In Our Time - Renaissance Astrology

Episode Date: June 14, 2007

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Renaissance Astrology. In Act I Scene II of King Lear, the ne’er do well Edmund steps forward and rails at the weakness and cynicism of his fellow men:This is the excellent foppery of the world, that,when we are sick in fortune, - often the surfeitof our own behaviour, - we make guilty of ourdisasters the sun, the moon, and the stars: asif we were villains by necessity.The focus of his attack is astrology and the credulity of those who fall for its charms. But the idea that earthly life was ordained in the heavens was essential to the Renaissance understanding of the world. The movements of the heavens influenced many things from the practice of medicine to major political decisions. Every renaissance court had its astrologer including Elizabeth Ist and the mysterious Dr. John Dee who chose the most propitious date for her coronation. But astrologers also worked in the universities and on the streets, reading horoscopes, predicting crop failures and rivalling priests and doctors as pillars of the local community. But why did astrological ideas flourish in the period, how did astrologers interpret and influence the course of events and what new ideas eventually brought the astrological edifice tumbling down? With Peter Forshaw, Lecturer in Renaissance Philosophies at Birkbeck, University of London; Lauren Kassell, Lecturer in the History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge; and Jonathan Sawday, Professor of English Studies at the University of Strathclyde.

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or wherever you get your pods. Thanks for downloading the In Our Time podcast. For more details about In Our Time and for our terms of use, please go to BBC.co.com.uk forward slash radio four. I hope you enjoy the program. Hello, in Act 1, Scene 2 of King Lear, the Machiavellian Edmund scoffs at the weakness and cynicism of his fellow man. He says,

this is the excellent foppery of the world, that when we are sick in fortune, often the surfeit of our own behaviour, we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon and the stars, as if we were villains by necessity, fools by heavenly compulsion, and all that we are evil in by divine thrusting on. The focus of its attack is astrology and the credulity of those who fall for its charms, but the idea that earthly life was ordained in the heavens

ran deep in the Renaissance mind, offering succour to servants and exercising the highest faculties of theologians and philosophers. When Elizabeth I wanted to establish a propitious date for her, her coronation, she asked her own astrologer, Dr. John D. But why did astrological ideas flourish in the period? How did astrologers interpret and influence the course of events? And what new ideas eventually brought the astrological edifice tumbling down?

With me to discuss Renaissance astrology are supposed to be Peter Farshaw, lecturer in Renaissance philosophies at Birkbeck University of London, but he was taken to White City by mistake and entitled me way back at the moment. But we are joined by the Lauren Kassel, lecturer in the history and philosophy of science at the University of Cambridge, and Jonathan Sawd, Professor of English Studies at the University of Strathclyde. Lauren, what is astrology?

Can we distinguish it from astronomy and what do we know about its origins? Astronomy is the science of how the stars and planets move. Astrology is how we judge how they have moved and what their influence is on life on Earth. So it's often described as a relationship between the microcosm, that is man, and the macrocosm, which is the universe,

First. Astrology goes back thousands, thousands of years. It became systematic. It was systematized by the Babylonians and was brought into Greece in the fourth century and then became increasingly more systematic. In the second century AD, we have Ptolemy, who's, I always think of as an Egyptian, I gather it's disputed. He wrote the two biggest, most important books about astronomy and astrology. And it's useful to think about the differences of these subjects, according to these two books. His Almagest is a mathematical work

on the movements of the stars and planets, and his quadrupartum or tetrabibos, they're the same thing, is an astrological manual. It tells you the rules for how you interpret the influences of the stars and planets on life on Earth. So just to clarify, astronomy is the measurement

of the universe, how planets move, how stars move, when they move, their tracks and tractors. And astrology says there is an influence which comes from this movement that corresponds to life on sub-lunar life, life here and life of the individual. And we, by looking at the universe, can see how it affects the way that individuals lead their life. That is the astrological dimension. Exactly. And it can be thought of in terms of astronomy being an exact science, and astrology being an inexact or a conjectural science like medicine. on certain judgments.

And Ptolemy set the course of intellectual development for about a thousand years, those two great books. Yes. Although it moved, as so many ideas did in those days, it moved into the Arab world, and translating to Arabic, and there was the great Arab astrologer Abu Mashan.

He developed ideas, which were translated into the Latin, and they came back to Europe in the 12th century, and came back into the courts of kings and princes. Oh, hello. You know, earlier than we thought. very nice to see you. Peter Fawshaw has arrived, ladies and gentlemen. So it came back into the courts of kings and princes.

What services were astrologists offering to these courts to these politicians? Jonathan. I think you started off with the quotation from Shakespeare, from King Lear, which is very interesting because that plays kind of take, if you like, on astrology, suggests that it's something that's immediately recognisable to the Elizabethan and Jacobian audience. it suggests that already, you know, Edmund, when he gives that speech, doesn't really have to explain the background, because it's assumed people know it. And it's all over there.

It's all over the Renaissance dramatists, isn't it? Marlowe talks about it. It absolutely permeates Renaissance culture. It functions as a kind of ground, if you like, for metaphors, for kind of ways of thinking about the way in which the world operates. A word that was used earlier on was subluna, which is very, very important to this idea because it's connected with change,

it's connected to the idea of change. Everything beneath the moon, everything in the sub-luner world is subject to change, is mutable, is kind of in a state of flux. But the flux is predictable. That's to say that there is a pattern, there is a kind of an idea of a system behind it, and the pattern is driven by God, essentially.

What astrology sets out to do is to try and chart those changes, try and map those changes, but try and map, if you like, the predictability of it. So it's getting access. I mean, Lauren used the word as it's an interpretive science. It's getting access to the interpretation of the patterns that are held to exist beneath this sort of world of change, if you like. So we know the evidence from the courts because a lot of the princes and...

They have their astrologers. They have their course astrologers. What evidence is there for its existence in popular culture? Because all the evidence in Shakespeare, for instance, and Marlow and that, they're sort of educated and noble people. Okay, one piece of evidence would be the astrologer Simon Foreman, astrologer in the late 16th century, who its claim had something like 8,000 visits from clients

during the 10 and 15 years of his practice. 8,000 people coming along and talking to him about their futures, if you like. Can I turn to you, Peter Hosham? Can you tell us about the way that astrology gained intellectual currency. What was its intellectual place in the picture of the Renaissance, this time of the great resurgence, rediscovery resurgence, rebirth of ideas?

If the Renaissance is the rediscovery of classical antiquity, Latin and Greek texts, then you're already getting, for example, tommy the second century AD, based in Alexandria, author of the most influential textbook of astronomy, the Almagest, but also not just of, that's the movements of the planets in the cosmos, but then the effect of them,

which is in the tetrabiblos mentioned. So this is an extremely influential text. It's studied by humanists who want to have a clear idea of what this classical Greek scholar is writing, but also it's used at university level. It's taught at university. For example, all physicians have to know astrology.

If I can turn slightly back to court culture, you're asking the ramifications there. For example, a ruler wants to know, is this ambassador or this envoy trustworthy, the astrologer does a chart and answers that question. What's the chart based on? The chart is based on the moment the question is asked. So that's the interrogation. So he asks, I mean, like 913, on a particular morning, what's happening in the heavens influences what he's going to ask the ambassador?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So where on earth is Peter Fawshire at the moment? Is he going to make it on time? That's your astrologer very quickly, just before the programme starts, goes, oh, Lord, no. But that's the type of astrology. Most people think now it's birth charts and nativities as they were called then, and, you know, which discuss, and are very important. A physician, if you're sick, will cast, and you're in bed sick,

will cast what's called a decumberature, a horoscope asking, you know, when did the crisis start? Let's cast a horoscope for the sickness. Physicians will also know when is the best time to let blood, phlebotomy, you know, when to purge. So we're talking here just because it's now become such a fun thing, astrology, really, except some people take seriously and fair doers, but basically a lot of people think it's just fun. We're talking about something that was very able people took extremely seriously.

It was part of their intellectual landscape, the lining of their minds. One key idea here, as I understand, Jolson, is the idea of correspondences, which was perhaps backed it. Now, can you explain that? and then we can move on from that. I mean, in a way, listening to Pete, one wants to sort of, it sounds batty when it's explained in the way that Pete's explained. I'm not saying that Pete's batty, but it sounds batty. But actually, it's not batty.

There is a kind of system behind this. There is a kind of, there is a sort of coherence behind the whole thing. We rely on you to give us the coherence. That coherence, which I'm going to try, yes. That coherence is based on the idea of correspondence. That's to say that one part of the universe corresponds to or is mappable onto other parts of the universe. So the human body has its kind of structure

and that structure can be thought of as being similar to corresponding to the structure of the planets, the structure of the macrocosm, if you like. For us, those are kind of just metaphors maybe. Now, looking back on this, they're just metaphors. I think in the 16th and in the 17th centuries, they were very, very live ways of thinking about the world in which parts of the world, everything was linked together.

essentially. Bits were linked together and the reason it was linked together was because of course the world was organised by a creative deity. God had structured the world, structured the universe in such a way that John Dunn's famous exclamation that it was wittily put together. It was put together through metaphor.

And what the astrologer was doing essentially was interpreting that system of metaphors held to underpin the universe, interpreting that system of correspondence. So yeah, I mean, we kind of consult these things or look at these these these charts in the papers or what have you and for us it is as you say moment it's fun um i think in the renaissance it underpinned a really deep sense

of how the world was organized it was it was much more than just simply predicting a series of events it was looking at the very structure of things and of course later that was all to collapse that's a sort of separate story well that's so that's where we are and that's terrific now then laurent uh astrology's got an academic purchase an intellectual purchase a popular following and a political presence. In the 15th century, the Italian philosopher and humanist Giovanni Piccad de la Mirandula attacked it. What was he so upset about? His attack was to become the template for all subsequent attacks,

and his argument in a nutshell is that if you can predict the future based on the movements of the stars, then you are interfering with free will. This question of free will becomes the central objection to astrology. but he had always had objections to astrology, partly because it was practiced by quacks, and partly because it had this uncertain causal effect. There were always questions about if a pair of twins were born, how different would their lives be?

If they're born at the same moment, well, then you can say if they're born five minutes apart. Is it exactly the question that's posed in King Lear, by the two brothers facing each other, you know, to at one saying, well, it has no... It was worded by St. Augustine, wasn't it, in the late 4th century, so it's there, but Piccadilla Miranda Randler

brings it into play at a time when astrology is very, very important across the waterfront, doesn't he? And also it brings the church into the argument here. So you have a system of the church, being threatened by another system. I just want to go one stage further than the system with you, Peter, for sure. I didn't realise it before I started

reading about this, and people... It's how detailed and complicated the astrology... Can you tell us about these 12 sections, briefly, these 12 sections, these 12 houses, these different... different types of prediction. Well, it's worse. I know, yes, you can.

You're perfectly able to do this. Just give us some amount. There's a structure here. It's not, there's not guessing. No, no, no. I mean, totally worked out mathematically. Cardano, the great mathematician, also gamblers. It's true, yes.

People are putting a lot of intellectual energy into this, and they're putting energy into intellectual constructs. Yes. So can you tell us a bit about them? Okay, I mean, to calculate a horoscope is astronomy, rather than astrology in a way, because the astrology is the interpretation. So based on mathematical data which are being compiled over centuries and edited and checked and so forth,

you get what I call the effemary days, which are tables of planetary positions on certain days and at different times of the day. And from that you compose a, nowadays it's a round horoscope, then it's the square birth chart. For example, if you're doing birth charts, which have got the 12 signs, which were finally sort of formalised about 400 BC

as we have now the signs of the zodiac. And then you have the seven planets, which in the Ptolemaic sequence are Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury and the Moon. So the Sun and the Moon are clustered as planets. And each of those has a significance. Very much tied in with Aristotelian University philosophy. So, for example, they tie in with medicine in that Saturn is a cold and dry planet, which could inflict people with melancholy. Jupiter, for example, is moist and warm, so it's far more jovial, far more benign as a planet.

So, basically, if you do someone's birth chart, for example, we know that a certain Melvin Bragg is a Libran, and we also know that he's a cancer ascendant, or some of us do if we check on Google. And from that, we know that... I'm checking it on the chin, okay? Yeah, yeah, yeah, quite. I'm not going to say anything dodgy, don't worry. I mean, there's the medieval doctrine of Melathasia,

this idea that the planets and the... signs are all mapped onto the human body. The human body sort of mirrors the rest of the universe. If the moon is waning, which is a negative time in cancer and Saturn is opposite that, there is the possibility you will get a dry hacking cough. And okay, it sounds maybe slightly banal, but that's one example of medical astrology. The horoscope also has 12 houses with different significations. For example, the sixth house is to do with health. If you have

a planet going through Saturn, in your sixth house moving through it, because the planets are constantly moving through your own. The planet of melancholys, aren't. Yeah, the plants of melancholy. And of scholarship. And of scholarship.

But also the planet of coldness and dryness. If it's in your sixth house, there's a potential you're more likely to get sick. If it goes through your eighth house, which is the house of death, then woe betide. You've got to be careful. In other houses, it can be more benign,

possibly. But it's based, isn't it, on the idea that the future is, in some measure, predictable. Okay, this is, yes. I mean, the thing is, though, why the church gets worried about is, and I have to say this with Pico de la Miranda, he is not criticizing all astrology. He's criticizing, he's not criticizing medical astrology. He's criticizing judicial or divinatory astrology, and this is the thing. It's curiosity. It's prying into God's prerogative. Only God knows what's going to happen, and men should not go there. But, yes, I mean, the assumption is, and it becomes more so in the Renaissance, this is in, interesting prognostication. I want to Pete's given a very good description

of how astrology works, but I'm very interested in how these things are actually mapped. So what we have is this square divided into 12, you read it backward, counterclockwise from the 9 o'clock position, as it were, and into that diagram

is embedded. Each of the positions of the planets at the moment either at which somebody is born or the moment at which a question is asked and you have then a fixed calculation on a piece of paper. That's why we know so much about what was going

on with Renaissance astrology. Is it an astrologer, unlike a doctor, had to work with a pen in his hand. And so you have these very beautiful, very systematic documents well in most cases very beautiful. Can I ask you, Peter Fosha, about the picture

of the zodiacal man a human body blazoned with signs of the zodiac. Why was the body as such an appropriate backdrop? What was the importance of that? If you go back to the Bible, you know, God created everything else, and then he created man out of the dust of the earth.

And so man in a way is a hologram or replicates the rest of the universe. And because of that, you could map things onto him. And as I said, you know, the astrologer said, well, okay, the first sign of the zodiac, governs the head. Now, some people said, well, this is silly because areas is a fire sign which is hot, but the human brain is cold. So it's inappropriate. But nevertheless, a lot of physicians did map the whole zodiac on to the body. But it moves from Italy up to Northern Europe, as the Renaissance did. And Warren Casale, we talked about Piccadol, but it began to be attacked by others. Let's take Francis Bacon, for instance, the great natural philosopher. What was his complaint about astrology? And why was that thought to be important? at time. What was happening? Because belief was draining away, wasn't it? I don't think belief was draining away.

In astrology, you don't? No. I think... By intellect, as it was. Well, unless I've been reading bar and stuff, the last thing is. What is happening is that people, and Bacon calls for the need to systematize astrology. So he's a little bit like, Pika, they're all

splitting hairs. Some of them are very big hairs, but the point is that nobody, well, almost nobody is saying wholesale astrology is a problem. if you want you know does the moon influence the tides that is a form of astrology yeah yeah right and we don't have a big problem with that around this table I'm assuming so does the moon influence the fact

that you're talking to that microphone now we have a real problem with that yes so what bacon does is he says I mean I should repeat there are four different sorts of astrology there are general prognostications which have to do with the weather plagues the fate of nations which are politically contentious but that's a different issue. Then you have nativities, and then you have interrogations and elections.

And nativities, interrogations and elections are about particular individuals, so you can do elections and interrogations for when should you build the building. He hangs on to the one. He hangs on to the general prognostications. He's looking very carefully at the other, so if you won't yield on bacon, I'm turning to Jonathan Sourdain now,

because there is no doubt whatsoever that by the time Copernicus, Capela and the rest come in, including in my reading bag. Never mind. John does that, where did the new challenges to astrology come from? The real moment that signals the end of, or the beginning of the end of astrology

as a very serious undertaking, is the moment in which Galileo looks through his telescope and looks at the sun and he sees sunspots. And why is that important? It's important because it suggests that change is happening everywhere in the universe, that rather than going back to that word we use right at the beginning of the programme, sub-lunary, rather than change just

operating in the sub-luna world, the world that we inhabit, change actually operates right through the universe. Galileo observes sunspots, he observes blemishes, if you like, on the face of the sun, and at that point I think the universe begins to appear rather more random, rather more

kind of uncertain. Peter for sure. We have Copernicus on the Revolution of Hemisphere's fears and he turned the universe inside out and said, now that had an effect on the astrology to do. Could you tell us why? to be honest, I'm going to sound awful now. I don't know whether it particularly did.

I agree. I mean, Copernicus... I agree. Coponicus... Copernicus's teacher in astronomy was also an astrologer. And actually, Copernicus, okay, his argument that the earth moved, it wasn't fixed, suddenly you've got this heliocentric universe instead of a geocentric one,

actually doesn't make a scrap of difference to the astrologer, because an astrologer's doing a birth chart based on the moment of your birth, presumably you were born on Earth. So it's related to us. So really geocentric heliocentric cosmos doesn't make any difference. But what is significant is mechanics and really mechanical philosophy. Because even people like Taiko Brehe and Tkepler, who are paragons of astronomy, still did astrology.

But by the time you get to the 17th century and the Royal Society, who are setting themselves, up as a new type of philosophy opposed to traditional university Aristotelian philosophy with which astrology is heavily imbued. Aristotelian philosophy is no longer respectable. The idea that the heavens are perfect, that they move in perfect motions, well, Galileo has looked at the moon and sees that the moon's got blotches and blemishes, that the sun's got sunspots. So the whole Aristotelian perfect cosmos falls by the wayside, as unfortunately, does astrology, it loses its respect ability. You're buried the three of you're extremely

reluctant to let go of the dominating position. Can I talk about bickonian astrologers? Yes, because there are, what you get are people who try to reform astrology and following Bacon. And one of the ways that they do that is to try to systematically collect as much data as possible and to test it. So you have

Joshua Childry who actually calls for a reform of astrology along Copernican lines, and he calls for the collection of data. You have John Godd, who keeps the first weather records. He has a full record of the weather and how it changes according to the astrological shifts. And you also have John Gadbury, who in the 1660s

is using publishing lots, but he says, send me... I'm going to have to drive on this because you've had a lot of fun, and that's great, and it's fine. But the fact is, sorry, that by the time we get to Newton, the idea of astrology, the idea of the heavens influencing, the daily lives, moods and states of mind, body and a state of individuals is in intellectual circles, Lauren, I know, out. You mentioned Newton?

I did, I was waiting for you. Who's a magician? Who believes in magic, who writes kind of occult. He also believed in physics. He is not a big astrologer. He was an alchemist, which is rather different. But what I think is interesting about this is there's a kind of model that we've got in our own minds about astrology being this sort of bizarre world

which suddenly gives way to the clear light of Beaconian intellect and somehow rather, you know, suddenly rationalism comes into play in the Enlightenment. Of course, knowledge doesn't work that way. They coexist. Yeah. I'll just say this for the last time and then enjoy yourself because it's much more enjoyable. There is a stage where what you called rationalism does, as it was, supersede

what you've been talking about in terms of astrology. The different way of looking at the world, explaining the rightly, right and wrongly, a completely different way begins to obtain in the educated circles with a couple of centuries before had the same respect for astrology. Now that happens. I think that's absolutely true. And yet, the metaphors, sorry, the metaphors, the kind of, if you like,

the play of similitudes are still there, still kind of operating. 1634, let's give you an illustration. In 1634, Inigo Jones designed the new anatomy theatre for the College of Surgeons here in London. I mean, you know, what clearer statement of rationality could there be than a building put together to investigate the human body with scientific precision. What's the decoration in the anatomy theatre? The zodiac.

So when? When did astrology become dislodged from a central eminence as an intellectual and important structure in Western thinking? Can I ask that question? Yeah, but I think, I mean, I mentioned the Royal Society. I mean, you've got people like Robert Boyle there, who's, okay, more famous for his, his... chemistry and alchemy. But the whole idea of reproducibility of an experiment is something that

astrology is not so convincing about. Especially, I mean, for example, whether that's on the level of prediction or on the level of prognosis in medicine. One of the questions it has to be asked is why did astrology stop being taught at the universities? That's a more answerable question. I'm not sure I know the answer to it, but it's a more answerable question than when did astrology cease to be credible? Because as far as we can tell around this table, it never ceased to be credible. You don't really mean that, do you?

I do mean that. Do you three believe that astrology is credible as a system of thought and as a system of influence on the way we individuals behave? We're not believers. I think I can speak for all of us. But what do you mean then? That it's a system that makes sense.

It really does make sense. It has an internal coherence for hundreds of years. So there's all sorts of remote religious notions have an internal coherence, but that doesn't... Well, it says that they have an internal coherence, but it doesn't necessarily say they have a sort of relevance to what you could call a real understanding of the way life works. I suppose to a certain extent you're asking us questions

which are outside of periods. The approach... Well, it's all outside my period. Yeah, but if you have a context, but if you have a context, sympathetic approach, you approach, you know, the people who are espousing and criticising astrology, and based on their arguments.

And then you notice, for example, that even, I mean, changing the subject slightly, in religion, you know, one of the most famous reformers, Philip Melanchthon, was fascinated in astrology and justified it. Luther was a bit ambivalent. Calvin was really against it because it's trod on God's prerogative. It comes back to that predestination. Yeah. So when you think that there's this ambivalence in religious circles,

in Protestant circles, okay, puritan. circles were thoroughly against it because it challenges the omnipotence of God. If for example famine came because it was God's punishment on people then explaining it away with a very secular explanation of we'll actually

know it's just the stars and it comes in a regular pattern really causes problems there and certainly when you think By the time we come to the Age of Enlightenment and the ideas of the late 10th century we are not, astrology isn't on the map of

learning? No, no. You're shaking, gosh, I've got an agreement probably, for it. Yeah, it depends on how you define it, whether you define it as something which is an academic discipline which rulers use, Ronald Reagan famously had an astrologer, right? In that case, it's still ongoing at the

highest levels. I think part of what we're trying to impress on you, Malvin, is that it is a very, well, it's not dead, and it's a very, very complicated systematic system which has been reformed again and again,

it was at its high point in the Renaissance, and that's, I think, why you've brought us together to talk about it. Well, you've certainly made a tremendous impression on me. I shall think again several times. Much going to, and thank you very much indeed. I enjoyed that. I mean, maybe people should turn up a bit late, Peter, throw a squib into the works.

Anyway, I've got to hurry up now. Thank you very much, Lauren, Cassell Johnson, Sautier, Peter, for sure. Next week, it's the 18th century theory of common sense. Thank you for listening. We hope you've enjoyed this Radio 4 podcast. You can find hundreds of other programmes about history, science and philosophy at BBC.com.com.uk forward slash radio four.