Abstract
The close association between astrology and the courts of the mighty is one of the most characteristic features of the science of the stars in both classical and medieval times.1 The reason for this must be partly practical. For most of the period covered by this book, astrologers took a long time to train, and their services — when available — were only for the rich or those in the know. Yet there was also something of a romantic, traditional attachment between a king, sultan, or emperor, and the astrologer, which remained potent in later medieval England, but disappeared with the popularisation of astrology in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
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Notes
For further development of this theme see Robert Eisler, The Royal Art of Astrology (London, 1946). This curious book is as much an attack on the principles of astrology in the tradition of Pico della Mirandola as an historical study.
R. Bonnaud, ‘Notes sur l’astrologie latine au VI siècle’ Revue belge X (1931) 560. These are the theories of Isidore of Seville (Patrologia Latina series (hereafter PL) 82, 109), Cassiodorus and Gregory the Great.
Caxton’s Mirrour of the World ed. O. H. Prior (London 1913) Early English Text Society (EETS), Extra Series (ES) 110, p. 156.
Richard Lemay, Abu Ma’shar and Latin Aristotelianism in the Twelfth Century (Beirut, 1962) p. 45.
John of Salisbury, Policraticus, ed. C. C. J. Webb, 2 vols. (London, 1909–32).
The Historia Regum Britanniae of Geoffrey of Monmouth, XII, 4 ed. Acton Griscom (London, 1929) pp. 516–17. For the dating of the Historia, ibid., p. 83.
For Edwin’s conversion see Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People ed. B. Colgrave and R. A. B. Mynors (Oxford, 1970) II.xiii.
J. S. P. Tatlock, The Legendary History of Britain (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1950) p. 367.
John of Salisbury, Policraticus, ed. C. C. J. Webb, 2 vols, (London, 1909–32).
Ibid., II. 107–8. Cited by Richard Lemay, Abu Ma’shar and Latin Aristotelianism in the Twelfth Century (Beirut, 1962) p. 303 n.1. According to Lemay, ‘The truth is that John is visibly embarrassed by the ancient strictures placed on mathesis by the Fathers’, idem p. 303. Lemay forgets that the Fathers had also allowed the utility of certain astrological practices, especially in medicine.
Richard Lemay, Abu Ma’shar and Latin Aristotelianism in the Twelfth Century (Beirut, 1962).
C. H. Haskins, ‘Science at the Court of Emperor Frederick II,’ in Studies in the History of Mediaeval Science 2nd ed. (Cambridge, Mass., 1927) pp. 242–71. First published in 1922.
Note also Lynn Thorndike, ‘The Horoscope of Barbarossa’s First-Born’, American Historical Review 64 (1958/9) 319–22.
For other examples see Thorndike, History of Magic, II passim; B. Boncompagni, Delia vita e delle opere di Guido Bonatti (Rome, 1851) in Atti dell’Accademia Pontificale IV.458 ff.
Peters, Magician, the Witch and the Law, pp. 85–87; R. C. Dales ‘Robert Grosseteste’s Views on Astrology’, Mediaeval Studies 29 (1967) 357–63. R. W. Southern, Robert Grosseteste, ibid.
Peters, Magician, the Witch and the Law, pp. 86–7; Lynn Thorndike, Michael Scot (London, 1965); Dante, Divine Comedy, Inferno, canto 20.
V. H. Galbraith, ‘The literacy of the medieval English kings’, P.B.A. 21 (1935) 201–38;
K. B. McFarlane, ‘The education of the nobility in later medieval England’, in his The Nobility of Later Medieval England (Oxford, 1973) 228–47.
Catalogue of the Royal and King’s Manuscripts in the British Museum by G. F. Warner and J. P. Gilson, 5 vols, (London, 1921) I.xi.
Secretum secretorum is the most common Latin version of the title, although Secreta secretorum, which also occurs, is a more accurate translation of the original Arabic. See M. A. Manzalaoui, ‘The “Secreta secretorum” in English Thought and Literature from the Fourteenth to the Seventeenth Century’, University of Oxford D.Phil. (1954) p. viii n.i. No doubt because of the formidable linguistic, textual and technical problems it presents, the Secreta has not attracted the critical attention it merits. Manzalaoui’s thesis, which primarily concerns the English versions, is the fullest account, but see also the introduction to Robert Steele’s edition of the longer Latin version, in Opera hactenus inedita Rogeri Baconi (Oxford, 1909–40), Fasc.5. All quotations are from this edition.
See also M. A. Manzalaoui, ‘’ (i.e. Roger Bacon, Bradwardine and Wyclif) in Arabic and Islamic Studies in Honour of H. A. R. Gibb, ed. G. Makdisi (Leyden, 1965) pp. 481–2.
For the early transmission see M. Grignaschi, ‘L’origine et métamorphoses du Sirr al-Asrar (Secretum secretorum)’, Arch. hist. doct. litt. moy. age 43 (1976) 7–112.
The shorter Hispalensis version of the Latin text has been edited most recently by J. Brinkmann, Die apokryphen Gesundheitsregel des Aristoteles für Alexander den Grossen in der Übersetzung des Johann von Toledo (Leipzig, 1914).
The English versions have been edited by M. A. Manzalaoui, Secretum secretorum. Nine English versions: Vol. I Text (Oxford, 1977) EETS, 276, Commentary forthcoming;
and Fetcham’s Anglo-Norman version ed. by O. Beckerlegge, Le Secré dez Secrez (Oxford, 1944) Anglo-Norman Text Society. The MSS are listed by R. Förster, ‘Handschriften und Ausgaben des pseudo-aristotelischen “Secretum secretorum”’, Centralblaat für Bibliothekswesen 6 (1889).
Ed. M. R. James, Walter de Mïlemete’s De nobilitatibus, sapientiis et prudentiis regum (Oxford, 1913) Roxburgh Club. Now Oxford MS Corpus Christi College 92 and British Library MS Additional 47680: the Secreta and the De nobilitatibus may have been bound separately, but were clearly always intended as companion volumes.
For the English transmission of the Secreta see Manzalaoui D.Phil. thesis, pp. 205–389. For Beauchamp’s books, Henry S. Todd, Illustrations of Chaucer and Gower (London, 1810) pp. 161–2.
Ed. Robert Steele, Three Prose Versions of the Secretam Secretorum (London, 1898) EETS ES 74, pp. 121–248.
The Works of John Metham, ed. Hardin Craig (London, 1916) EETS 132.
Lydgate and Burgh’s Secrees of old Philisoffres ed. Robert Steele (London, 1894) EETS ES 66. Steele suggests that British Library MS Sloane 2464 may be connected with Margaret, sister of Edward IV, ibid. p. xiv.
The English Works of John Gower, ed. G. C. Macaulay (London 1900) 4 vols, EETS ES 81, 1.4.
Hoccleve’s Works; III The Regement of Princes, ed. F. J. Furnivall (London, 1897) EETS ES 72.
British Library, MS Royal 17. D.iii. This is probably the presentation copy. The direct source is not the Secreta but the De Regimine Principium of Giles of Colonna, which made full use of the Secreta. This was also a very popular book among noble book owners, especially in translation. Simon Burley, Richard IF s tutor, owned a copy as did Thomas of Woodstock, the Duchess of Gloucester, and Sir Thomas Charleton (d. 1465). See M. V. Clarke, Fourteenth-Century Studies (Oxford, 1937) p. 120 n.2; K. B. McFarlane, art. cit., p. 237.
R. H. Jones, The Royal Policy of Richard II (Oxford, 1968) p. 161, n.45 also notes copies in several monastic and collegiate libraries. Significantly, just as the astrological parts of the Secreta were considerably abbreviated in translation, the French translation of the De Regimine Principium only mentions astrology in order to advise princes not to indulge in it.
Noted by G. W. Coopland, Nichole Oresme and the Astrologers (Liverpool, 1952) p. 186, n.33.
A. G. Molland, ‘Roger Bacon as a Magician’, Traditio 30 (1974) 445–60 traces the development of this idea in the Renaissance.
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Carey, H.M. (1992). The Royal Art: Astrology before 1376. In: Courting Disaster. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-21800-4_2
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