The Melting Pot of Medieval Astrology

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Do curso por Universitat de Barcelona

Magic in the Middle Ages

661 classificações

Universitat de Barcelona

Magic in the Middle Ages

661 classificações

Magical thought has always attracted human imagination. In this course we will introduce you to the Middle Ages through a wide conception of magic. Students will have an approach to medieval culture, beliefs and practices from the perspective of History and History of Science. Popular magic, as well as learned magic (alchemy, geomancy and necromancy) will be addressed. Moreover, we will also deal with how eastern practices and texts influenced western culture. In July 2016, the course will contain a brand-new module devoted to astrology. Magic in the Middle Ages offers a captivating overview of medieval society and promotes reflection about certain stereotypes associated with this period. At the end of the course, the students: a) will have overcome the usual prejudices about the Middle Ages, b) will be able to analyze historical documentation from the Middle Ages and recognize the most common patterns of juridical documents regarding witchcraft, and c) will be capable of distinguishing between popular magic and the magic of the learned people; will have a notion of which spiritual practices were allowed in medieval Europe and which ones were related to the devil, and will be aware of the link between a cultural product and the society that produced it. This course is taught in English, although subtitles in English, Catalan and Spanish will also be provided. COURSE SYLLABUS Week 1. Introduction to medieval magic (Pau Castell). Week 2. Magic & Heresy (Delfi I. Nieto-Isabel). Week 3. From Magic to Witchcraft (Pau Castell). Week 4. Magic in Islam (Godefroid de Callataÿ and Sébastien Moureau). Week 5. Astrology & Geomancy (Theo Loinaz, Delfi I. Nieto-Isabel, Godefroid de Callataÿ and Blanca Villuendas). © Gemma Pellissa Prades (coord.), Delfi I. Nieto-Isabel and Joana Palau Mumany Magic in the Middle Ages by Gemma Pellissa Prades (coord.), Delfi I. Nieto-Isabel and Joana Palau Mumany is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Na lição

UNIT 5: ASTROLOGY & GEOMANCY

Medieval Astrology: Between Science and Magic5:57

The Melting Pot of Medieval Astrology6:10

Early Medieval Astronomy: the Moon, the Zodiac, Thunders and Dreams7:08

Horoscopes and World Events: the Doings of High-End Astrology6:37

Optional video-On World Cycles 1: The Great Year Doctrine in Antiquity (1)5:42

Optional video-On World Cycles 1: The Great Year Doctrine in Antiquity (2)7:14

Optional video-On World Cycles 2: The Great Year Doctrine in the Middle Ages (1)9:52

Optional video-On World Cycles 2: The Great Year Doctrine in the Middle Ages (2)6:35

Conheça os instrutores

Godefroid de Callataÿ - University of Louvain
Professor
Oriental Institute (University of Louvain)
Dr Pau Castell Granados
Research and Teaching Scholar at University of Barcelona
Sébastien Moureau - University of Louvain
Chargé de recherches du F.R.S.-FNRS
Institut Orientaliste (CIOL)
Dr Gemma Pellissa Prades
Visiting Postdoctoral Fellow
Department of the Classics, Harvard
Delfi I. Nieto-Isabel
BSc, BA, MA
Dept. of Medieval History, Palaeography & Diplomatics, Institute for Research on Medieval Cultures, University of Barcelona
Blanca Villuendas
PhD Candidate
Instituto de Lenguas y Culturas del Mediterráneo y Oriente Próximo, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas

[MUSIC]

Hi again.

I hope you've had some time to think about the last video, and

to reflect on the fact that the historical idea of science and

the historical idea of magic share a key element.

They have changed over time.

The frontier between them can get blurry sometimes,

but especially when we are dealing with a discipline, such as astrology.

Today, we are going to discuss how medieval astrology in Christian Europe

was made up of a great variety of astrological traditions.

Imagine a complex building, built for the ages.

Where every civilization contributes its piece.

Styles and

materials combine to the point where it's difficult to say what came from where.

But occasionally,

some distinct elements survive well enough that we can pinpoint their origin.

That is precisely the case with some specific astrological elements

that were assimilated by Christian astrology, without much adaptation,

as we will see in a minute.

But first, let me clarify something.

When we talk about Christian Astrology, we refer to the Astrology that was studied,

and practiced in Christian Europe.

And since Astrology was a discipline reserved for scholars, this so-called

Christian astrology was,

of course, written in the scholarly language of the period, Latin.

Thus, a good example of those distinct elements I just mentioned

are lunar mansions.

A lunar mansion,

is a segment of the apparent path of the moon in it's orbit around the earth.

These mansions were often used by ancient cultures as part of their calendar system.

But what qualifies them as one of those easily identifiable foreing elements

is that their names were assimilated by Latin astrological texts

maintaining their Arabic form: Alnath, Albotain, Aldebaran.

Now, those of you who are familiar with current astronomy are probably thinking

that what I just said is a list of stars, and you would be absolutely right.

The explanation is that the Arabic lunar mansions

usually refer to a constellation and its most important star,

that is generally,

the brightest star that could be seen in the area defined by each lunar mansion.

Sometimes however, the syncretism, in other words: the amalgamation

of different astrological traditions, was much more successful

and the result included late Babylonian, Egyptian and Greek materials

that were compiled in Greece during the Hellenistic period filtered and

enriched with Iranian, Indian, and Arabic contributions,

reworded in the Islamic phase, and finally translated into Greek and Latin first,

and later on into the vernacular languages.

This corpus of knowledge was aimed at a European Christian audience

and so it incorporated the appropriate adjustments in each case

to avoid the censure of the Church.

There are many examples of this complex blend of astrological conceptions.

Bear with me here, for a moment

because this is when things get complicated.

For instance, world astrology.

That is the application of astrology to predict and understand world events.

Well then, world astrology was a result of the combination of one,

Zoroastrian millennialism, that is a philosophy born on the Iranian plateau,

somewhere between the 18th and the 6th century before the common era.

And two, the astrology of the Sassanian Empire.

But in turn, Sassanian astrology combined indian and Hellenistic traditions and

developed in Iran between the 3rd and the 7th century of our era.

How's that for complicated?

But wait, there's more.

The <i>electiones</i>, choices, or

<i>interrogationes</i>, questions were an astrological practice that,

to put it simply, was based on answering specific yes or no questions

and in helping decide about the best time to do something.

We we'll discuss them in the upcoming videos

but what makes them relevant for our argument that astrology was a true medley

of traditions, is the fact that they were a loan from the Islamic tradition

but also the last remaining legacy of the so called cathartic Greek astrology

that had first spread to India around the second century of our era

and much later from the 9th century onwards, was assimilated and

passed onto the west by Arabic science.

So as you see, historical astrology's big picture is indeed huge.

The astrological corpus available to Medieval Europe, was a product of

evolution that was largely similar to that of European medicine.

We cannot divide it into neat linear consecutive periods.

Something like classical astrology, medieval astrology, Renaissance astrology.

Neither can we think of it as a monolithic block,

where all the materials come from the same source and share the same style.

The truth is closer to a complex network of heterogeneous systems,

each with its particular history,

that converged only incidentally in the Middle Ages and

gave birth to the new hybrid traditions.

In our next video, we will take a look at the different materials and

traditions that have been so far recognized within the collection of ideas,

practices, and texts that compose the astrological knowledge of the Middle Ages.

Specifically, we will focus on the early centuries of the medieval period, and

on how Christianity took over a rather ancient ensemble of principles and

beliefs and adapted it to its own symbolism.

But then again, if you've been following the previous units of this MOOC

that's not exactly news, is it?

Stay tuned.

[MUSIC]

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