Medieval vs Traditional vs Renaissance

darkkittie099

Hello everyone!

I have been studying about the history of western astrology from various websites. I am interested in learning more about medieval, traditional and renaissance astrology. It seems that there are differences between all three but Medieval is considered like the "grandparent" (as stated in the following source: http://www.new-library.com/zoller/faq/) which heavily influenced Traditional Astrology. I find this fascinating and would love to learn more about how specifically. I am curious to know from the experienced members of this forum what exactly are the major differences between the three (obviously time period/ length of time that each "school" lasted) in regards to the birth chart and what techniques are used or not used. I am sure that there must be things that were used in one form of astrology that were either completely dropped or adapted. I also noticed that sometimes people use the term "traditional astrology" and "renaissance astrology" interchangeably so I am not sure if they are in fact the same thing ( I know I saw this somewhere but I can't remember the site). I hope I am making sense and please excuse me if I made any mistakes in my statements above. I am a total newbie but I really want to learn. Thanks everyone!

-darkkittie099
 

Minderwiz

Hi,

Firstly a quick definition. All these terms and indeed the term Modern Astrology relate to what is called Horoscopic Astrology[/I, that is using a chart which is related to the location of a particular event, such as your birth, rather than the world in general. The key feature is that such charts use houses, as well as planets in signs and it is the houses that allow us to relate the planets to specific areas of your life in particular, rather than just anyone and everyone, which is a far more general relationship. For example the planet Venus has something to say about your relationships (amongst other things), but that's really all that can be said about it, without having your birth chart. That may will indicate more specific information as to whether relationships are more concentrated on marriage, or parents, friends, children, etc.

Horoscopic Astrology came into being somewhere between 50 BC to 50 AD, and its first incarnation is termed Hellenistic Astrology, which lasted through to around 600 AD. The main area in which this was practiced was the Roman Empire, but more specifically in the provinces of Egypt, Greece and what we now call the Middle East, and very specifically on the city of Alexandria.

From the seventh to the eight centuries, the main centre of development shifted to Persia and then into the the first Caliphate, centred on Baghdad but expanding to include the Middle East, North Africa and following the Islamic conquests into Eastern Europe. As you noted, things changed gradually, rather than having major shifts and then stability. Early Persian Astrology was very Hellenistic in nature but introduced Horary Astrology. The use of Whole Sign Houses for topical analysis gave way, sometime around 1000 AD to using quadrant systems for Topical Analysis (that is systems that use the Ascendant as the cusp of the first house and the MC as the cusp of the tenth.) These systems existed in Hellenistic times but were used more for techniques to calculate the length of a person's life. A lot of writers refer to the period from Persian Astrology through to the twelfth or thirteenth centuries as Early Medieval but it's not a precise term and you can argue other definitions.

The Crusades brought Western Europe into contact (or more precisely re connected) with Horoscopic Astrology, especially its medical applications and a lot of Arab texts were translated into Latin, the most famous translator and then practitioner was probably Guido Bonatti. The high point of Medieval Astrology was thus from around 1000 AD through to perhaps the early sixteenth century. The Renaissance is usually seen being from the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries, so, Bonatti, who lived 1207-1296 is a prelude to it (or arguably a result of the earlier (twelfth century) Italian Renaissance. It's best to keep the term Renaissance Astrology solely to Western European practice and leave out the earlier Arab practice, though the former was heavily based on the later.

The seventeenth century saw two of the great Astrologers, William Lilly in England and Jean Baptise Morin in France. Technically they practiced a medieval form of Astrology but both had legacies that fed into modern practice. Lilly's form of Astrology continued to be practiced into the nineteenth century, though with minor modifications.

Now all of what I have described is referred to as Traditional Astrology, though it is usually seen as ending with Lilly and Morin. A good alternative would be to see it as Astrology as practiced up to its reinvention by Alan Leo, which marks the modern emphasis on Sun signs.

As you can see the other terms are sub periods, but any distinction between them becomes rather arbitrary. Even though the Renaissance is Western European, most of the texts used were translations of Middle Easter writers. Even Lilly cites a lot of these writers.

There's also less and less emphasis, especially with Lilly and Morin on the use of Time Lord systems. Lilly does use profections, but systems such as Fidaria, which were used by the later Arab writers are absent.

There are of course many other differences, but If I go on, I'll end up with a mini-book. answer. So feel free to come back at me for specific topics, or an attempt to separate out the key approaches in the Tradition from the Modern.
 

Minderwiz

PS

I forgot to disagree with Robert Zoller, who wrote his most influential work on Arabic Parts. At the time, it was thought these were the invention of the Arab Astrologers (hence the name) and relatively little was known about the preceding system of Hellenistic Astrology. Thanks to the work of Project Hindsight (of which Zoller was an original member), we now know a lot more. The Arabic Parts are not Arabic at all, though they added to the system. Most of the so called Parts, are Greek Lots, which were used in Hellenistic Astrology, especially the key ones, such as the Lot of Fortune and the Lot of Spirit, plus Lots relating to family, to marriage and relationships and a range of other things.

So the Grandfather of Astrology in terms of approach and systems was Hellenistic Astrology. That system gave us the Ascendant, the houses and their original meanings, it gave us aspects and transits, the forerunner of Primary Directions, added the elements to the triplicities, established the essential dignities and the system of benefics and malefics, To be short, it gave us the Astrology that we know today, though it did indeed change significantly, we still used its structure.

It's certanly possible to argue that Medieval Astrology was the high point of the Tradition but wthout the Hellenistic writers such as Valens, Dortheus and Ptolemy, there would have been no Medieval Astrology.
 

Barleywine

Thanks for the overview. In your estimation, would it be most productive in approaching the Persians to start with the Bonatti/Dykes translations and work backwards into the earlier source material? I have a long list of books on my wish-list (al-Biruni, Sahl, Masha'allah, etc.) but Bonatti seems to have covered a lot of the ground in an organized way. He has quite a few, do you see any as more essential than others? Or should I just go for the Persian sources? While it would be nice, I'm not in a position to acquire everything.
 

Minderwiz

Thanks for the overview. In your estimation, would it be most productive in approaching the Persians to start with the Bonatti/Dykes translations and work backwards into the earlier source material? I have a long list of books on my wish-list (al-Biruni, Sahl, Masha'allah, etc.) but Bonatti seems to have covered a lot of the ground in an organized way. He has quite a few, do you see any as more essential than others? Or should I just go for the Persian sources? While it would be nice, I'm not in a position to acquire everything.

I'm not really the best person to advise here. My own route was circuitous to say the least if not a meandering circle LOL. I started with Lilly because I was interested in Horary and then decided to delve into the Medieval stuff. I use Holden's ancient translation of Abu Ali Al-Khayyat. It wasn't very helpful because there was hardly an introduction and many of the things Al-Khayyat appeared to say were meaningless unless you already knew the terms he used, either implicitly or explicitly. I tried Al-Biruni, I tried Ibn Ezra and I tried Dorotheus of Sidon (who of course is Hellenistic). What I needed was a good commentary.

I found, in part in Vol III of Dykes' Persian Nativities but again there was an assumption that I'd started with Volumes i & II, which were much more expensive. Dykes' translations are heavy going compared to Holden but at least he tries to provide an explanation of what's being said, even if it is imperfect.

I didn't bother with his translations of Bonatti, mainly because of cost, and a pre-awareness of the difficulties of reading his translations. So effectively my reading produced some good material but left big gaps in procedures, methods and theory, with the result that I didn't really have a joined up understanding.

Eventually, after the usual forays into Lee Lehman, I found Joseph Crane's Astrological Roots: The Hellenistic Legacy. and that made more sense than most of the other stuff, though there were bits in it that were still rather fuzzy, such as references to Spear Bearers. It was fumbling through that and exploring a little wider that brought me to Chris Brennan, a friend of Ben Dykes. I found his websites helpful and eventually signed up for his Hellenistic Astrology course, just for the guidance. Because of health issues with my wife, I've not the time to do the cousework but I have the materials and the lectures and they are good.

So after the circuitous meanderings, I came back to the Persian Nativities and the early Medieval writers such as Sahl and Masha'allah. This time round I had a theoretical framework to put their work in context So for me. the best way to come to the Persians is from behind LOL.

But I wouldn't recommend anyone else to go that route, though historically it makes sense. It's rather like coming into a film about a third of the way through and trying to piece together what happened before you arrived. Some people are good at that but I prefer the sensible route LOL.

In fairness I should point out that for people like Zoller, that option wasn't available. There were very few accessible Hellenistic texts, apart from Ptolemy' who it turns out was somewhat of a deviant. For example, unlike his contempories, Ptolemy didn't really use Lots, and those that he did use were calculated differently (he ignored Sect). I think Ptolemy was one of the reasonsthat Zoller was convinced that the Lots were of Arabic origin. Certainly Lilly and Morin treated the Lots (apart from Fortune in Lilly's case) as being an astrological aberation invented by the arabic speaking Astrologers. Fortune only got through because Ptolemy explicitly mentioned it. Therefore Lilly concluded, rightly, that it was part of the original system but concluded wrongly that it was calculated ignoring Sect and that therefore in the original system Sect was unimportant.

As for Bonatti, much of his work is translations of Sahl or Masa'allah or other such writers, though he did embelish a bit. He is, though, a towering figure in the Medieval and later period and he did much to make Astrology accessible to Western Europe.

Incidentally, if you have a Kindle, you will find several of Dykes' translations available at low cost or available through Kindle Unlimited for free. But be warned they are scanned copies, some of the diagrams don't come out and the search facility is limited.
 

dadsnook2000

Bonatti

Was this "Bonatti" the same astrologer who used or introduced midpoints for his predictions?
 

Minderwiz

There is a claim that Bonatti used something like a midpoint when carrying out a rectification. You will find it mentioned on Skyscript in a thread on midpoints and are they really not traditional, rather than the invention of Witte.

But no evidence was advanced to support that claim. I've not seen any provided elsewhere. And anyway, is a technique used for rectification conceptually the same as a tool used to analyse a nativity with an accepted date or even a date obtained through rectification. I've seen claims that midpoints actually originated in Hellenistic Astrology, though again there seems a lack of hard examples for evidence.

I have nothing against midpoints,even though I don't use them. They seem to be a perfectly valid technique and there is a distant similarity to the idea of Lots, where the distance between two planets is calculate, but rather than being halved,it is then projected from another point, usually the Ascendant. I can see no reason why Lots should be valid but midpoints invalid, simply because one is Traditional and the other Modern. And I'm sure Dave would agree that there's plenty of valid techniques which he recognises but doesn't use - otherwise our Astrological Tool Bag would be brimming over wih near duplicate tools and no clear idea of which to choose or how to used them.

Bonatti's clear focus in analysis is the Lots, which is not surprising because his source material is Arab or Persian, and their source material is Hellenistic, at least in the initial couple of hundred years. Greek, Persian and Arab texts are choc a bloc with Lots, so Bonatti's focus is made for him by his sources. But that in no way can show that Midpoints are either valid because they're found in traditional texts, or invalid because the dearth of references shows that they looked at the idea but chose not to run with it.
 

dadsnook2000

Midpoints

Several decades ago I had read an article in American Astrology, the same magazine that carried all of Cyril Fagan's writings, on Bonitti's use of midpoints. He was employed by various heads of city-states to predict attacks and political unrest that could affect them.
 

Minderwiz

Bonatti did indeed publish a treatise on War and it did indeed boost his standing as an Astrologer. However the work was a translation of Masha'allah's treatise 'On War.'

I've not read them side by side, so I can't be definitive but elsewhere Bonatti added some of his own additions to the text. That's not intended as a damning criticism; without Bonatti, valuable material would have been lost to the West. And his own views are quite noteworthy. Bonatti's contribution is massive
 

Ronia

I think you have to try and read a couple of pages from this and that, many are available as previews either on Google books or Amazon, and then follow the voice that speaks closest to "your language". I, for one, absolutely love Masha'allah. He is my guy all the way. LOL He just reads to smoothly and I feel like I can picture his words as constellations or charts. It doesn't mean I don't need any other reading, I do, because many of these texts, the old ones, are sometimes confusing. But for the foundation I suggest you listen to your ears and trust your eyes. If it flows easily and reads well, finish it. They are all priceless, at the end.