Fortune from the Skies: Brontology in Late Medieval England

Three English Manuscripts of Thunder Lore

This article will investigate the following aspects of three English manuscripts from the later Middle Ages to know more about the use of brontology at that time:
• portability
• layout and decoration
• astrological and medical information

Two of the manuscripts are in book form (codices); the first, from the Wellcome Library in London (shelfmark Wellcome MS 8004), is referred to as MS 1 in this article. The second is from Chetham’s Library in Manchester, Chetham’s Mun.A.4.99 (MS 2). MS 3 is a small, folding manuscript from the Morgan Library in New York, Morgan MS M.941. Although this manuscript format existed elsewhere in Europe, it was popular in late-medieval England, with some examples displaying a surprising amount of varied astrological prognostic information, albeit abbreviated to fit the available space.

MS 1, Zodiac Man, folio 39r. Image license: CC BY-NC 4.0 DEED

MS 1 is a medical work of 100 fine parchment pages (or folios) written around 1454 and measuring 153 mm x 214 mm, with covers a few millimetres larger. It is similar in scale to modern paperback books, which measure 152 x 229 mm in the US and 130 mm x 198 mm in the UK, but appear smaller than MS 1 as their covers are approximately the same size as the pages. MS 1 is at the upper limit of easy portability due to its thickness, and life in a library would have suited it best. It is quite showy, decorated with rich pigments, large initials and borders, embellished with gold leaf, and the images are well drawn. Below, a Zodiac Man illustrates prognostic writing on the influences of each zodiac sign on the body, and healthcare responses to them, called a ‘destinary of the twelve signs’.

This destinary includes the first of two brontologies in MS 1. The second is later in the manuscript, with two other prognostics: predictions from the day of the week New Year’s Day falls on, and onomancy, a method of calculating outcomes using numbers derived from which position in the alphabet the letters in a person’s name occupy, with ‘a’ being one and ‘z’ twenty-six. Below is my modern English translation (with minimal modern punctuation) of the brontologies’ entries for Aquarius/January:

1. Aquarius and his properties
   Aquarius is the sign the Sun is in in January, and in that month, there are seven perilous days: the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 15th, 19th, and if thunder is heard in that month, it betokens great wind, much fruit, and battle. Aquarius is hot, moist, and sanguine, and of the Air. It is good to buy castles or houses, to marry, let blood, and everything to do with the long term. It is ill to treat the legs, from the knees to the ankles, when the Moon reigns in the sign. The Sun reigns in it from the 3rd Ides of January (the 10th) to the 4th Ides of February (the 9th). It is ill to begin anything short-term or ended quickly, folio 37r.

2. Thunder in January betokens great winds the same year, plenty of corn, and possibly battle, folio 70r.

MS 1 also contains astrological tables and rare items on professional medical practice and medical care during pilgrimage, earning it the name ‘the Physician’s Handbook’ from the Wellcome Library.

MS 2, Januar(ia) and Februar(ri)a, folio 29r. https://luna.manchester.ac.uk/luna/servlet/s/kwm6im

MS 2 was written after 1450 and consists of 32 almost square parchment folios, measuring 186 mm x 188 mm. Like MS 1, it is richly decorated in several colours, and both silver and gold embellishment (the silver having tarnished to a dark grey). The animated illustrations point out the characteristics of the zodiac signs described in the text. Below, Aquarius pours water from two pitchers, demonstrating his relationship to, and control of, the element.

MS 2 also has two brontologies (one in Latin, one in Middle English), but, unlike MS 1, they are in the same section of text. See my translation below:

‘Here begin the thunders of the month and the signs from the Sun and Moon. The month of January: if it thunders in January, there will be strong winds and abundant grain. When thunder comes in January, you will have that same year great winds, much fruit, and a great war of the people who live under the star. In eleven days in the month of January, the Sun is in Aquarius. The sign of Aquarius is the sign of the River Jordan in which Christ was baptised. He who is born in that sign will be careless. (When) The Sun is here in this sign; it is a season of snows, freezing, and rains; as the pots turn upside down, so the weather changes in this season, and (when) the Moon is in this sign, take good care of both your legs. Here begin the Sunday letters for seven years: a, b, c, d, e, f, g. ‘A’: a warm winter and easy summer, stormy, plenty of wheat and good growth of corn that year, plenty of fruits, honey, but some death of young people, murrain of beasts, and much peace, Crusaders fighting, and agreement amongst kings.’

In the original, the Middle English brontology features internal rhymes, a technique often employed as a memory aid in teaching.  Research is ongoing as to what is meant by people who live ‘under the star,’ perhaps a reference to familiarities between certain countries and stars found in Ptolemy’s Tetrabiblos.

MS 3, ‘Januarie,’ folio 1r. https://ica.themorgan.org/manuscript/page/1/145540

MS 3 is a folding manuscript created after 1433 from three strips of parchment which originally formed a long roll, now measuring 132 mm x 132 mm, folded, broadly similar in size to other English examples. Rolls were used to present reference material in medieval teaching contexts. MS 3 was reconfigured so that each strip had twelve compartments. As the most portable of the three manuscript examples, it would easily fit into a pocket or purse. However, the downside was that smaller manuscripts had a harder life on the road or were often kept with household documents rather than in libraries, and late ones might be made of paper, compounding the problems. The brontology is very prominent in MS 3, covering most of two folios with twelve detailed, coloured illustrations. In January, for example, figures fight with axes behind small, verdant trees or shrubs under a thunderous sky, depicted as little grey tendrils of cloud, and my translation of the text is below. There is also a small pictogram (top left) of an appropriate seasonal tool, in this case, pruning shears, extracted from a text on practical activities in seasonal contexts called ‘The Occupations of the Months’.

‘In the month of January, if there is thunder it betokens great winds, abundance of fruit, and battle to come in that year’, folio 1r.

MS 3, ‘Ffebruarie,’ folio 1r. https://ica.themorgan.org/manuscript/page/1/145540

The entry for February shows a physician and their patient with turbulent thunder above; see below the image for my translation. The ‘occupation’ implement depicted here appears to be a type of spade used for clearing ditches, representing a specific seasonal task. Having a physician in attendance identifies this patient as one of the rich men mentioned in the text.

‘In the month of February, if there is thunder it betokens death of many men and mostly of rich men: by sores’, folio 1r.

Although the brontology takes up a lot of space in the manuscript, the compiler also included calendars of saints’ feast days and historical events, with pictograms and labels, twenty-four-hour clock faces that showed hours of daylight in winter, a Zodiac Man, lunar and planetary charts, and a similar New Year’s Day prognostic to MS 1, but also featuring weather forecasts.

What the Brontologies Reveal

In summary, although the five sample brontologies share similar predictions since they relate to specific conditions in January, there are still subtle differences. For example, each writer (writing at different points in history, two of them around the end of the Hundred Years’ War) has dealt with the prospect of battle that year with varying degrees of circumspection. The main differences between the manuscript contexts, though, are the unique framings of brontology, which give a glimpse of late-medieval astrological prognostic practice in action. The compiler of MS 1 provides the reader with the ‘perilous days’ of January (based on poor lunar influences, etc.) to combine with: the effects of thunder, the humours of Aquarius and their impact on humans, and times when the Sun and Moon exert powerful influences. In MS 2, the title sets the reader’s expectation that thunder activity and the Sun and Moon are the overarching concerns of the text. The two chosen brontologies are placed together (the second supplying extra details about potential war), along with a birth prognostic foretelling the nature of a child born then, and a weather forecast from the dominical letter of the year. This method assigned the letters ‘a’ to ‘g’ in sequence to the day of the week at the start of each new year (two in a leap year) and gave each letter an individual prognostic which then recurred every seven years. The MS 3 compiler made brontology a major focus of a manuscript on practical medicine and weather forecasting.

Conclusion

The manuscripts represent a continuing interest in brontology in quality books of practical knowledge in the late Middle Ages, each placed by their compilers in very individual ways alongside essential texts for maintaining health and well-being. The quantity of other prognostics suggests a belt-and-braces approach by practitioners of astrological healthcare, allowing them to offer a choice of diagnosis or treatment options as seemed appropriate to the case in hand. A significant number of small portable manuscripts that survive contain brontologies. Such items would surely have been popular with merchants, pilgrims, and other travellers. Also, it is entirely possible that some people had access to each type of manuscript described here: a home or guild reference guide, and a smaller one akin to a phone app for travel.