Heymandus de Veteri Busco, Ars computistica, with astrological and divinatory material

item

Galleries and Reading Room

Café

Shop

Library

Our galleries are quietest on weekdays and weekend mornings. At busy times, particularly on Saturdays, you may need to queue for our temporary exhibitions.

We’re undertaking some research with website visitors to learn more about how people find access-related information provided by museums. This survey shouldn't take longer than 10 minutes to complete. Thank you for your time!

Help us organize our website content.

Heymandus de Veteri Busco, Ars computistica, with astrological and divinatory material
Written in a small rounded gothic hand, with contractions, 40 lines to a page. Ornamental initial A on f. 1r in blue and red, with marginal decorations; other capitals and paragraph marks in red. 
Illustrated with 28 large and small diagrams and figures, some coloured, others in red and black, including 'Circulus lunaris' f. 3v, 'Nomina mensium' f. 7r, Dominical Table f. 9v, Golden Numbers, etc. f. 14v, Eclipses ff. 18r-v, Nine Spheres f. 19r, Astrological Man f. 22r, Zodiacal Table f. 22v, Ptolomaic World Map f. 24v, 'Rota' f. 28r.

Contents

1. ff. 1r-23v Heymandus de Veteri Busco, Ars computistica, in verse with a prose commentary

f. 1r [Prologue] Ad omnipotentis dei laudem ad nouellorum clericulorum aliquem profecturum in presenti tractaculo coadiutorem deo altissimo traditura ars computistica metrica et per figuras cum declaratione prosayca modo perfacile ... f. 1v [text begins] Circulus solaris annos tenet octo viginti circulus lunaris decem tenet atque nouenos. Hic est pars executiuua huius opusculi ... f. 23v ... habita enim declaratione de ortu et occasione solis simul occidit seu ad occasum tendit presens opusculum ad honorem veri solis iusticie per dominum nostrum qui sit benedictus in secula seculorum Amen. explicit. Finitus anno domini M°CCCC°lxxxviii° mense decembris viii per me heymandum de veteri busco explicit feliciter.

2. ff. 23v-24v Cisio Ianus

f. 23v Cisio ianus ephi sibi vendicat ... f. 24v Grecus ab indictione thomas nath stef Jo puthone sil.

3. f. 24v Descripcio mundi

A T-O map with astrological data, surrounded by the names of the signs of the Zodiac of and the winds.

4. ff. 25r-26r Onomantic section, including the Sphere of Pythagoras

Seven round onomantic diagrams with accompanying texts

f. 25r: the first diagram is to determine whether a pregnant woman will bear a male or female child; the second the sign in which the moon resides on a particular day; the third an individual's natal planet; the fourth the birth sign of an individual. There are two accompanying texts:

Text 1 incipit: 'Si vis scire quod mulier paritura ...'

Text 2 incipit: 'Si vis scire signum lune ...'

f. 25v Two Sphere of Pythagoras diagrams with accompanying texts

Text 1 incipit: 'Ecce Spera Platonice vita et morte ...'

Text 2 incipit: 'Non mors et vita ...'

This is a very common onomancy (i.e. divination by the numbers that correlate to the letters of an individual's name) for predicting whether a sick person will live or die, the outcome of a duel or battle, or anything else requiring a binary yes/no answer. To operate it one takes the name of the person in question, then the numbers that correspond to the letters of their name, and adds these numbers into a total. One adds the number of the day of the moon on which they first fell sick, and the number corresponding to the planetary weekday. This grand total is divided by 30. If the remainder is found in the top of the 'Sphere' diagram the patient will live, if not, they will die. See e.g. Linda Ehrsam Voigts, 'The Latin and Middle English Prose Texts on the Sphere of Life and Death in Harley 3719', The Chaucer Review 21.2 (1986), 291-305.

f. 25v An astrological-onomantic diagram, and a diagram of planetary weekdays

f. 26r Astrological-onomantic diagram with accompanying text

Incipit: Nota an languida convalescet ...'

ff. 26v-28v Various astrological tables, texts and diagrams

Wellcome uses cookies.

Heymandus de Veteri Busco, Ars computistica, with astrological and divinatory material

Licence and re-use

Contents