Abstract
Albertus Magnus was one of the most significant medieval scholastic theologians. He was also very interested in astrology and its place within his Christian worldview. In the centuries after his death, a fascination with the esoteric elements of his thought grew to the point where he is often remembered not only for his interest in astrology, but also rather falsely as a wizard. Thus, Albert’s reputation has proven to be of keen interest and use to modern people with an interest in, or a business built upon, esoteric beliefs. Thus, we find modern astrologers such as Christopher Warnock directly quoting from Albert’s works. Perhaps more surprisingly, Albert, as both a saint and a supporter of astrology, has proven useful for modern conservative Catholics who support the use of predictive astrology.
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Notes
- 1.
J. Daguillon, Ulrich de Strasbourg, La “Summa de bono.” Livre I (Paris: J. Vrin, 1930), p. 139.
- 2.
For a good, concise biography of Albert, see James A. Weisheipl, “The Life and Works of St. Albert the Great.” In Albertus Magnus and the Sciences, edited by James A. Weisheipl. (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1980), pp. 13–53. For a more in-depth study, see Irven M. Resnick and Kenneth F. Kitchell jr., Albertus Magnus and the World of Nature (London: Reaktion Books, 2022).
- 3.
Lynn Thorndike, History of Magic and Experimental Science. 8 vols. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1923–28), vol. II, pp. 584, 589. In his Summa, pars 1, Questio 68, Albert states that the stars govern even the souls, vegetable and sensitive, of plants and brutes, but man is made in the image of God, except as he yields to sin and the flesh: as such, the intellectual soul is free.
- 4.
Albert the Great, “De quindecim problematibus,” in Opera omnia, Bernhard Geyer, ed. (Monasterii Westfalorum: Aschendorff, 1975), vol. XVII, p. 36. “Omni ergo modo ridiculosum est, quod dicunt.”
- 5.
I have dealt with this question of authorship in excruciating detail in chapter I of How Albert the Great’s Speculum astronomiae was interpreted and used by Four Centuries of Readers (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 2010), and more recently in “Albert the Great, the Speculum astronomiae, and Astrology,” in Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History 3.15 (2018): 151–190.
- 6.
For an in-depth analysis, see Scott E. Hendrix, How Albert the Great’s Speculum Astronomiae was Interpreted and Used by Four Centuries of Readers (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 2010).
- 7.
Ibid., p. 222, chpt. 4. “Quarta de electionibus horarum laudibilium, cui parte supponitur pars illa quae est de imaginibus.”
- 8.
Ibid., pp. 240–249, chpt. 11.
- 9.
Ibid., p. 248, chpt. 11.
- 10.
For a discussion of this definition of magic, see Stanley Jeyaraja Tambiah, Magic, Science, Religion, and the Scope of Rationality (Cambridge: Cambridge, 1990), pp. 7–11; Marshall Claget, Greek Science in Antiquity (New York: Abelard-Schumann, 1955). For a consideration of the difficulties involved in understanding the usage of the term magic, as well as an analysis of the way medieval peoples applied and understood it, see Richard Kieckhefer, “The Specific Rationality of Medieval Magic,” American Historical Review 99.3 (1994): 813–836, specifically pages 819–820.
- 11.
Charles Burnett, “Talismans: magic as science? Necromancy among the Seven Liberal Arts,” Magic and Divination in the Middle Ages (Aldershot: Variorum, 1996): 1–15, pp. 3–4.
- 12.
Hendrix, Albert the Great’s Speculum, pp. 91–96. This was not the only or even the most significant manner in which Albert rejected claims of determinism leveled against astrology. In short, he believed that the heavens had great influence over human action, allowing astrologers to predict what most people will do most of the time. But people can always exercise their free will to override that influence, even if most people never do.
- 13.
Nicolas Weill-Parot, Les “images astrologiques” au moyen âge et à la renaissance: spéculations intellectuelles et pratiques magiques (XIIe-XVe siècle) (Paris: Champion, 2002), p. 28.
- 14.
H. Darrell Rutkin coined this term to describe the way in which astrology acted as the link between disciplines such as astronomy, geography, and geometrical optics in their integration into the university curriculum and intellectual mindset of the Middle Ages. See H. Darrell Rutkin, “Astrology, Natural Philosophy and the History of Science, c. 1250–1700: Studies toward an Interpretation of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola’s Disputationes adversus astrologiam divinatricem.” PhD diss., Indiana University, 2002, 62.
- 15.
Roger French, “Astrology in Medical Practice,” in Practical Medicine from Salerno to the Black Death, Luis Garcia-Ballester, et alia, eds. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994): 30–59.
- 16.
Graziella Fredirici Vescovini, “Peter of Abano and Astrology,” in Astrology Science and Society, ed. Patrick Curry (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 1987): 19–40, pp. 20–21.
- 17.
Pietro d’Abano, Conciliator Controversiarum quae inter philosophos et medicos versantur (Mantua: Ludovicho de Gonzaga, 1477), ff. 20v-20r. Pietro states, “qui diligenter inspiciunt concedunt hanc scientiam astronomiae non solum utilem sed et necessariam maxime medicinae,” f. 22r.
- 18.
Ballard MS 1, at Harvard’s F.A. Countway Medical Library, contains a detailed diagram of the human body appended to a copy of the Speculum, complete with the various celestial bodies that govern the bleeding of various body parts. The library catalog dates this manuscript to 1370.
- 19.
Don Cameron Allen, The Star Crossed Renaissance (Durham: Duke University Press, 1941), p. 8. Ficino developed numerous pharmaceutical recipes that included directions for admixture and administration according to astrologically propitious times; he also advocated the use of astrological images as a form of medical treatment.
- 20.
Io. Baptista Porta, Magiae naturalis libri viginti (Rouen: Ioannis Berthelin, 1650), vol. I, ff. 2v-2r.
- 21.
Hilary M. Carey, “Astrology at the English Court in the Later Middle Ages,” Astrology, Science and Society, Patrick Curry, ed. (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 1987): 41–56, pp. 53–55.
- 22.
Scott E. Hendrix, “Albert the Great, the Albert Legend, and the Legitimation of the Dominicans,” Religions 2021, 12, 992; Jeremiah Hackett, “Albert the Great and the Speculum astronomiae: The State of the Research at the Beginning of the 21st Century,” in A Companion to Albert the Great: Theology, Philosophy, and the Sciences, Irven Resnick, ed. Leiden: Brill, 437–450. 443.
- 23.
J. Daguillon, Ulrich de Strasbourg, La “Summa de bono.” Livre I (Paris: J. Vrin, 1930), 139.“Vir in omni scientia adeo divinus … et in magicis expertus.”
- 24.
In his commentary, De anima, Albert wrote, “nos ipsis sumus experti in magicis,” in a discussion about Hermeticism. Given the context, Albert was likely referring to having tested Hermeticism or experienced its effects, rather than having had personal knowledge of magic, as nowhere else does he make such a claim. Albert the Great, De anima, E. Borgnet, ed. (Paris: Vives, 1890), Lib.I, tract.2, cap.6, p.153a.
- 25.
Michael D. Bailey, Magic and Superstition in Europe (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007), pp. 108–118.
- 26.
Kieckhefer, 190.
- 27.
https://taylormarshall.com/2013/11/have-you-heard-of-the-catholic-robots.html, accessed 12.28.2022.
- 28.
Anna Benvenuti Papi, Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, s.v. “Corsini, Matteo,” vol. XXIX (Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia italiana, 1983): 644–647.
- 29.
Matteo Corsini, Rosaio della vita: Trattato Morale, Filippo-Luigi Polidori, ed. (Florence: Societa Poligrafica Italiana, 1845). This is the most recent critical edition of this under-studied work available, representing considerable corrections of the only previous print edition, done in 1736.
- 30.
Corsini, 14. The full quote from the Vulgate, Sapientia 7:29, is “Est enim haec speciosior sole, et super omnem dispositionem stellarum: luci comparata, invenitur prior.”
- 31.
Corsini 1845, 15–16. “Come la sapienzia de’ essere riverita et onorata infiniti esempli ti potrei dire (3); ma per non dare troppe parole, solo uno notevole ne dirò brevemente. Troviamo che uno Alberto Magno, el quale fu de’ Frati Predicatori, venne a tanta perfezione di senno, che per la sua grande sapienzia fe’ una statua di metallo a sì fatti corsi di pianeti, e colsela sì di ragione (4), ch’ ella favellava: e non fu per arte diabolica nè per negromanzia: però che gli grandi intelletti non si dilettano di cioe, perchè è cosa da perdere l’ anima e ‘l corpo; che è vietata tale arte dalla fede di Cristo. Onde uno frate chiamando frate Alberto alla sua cella, egli non essendogli (5) la statua rispose. Costui credendo che fosse idolo di mala ragione, la guastò. Tornando frate Alberto, gli disse molto male, e disse che trenta anni ci avea (6) durata fatica, e: Non imparai questa scienza nell’ ordine de Frati. El frate dicea: Male ho fatto; perdonami. Come! non ne potrai fare un’ altra? Rispose frate Alberto, di qui a trenta migliaia d’ anni non se ne potrebbe fare un’ altra per lui; però che quello pianeto ha fatto el suo corso; e non ritornerà mai più per infino a detto tempo.” The numbers are included in the printed text. My thanks to Dr. Elizabeth Nogan-Ranieri for the translation.
- 32.
Quoted in Ittai Weinryb, The Bronze Object in the Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), p. 159.
- 33.
Weinryb 2016, 159. Eventually the legend emerged that it was Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) who destroyed Albert’s talking head, but I’m unsure how that legend began. The earliest reference I can find to it is the rather uncritical assertion by Thomas Warton that “Albertus Magnus, who was also a profound adept at those sciences which were taught by the Arabian schools, is said to have framed a man of brass; which not only answered questions readily and truly, but was so loquacious that Thomas Aquinas … knocked it in pieces as the disturber of his abstruse speculations.” See Warton’s 1774 History of English Poetry, vol. 1 (London: J. Dodsely), p. 401.
- 34.
Author Unknown, The Christian Reformer, or New Evangelical Miscellany (London: Sherwood Neely and Jones, 1821), vol. VII, p. 348.
- 35.
Ebenezer Cobham Brewer, The Reader’s Handbook of Famous Names in Fiction, Allusions, References, Proverbs, Plots, Stories and Poems (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott and Company, 1910), p. 146; Idries Shah, The Sufis (London: The Octagon Press, 1964) p. 226.
- 36.
Kieckhefer, “The Specific Rationality of Medieval Magic,” 813–836; Brian P. Levack, The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe (New York: Longman, 1995, 2nd edition.), p. 37.
- 37.
Denis Crouzet, Les Guerriers de Dieu (Seyssel: Champ Vallon, 1990), vol. I, pp. 101–304.
- 38.
J.S. Morrill’s The Revolt of the Provinces: Conservatives and Radicals in the English Civil War, 1630–1650 (London and New York: Longman, 1980), is in many ways still the best analysis of these events.
- 39.
Capp, pp. 79–80.
- 40.
Patrick, Curry, Prophecy and Power: Astrology in Early Modern England (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1989), 20, 46–48.
- 41.
Elias Ashmole, Theatrum chemicum Britannicum (London: Printed by J. Grismond for Nath. Brooke, 1652), p. 453.
- 42.
Curry, pp. 36–38.
- 43.
Curry, pp. 109–122.
- 44.
Quoted in Curry, p. 96.
- 45.
Jonathan Swift, “Prediction for the Year 1708, by Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq.” in The Works of Dr. Jonathan Swift (Edinburgh: G. Hamilton, J. Balfour, and L. Hunter, 1757), vol. I, pp. 305–314.
- 46.
Patricia Fara, “Marginalized Practices,” The Cambridge History of Science: Eighteenth-Century Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 497–499; Curry, pp. 162–167.
- 47.
Benson Bobrick, The Fated Sky (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2006), p. 256.
- 48.
Tester, p. 184.
- 49.
Bobrick, p. 266; Nick Campion, What do Astrologers Believe? (London: Granta Publications, 2014), pp. 55–60; Owen Davies, Witchcraft, Magic and Culture, 1736–1951 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999), p. 236.
- 50.
A sun sign indicates the point of the zodiac within which the sun rose on the day of an individual’s birth. This is what modern people mean when they refer to their “sign.”
- 51.
This magazine remained in circulation until 1998, more than a century after Allen founded it.
- 52.
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831–1891) formed the Theosophical Society in New York City in 1875 in order to investigate spiritual and occult phenomena. One branch of this organization, the Anthroposophical Society founded in Germany in 1913, is still active. See Bruce F. Campbell, Ancient Wisdom Revived, a History of the Theosophical Movement (Berkeley: University of California Press 1980).
- 53.
Scott E. Hendrix, “Natural Philosophy or Science in Premodern Epistemic Regimes? The Case of the Astrology of Albert the Great and Galileo Galilei,” Theory of Science XXIII.1 (2011): 111–132.
- 54.
Valerie Strauss, “The Astrology College Story,” The Washington Post, Jan. 14th, 2011, https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/the_astrology_college_story/2010/12/20/ABaxSuF_blog.html, accessed 17 Aug. 2022.
- 55.
Paola Zambelli, Stefano Caroti, Michela Pereira, Stefano Zamponi, eds., Speculum Astronomiae (Pisa: Domus Galileana, 1977).
- 56.
Christopher Warnock, http://www.renaissanceastrology.com/albertusmagnus.html (accessed 17 August 2022).
- 57.
Christopher Warnock, https://www.renaissanceastrology.com/biography.html (accessed 17 August 2022).
- 58.
Christopher Warnock, https://www.renaissanceastrology.com/albertusmagnusastrologicalmagic.html (accessed 17 August 2022).
- 59.
Christopher Warnock, https://www.renaissanceastrology.com/astrologicaltalisman.html (accessed 17 August 2022).
- 60.
Ibid.
- 61.
Ibid.
- 62.
Ibid. For those who are curious, images with “the Ram (Aries) or the Lion (Leo) or the Archer (Sagittarius) carved [on stones] by reason of Fire and the Eastern triplicity” can make one skillful and clever, while if its riches one craves, it will be necessary to get an image of “The Water Snake (Hydra) namely, a Snake having over it the Cup (Urna, Crater) near its head and [the Crow (Corvus) in front of its]tail, above its back.”
- 63.
Original French version at http://cura.free.fr/01manif.html (accessed 17 August 2022); English translation at http://cura.free.fr/10athem3.html (accessed 17 August 2022).
- 64.
http://cura.free.fr/10athem3.html (accessed 17 August 2022).
- 65.
Ibid.
- 66.
https://www.fisheaters.com/contact.html#1 (Accessed 17 August 2022).
- 67.
https://fisheaters.com/surviving.html (Accessed 17 August 2022).
- 68.
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ (Accessed 17 August 2022).
- 69.
https://fisheaters.com/catholicsocialteaching.html (Accessed 17 August 2022).
- 70.
https://www.fisheaters.com/astrologybackground.html (Accessed 17 August 2022).
- 71.
Ibid.
- 72.
https://www.renaissanceastrology.com/albertusmagnustalisman.html (Accessed 17 August 2022).
- 73.
https://www.fisheaters.com/astrologybackground.html (Accessed 17 August 2022).
- 74.
Ibid.
- 75.
Albert, Speculum, p. 262, chpt. 14. “quid melius fieri conveniat, hoc an illud. Et illae quae sunt consilii, non destruunt…rectificant…arbitrii consilii.”
- 76.
Ibid., p. 262, chpt. 14. “Talia destruere plus esset contra liberum arbitrium quam pro eo, quia oportere consiliare… ostenditur non omnia esse ex necessitate.”
- 77.
Hendrix, How Albert the Great’s Speculum astronomiae was Interpreted, 80–87.
- 78.
https://www.fisheaters.com/astrologybackground.html (Accessed 12.29.2022).
- 79.
Ibid.
- 80.
Bronislaw Malinowski, Magic, Science, and Religion (New York: Doubleday Anchor Book, 1954, originally published in 1948), 17.
- 81.
Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1971), 72, et passim.
- 82.
Nicholas Campion, Astrology and Popular Religion in the Modern West: Prophecy, Cosmology and the New Age Movement (Burlington: Ashgate, 2012), 97.
- 83.
https://www.fisheaters.com/contact.html# (Accessed 12.29.2022).
- 84.
Ibid.
- 85.
Ibid.
- 86.
Ibid.
- 87.
Since Benedict Anderson introduced the concept of imagined communities to explain how modern national identities are formed and functioned in 1983, others have made productive use of this concept in understanding other sorts of imagined communities, such as those found in schools, among sports fans, and various other types of fandoms. See Sherman Dorn, ed., Schools as Imagined Communities: The Creation of Identity, Meaning, and Conflict in U.S. History (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006); Joseph Macguire, et al., Sports Worlds: A Sociological Perspective (Champagne, IL: Human Kinetics, 2002); Jonathan Gray, et al., eds. Fandom: Identities and Communities in a Mediated World (New York: New York University Press, 2017, 2nd edition).
- 88.
Hendrix, “Albert the Great, the Albert Legend, and the Legitimation of the Dominicans,” p. 10.
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Hendrix, S.E. (2023). The Power of a Name: Albert the Great, the Speculum astronomiae, and Legitimization of Astrology and Astrological Magic in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries. In: Burns, W. (eds) Astrology and Western Society from the First World War to Covid-19. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40486-3_3
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