Book Review: Astrology in Medieval Ireland and Wales: Fiery Shapes: Celestial Portents and Astrology in Ireland and Wales 700–1700

Abstract

ASTROLOGY IN MEDIEVAL IRELAND AND WALES Fiery Shapes: Celestial Portents and Astrology in Ireland and Wales 700-1 700. Mark Williams (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2010). Pp. 218. £60. ISBN 978-0-19-957184-0.The literature on the history of astrology continues to expand, even if slowly, following Otto Neugebauer's rejection sixty years ago of George Sarton's query as to why any serious scholar would wish to study the past of this wretched subject. The body of reliable literature, though, remains slight (Sartonesque attitudes have proved remarkable tenacious), which is all the more reason to greet Mark Williams's exploration of astrology in what is commonly known as the British 'Celtic fringe' (specifically, Ireland and Wales) in the millennium between the early medieval period and the early modern - approximately 700 to 1700. The earlier date is determined by the beginning of manuscript evidence, the latter by the end of astrology's status as a fit topic for intelligent discourse. The only previous work in this area, Marina Smyth's Understanding the universe in seventh-century Ireland (Boydell Press, 1996), covers only the earlier period, so Williams's book is to be welcomed.The book is divided into several distinct sections, each of which could be considered as a smaller self-contained unit. The five chapters consider celestial portents and apocalypticism in early medieval Ireland; Druidic cloud-divination and portents of Antichrist; the two great literary works, the Welsh Taliesin and the History of Geoffrey of Monmouth; astrology in medieval manuscripts, chiefly from the fifteenth century; and the work of the seventeenth-century Calvinist astrologer, Morgan Llwyd. The narrative connecting the earliest chapter, a discussion of evidence for the existence of Druidic astrology in Ireland, to the latest, is tenuous. In this, the book reflects the difficulties of Williams's material, in that, having taken Celtic astrology as his subject area, the ground vanishes before his eyes. This, of course, is a familiar problem amongst Celtic scholars, some of whom have questioned the entire notion of 'Celtic' as a suitable category. Williams avoids this pitfall by defining his work regionally instead of culturally, not as Celtic astrology but as astrology in Wales and Ireland.In spite of the apparent disjunction between the Irish and Welsh material, Williams finds at least one major linking theme: a focus on astrology as the interpretation of celestial portents, a rationale amply justified by the Star of Bethlehem, rather than as, say, the interplay of natural forces which is favoured within Aristotelian cosmology. …