Accounts of the astrological system presented in the Voynich manuscript range from profoundly ignorant to remarkably silly. It is fair to say that the type of people drawn to the study of the work rarely have a background in traditional astrology. On the contrary, throughout their entire education astrology (along with alchemy) have been presented to them as regrettable superstitions from which modern science has saved us.
On the other hand, those Voynicheros who do have a background in and sympathy for astrology are given to ridiculous beliefs and assemblies of nonsense. It is also fair to say that most of the astrologers in the Voynich zone are debilitated by New Age perspectives and mushy ideologies. In the modern era, astrology falls between these two extremes: it's an impoverished protoscience or a laughable pseudoscience. Either way, modern people are not well placed to understand it, and this fact is starkly on display when we watch them trying to understand this aspect of the Voynich.
Accordingly, the simple facts of the astrology in the Voynich manuscript are rarely grasped and appreciated. The problem is that the astrology is not the familiar astrology from the European Middle Ages - just as the herbs depicted in the work are not the familiar herbs of the medieval pharmacopea. Many researchers go looking for what was known and familiar and fail to find what they expect.
Yet the astrology in the work is not especially strange or mysterious, even if it is not the standard system. It is entirely comprehensible. To describe it in a single sentence: it is a stellar astrology with chronometers. This is also to say: it is not a planetary astrology.
The mainstream forms of medieval astrology - extending into medieval herbalism - concern the powers and positions of the seven planets.
(This is the point where the discussion goes immediately pear-shaped. "They didn't know the difference between planets and stars!" protest the scientistic. "And the Sun and Moon are not planets!" At the same time the astrologistic New Agers protest: "Seven planets? What about Uranus, Neptune and Pluto? And Chiron!" ... all unhelpful noise!)
The typical calculations in a traditional astrological chart concern the positions of the planets in the zodiac and in the so-called 'Houses', which is to say in terms of rising, setting and culminating - positions relative to the horizon and the zenith. The strength of the planets is assessed in terms of these positions and in terms of angular relationships between each other.
But this is not the system we find in the Voynich manuscript. Instead, it is an astrology that is focused upon the Sun and the Moon. In the illustrations, at least, there seems to be no account of the other planets. The diagrams and charts concern the cycles of Sun and Moon, Sol and Luna. There is no (obvious) sign of Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.
At the same time, there is a focus upon the zodiac signs, which is to say upon the fixed stars. The manuscript, in fact, gives an account of the degrees of the signs of the zodiac, there being thirty degrees in each: 12 x 30 = 360. This is conspicuously so in the manuscript, and is presented in terms of stellar nymphs as was sometimes done in ancient sources. The underlying idea is that the zodiac consists of 360 fixed stars, thirty in each of the twelve divisions.
It follows then that the herbs depicted in the work are under the rulership of particular fixed stars. In the more common herbalism we would say, for example, that wormwood is under the rulership of the planet Mercury. It is Mercurial in nature. The rose is ruled by Venus. Camomile is ruled by Jupiter. And so on. But that is not what we find in the Voynich manuscript. It is not the planets but certain fixed stars that rule over the herbs and give them their virtues. It is a distinctly stellar star-based astro-herbalism.
Among the seven planets, of course, the Sun and Moon always have a special status in any system. They are referred to as the Two Lights or as the Luminaries, as distinct from the other five planets. But most importantly they are also the two chronometers. These are the two markers of time. Sun and Moon are, after all, the hour hand and minute hand on a clockface.
This is how we find the Sun and Moon being used in the Voynich manuscript: as time-markers, which is to say the codex has calendrical themes. All the planets mark cycles of time, of course, but you don't need Mercury, Venus and the others to calculate the date of Easter. It is a soli-lunar calculation. The Voynich astrology is soli-lunar. Instantly, this tells us that the work concerns the symbolism of light (the Sun and Moon being the Luminaries) and annual cycles and festivals (the Sun and Moon being the Chronometers.)
This is quite different, as I say, to the usual astrological system current in the Middle Ages and evident in a large number of medieval and early modern herbal texts. It is quite different to what we find in Culpepper in early modern England, for example. But it is coherent and not out of place in the totality of traditional astrology.
We might venture to say that it is somewhat exotic in a European setting, but accounts of the symbolic powers of each of the 360 zodiacal degrees were not unknown. They are, though, more typical of eastern astrology, which is to say Graeco-Arabic, Islamo-Persian, Graeco-Egyptian, Chaldeo-Mesopotamean... however one wants to characterize it. The eastern environments - as opposed to Europe - were more conductive to the observation of the fixed stars and there was a body of knowledge concerning the fixed stars in eastern civilizations from early times. It comes into Europe in bits and pieces through encounters with Eastern Orthodoxy and Islam.
What is impressive about the Voynich manuscript is that this somewhat exotic (but not outlandish) astrology - of fixed stars and chronometers - has been assimilated to an indigenous, local, folkish herb tradition. Someone has understood the local herb tradition - the herbal tradition of the mountain Ladin, in my account - through the lens of this astrology, and they have done so to produce an intelligent, coherent synthesis. It is impressive that someone has created a coherent herbalism based not on the planets but on the fixed stars and the Two Lights. (The point of assimilation, by the way, being the nympha.)
Let's clarify it and put it on record; among traditional astrological systems what we see in the Voynich manuscript is categorized as a stellar astrology with chronometers.
R. B.
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