A Kingdom of Stargazers: Astrology and Authority in the Late Medieval Crown of Aragon by Michael A. Ryan (review)

The present book pretends to develop a well-known topic: the interest in astrology and other techniques of prediction in the Crown of Aragon during the reigns of Pere el Ceremoniós (r. 1336–87) and Joan el Caçador (r. 1367–96), and the ambiguous attitude of Joan’s brother, King Martí (1399–1410), in relation to those subjects. It is obvious that political power has always been interested in obtaining information about future events, and the author exemplifies this idea in his epilogue (pp. 180–81), when he mentions the interest of President Ronald Reagan and his wife, Nancy, in astrology; the same could be said about other political leaders of the twentieth century.

The problem is that the subject, as dealt with by the author, becomes too large. Michael A. Ryan deals, actually, not only with astrology but also with other techniques for divination, including prophecy and visions, and with the whole of the occult sciences, including several kinds of magical practice and alchemy. On the other hand, the sources used are not technical. He says, “the documents I rely upon for this study (theological studies, literary works, archival documents, and occult writings) . . .” (p. 16). It is discouraging that his references to the astrological activities under Pere el Ceremoniós are limited to his mentions about the astrologers at the service of the king such as Bertomeu de Tresbéns, Dalmau ses Planes, and Pere Gilbert, based mainly on archival documents edited by Rubió i Lluch in 1908–21. He does not refer to the Jewish astronomer Jacob Corsuno, the real author of the Tables of Barcelona, and he does not analyze the aforementioned tables (the king’s prologue states clearly that the purpose of the tables was astrological) or, for example, Bertomeu de Tresbéns’s Tractat d’Astrologia and the collection of astrological texts called Tencar, edited by Susanna Vela (Andorra, 1997). The author’s reference to the Tables of Barcelona, which he considers to derive from the Alfonsine Tables, shows that he is unaware of the “recent” (since 1996) bibliography on the subject by José Chabás. Reading the volume edited by Juan Vernet Ginés and Ramon Parés i Farràs—La Ciència en la Història dels Països Catalans, Vol. I: Dels àrabs al Renaixement (València-Barcelona, 2004)—would have saved the author from several shortcomings.

Another problem is that, in a book of some 230 pages, the author begins to deal with the subject proper only on page 105. Before that, there is a long series of introductory chapters in which it is stated that the interest in the occult sciences in the later Middle Ages was caused by the apocalyptic expectations which resulted from the Black Death (1347–50) and the Great Western Schism (1378–1417). The author analyzes the attitudes toward astrology and divination in Western authors that go from St. Augustine to the Franciscan John of Rupescissa (c. 1365), a topic to which he dedicates two whole chapters. In the third chapter (starting on p. 80) he begins to deal with the Iberian Peninsula, and his analysis of the Alfonsine sources is limited to the Partidas and the translation of the Picatrix; he does not mention the Libros del Saber de Astronomía (a collection of sources related mainly to astronomical instruments with an obvious application to astrology) or the two great astrological handbooks (Libro conplido en los iudizios de las estrellas and Libro de las Cruzes). This is remarkable due to the fact that the Alfonsine cultural model was copied by Pere el Ceremoniós. In this chapter it is said that Ptolemy, in his Tetrabiblos, “systematized various astrological theories that incorporated Babylonian, Egyptian and Indian [?] knowledge” (pp. 81–82); and he confuses the poet Ahmad ibn ’Abd Rabbihi (d. 940) with his...