A Hitherto Unnoticed Criticism of Astrology: Liber de reprobatione iudiciorum astrologiae
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Abstract
In a Vatican manuscript of the second half of the fourteenth century or the early years of the fifteenth is an anonymous criticism of astrology which seems not to have been hitherto noticed. (i) It is the second item in the manuscript and from the fact that it is preceded by the De configuratione qualitatum of NICHOLAS ORESME, which is also anonymous here (2), and that it shares some of the characteristics of ORESME'S several known attacks upon astrology, might be thought to be by him or HENRY OF HESSE or someone of their school. It may also be recalled that WALTER CATO, penitentiary to JOHN XXII, is said to have written a work against astrologers (3) that does not seem to have come to light. Or our work may be by BERNARD OF VERDUN, since, as we shall see, an anonymous astronomical treatise which immediately follows it is by him. If the criticism of astrology is also by him, it would date about 1300, long before ORESME and HENRY OF HESSE. In the previous paragraph we alluded to our text as a criticism of astrology, and it so starts off in the Vatican manuscript. But the title, Book of Reprobation of Astrological Judgments, really does not apply to the entire text. Towards the end there begins a " Third Part on Natural Astronomy (or, Astrology), How God Disposes Inferior Bodies by Superiors " (f). Moreover, a first part is