Editing Astrology (section)

=== Medieval world ===

==== Hindu ====
{{main|Hindu astrology}}

The main texts upon which classical Indian astrology is based are early medieval compilations, notably the ''[[Bṛhat Parāśara Horāśāstra|{{IAST|Bṛhat Parāśara Horāśāstra}}]]'', and ''[[Sārāvalī]]'' by {{IAST|Kalyāṇavarma}}.
The ''Horāshastra'' is a composite work of 71 chapters, of which the first part (chapters 1–51) dates to the 7th to early 8th centuries and the second part (chapters 52–71) to the later 8th century. The ''Sārāvalī'' likewise dates to around 800 CE.<ref>[[David Pingree]], ''{{IAST|Jyotiḥśāstra}}'' (J. Gonda (Ed.) ''A History of Indian Literature'', Vol VI Fasc 4), p.81</ref> English translations of these texts were published by N.N. Krishna Rau and V.B. Choudhari in 1963 and 1961, respectively.

==== Islamic ====
{{main|Astrology in medieval Islam}}

[[File:Translation of Albumasar Venice 1515 De Magnis Coniunctionibus.jpg|thumb|right|alt=Image of a Latin astrological text |[[Latin]] translation of [[Albumasar|Abū Maʿshar's]] ''De Magnis Coniunctionibus'' ('Of the great [[Conjunction (astronomy and astrology)|conjunctions]]'), [[Venice]], 1515]]

Astrology was taken up by Islamic scholars<ref>{{cite book |title=The Oxford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Science, and Technology in Islam |first1=Salim |last1=Ayduz |first2=Ibrahim |last2=Kalin |first3=Caner |last3=Dagli |publisher=Oxford University Press |year= 2014 |page=64 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=or-6BwAAQBAJ&q=philosophy+astrology+university&pg=RA1-PA515|isbn=978-0-19-981257-8 }}</ref> following the collapse of [[Alexandria]] to the Arabs in the 7th century, and the founding of the [[Abbasid Caliphate|Abbasid empire]] in the 8th. The second Abbasid [[caliph]], [[Al Mansur]] (754–775) founded the city of [[Baghdad]] to act as a centre of learning, and included in its design a library-translation centre known as ''Bayt al-Hikma'' 'House of Wisdom', which continued to receive development from his heirs and was to provide a major impetus for Arabic-Persian translations of Hellenistic astrological texts. The early translators included [[Mashallah ibn Athari|Mashallah]], who helped to elect the time for the foundation of Baghdad,<ref>{{cite book|author=Bīrūnī, Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad|title=The chronology of ancient nations|year=1879|publisher=London, Pub. for the Oriental translations fund of Great Britain & Ireland by W. H. Allen and co.|lccn=01006783|chapter=VIII}}</ref> and [[Sahl ibn Bishr]], (''a.k.a.'' ''Zael''), whose texts were directly influential upon later European astrologers such as [[Guido Bonatti]] in the 13th century, and [[William Lilly]] in the 17th century.<ref>{{cite book | author=Houlding, Deborah  | title=Essays on the History of Western Astrology | publisher=STA| year=2010 | pages=2–7 | chapter=6: Historical sources and traditional approaches}}</ref> Knowledge of Arabic texts started to become imported into Europe during the [[Latin translations of the 12th century]].

==== Europe ====

[[File:Meister von San Vitale in Ravenna 004.jpg|thumb|upright|right|[[Dante Alighieri]] meets the Emperor [[Justinian I|Justinian]] in the Sphere of [[Mercury (planet)|Mercury]], in Canto 5 of the ''[[Paradiso (Dante)|Paradiso]].'']]

{{See also|Christian views on astrology}}

[[File:Isidor von Sevilla.jpeg|thumb|upright|right|The medieval theologian [[Isidore of Seville]] criticised the predictive part of astrology.]]

In the seventh century, [[Isidore of Seville]] argued in his ''[[Etymologiae]]'' that astronomy described the movements of the heavens, while astrology had two parts: one was scientific, describing the movements of the Sun, the Moon and the stars, while the other, making predictions, was theologically erroneous.{{sfn|Wood|1970|p=5}}<ref>{{cite book |title=Etymologiae |author=Isidore of Seville |year=c. 600 |pages=L, 82, col. 170}}</ref>

The first astrological book published in Europe was the ''Liber Planetis et Mundi Climatibus'' ("Book of the Planets and Regions of the World"), which appeared between 1010 and 1027 AD, and may have been authored by [[Gerbert of Aurillac]].<ref name=Campion44>{{harvnb|Campion|1982|p=44}}.</ref> [[Ptolemy|Ptolemy's]] second century AD ''[[Tetrabiblos]]'' was translated into Latin by [[Plato Tiburtinus|Plato of Tivoli]] in 1138.<ref name=Campion44/> The [[Dominican order|Dominican]] theologian [[Thomas Aquinas]] followed [[Aristotle]] in proposing that the stars ruled the imperfect 'sublunary' body, while attempting to reconcile astrology with Christianity by stating that God ruled the soul.<ref>{{harvnb|Campion|1982|p=45}}.</ref> The thirteenth century mathematician [[Campanus of Novara]] is said to have devised a system of astrological houses that divides the [[prime vertical]] into 'houses' of equal 30° arcs,<ref name=Campion46>{{harvnb|Campion|1982|p=46}}.</ref> though the system was used earlier in the East.<ref>{{cite book |last=North |first=John David |year=1986 |title=Horoscopes and history |publisher=Warburg Institute |pages=175–176 |chapter=The eastern origins of the Campanus (Prime Vertical) method. Evidence from al-Bīrūnī}}</ref> The thirteenth century [[astronomer]] [[Guido Bonatti]] wrote a textbook, the ''Liber Astronomicus'', a copy of which King [[Henry VII of England]] owned at the end of the fifteenth century.<ref name=Campion46/>

In ''[[Paradiso (Dante)|Paradiso]]'', the final part of the ''[[Divine Comedy]]'', the Italian poet [[Dante Alighieri]] referred "in countless details"<ref name="Durling-1997">{{cite journal |title=Dante's Christian Astrology. by Richard Kay. Review |last=Durling |first=Robert M. |journal=Speculum |date=January 1997 |volume=72 |issue=1 |pages=185–187 |quote=Dante's interest in astrology has only slowly been gaining the attention it deserves. In 1940 Rudolf Palgen published his pioneering eighty-page "Dantes Sternglaube: Beiträge zur Erklärung des Paradiso", which concisely surveyed Dante's treatment of the planets and of the sphere of fixed stars; he demonstrated that it is governed by the astrological concept of the "children of the planets" (in each sphere the pilgrim meets souls whose lives reflected the dominant influence of that planet) and that in countless details the imagery of the Paradiso is derived from the astrological tradition.&nbsp;... Like Palgen, he [Kay] argues (again, in more detail) that Dante adapted traditional astrological views to his own Christian ones; he finds this process intensified in the upper heavens. |jstor=2865916 |doi=10.2307/2865916}}</ref> to the astrological planets, though he adapted traditional astrology to suit his Christian viewpoint,<ref name="Durling-1997"/> for example using astrological thinking in his prophecies of the reform of [[Christendom]].<ref>{{cite journal |title=Dante and the Doctrine of the Great Conjunctions |author=Woody, Kennerly M. |journal=Dante Studies, with the Annual Report of the Dante Society |year=1977 |volume=95 |issue=95 |pages=119–134 |quote=It can hardly be doubted, I think, that Dante was thinking in astrological terms when he made his prophecies. [The attached footnote cites Inferno. I, lOOff.; Purgatorio. xx, 13-15 and xxxiii, 41; Paradiso. xxii, 13-15 and xxvii, 142-148.] |jstor=40166243}}</ref>

[[John Gower]] in the fourteenth century defined astrology as essentially limited to the making of predictions.{{sfn|Wood|1970|p=5}}<ref>{{cite book |url=http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/readfile?fk_files=3197718&pageno=9 |title=Confessio Amantis |author=Gower, John |year=1390 |pages=VII, 670–84 |quote=Assembled with Astronomie / Is ek that ilke Astrologie / The which in juggementz acompteth / Theffect, what every sterre amonteth, / And hou thei causen many a wonder / To tho climatz that stonde hem under. |access-date=2 July 2013 |archive-date=24 September 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924093459/http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/readfile?fk_files=3197718&pageno=9 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Wedel |first=Theodore Otto |chapter=Astrology in Gower and Chaucer |pages=132–156 |title=The Medieval Attitude Toward Astrology: Particularly in England |url=https://archive.org/stream/medivalattitud00wede |url-access=registration |publisher=Yale University Press |year=1920}}</ref> The influence of the stars was in turn divided into natural astrology, with for example effects on tides and the growth of plants, and judicial astrology, with supposedly predictable effects on people.{{sfn|Wood|1970|p=6}}<ref>{{cite book |title=Star-crossed Renaissance |publisher=Duke University Press |author=Allen, Don Cameron |year=1941 |page=148}}</ref> The fourteenth-century sceptic [[Nicole Oresme]] however included astronomy as a part of astrology in his ''Livre de divinacions''.{{sfn|Wood|1970|pp=8–11}} Oresme argued that current approaches to prediction of events such as plagues, wars, and weather were inappropriate, but that such prediction was a valid field of inquiry. However, he attacked the use of astrology to choose the timing of actions (so-called interrogation and election) as wholly false, and rejected the determination of human action by the stars on grounds of free will.{{sfn|Wood|1970|pp=8–11}}<ref>{{cite book |title=Nicole Oresme and the Astrologers: A Study of his Livre de Divinacions |publisher=Harvard University Press; Liverpool University Press |author=Coopland, G. W. |year=1952}}</ref> The friar [[Laurens Pignon]] (c. 1368–1449)<ref>{{cite book |title=Laurens Pignon, O.P.: Confessor of Philip the Good |publisher=Jean Mielot |author=Vanderjagt, A.J. |year=1985 |location=Venlo, The Netherlands}}</ref> similarly rejected all forms of divination and determinism, including by the stars, in his 1411 ''Contre les Devineurs''.<ref>{{cite book |last=Veenstra |first=J. R. |title=Magic and Divination at the Courts of Burgundy and France: Text and Context of Laurens Pignon's 'Contre les Devineurs' (1411) |publisher=Brill  |year=1997 |isbn=978-90-04-10925-4 |pp=5, 32, passim}}</ref> This was in opposition to the tradition carried by the Arab astronomer [[Albumasar]] (787–886) whose ''Introductorium in Astronomiam'' and ''De Magnis Coniunctionibus'' argued the view that both individual actions and larger scale history are determined by the stars.{{sfn|Veenstra|1997|p=184}}

In the late 15th century, [[Giovanni Pico della Mirandola]] forcefully attacked astrology in ''Disputationes contra Astrologos'', arguing that the heavens neither caused, nor heralded earthly events.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Dijksterhuis |first1=Eduard Jan |title=The mechanization of the world picture |date=1986 |publisher=Princeton University Press |location=Princeton, NJ}}</ref> His contemporary, [[Pietro Pomponazzi]], a "rationalistic and critical thinker", was much more sanguine about astrology and critical of Pico's attack.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |last=Martin |first=Craig |title=Pietro Pomponazzi |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pomponazzi/ |encyclopedia=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |year=2021 |publisher=Stanford University |access-date=27 February 2019 |archive-date=17 March 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190317225213/https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pomponazzi/ |url-status=live }}</ref>