‘Arabic Astrology’ in Early Medieval England? A Re-Examination of Prognostics and Planetary Knowledge in Three Winchester Manuscripts, c. 1023-1060

Questions around whether some form of astrology was practiced in early Medieval England often engage with textual ‘tools’ known as ‘prognostics’. Prognostics range from lists of ‘lucky’ or ‘unlucky’ calendar days to weather omens to prescribed activities according to the lunar cycle. Some scholars have questioned whether certain prognostics have their origins in ‘Arabic astrology’, thereby suggesting an earlier dating for the revival of horoscopic astrology. This dissertation queries whether prognostics can be considered as evidence of horoscopic astrology by analysing three manuscripts from eleventh-century Winchester. In treating the manuscripts as a corpus of interconnected cosmological and astronomical knowledge, this dissertation demonstrates the importance of considering texts within their original manuscript context. This dissertation also argues that previous scholarship may have underemphasized the role these texts could have played in non-predictive contexts. While the contents of a prayerbook and psalter likely did not facilitate more technical astrological practices, a mathematical procedure found in a treatise included within a computus anthology may have permitted approximate calculations of planetary longitudes. Although the procedure does not yield accurate results and therefore casts doubt on whether it could have enabled more technical astrological practices, these manuscripts taken together illustrate the diverse astronomical and cosmological interests of a single monastic community in the early eleventh century. Finally, this dissertation revisits the contested ‘pastoral hypothesis’ in which scholars have debated how prognostics may have been deployed by their manuscript users. This dissertation proposes that the realities of daily life in a monastic community coupled with the spiritual and administrative responsibilities of an abbot could suggest that prognostics may have been consulted in specific circumstances. This research adds nuance to previous studies of the history of astrology, proposing that prognostics may have enabled a subtle expansion of what came to constitute ‘natural astrology’ in the twelfth century.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

ma

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

masters

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Wales Trinity Saint David

Year dc:date.issued

2025

Author dc:creator

• Cap, Krystyna

• BF Seicoleg
• DA Prydain Fawr

Dc Identifier Grantnumber

UWTSD

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:repository.uwtsd.ac.uk:3798