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16th – 17th century · Nuremberg, Paris, London

Renaissance & early modern

Writes in the vernacular for working practitioners, with case material and an eye on what actually happened. The first tradition to argue in public about whether its own rules hold up.

Who wrote it down

The authors are long out of copyright. Almost every English text of them is not — a modern translation is a living work of scholarship owned by its translator. So Jade paraphrases and names the chapter, and quotes directly only where an English text is itself in the public domain. Two of the nineteen sources are.

  • Jean-Baptiste Morin

    1583 – 1656

    Astrologia Gallica · Latin

    Tried to rebuild astrology from first principles, and threw out most of the received rules on the way — the most sceptical major author in the corpus.

    paraphrase only

  • William Lilly

    1602 – 1681

    Christian Astrology · English

    Written in English for English practitioners, with the reasoning shown. The one major classical text a modern reader can simply read.

    quotable in English

What each planet meant

Three answers for each: what this tradition took the planet to be, what it takes the planet to do, and what it makes of somebody born with it strongly placed. The third is the one that differs most between traditions, and the one a reading is built from.

  • Sun

    is
    Lilly gives the Sun rule over kings, princes and men of eminence, and over gold, and reads it for the native’s own honour.
    does
    Raises, and burns what stands too near.
    in a nativity
    Lilly reads the Sun as honour — what somebody will not do for money. Afflicted, he is clear they are no less proud, merely proud about the wrong things.

  • Moon

    is
    The significatrix of the querent in most questions, and the planet Lilly watches for whether a matter will come to anything at all.
    does
    Applies to the next planet, and that application is the answer.
    in a nativity
    Lilly gives the Moon the messenger’s role: it reports how a matter is actually proceeding as against how it was meant to. In a nativity that is the standing gap between somebody’s plan and their week.

  • Saturn

    is
    Lilly’s Saturn is grave, patient, laborious and suspicious; he gives it the deep places, the old professions, and everything done slowly.
    does
    Restrains, and rewards only what is still there afterwards.
    in a nativity
    Lilly’s Saturn is a particular kind of person and a particular kind of delay. In a nativity it marks the part of a life that will not be hurried, and the useful thing is to find out which part early.

  • Jupiter

    is
    The greater fortune; Lilly’s Jupiter is temperate, honest and expansive, and he associates it with judges, scholars and merchants of standing.
    does
    Favours, and overstates.
    in a nativity
    The greater fortune, and Lilly’s version is social: Jupiter is who will vouch for you. A strong one is a life with people in it who pick up the phone.

  • Mars

    is
    Lilly’s Mars is a specific kind of person — quarrelsome, fearless, and useful — as much as it is a force.
    does
    Provokes, and will not be managed by being ignored.
    in a nativity
    The lesser infortune, and Lilly is precise that its harm is nearly always self-inflicted rather than arriving from outside. Well placed it is the surgeon; badly placed, the same decisiveness a beat too early.

  • Venus

    is
    Lilly reads Venus for music, for pleasure, for reconciliation, and for the people who make their living from any of them.
    does
    Pleases, and so gets its way without argument.
    in a nativity
    Read for taste and for company — the room somebody is comfortable in. The strained version keeps walking into rooms they are not comfortable in, and staying.

  • Mercury

    is
    Lilly’s Mercury is the man of business — subtle, quick, and entirely dependent on the company he keeps.
    does
    Adapts, faster than the situation changes.
    in a nativity
    Lilly is more interested in Mercury’s honesty than its cleverness — whether an account of a thing matches the thing. Strong, somebody is exact; strained, they are persuasive, which is a different faculty entirely.

No entry here for Rāhu and Ketu. The lunar nodes are central to Jyotiṣa and present in the Arabic material, and the Greek and Latin traditions have no developed doctrine of them — so Jade prints nothing rather than inventing one.