Andreas Nolthius's Almanach for 1575

For an overview of how every generation attached cultural and political importance to the invention of printing, see Flood John , “On Gutenberg's 600th anniversary: Towards a history of jubilees of printing”, Journal of the Printing Historical Society , n.s., i (2000), 5–36. Strasbourg as the origin of printing is advocated, for example, in Wimpheling Jacob , “Epithoma Germanorum”, in Wittekindus of Korvey, Saxonis rerum ab Henrico et Ottone I Imp. Gestarum Libri III (Basel: J. Hervagius, 1532), chap. 65, p. 375.

Reproduced in Eisermann Falk Honemann Volker , “Die ersten typographischen Einblattdrucke”, Gutenberg Jahrbuch, 2000, 88–131, p. 109, fig. 9.

Incunabular single-sheet prints are listed in Kommission für den der Wiegendrucke Gesamtkatalog , Einblattdrucke des XV Jahrhunderts: Ein bibliographisches Verzeichnis (Halle a. S, 1914). For a good selection of these calendars, see Heitz Paul Haebler Konrad , Hundert Kalendar Inkunabeln (Strasburg, 1905).

Matthäus Klaus , “Zur Geschichte des Nürnberger Kalenderwesens: Die Entwicklung der in Nürnberg gedruckte Jahreskalender in Buchform”, Archiv für Geschichte des Buchwesens, ix (1969), 965–1395, col. 983.

For example, a single-sheet almanac for 1530 (Jaspar Laet the Younger, Almanach and prognostication for 1530 (Antwerp: C. Ruremende, [1529]), British Library, C.18.2.3.(43)) measures 29.3 × 43.5 cm, and Rembert Dodoens's almanac booklet for 1541 ( Dodoens Rembert , Almanack des Jaers ons heeren .xvc en xlj. jaer den meridiaen des Graefschaps en stadt van Mechelen (Antwerp: Jan Cock, [1540]), in several uncut sheets, Cambridge University Library, Sel.7.10), sixteen leaves in 16mo, used paper that amounted to 40 × 29 cm.

For this genre, see Rosenfeld Hellmut , “Kalender, Einblattkalender; Bauernkalender und Bauerenpraktik”, Bayerisches Jahrbuch für Volkskunde , 1962, 7–24, and “Bauernkalender und Wandkalender als literarisches Phaenomenon des 16 Jahrhundert und ihre Verhältnis zur Bauernpraktik”, Gutenberg Jahrbuch, 1963, 88–96.

Incomplete copy, bound with the Almanach in Cambridge University, Syn.8.57.139.

For examples of different formats of calendars, see Bosanquet Eustace F. , English printed almanacks and prognostications: A bibliographical history to the year 1600 (London, 1917). For a social history of calendars, see Capp Bernard , Astrology and the popular press: English almanacs 1500–1800 (London and Boston, 1979).

Nolthius Andreas , Almanach Auff das Jar Christ. 1575 (Erfurt: E. Mechler, 1574), not listed in Verzeichnis der im deutschen Sprachraum erschienenen Drucke des 16. Jahrhunderts (25 vols, Stuttgart, 1983), commonly known as VD16, and now available at http://gateway-bayern.bib-bvb.de/aleph-cgi/bvb_suche?sid=VD16.

A useful introduction to the format of the Book of Hours is Wieck Roger S. (ed.), The book of hours in medieval art and life (London, 1988).

For the calendrical and lunar parameters used in early modern calendars, see Hamel Jürgen Rothenberg Eckeland , “Astronomisch-Kalendarische Tafel für Inkunabel- und Frühdruckforscher”, in Einblattdrucke des 15. und frühen 16. Jahrhunderts: Probleme, Perspektiven, Fallstudien , ed. by Honemann Volker (Tübingen, 2000), 479–94. For calendrical conventions in general, see Blackburn Bonnie Holford-Strevens Leofranc , The Oxford companion to the year: An exploration of calendar customs and time-reckoning (Oxford, 1999). I have found Grotefend Hermann , Taschenbuch der Zeitrechnung des deutschen Mittelalters und der Neuzeit (Hanover, 1898) valuable for locating obscure local saints.

For the astronomical basis of calendars, see Coyne G. V. Hoskin M. A. Pedersen O. (eds), Gregorian Reform of the Calendar: Proceedings of the Vatican Conference to commemorate its 400th anniversary 1582–1982 (Vatican City, 1983).

Another (conventional) cycle used was a fifteen-year cycle known as the “indiction” cycle, called the “Römer Zinszahl”, referring to its original use as a financial or taxation cycle. It also helped to disambiguate years in chronology.

Nolthius , Almanach , [2v]. Indiction number for 1575 is 3.

Grotefend , op. cit. (ref. 11), 43.

For the Alfonsine Tables, I follow Poulle Emmanuel , Les tables Alphonsines avec les canons de Jean de Saxe (Paris, 1984), and Gingerich Owen , “The Alphonsine tables in the age of printing”, in De astronomia Alphonsi Regis , ed. by Comes M. Aguilar R. Puig Samsó J. (Barcelona, 1987), 89–95.

Dobrzycki Jerzy , “The tabulae resolutae”, in De astronomia Alphonsi Regis , ed. by Comes Aguilar Puig Samsó (ref. 16), 71–77. Cf. copies of Campanus of Novara's Theorica planetarum, which included volvelles for each planetary orbit that functioned as “analogue computers” or, at the very least, teaching devices, Pedersen Olaf , “The Corpus astronomicum and the traditions of medieval Latin astronomy”, Studia Copernicana , iii (1975), 57–96, p. 80.

It was customary until then to give planetary positions for every four to ten days, Zinner Ernst , Regiomontanus: His life and work , transl. by Brown Ezra (New York, Oxford and Tokyo, 1990), 117. See Stöffler Johannes Pflaum Jacob , Almanach nova (Ulm: J. Reger, 1499) and Stöffler Johannes , Ephemeridum … a capite anni redemptoris Christi. MD.XXXII. in alios XX proxime subsequentes… ad ueterum imitationem accuratissimo calculo elaboratum (Tübingen: U. Morhard, [1531]) for the years 1506 to 1532.

He added redundant tables to his new tables so that compilers of almanacs familiar with the older Alfonsine tables could perform all the steps in an analogous manner, see Gingerich Owen , “The role of Erasmus Reinhold and the Prutenic tables in the dissemination of Copernican theory”, Studia Copernicana , vi (1973), 43–62.

For the limitation of the Prussian tables, see Gingerich Owen , “The accuracy of ephemerides 1500–1800”, Vistas in astronomy , xxviii (1985), 339–42. For Lutheran interest in Copernican improvements, but not his cosmology, see Westman Robert S. , “The Melanchthon circle, Rheticus, and the Wittenberg interpretation of the Copernican theory”, Isis , lxvi (1975), 164–93; Kusukawa Sachiko , The transformation of natural philosophy: The case of Philip Melanchthon (Cambridge, 1995), 171–3.

For the extent to which the Alfonsine Tables were used to calculate calendrical parameters, see Kremer R. , The practice of Alfonsine astronomy in the fifteenth century: A survey of incunable calendars and almanacs, forthcoming.

North John D. , “The reluctant revolutionaries: Astronomy after Copernicus”, Studia Copernicana, iii (1975), 169–84.

Nolthius , Practica (1574), [Aiv]v.

Methuen Charlotte , “Maestlin's teaching of Copernicus: The evidence of his university textbook and disputations”, Isis, lxxxvii (1996), 230–47, p. 234.

Kremer Richard (personal communication) confirms that Nolthius's Almanach for 1575 did indeed use the Prussian tables.

In 1587, Nolthius wrote to Johannes Hennichius from Einbeck: Coler Jacob (ed.), Epistolarum libellus (Frankfurt a. M.: J. Feyerabendt, 1587), 29–30. For Nolthius's publications, see ref. 44.

Sudhoff Karl , “Lasstafelkunst in Drucken des 15. Jahrhunderts”, Archiv für Geschichte der Medizin, i (1908), 219–88, p. 238.

Sudhoff , op. cit. (ref. 27), 238–40.

Perkins William , Foure great lyers, striuing who shall win the siluer whetstone Also, a resolution to the countri-man, prouing is vtterly vnlawfull to buye or vse our yeerly prognostications (London: R. Walde-Grave, 1583); the four almanacs are identified as by Buckminster, Frende, Twyne and Dade in Bosanquet, op. cit. (ref. 7), 49.

Heitz Haebler , op. cit. (ref. 3), 12.

A German almanac for 1481, British Library, IC.5903; for Hord , see also Sudhoff , op. cit. (ref. 27), 237.

Heitz Haebler , op. cit. (ref. 3), no. 62.

Sudhoff , op. cit. (ref. 27), 271; Schottenloher Karl , “Dr Balthasar Mansfeld, ein Münchener Arzt des 15 Jahrhunderts”, Das Bayerland, xxv (1913), 128–9.

Sudhoff , op. cit. (ref. 27), 258.

German almanac for 1514, British Library, C.18 e.3.(33). Faber became Doctor of Medicine on 13 June 1497, Wickersheimer Ernest , “La prenostication nouvelle pour 1504 de Bernard de la Forest et la Grant Prenostication nouvelle pour 1515 de Wenceslas Fabri”, Bibliothèque d'humanisme et Renaissance , xvii (1955), 394–404, p. 401.

German almanac for 1521, British Library, C.18.e.3.(29).

Matthäus , op. cit. (ref. 4), col. 1014.

Laet Alfonsus , Almanach for 1548 (London: R. Jugge, [1547]). British Library, C.18.e.3.(44). For the Laet family's impact on English almanacs, see Bosanquet, op. cit. (ref. 7), 18–29.

Dryander Johannes , German almanac for 1538 ([Marburg], Hans Faust, [1537]), British Library, C.18.e.3.(30).

Strauss Walter , The German single-leaf woodcut 1550–1600: A pictorial catalogue (3 vols, New York, 1975), iii, 888–9.

Normally, the professional qualification is some type of physician, but for an almanac by a surgeon, see Bosanquet , op. cit. (ref. 7), 25.

Kremer , The practice of Alfonsine astronomy (ref. 21).

For Anton Sorg's unauthorised use of Joss Hord's name, see Sudhoff , op. cit. (ref. 26), 247. For Brunfels, see Chapman Allan , “Astrological medicine”, in Health, medicine and mortality in the sixteenth century , ed. by Webster Charles (Cambridge, 1979), 275–300, p. 277.

According to VD16 (ref. 9), Nolthius published the Observatio und Beschreibung des Newen Cometen (Erfurt: E. Melcher, 1573), Observatio und Beschreibung des Newen Cometen (Erfurt: G. Baumann, 1578), a Schreibkalender for 1580 (Erfurt: G. Baumann, 1579), Practica for the years 1579 and 1581, all printed the previous year by G. Baumann, and a Practica for 1582, without information on the printer.

Sudhoff , op. cit. (ref. 27), 224–5. For an overview of humoral medicine, Siraisi Nancy , Late medieval and early Renaissance medicine (Chicago, 1990).

Sudhoff , op. cit. (ref. 27), 225.

“Sabbato et dominica post Dionisii bona pro iuvenili et virili melancolico preter tibias/vz medicina in omnibus.” Heitz Haebler , op. cit. (ref. 3), no. 6.

“An Samstag und Sontag nach dionisii gut den iungen an die shinbein.” Heitz Haebler , op. cit. (ref. 3), no. 5.

Sudhoff , op. cit. (ref. 27), 265. Different complexions were distinguished in a German calendar for 1526 with “c” for cholerics, “f” for phlegmatics, “m” for melancholics, German almanac for 1526 (fragment), British Library C.18.e.3(37).

Hoffmann L. , “Almanache des 15 und 16 Jahrhunderts und ihre Käufer”, Beiträge zur Inkunabelkunde, 3rd ser., viii (1983), 130–43, pp. 131–4.

Matthäus , op. cit. (ref. 4), col. 982.

Sudhoff , op. cit. (ref. 27), 240–1, 254–5.

For depictions of blood-letting, cupping at a bath, and taking medicinal drinks, see the scenes represented at the bottom of almanacs, Heitz Haebler , op. cit. (ref. 3), nos. 77 and 82, Sudhoff, op. cit. (ref. 27), 273.

Wehrli Gustav Adolf , Die Bader, Barbiere und Wundärtze im alten Zürich (Zürich, 1927), 9–13 (‘dry’ baths used a combination of steam and herbs, and a bundle of birch or oak branches with leaves was used to stroke the body to cause perspiration). Himmelsbach Iso , ‘Von wegen der Badstuben…’: Zur Geschicht des Freiburger Badewesens von 1300 bis 1800 (Freiburg i. Br., 2000), 30–2. For the social history of the bath owners and barbers working at the baths in Vienna, see Maurer Rudolf , Baden, Schröpfen, Amputieren: Die Geschichte der Baden in Baden bei Wien (Vienna, 2004).

Müller-Jahncke Wolf-Dieter , “Medizin und Pharmazie in Almanachen und Kalendern der frühen Neuzeit”, in Telle Joachim Hickel Erika (eds), Pharmazie und der gemeine Mann: Hausarznei und Apotheke in der frühen Neuzeit (Weinheim, 1988), 35–42. Siraisi , op. cit. (ref. 45), 146–7.

Thorndike Lynn , A history of magic and experimental science (8 vols, New York and London, 1923–58), iv, 139–40. Cf. also the crosses and half-crosses in Jaspar Laet's almanac for 1510, Bosanquet , op. cit. (ref. 7), 146, fig. XXII.

The earliest almanac of this kind that I have seen is the almanac for 1509, printed in Nuremberg by Huber Wolf and compiled by Tanstetter Georg (1482–1535). Geisberg Max , The German single-sheet woodcut: 1500–1550 , ed. by Strauss Walter L. (4 vols, New York, 1974), iii, 833, no. G889. For Tannstetter as a compiler of calendars, see Graf-Stuhlhofer Franz , Humanismus zwischen Hof und Universität: Georg Tantstetter (Collimitius) und sein wissenschaftliches Umfeld im Wien des frühen 16 Jahrhunderts (Vienna, 1996), 140–2.

Laet Jaspar , the Younger, Almanach and prognostication for 1530 (Antwerp: C. Ruremende, 1529), British Library, C.18 e.3 (43).

Rosenfeld , “Bauernkalender und Wandkalender” (ref. 5), 16; Matthäus, op. cit. (ref. 3), col. 997.

For this genre, see ref. 6.

For the cyphers used for numbers, see Sorbello Alessandro “Un calendario xilografato per l'anno 1531 (Ulm, Matthias Hoffischer)”, Gutenberg Jahrbuch, 1998, 154–64. These conventions, of course, date back to the conventions in perpetual calendars. See also Bosanquet, op. cit. (ref. 7), figs II and III.

For Eber, see Thüringer W. , “Paul Eber (1511–1569): Melanchthons Physik und seine Stellung zu Copernicus”, in Melanchthon in seinen Schuelern, ed. by Scheible Heinz (Wiesbaden, 1997), 185–321.

Eber Paul , Calendarium historicum (Wittenberg: Johannes Crato, 1573), 14. For the uses of astronomy in chronology, see Grafton Anthony , Joseph Scaliger: A study in the history of classical scholarship (2 vols, Oxford, 1983–93), ii, 459–88.

Eber Paul , Calendarium historicum (Wittenberg: Johannes Crato, 1573), 136. For the reception of the Attic calendar, see Grafton Anthony Swerdlow Noel M. , “Calendar dates and ominous dates in ancient historiography”, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes , li (1988), 14–42.

For instance, Eber Paul , Calendarium historicum (Wittenberg: haer. J. Cratonis, 1579), Trinity College Library, Cambridge, U.13.8.

Matthäus , op. cit. (ref. 4), col. 999; Bosanquet, op. cit. (ref. 7), 7; Capp, op. cit. (ref. 7), 30.

“Postremo unusquisque suum et suorum domesticorum diem natalem, et alios dies, insignitos aliquibus in vita casibus, Calendario cum fructu inscribet.” Eber , op. cit. (ref. 63), 18.

For Luther's position on images, see now Koerner J. L. , The reformation of the image (London, 2003); for Luther's use of images, see Scribner R. W. , For the sake of simple folk: Popular propaganda for the German Reformation (Cambridge, 1981); for Lutheran grapho-relics, see Rublack U. , Reformation Europe (Cambridge, 2005), 146–69; for Calvinists' attitudes towards the visual arts, see Finney P. C. (ed.), Seeing beyond the word: Visual arts and the Calvinist tradition (Grand Rapids, 1999).

Here, I follow the insights in Kolb Robert , For all the saints: Changing perceptions of martyrdom and sainthood in the Lutheran Reformation (Macon, CA, 1987), and “Festival of the saints in late Reformation Lutheran preaching”, The historian, lii (1990), 613–26.

Kolb , All the saints (ref. 69), 27–33.

See for example, Schoenfeld Victorinus , Almanach auff das 1575 Jahr (Wittenberg: s.p., [1574]), Cambridge University Library, Syn.8.57.139(4), which commemorates Lutheran events.

Neue Deutsche Biographie (23 vols, Berlin, 1953–), ix, 540–1.

For a cultural history of time, see Borst A. , The ordering of time: From the ancient computus to the modern computer (Cambridge, 1993), and for the ritual calendar, see Muir E. , Ritual in early modern Europe (Cambridge, 1997), 55–80.

Westman Robert S. , “Copernicus and the prognosticators: The Bologna period, 1496–1500”, Universitas, December 1993, 1–5, p. 2.

Jean Avis produced almanacs for 40 years in the fifteenth century for the faculty of medicine. Thorndike , op. cit. (ref. 56), iv, 141–2.

“Instructio modica ne vulgus secundum generales minutionum tabulas absque consilio periti medici phlebothomiam faciat.” The full text is transcribed in Sudhoff , op. cit. (ref. 27), 283–7.

Hoffmann , op. cit. (ref. 50), 138–9; Kolb W. , Geschichte des anatomischen Unterrichts an der Universität zu Basel, 1460–1900 (Basel, 1951), 8–9.

Hoffmann , op. cit. (ref. 50), 139.

Stehlin Karl , “Regesten zur Geschichte des Buchdrucks 1501–1520: Aus den Basler Archiven”, Archiv für Geschichte des Deutschen Buchhandels, xiv (1891), 10–98, pp. 86–7.

Hoffmann , op. cit. (ref. 50), 139.

Matthäus , op. cit. (ref. 4), col. 1017.

Matthäus , op. cit. (ref. 4), col. 1020. See also Schöner Johannes , Tabulae astronomicae, quas vulgo, quia omni difficultate et obscuritate carent resolutas vocant (Nuremberg, 1536), in which he offered easy rules and tables for mathematical and astrological calculations necessary for compiling almanacs.

Matthäus , op. cit. (ref. 4), col. 1021.

For the relatively small number of university-educated physicians in relation to a variety of medical practitioners and healers of the period, see the examples of London and Norwich in Pelling M. Webster C. , “Medical practitioners”, in Health, medicine and mortality in the sixteenth century, ed. by Webster Charles (Cambridge, 1979), 165–235.

Hoffmann , op. cit. (ref. 50), 141.

Hoffmann , op. cit. (ref. 50), 141–2; Schottenloher Karl , Das Regensburger Buchgewerbe im 15 and 16 Jahrhunderts (Mainz, 1920), 118–19.

Hoffmann , op. cit. (ref. 50), 141.

Strauss Gerald , Nuremberg in the sixteenth century (New York, London and Sydney, 1966), 58–9.

For coinage and wages in Nuremberg, see Strauss , op. cit. (ref. 88), 204–5. Cf. Schmitz W. , Die Kölner Einblattdrucke des 15 Jahrhunderts (Cologne, 1979), 65, where a fifteenth-century single-sheet print (for government mandates) would have cost 1 d.

For the price of broadsides, I have used the calculation in Weber Bruno , Wunderzeichen und Winkeldrucker 1543–1586: Einblattdrucke aus der Sammlung Wikiana in der Zentralbibliothek Zürich (2 vols, Zurich, 1972), i, 30.

For the cost of a bath at Freiburg i. Br., see Himmelsbach , op. cit. (ref. 54), 32.

Madan Falconer , “Day-book of John Dorne, Bookseller in Oxford, A.D. 1520”, in Fletcher Charles R. L. (ed.), Collectanea I. First series (Oxford, 1885), 71–177, pp. 116, 133.

Madan , op. cit. (ref. 92), 80, 96.

Leedham-Green Elisabeth S. , Books in Cambridge inventories: Book-lists from the Vice-Chancellor's court probate inventories in the Tudor and Stuart periods (2 vols, Cambridge, 1986), i, 335, no. 364. See also a bill for 5 dozen “Almanacks” for 6 shillings, issued by a London booksller in 1583, Robert Jahn, “Letters and booklists of Thomas Chard (or Chare) of London, 1583–4”, The library, 4th ser., vi (1923), 219–37, p. 221.

Rogers Arthur G. L. Rogers James E. T. , A history of agriculture and prices in England from the year after the Oxford Parliament (1259) to the commencement of the Continental War (1793) (8 vols, Oxford, 1866–1902), iii, 623, 642.

Studio of Pieter Brueghel II, “Der Bauernadvocat” (1620), Ertz Klaus Nitz-Ertz Christa , Pieter Breughel der Jüngere — Jan Brueghel der Ältere: Flämische Malerei um 1600: Tradition und Fortschritt (exhibition catalogue) (Lingen, Luca and Essen, 1997), no. 137, pp. 404–5; Bosse Abraham , “L'étude du procureur” (1633); Maxime Préaud, Les effets du soleil: Almanacs du régime de Louis XIV (Paris, 1995), 26, fig. II.

First noted in Matthäus , op. cit. (ref. 4), col. 992.

Erastus Thomas , De astrologia divinatrice (Basel: A. Perna, 1580), 1.

See the example of a manual of household regimen which refers the readers to almanacs for the days to take purgatives: “The best tyme of purgacions is the spring tyme, as the docters doth affirme: The apt daies et signes are commonly knowen in the English Almanacks, calculated into English.” Bullein William , A newe booke entituled the gouernement of healthe (London: John Day, 1558), [sig. xxxr], misnumbered as sig. xxxiir, also noted in Chapman, op. cit. (ref. 43), 297. The article by Richard L. Kremer on “Experimenting with paper instruments in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century astronomy: Computing syzygies with isotemporal lines and salt dishes” will be published in our May issue.