman Empire. Chris- tianity, moreover, through the efforts of the Church Fathers, had set itself directly against all divinatory arts, and the newly Christianized peoples of the North could not be expected to object to the Church's verdict. Astrology's legitimate sister, astronomy, fared much better during the Dark Ages. The needs of daily life, and the exigencies arising out of the Paschal controversy, gave to astronomical studies a fair impetus, which bore fruit in such scientific writings as those of Bede. The revival of astrology, on the other hand, like that of pagan philosophy and literature itself, was a much more gradual one. Not until the twelfth century, with its discovery of Aristotle and the science of the Moors, did astrology regain a position of prominence in the intellectual life of Europe. The slight knowledge of astrology which the Middle Ages preserved out of the wreckage of the ancient world was drawn, in the first instance, from the writings of the Church Fathers themselves. Astrology had played so prominent a part in the struggle of early Christianity against paganism that it could not but find its way into those popularizations of patristic learning which constituted the chief literary product of the first mediseval centuries. Here and there, throughout the Middle Ages, discussions on astrology con- tinued to appear in connection with an exegesis of the 26 MedicBval Attitude toward Astrology star of the Magi or a sermon on fatalism, even though the writers might entertain for astrology itself merely an aca- demic interest. It is thus in a homily on the Epiphany that Gregory finds occasion to discuss astrology. He directs his attack particularly against the Priscillianists/ a Gnostic sect of Spain accused of magic. He repeats the classic argument of twins, using Augustine's illustration of Jacob and Esau, and points again to the impossibility of squaring judicial astrology with ethnological influences.^ Yet one feels at once that with Gregory astrology is no longer a living issue. Even Priscillianism dated back to the time of Augustine and Ambrose. Astrology had fallen on evil days, and it was mentioned only by way of literary reminiscence. Cassiodorus speaks of it briefly in two passages, calling it a 'slippery error,' and citing Augustine and Basil as proof that its doctrines lead to heresy.^ Boethius, in whose Con- solation of Philosophy one might expect to find a full dis- cussion of astrological fatalism, honors it with one slight allusion.* And Macrobius exhibits veritable embarrassment when he is called upon to explain the passage of the Somnium Scipionis where Cicero describes the astrological characteristics of the planets.^ He is able to discuss the ^ See above, p. 17. ^Gregory, Homilia XX: In Die Epiphania (Migne, Pair. Lat. 76. iiii). In illustrating his second argument, Gregory asks the astrologers why, if Aquarius produces fishermen, no children are born under that sign in Getulia, an inland country, and why there are many peoples without bankers, if Libra is the constellation of the money-changers. "Cassiodorus, Expositio in Psalterium CXLVIII (Migne, Pair. Lat. 70. 1047) ; De Artibus ac Disciplinis Liberalium Litterarivm, chap. 7 (Migne, Pair. Lat. 70. 1218). * Boethius, Cons. Phil. 4. 6. ° Macrobius, Somn. Scip. i. 19. 20 (ed. Janus, Leipzig, 1848, p. 70). Macrobius became in the eleventh century an important authority on astronomical questions (see below, p. 32), He and Chalcidius, whose commentary on the Timceus was based on one by Posidonius, even preserved the Aristotelian doctrine that the Astrology in the Early Mediaeval Centuries 27 philosophical aspect of astrology at some length, and even gives an outline of the Platonic myth of the creation of man by the planetary gods; but when he tries to expound the astrological facts themselves, he is clearly puzzled. He con- fesses that the only treatise he has ever read on the subject is Ptolemy's Harmonia, and he proceeds, accordingly, to explain the evil influence of Saturn and the benevolent character of Jupiter by means of a complicated system of numbers. No writer did so much to fasten upon the Middle Ages the patristic condemnation of astrology as the encyclo- paedist of the seventh century, Isidore of Seville; and the several passages of the Etymologies and the De Natura Rerum that bear on astrology deserve careful scrutiny. Important, first of all, is his definition of astrology itself. Astrology, he says, is partly naturalis, and partly super- stitiosa. Natural astrology is only another name for astronomy. Superstitious astrology, on the other hand, 'is that science which is practised by the mathematici, who read prophecies in the heavens, and who place the twelve constellations as rulers over the members of man's body and soul, and who predict the nativities and dispositions of men by the courses of the stars. '^ The mathematici and genethliaci reappear in a later chapter of the EtymologicB in company with many other representatives of magic. Here again Isidore refers to their art as superstitious, and identifies them with the Magi of the Gospel — 'cuius artis scientia usque ad Evangelium f uit concessa, ut, Christo edito, nemo exinde nativitatem alicuius de cselo interpre- taretur.' The last sentence of this definition Isidore quoted double movement of the heavens causes generation and corruption on earth (Commentarius in TimcEum, chap. 75: ed. Mullach, Fragmenta Philosophorum, Paris, 1881, 2. 198) ; cf. Switalski, Des Chalcidius Commentar zu Platos Timceus, Miinster, 1902, pp. 28 ff. (in Baumker's Beitrdge 3. 6). "■Etymol. 3. 27 (Migne, Pair. Lat. 82. 170). 28 Mediceval Attitude toward Astrology from Tertullian, though with little understanding of its context. It remained throughout the Middle Ages an integral part of the stock definition of astrologers.^ But Isidore's logic is hardly equal to his learning. Several curious bits of astrological lore smuggled themselves into his writings, and became the common property of the suc- ceeding centuries. Astrological medicine, for example, which Isidore condemns in his definition of superstitious astrology, he accepts, in part at least, in a later chapter.^ The good physician, he says, will study astronomy as well as his own art, inasmuch as it is well known that our bodies change with the varying state of the weather and the stars. In the De Natura Rerum, Isidore ascribes to the moon an influence over fruits, over the brains of animals, and over oysters and sea-urchins. He even refers to it, in a phrase of unmistakable astrological coloring, as the dux humentium substantiarum.^ The dog-star is said to be a cause of sick- ness.* As for comets, Isidore accepts them without reserve as the prognosticators of revolution, war, and pestilence.^ Isidore and the elder Pliny are the principal sources for the scientific works of Bede, and are severally responsible for two of the slight astrological references discoverable in his writings. It is upon Pliny that Bede draws for a chapter on the planets in the De Natura Rerum. Probably with no ^Etymol. 8. 9. 23 (Migne, Pair. Lot. 82. 313). Cf. above, p. 18. 'Etymol. 4. 13. 4 (Migne 82. 198). ^De Nat. Rer. 18. 6; 19. 2 (Migne, Pair. Lat. 83. 992). Isidore borrowed the passage from Ambrose's Hexaemeron (4. 7. 29-30: Migne, Pair. Lat. 14. 215). *De Nat. Rer. 16. 14 (Migne, Pair. Lat. 83. 1000). ''Haec cum nascitur, aut regni mutationem fertur ostendere, aut bella, aut pestilentias surgere' {De Nat. Rer. 26. 13: Migne, Pair. Lat. 83. 1000). The astrological significance of comets seems to have been accepted generally in the early Church; cf. Bouche- Leclercq, p. 623; J. H. Robinson, The Great Comet of 1680: A Study in the History of Rationalism (Northfield, Minn., 1916), pp. 5-6. Astrology in the Early Mediceval Centuries 29 consciousness that he is trespassing upon the domain of astrology, he follows his author in characterizing Saturn as cold, Jupiter as temperate, and Mars as glowing. It is curious to note, however, that he stops here, and omits Pliny's astrological description of Venus as the planet which nourishes all things on earth.^ Isidore, in turn, is respon- sible for Bede's chapter on comets. There is, in fact, evi- dence in several of his works that he was a firm believer in their prophetic virtue. In the Ecclesiastical History, for instance, the comets of 729 are connected with the inroad of the Saracens into Gaul, and with the deaths of king Osric and the holy Egbert.^ One condemnation of astrology proper is found in Bede's works. Its source I have not discovered. It occurs in a passage of the De Temporum Ratione, which comments on the division of time into hours, minutes, and seconds. The mathematici, says Bede, continue the division to still smaller units. Since, however, their science is vain, and contrary to the Christian faith, he will refrain from using their terminology.^ Isidore is again a source for the encyclopaedist of the ninth century, Rabanus Maurus, Bishop of Fulda. The latter's chief scientific work, the De Universe, contains a chapter on magic which is a literal transcript of that in Isidore's Etymologic^. Astrologi and mathematici are classed, as in the latter, among necromancers and augurs; and Rabanus subscribes to the Tertullianist doctrine that ^Bede, De Nat. Rer., chap. 13 (Migne, Pair. Lat. 90. 211); cf. Pliny, Nat. Hist. 2. 6. ^ Bede repeats Isidore's description of comets word for word (De Nat. Rer., chap. 24: Migne, Pair. Lat. go. 243). Comets are spoken of in the Historia Ecclesiastica 4. 12, and 5. 23, 24 (ed. Plummer, Oxford, 1896, I. 118, 349, 356). *Bede, De Temp. Rat., chap. 3 (Migne, Pair. Lat. 90. 305)- Cf. the mild rebuke of astrology which is found in a letter of Aldhelm (Bishop of Sherborne, 640-709), quoted by William of Malmesbury {Anglia Sacr.a 2. 7.). 30 Mediceval Attitude toward Astrology astrology, though permitted till the birth of Christ, was thenceforth a forbidden science.^ Isidore's chapter on magic was copied in another work of Rabanus, the De Magicis Artihus, the longest treatise on divination which had appeared since Augustine.^ Rabanus presents the gen- eral views of the Church Fathers on the subject of demons, and the role they were supposed to play in divination. This treatise, in fact, was destined to exert an important influence on the growing body of Church law on the subject of sorcery and magic.^ Christianity, from the time of its introduction among the barbarian peoples of the North, had proceeded to combat pagan magic and witchcraft. The early Penitentials are replete with references to occult practices. It was probably in answer to a demand for a systematized doctrine on the subject that such treatises as that of Rabanus were written. And when the great canonists of the succeeding centuries came to deal with the subjects of sorcery and magic, they followed the lead of Rabanus Maurus, also basing their utterances on the doc- trine of demonology formulated by the early Church. The Decretum of Burchard, Bishop of Worms in the first quar- ter of the eleventh century, quotes freely from the works of Augustine and Isidore — particularly from the former's De Divinatione Dcemonum. Astrology is found again in the list of magic practices borrowed from Isidore,* Burchard's Decretum, as is well known, was embodied with little change in the collections of Church law of Ivo of Chartres and Gratian. On the subject of astrology, all three are in virtual agreement. Gratian, it is true, adds an excerpt from Augustine's De Doctrina Christiana, and quotes a Church law against observing the stars for the purpose of planting seed or contracting a marriage. But ^De Universo 15. 4 (Migne, Pair. Lat. iii. 423). ^De Magicis Artihus (Migne, Pair. Lat. no. 1098). ^ Hansen,, Zauberwahn im Mittelalter, p. 38. * Burchard, Decretum 10. 43 (Migne, Patr. Lat. 140. 841). Astrology in the Early Medieval Centuries 31 Isidore's chapter on magic, with its definitions of the mathe- matici and genethliaci, still constitutes the longest reference to astrology.^ It is very doubtful whether any mediaeval writer thus far cited had anything more than a literary acquaintance with astrology. The haruspices, augurs, and astrologers, so faithfully defined in every treatise on sorcery and magic from Isidore to Gratian, were probably as foreign to the actual life of the tenth and eleventh centuries as the religion of pagan Rome itself. But citations from the Fathers that might apply to the simple sorcery of the northern peoples were hard to find, and the canonists contented themselves with what lay ready to hand. The fact that the canon law classed astrology among the diabolic arts, or even discussed the subject at all, was probably, in the first instance, an accident. It became a matter of consequence only when the Church, in the course of the twelfth century, was again called upon to deal with astrologers in the flesh. Even before the sudden arrival of Arabian science in the schools of Italy and France had brought the Church once more face to face with astrology, the latter had begun to find channels of literary transmission less narrow than those leading down through Isidore. The eleventh and twelfth centuries witnessed in France a general renaissance of Latin literature, and many a gleaning of scientific fact was made in the course of a promiscuous reading that did not have to wait for the rediscovery of Aristotle.^ This newly awakened humanism found its best representatives ^Ivo of Chartres, Decretum 10. 68 (Migne, Pair. Lat. 161. 762) ; Gratian, Decretum 2. 26. 3-5 (Migne, Pair. Lat. 187. 1342 ff.). The list of the mediaeval writers who repeated Isidore's definition of astrology is, of course, not exhausted. It is found in the De Divinis Officiis, ascribed to Alcuin (Migne, Patr. Lat. loi. 1178), and again in a twelfth-century treatise on cosmology, ascribed to Bede (Migne, Patr. Lat. go. 908). ^Taylor, The Mediceval Mind (London, 1914) 2. 144. 32 MedicBval Attitude toward Astrology in the famous school of Chartres.^ From the time of Ful- bert to that of John of SaHsbury, the Chartres school was a leader in liberal and scientific studies, and even astrology was not omitted from the range of its interests. The curiosity of the mediaeval classicist must have been aroused by many an astrological allusion in Lucan, Persius, or the writings of the Fathers. John of Salisbury, in repeating Isidore's traditional definition of astrology,'* takes evident pleasure in illustrating it with choice bits quoted from the Latin satirists. In addition to such indirect information on astrological matters as they found in the Latin classics, the writers of the twelfth century had in their hands two direct sources for ancient astrology, the Mathesis of Firmicus, and the repositories of astrological Platonism, Chalcidius and Macrobius. Add to this the fact that the Chartres school, in the early half of the century, was already in possession of the first scientific treatises to reach northern Europe from Mohammedan Spain, and it is not surprising that astrological discussions became frequent. As early as the year looo — if the chronicles are to be believed^ — Pope Sylvester II had studied Firmicus in Spain. A hundred years later there are indubitable traces of his presence in England. And, at the opening of the twelfth century, Firmicus Maternus is cited by name in a poem by Marbodus, who, as Bishop of Rennes, was connected indi- rectly with the school of Chartres. In the poetic discussion of astrology which constitutes a portion of his Liber Decern Capitulorum, Marbodus attacks Firmicus Maternus vigor- ously, repeating some of the stock arguments of the Fathers, and asserting particularly that his fatalistic doctrines destroy all ethics and all social order.^ The influence of Firmicus ^Clerval, Les Ecoles de Chartres au Moyen Age (Chartres, 1895). ^ Policraticus i. 12 (ed. Webb, Oxford, 1909, i. 52). ^Higden, Polychronicon (ed. Lumby, Rolls Ser.) 7. 68; William of Malmesbury, De Gestis Regum Anglorum 2. 167 (Migne, Pair. Lat. 179. 1 138). * Marbodus, Liber Decern Capitulorum, chap. 6 : De Fato et Genesi (Migne, Patr. Lat. 171. 1704). Curiously enough, Marbodus Astrology in the Early Mediaeval Centuries 33 on the writers of the Chartres school itself can be clearly- proved in the case of William of Conches (1080-1154), whose cosmological treatise, De Philosophia Mundi, couples his name with Ptolemy.^ His influence is apparent, too, in the De Mundi Universitate of Bernard Silvestris, a work of mingled prose and verse, composed between 1145 and 1 1 53. The eighth book of the Mathesis of Firmicus opens with a striking passage, in which man's superiority over the animal kingdom is illustrated by the fact that he walks erect, and can lift his eyes to the stars. Bernard, before describing the creation of man at the hands of four god- desses, puts into the mouth of one of them a forecast of what the finished product is to be. Among man's charac- teristics is that noted by Firmicus : Bruta patenter habent tardos animalia sensus, Cernua dejectis vultibus ora ferunt; Sed majestatem mentis testante figura, Toilet homo sacrum solus ad astra caput, Ut coeli leges indeflexosque meatus Exemplar vitae possit habere suae.' seems to have borrowed a part of his attack on Firmicus from Firmicus himself. In the opening chapters of the Mathesis, Firmi- cus, in fairness to the adversaries of astrology, rehearses some of their arguments before proceeding to refute them, and discusses at some length the contention that astrology subverts laws and morals (cf. Matheseos Libri VIII: ed. Kroll and Skutsch, Leipzig, 1897-1913, I. 6-8). It is this passage which finds an echo in Marbodus. The latter presents in general a curious problem for the hunter of sources. He asks the astrologer, for example, to explain why the astrological influence of Mars does not seem to act among a law-abiding people like the Brahmins, and why the Jews do not change their customs when they leave their native land — illustrations that are identical with those used by the Gnostic Bardesanes (Eusebius, Prap. Ev. 6. 11 : Migne, Patr. Gr. 21. 475) ; cf. above, p. 20, ^ See below, p. 61. ^Quoted in Cousin's Ouvrages Inedits d'Abelard (Paris, 1836), p. 634. 34 MedicBval Attitude toward Astrology The last lines of this quotation lead the reader to suspect that, for Bernard Silvestris, Firmicus was not only a source of information on matters of astrology, but a seducer as well. A reading of the whole of the De Mundi Universitate confirms this suspicion. In the person of Bernard Silves- tris, in fact, astrology could boast one of its first mediaeval champions. Yet it is not the scientific astrology of Ptolemy and the Arabians that finds expression in his work. It is rather the philosophical astrology of the Neoplatonic com- mentators, Chalcidius and Macrobius. The second half of the De Mundi Universitate is little more than a version of the Timasan myth of the creation of man. The goddess Urania conducts the human soul down to earth by way of the planets, and discourses to her companion-goddesses on the benign influences of some, and the evil powers of others. With a complete abandonment of the orthodox views on the subject, Bernard breaks out into a panegyric of the won- derful science of the stars : Prasjacet in stellis series quam longior setas Explicet, et spatiis temporis ordo suis Sceptra Phoronei, fratrum discordia Thebis, Flamma Phaetontis, Deucalionis aquse, In stellis Codri paupertas, copia Crcesi, Incestus Paridis Hippolytique pudor. In stellis Priami species, audacia Turni, Sensus Ulixeus, Herculeusque vigor. In stellis pugil est Pollux et navita Typhis, Et Cicero rhetor, et geometra Thales. In stellis lepidus dictat Maro, Milo figurat, Fulgurat in Latia nobilitate Nero. Astra notat Persis, ^gyptus parturit artes, Grsecia docta legit, prselia Roma gerit. Exemplar specimenque Dei virguncula Christum Parturit, et varum saecula numen habent.* Bernard Silvestris is a unique figure in the Middle Ages. Though his work was very popular — the passage just quoted ^The Benedictine editors of the Hist. Litt, de la France, who quote Astrology in the Early Mediceval Centuries 35 is the source of a stanza in Chaucer's Man of Law's Tale^ — it in no wise represents the orthodox thought of his century. The De Mundi Universitate is almost purely pagan, and might have been written by a humanist of the sixteenth century. Possibly its glorification of astrology already shows the influence of the science of the Moors.* Bernard is interesting as the principal representative of Neoplatonic astrology in the Middle Ages. Except for the use made of it by poets like Dante, Neoplatonic astrology was to have no future. For an expression of the orthodox attitude of the twelfth century toward astrology, one must look to men like Abe- lard, Hugh of St. Victor, and, best of all, to John of Salis- bury. Abelard, the great innovator in mediaeval thought, has only a philosophic interest in the science. He discusses it at some length in his Analytics, in connection with the problem of free will, his purpose being to disprove the existence of absolute necessity. Belief in fatalism he calls impossible in the face of actual experience and common sense. Even Nature herself could not predict future hap- penings contingent upon chance. Hence it is surprising that any one should claim for a science like that of astrology the power of prophecy.^ Hugh of St. Victor's short notice of astrology in the Didascalicon repeats the passage this stanza (12. 270), greet the impiety of the last lines with a cry of horror; see also the edition of the De Mundi Universitate by Barach and Wrobel (Innsbruck, 1876), p. 16. ""Man of Law's Tale 99-105; cf. Skeat's note (Oxford ed. 5. 147). ^Cf. the sentiment of the above stanza with the passage quoted below (p. so) from Adelard of Bath. ^ Analytica Priora III: 'Mirum est quod dicunt per astronomiam quosdam horum quoque futurorum prsescios esse. Quod enim naturae inopinatum est atque incognitum, quo modo per artem naturalem cognosci possit, aut quo modo ex aliqua rei natura certi esse possimus de eo quod naturae quoque incognitum est?' (Cousin, Ouvrages Inedits d'Abelard, Paris, 1836, p. 285.) Abelard, how- ever, seems to have assented to the mediaeval view of magic as 36 Mediceval Attitude toward Astrology of Isidore's EtymologicB which distinguishes between astron- omy and astrology. Hugh of St. Victor introduces, how- ever, a modification in the phraseology of Isidore which will bear close scrutiny, inasmuch as it is prophetic of that new attitude which was beginning to seek expression. Isi- dore, in making a distinction between natural and super- stitious astrology, had given to the former a definition practically identical with that of astronomy, reserving for the latter the accusation that it was a diabolic art. In Hugh of St. Victor, though superstitious astrology stands con- demned as in Isidore, the definition of natural astrology reads as follows : 'Natural astrology deals with the influence of the stars upon our bodily complexions, which vary according to the state of the celestial sphere, as in health and sickness, good and bad weather, fertility and drought.'^ To admit the influence of the stars over sickness and health was a concession of great importance. Although implied in certain statements of Isidore and Augustine, it had rarely been so clearly acknowledged. In truth, if this modification is owing to Hugh of St. Victor himself, it marks him as a pioneer in the development of the scholastic doctrine con- cerning scientific astrology. For the maturest expression of the orthodox attitude toward astrology in the twelfth century, one must look to John of Salisbury. An Englishman by birth, educated in possible when carried on by the aid of demons. And with char- acteristic perversity he even defends the study of necromancy and magic. He inserts a plea for it into his defense of dialectic. Knowl- edge even of evil serves some good; only the practice is to be condemned. God himself knows what the devil is about (Analytica Posteriora I: Cousin, p. 435). Didascalicon 2. 11 (Migne, Patr. Lat. 176. 756): 'Astro- logia autem quae astra considerat secundum nativitatis et mortis, et quorumlibet aliorum eventuum observationem, quae partim naturalis est, partim superstitiosa. Naturalis in complexibus corporum, quae secundum superiorum contemperantiam variantur, ut sanitas, aegri- tudo, tempestas, serenitas, fertilitas, et sterilitas.' Astrology in the Early Mediceval Centuries 37 France, and living in Paris, Canterbury, and Chartres, John of Salisbury is the best representative of that incipient humanism which had grown up in the school of Chartres, and which was soon to give way before an age of science and theology. The philosophical problems connected with astrology and fatalism had for John of Salisbury a peculiar fascination, and he discusses them at great length in the P olicraticus , written about 11 59. Although John of Salis- bury was unusually sane and enlightened in the matter of mediaeval superstitions,^ he subscribed fully to the patristic doctrine of demonology. The Church Fathers, he says, rightly denounced all forms of magic — species mathe- maticce — inasmuch as all of these pestiferous arts spring from an illicit pact with the devil.^ The various kinds of divination he defines as does Isidore, reserving the usual place for the astrologi and mathematici.^ But the kinship between astrology and the diabolic arts of divination is little emphasized when John of Salisbury, in the second book of the Policraticus, deals with astrology in its philosophical and scientific aspects. He admits at the outset that some power may reside in celestial bodies, since God has created nothing without its proper use.* Astronomy, indeed, is a glorious science ; only when it bursts its proper bounds does it become impious. A dis- tinction is to be made between the legitimate science — mathesis — and the illegitimate divinatory art — mathesis.^ ^ See particularly his chapters on omens {Pol. 2. i ff.) and on dreams (2. 14 ff.) ; cf. Hansen, Zauherwahn, p. 128. ^Pol. I. 9: 'Eo quod [Patres] omnia haec artificia vel potius maleficia ex pestifera quadam familiaritate dsemonum et hominum noverint profluxisse' (ed. Webb i. 49). ^Pol. 2. 12 {ibid. I. 53). John of Salisbury includes TertuUian's statement that astrology was a permitted science until the time when the Magi worshipped at Bethlehem; see above, p. 18. *Pol. 2. 19 {ibid. I. 107). "John of Salisbury probably found this distinction in Hugh of St. Victor {Didasc. 24: Migne, Patr. Lat. 176. 753). It occurs 3^ MedicBval Attitude toward Astrology The latter, in attempting to foretell the future, usurps the prerogatives of the Creator of the stars himself.^ John of Salisbury proceeds to make mild fun of the astrologers' doctrines.^ Departing from the ways of true science, he says, they divide the signs of the zodiac into masculine and feminine, and would probably have the constellations con- tract marriages in the sky, were they not too far separated in space. Saturn the astrologers characterize as cold and wicked; he spares from harm scarcely the astrologers themselves.^ John of Salisbury, however, quite forgets his sarcasm in the portion of his exposition where he describes the astrological powers of the sun. If astrology, in fact, were only content with moderate claims, and occupied itself with sober predictions of the weather, all would be well. But when the astrologers make broad their philacteries, and enlarge the borders of their garments in ascribing every- thing to the stars, they do injury to God's sovereignty.'* They even teach that feats of magic can be performed by the aid of the stars, and that a human image can be brought to life, gifted with the power of prophecy. With such nefarious arts the Christian can have nothing to do.^ The doctrine of Plotinus, to be sure, which holds that the stars are used by God himself to give to men signs of future events, is fairly plausible. Are not birds and other things the instruments through which God transmits to men knowl- edge of what is to come?*^ Still, under the honey of such also in Roger Bacon {Opus Majus 4. 16: ed. Bridges, London, 1900, I. 238). 'Pol. 2. 19 (ed. Webb i. 108). ^ Ibid. His information seems to come from Firmicus Maternus. * Omnibus ergo inimicus vix suis etiam scolasticis parcit' (ibid. I. 108). *Pol. 2. 19 (ibid. 1. III). 'Ibid. "Ibid. The editor of the Policraticus is puzzled as to where John of Salisbury got his information about Plotinus. If one puts together a passage of Macrobius (Somn. Scip. 1. 19. 8) and one from Augustine (Civ. Dei 5. i), I think there is no need to look further. Astrology in the Early Mediceval Centuries 39 a theory poison lurks. For, under pretext of showing reverence to God, the philosophers impose a fatalistic rule upon the course of human events. And fatalism, other than that implied in the doctrine of God's foreknowledge, is as hateful to John of Salisbury as it was to Augustine. He expounds at great length the Church-doctrine concerning predestination and free will^ ; and when he again returns to astrology, it is only to attack it more fiercely than ever with theological arguments. Taking his cue from Abelard, he denies that man can gain any knowledge of the future whatsoever. Has the astrologer obtained access to the secret counsels of God himself?^ Does not the story of king Hezekiah prove that God can alter even his own prophecies?^ John of Salisbury does not deny that God may at times indicate future events by the sun and moon; but he is persuaded, on the authority of reason and the concurrent opinions of many other philosophers, that a science foretelling the future either does not exist, or is unknown to men.* Clearly, John of Salisbury's attitude toward astrology is that of the Church Fathers in mediaeval dress. Living at a time when Arabian science was "already filtering into western Europe by way of Latin translations, he was still oblivious of its presence. His own countryman, Adelard of Bath, had already made a journey of exploration into Saracen lands; and in his own school of Chartres, traces of Arabian astrology can be found in the cosmological writings of William of Conches, who died five years before the Policraticus was written.^ But there are no proofs that John of Salisbury knew Adelard of Bath; and his ^ Pol. 2. 20-24 {ibid. I. 113-33). ^Po/. 2. 24 {ibid. I. 136). ^ Ibid.; cf. 2 Kings 20. i. *Pol. 2. 25 {ibid. I. 136). * Adelard of Bath and William of Conches will be discussed in a later chapter (see below, pp. 49, 61). The latter died in the year 1154; the Policraticus was written 1159-60. 40 MedicBval Attitude toward Astrology interest in the scientific studies for which the Chartres school of the early half of the century was famous, seems to have been of the slightest.^ John of Salisbury, in effect, saw in astrology little more than a dangerous philosophical doctrine. He is distinctly at a loss in dealing with it as a science.^ He would probably have been unable to define exactly where he drew the line between a legitimate science of astrology, useful in predicting the weather, and that impious mathesis which he condemns with rhetoric as force- ful as that used by Augustine. His concessions to astrology as a physical science are hardly in advance of those found in the De Civitate Dei} John of Salisbury stands at the close of the first period in the history of mediaeval astrology. From the time of Isidore to the middle of the twelfth century, astrology, it may be said, lived only in the form of an academic dis- cussion. Even astrological texts, other than Firmicus Maternus, were unknown to the Latin world. John of Salisbury probably had little more acquaintance with actual astrologers than did Burchard of Worms, or Rabanus Maurus.* A century and a half was still to elapse before ^ This point is made by Schaarschmidt {Johannes Saresberiensis, Leipzig, 1862, p. 151). Clerval (Les Ecoles de Chartres, p. 317) furnishes proof of the fact that quadrivial studies in the Chartres school no longer occupied in the latter half of the twelfth century the position of prominence which they had held in the first. ^ It is perhaps significant that John of Salisbury, though he bases his statements largely upon Augustine, does not once make use of the ancient arguments of Carneades. ^ Some light is shed upon John of Salisbury's attitude toward astrology by his views regarding signs in general. He believes firmly that God makes use of signs to forecast important events {Pol. 2. 1-4) : 'Infidelitas namque signorum argumentis erigitur, et fides tenera eisdem roboratur.' He gives a long description of the signs that preceded the fall of Jerusalem {ibid. 2. 4 ff.), and does not doubt the prophetic virtue of comets {ibid. 2. 13). * It is perhaps going too far to say that John of Salisbury had no acquaintance with astrologers, particularly in view of his own state- Astrology in the Early Mediceval Centuries 41 the Church burned at the stake its first astrological heretic, and it was still two centuries before Petrarch could hold up to scorn the astrologers of the Milanese court. But already at the time when John of Salisbury was writing his learned defense of free will, the scientific works of Aristotle, and the astrological treatises of Ptolemy and Albumasar, were beginning to find their way into the schools of France and Italy. With their discovery, a new chapter opens in the history of astrology, as in that of mediaeval philosophy. ment to the contrary: 'Plurimos eorum audivi, novi multos, sed neminem in hoc errore diutius fuisse recolo, in quo manus Domini condignam non exercuerit ultionem' {Pol. 2. 26: ed. Webb i. 143). But any personal contact he may have had with astrologers has left no other trace in his argument. CHAPTER III ASTROLOGY IN OLD ENGLISH LITERATURE Astrological learning, as we have seen, was almost extinct in Europe during the Dark Ages ; hence we need not expect to discover more than occasional signs of its existence in northern vernacular literature. All astrological science among the Teutonic peoples, indeed, must be termed a foreign importation — even the popular astrology of the almanac goes back to Greece and Rome. Certain primitive superstitions among the Teutons and Gauls, it is true, offered points of contact for simple astrological notions. Cassar, describing the religion of the Germans, says that they worshipped as gods only those whose power they could easily recognize, namely the Sun, Vulcan, and the Moon.^ Tacitus, in the Germania, informs us that the Teutonic tribes held their assemblies on stated days — 'either at the new or the full moon, which they account the most auspicious season for beginning any enterprise.'^ In the English laws of Cnut, a statute is included which forbids all heathenish practices, and, incidentally, the worship of sun or moon.^ The Penitential of the English archbishop, Theodore of Canterbury (died 690), furthermore, contains slight references to superstitions regarding the moon.* An ^ Caesar, De Bella Gallico 6. 21. Students of mythology are puzzled over this reference; cf. R. M. Meyer, Altgermanische Religions- geschichte (Leipzig, 1910), p. 105. 'Tacitus, Germania, chap. 11. ^ Cnut's law reads : 'Hse]?enscipe byS }>set man idola weort5ige, Jjset is ]>