Abstract
In the last two decades, studies in early modern English almanacs have intensified. Since Bernard Capp’s magisterial English Almanacs 1500–1700: Astrology and the Popular Press (London, 1979), researchers in various fields have slowly begun to grasp the importance of this genre in tracing the development of almost every aspect of the nation’s life in the 16th and 17th centuries. Yet, almanacs are often dispersed, fragmentary, barely legible from microfilms, or simply enigmatic to those less versed in the astrology and astronomy of the period.
In Astrology, Almanacs, and the Early Modern English Calendar, Jensen aptly recognizes this common confusion among early modernists when they approach almanacs. Simultaneously, following in Capp’s footsteps, she notices the abundance of information this type of publication contained, which both reflected and influenced life in early modern England and further triggered other cultural production at the time. Recognition of this mutual dependence is perhaps not original, but it is still worth remembering and collecting such information. Furthermore, Jensen wants not only to present the organization of early modern life in England according to calendars but also to show a number of tropes presented by almanac compilers which resourced the common imagination, especially in literature and visual arts.
The book is well-researched and informative. It consists of a Foreword (by Alison A. Chapman), Introduction, three main Parts, and a Bibliography. The lack of a conclusion is problematic, as it unnecessarily lowers the quality of the first two parts of the book where Jensen tries to give a rationale for specific decisions the compilers made. The volume is richly illustrated, both with black-and-white images and color plates, and elegantly published. Jensen emphasized that the book is primarily designed as a reference guide for scholars and students of early modern England less familiar with this once popular genre. Therefore, in Jensen’s own words, the book’s character is predominantly “explanatory” rather than “argumentative.”
There are well-informed sections on previous and current research on almanacs and calendars, perhaps to a lesser extent on astrology. Jensen understands the relationship between astronomy and “reformed astrology” (p. 17) in the period, and she repeats Capp’s claim that the growing popularity of almanacs was entwined with the popularity of new theories, boosted—among others—by the influences from the Continent. She highlights that the astronomical content in almanacs was usually presented “in astrological terms” (p. 24) and builds heavily on previous research on medieval calendar tradition and quotidian life in early modern England, including devotional and liturgical aspects. However, she is not concerned with the perception of time or timekeeping itself—a topic lavishly documented, for example, in Paul Glennie and Nigel Thrift’s Shaping the Day. A History of Timekeeping in England and Wales 1300–1800 (Oxford, 2009)—but in the conceptualization and visualization of time throughout early modern calendar publications.
Part I explains the origins of the early modern calendar tradition in England, delving deep into the medieval history of the genre and the functions the calendars, in their various forms, performed. Jensen accurately relates calendar development to religious tensions, marking both Catholic residual content and changes brought by the Reformation.
Part II is a manual on how to read different parts of the almanac—the almanac proper, the calendar, and the prognostication—with explanations of its consecutive sections. Jensen includes here a valuable analysis of typographical and material features. She notices both the elements which were shared and expected (e.g. chronological tables or the zodiac man) and idiosyncrasies, such as the letters to readers in the prognostication part or the variety of planetary and star tables, for example, Arthur Hopton’s “A Table of the Semidiurnall arke of the 12.Signes” (1613) or Abraham Grammar’s “A Table of the Houre and Minute of the Moones coming to the South every day this year” (1628).
Although visually rich and well-structured, Part III is the least argumentative. Its aim is to identify “standard motifs of seasonal imagery in order to provide a resource for exploring the more complex re-imaginings of this material in the aesthetically ambitious literature of the period” (p. 141) and Jensen certainly makes room for such a discussion. She also reviews Flemish and Dutch iconography in the woodcuts used to present the seasons, months, and days of the week in English almanacs and shows how this imagery circulated elsewhere, for example, in the Hatfield House Four Seasons tapestries (although she neglects Michael Bath’s 2014 study on the subject).
Jensen’s tracing of similar pictorial content in almanacs is alluring but burdened with a cognitive trap. The examples often range from early 16th to mid-17th century in one section. Yet one must be careful because such layouts sometimes show continuity, sometimes development of a trope or an appropriation—like the representation of Janus (p. 185)—or idiosyncrasy. At times, Jensen zooms in on particular almanacs (Cunningham, Dade, Frende); at others, she proposes broad generalizations, ignoring the many exceptions that always populate this genre. Nevertheless, Jensen joins the ongoing debate on the history of scientific illustration, unconsciously asking to what extent we can identify the continuity of some visual traditions and whether we can indicate liminal points of some representations.
The importance of book trade and print history in the study of almanacs is nicely emphasized. Jensen offers examples of how the compilers included information on the times of “full sea at London Bridge” (Bretnor, 1612), the tables of high tides, or distances between the cities (Bretnor, 1610). She distinguishes this type of utilitarian knowledge (including measurement of goods, currency, and advice on bookkeeping) from the presence of new astronomical and astrological theories in almanacs, which she rather grandiosely calls “higher-level academic discourse” (p. 132). Such information was usually digested and presented in simplified form, although for a casual reader today it might seem enigmatic. Furthermore, self-advertisement was an important aspect of Jacobean almanacs, which increased the visibility of instrument-makers and other mathematical practitioners at the time. By observing such details, Jensen—not entirely deliberately—shows the association between the almanacs and the economic growth of cities in the 17th century.
Selfishly, I would have loved to see Jensen present more woodcuts or engravings pertaining to astronomical phenomena, such as the eclipses or lunar phases. At times, reproduced almanac pages could be larger, especially when used to support specific claims, for example, Thomas Hill’s 1572 single sheet almanac on Plate 3. The symbols for good and bad days, to which Jensen refers in the text (p. 115), are illegible in the facsimile. Jensen’s knowledge of astronomical and astrological nomenclature is good enough to suspect that her calling Copernican and Reinholdian tables “astrological” (p. 120)—or giving “Reinhold” as “Rheinhold” (also in the Index)—was a slip of the pen. On the whole, the publication’s shortcomings are few and do not overshadow an overall adequate presentation of the topic.
This book delivers what it promises, albeit whetting readers’ appetites for a more profound analysis of the topic. To this reader, the book’s greatest value lies in its incorporation of the latest historiography of English almanacs and calendars and illustration of directions in which new studies on this prolific genre might go, including book and print history, social history, and digital humanities. Undoubtedly, increasing the visibility of almanac contents in electronic databases will most certainly enrich our perception of cultural output in the early modern period. The transmission of artistic and scientific production between England and the Continent, for example, would certainly be worth further pursuing.