Pisces and Diagram for Friday (left) and Libra and Taurus (right) in an Astronomical Miscellany, shortly after 1464, German. Getty Museum, Ms. Ludwig XII 8 (83.MO.137), fols. 56v-57
As an (elder) Millennial, my generation loves a horoscope – while the generation that followed us, Gen Z, are markedly more sceptical about astrology. Most of my undergraduate students now are Generation Alpha, though, and if the TikToks I see promoted to me are anything to go by, this latest generation is possibly rediscovering astrology alongside plaid and side partings.
While I certainly wouldn’t base my life choices on my horoscope, astrology has a long and illustrious history. In the Middle Ages, it was considered a serious subject of study, and informed political decision making and medical treatment. There’s a good introduction to the topic on the Getty Museum website here.
This week students studying my Medieval World first year module have been looking at medieval belief systems. In class we took a quiz to find out which of the four humours governed us, and I also asked students to write me a medieval horoscope. With their permission, I am sharing a few examples here. The students did a great job capturing the breezy tone of modern horoscopes while incorporating appropriate medieval beliefs about star signs, which influenced decisions about the best time to sow crops, get married and go on journeys, as just a sample of their significance.
Virgo, the virgin: in British Library MS Harley 4940 f. 29v
Advice for a Virgo farmer: For now is time to plant and sow in preparation for autumn harvest- ensuring to nurture these well. It is also a high opportunity to achieve one’s desires, whether it be moving villages to attain the most fruitful crop or indulge in intercourse with a widow (for virgins bear too small offspring). Do not quarrel with neighbouring peasants over land or personal queries (even if they insist you bathe or fashion a new tunic).
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Advice on a king’s birthday: After blowing out the last candles on your cake, you’ll segue from focusing on your royal duties to travelling east. With the energizing Sun, it is time for bloodletting to keep that kingly body healthy. Start all things that last a short time but avoid fighting and holding court days or anything that requires Earth to keep the country ruling supreme. You deserve it, my king!
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Horoscope for a Knight: Aquarius: January 20th-February 18th: It will be neither be looked down upon nor praised for you to wage war with your neighbouring lords and knights, quarrelling over their four-legged possessions for yourself (farm-animals) and making a profit of them. You should not practise the art of using a bow, for no good will come out of it and your newly learnt skill will escape you like a stick flowing down a river. It is important that a suitor be found, for this time of year is ideal for marriages to take place.
All the submitted horoscopes were really fun to read and showed great engagement with the class themes.
Dr Rachel Moss
Senior Lecturer in History
November 26, 2024
LGBQT+ History Month Reading Club: The Searchlight Archive – HISTORY AT NORTHAMPTON
maximios History
The University of Northampton History department is home to the Searchlight Archive, a unique archive collection of material documenting the activities of British and international fascist and racist organisations from the 1930s onwards.
It is one of the most extensive and significant resources of its type in Europe.
Daniel Jones, the Searchlight Collections Officer recommends:
Kelly, Jon, ‘Nicky Crane: The Secret Double Life of a Gay neo-Nazi’, BBC News Magazine (2013)
This BBC News Magazine piece explored the life of Nicky Crane, a neo-Nazi street fighter most closely associated with the White Power music band Skrewdriver.
Crane led a double life, providing security for LGBT+ events in London while being part of far-right organisations that targeted LGBT+ people for hate and violence. His experiences, and his eventual ostracisation from both worlds, show some of the complex intersectionalities that can exist in identities – how people can hold seemingly conflicting identities, and how each identity informs another.
At one time the poster boy of the skinhead Oi! movement, Crane is a tragic figure – rejected by his long-time friends like Skrewdrver lead singer Ian Stuart Donaldson, Crane died of AIDS related diseases in December of 1993.
He features in the 2010 book Children of the Sun by Max Schaefer as a figure of fascination for one of the main characters, James, who is exploring the gay figures with the far right.
The article is very solidly researched, and the way it depicts Crane can cause some real conflict between the oppression Crane himself suffered due to his homosexuality, and the oppression he himself created for others.