The Extract of Various Prophecies

For the booklet of excerpts from Lichtenberger and Grünpeck and other sources known variously as the Auszug etlicher Prophezeiungen, Extract of Various Prophecies, and (inaccurately) as the "Anonymous Practica"/"Anonyme Praktik," whose most thorough previous description is pp. 145-53 in Heike Talkenberger's Sintflut (1990), I have a recently published article that clears up some of the mysteries:

Jonathan Green. “The Extract of Various Prophecies: Apocalypticism and Mass Media in the Early Reformation.” Renaissance and Reformation 40.4 (2017): 15–42.

• The previously unknown source of the foreword is Simon Eyssenmann’s annual astrological prognostication for 1514 (VD16 E 4757).
• The concluding 54 lines of verse are likewise not an original compilation, but appear to be taken from a 108-line poem printed together with an astrological prognostication or calendar for 1508; see Carl Gottfried Scharold, Dr. Martin Luthers Reformation in nächster Beziehung auf das damalige Bisthum Würzburg historisch dargestellt (Würzburg, 1824), 1:64n1, xx–xxiii (appendix item vi). Fragments of both previously unknown sources appear as pastedowns in the same volume (Augsburg, Staats- und Stadtbibliothek 4 Med 1284).
• The extracts from Lichtenberger are most closely connected to an edition published in 1497 by Bartholomaeus Kistler in Augsburg (ISTC il00209000/GW M18245) and another set of extracts published in 1532 (VD16 ZV 11958).
• The Dutch edition dated to 1509 (NB 26021) should be dated to around 1523.
• The decisive actor behind publication of the Extract of Various Prophecies is Hans Stainberger, bookseller of Zwickau, although his personal involvement in composition is unlikely.
• The 14 known editions of 1516-1525 make the Extract of Various Prophecies the most frequently printed prophetic work during that decade.
• The circulation of the Extract of Various Prophecies is associated with several interesting Reformation-era controversies, and illustrates the spread of apocalyptic motifs and the formation of audiences for apocalypticism in Reformation-era Germany.

I sketch out the the relationship between texts and editions as follows (this image does not appear in the published article):

Vanished booklets of the 1560s: a few core samples

When talking about printing, literature, or anything having to do with medieval and early modern texts, it is easy to overlook something that must not be overlooked: how much of what was once written or printed has now vanished. For practicas, annual astrological prognostic booklets, which were by nature ephemeral, we can assume that many editions have left no surviving copies, but pinning down how many or characterizing the relationship of the known to the unknown is tricky.

One source of evidence are book lists that can be compared to known editions. For practicas in the 1560s, we have two interesting sources in practica compilations, one printed in Frankfurt for the year 1565 (VD16 ZV 29072) and the other printed in Basel for 1569 (VD16 P 4544), both of which claim to reprint all the astrologers who have made prognostications for that year.

The first collection, for 1565, includes sections from the practicas of ten astrologers: Johannes Huldrich Ragor, Nikolaus Neodomus, Johannes Hebenstreit, Andreas Rosa, Christoph Statmion, Sebastian Brelochs, Gregor Fabricius, Nicolaus Winckler, Simon Heuring, and Moritz Steinmetz. Of these, nine are known from printed editions of practicas for 1565; only Ragor's is otherwise unknown. (This is an interesting list of astrologers. Six are well known practica authors, while four are sparsely attested: Ragor [otherwise attested only for 1581], Neodomus [attested only for 1565], Sebastian Brelochs [only attested for 1565 and 1568-69, in contrast to his widely published predecessor Anton Brelochs], and Moritz Steinmetz [only attested for 1565]. But the editor also omits a few astrologers with practicas for 1565, including Valentin Engelhart, Georg Holsthen, and the well-known Joachim Heller.) In comparison, VD16 records 16 practica editions from 12 authors, but lacks Johannes Ragor's.

The second collection, for 1569, includes chapters from eight astrologers: Nicolaus Winckler, Johannes Hebenstreit, Victorinus Schönfeld, Simon Heuring, Valentin Butzlin, Erasmus Reinhold, Sebastian Brelochs, and Hieronymus Wilhelm. Again, half of the authors are well known, while the other four are more obscure (Sebastian Brelochs again, Valentin Butzlin, Erasmus Rehinhold, and Hieronymus Wilhelm). The editor again omitted some well-known astrologers with known practicas for 1569, including Georg Caesius, Andreas Rosa, and Christoph Statmion. The included chapters are drawn from four practicas that are unattested in VD16.

So to sum up: The collection for 1565 tells us that VD16 misses 1 out of 13 authors (7.7%). The collection for 1569 tells us that VD16 misses 4 out of 11 authors (36.4%). For both years, VD16 records 23 editions from 14 authors. The two collections suggest that VD16 misses at least 4 out of 18 authors (22.2%). This isn't an answer to the question of missing editions, but it does give us some interesting core samples to think about.

Simon Eyssenmann: bibliography v 0.13

Simon Eyssenmann was a Leipzig professor and author of astrological prognostications following in the footsteps of Wenzel Faber and Conrad Tockler. He is all but forgotten today, but there may be some interesting things going on with his work. So here is the start of a bibliography for him, beginning with his practicas and the few relevant items of secondary literature.

Update 0.13
I've added the one non-practica found in VD16 and the two additional contributions to other works.

Update 0.11: Klaus Graf has come up with many additional links for Eyssenmann over at Archivalia. Otherwise, for now I only have time to add one work to which Eyssenmann was a contributor.

Practicas

1. Practica for 1514. Latin. N.p., n.p. VD16 E 4756.
   Title page only preserved in Zwickau, Ratschulbibliothek.
2. Practica for 1514. German. Augsburg: Johann Schönsperger. VD16 E 4757.
   Copy in Erlangen UB
3. Practica for 1514. Low German. Lübeck: Georg Richolff the Elder. VD16 E 4758.
   Described only in BC 551 A.
4. Practica for 1515. Latin. Leipzig: Wolfgang Stöckel. Not in VD16.
   Wroclaw UB (facsimile)
5. Practica for 1517. Latin. N.p., n.p. VD16 E 4759.
   Title page only preserved in Zwickau, Ratschulbibliothek.
6. Practica for 1516. German. Leipzig: Wolfgang Stöckel. Not in VD16.
   Wroclaw UB (facsimile)
7. Practica for 1516. German. Landshut: Johann Weißenburger. VD16 E 4760.
   If the copy in the British Library is E 4760, then this edition is [8] rather than [4] leaves.
8. Practica for 1516. German. Nuremberg: Jobst Gutknecht. VD16 E 4761.
9. Practica for 1517. German. Leipzig: Wolfgang Stöckel. VD16 E 4762.
   Title page only preserved in Zwickau, Ratschulbibliothek.
10. Practica for 1518. Latin. Leipzig: Jakob Thanner. VD16 ZV 5648.
    Halle ULB (facsimile)
11. Practica for 1518. German. N.p., n.p. VD16 E 4763. 
12. Practica for 1519. German. Leipzig: Wolfgang Stöckel. VD16 E 4764.
    Title page only preserved in Zwickau, Ratschulbibliothek.
13. Practica for 1520. German. Nuremberg: Jobst Gutknecht. VD16 E 4766.
    Munich BSB (facsimile)
14. Practica for 1520. German. Augsburg: Erhard Oeglin. VD16 E 4765.
    Munich BSB (facsimile)

Others: A Latin practica for 1520 listed in WorldCat (link), with the title "Juditium Lipsense ad annum currentem vigesimum supra millesimum quingentesimum," but with no additional information about a printer or location.

Other works

1. Euchiridion Arithmetices. Leipzig: Jakob Thanner, 1511. VD16 E 4755.
   Munich BSB (facsimile) and Leipzig UB. This brief treatise on arithmetic begins with a dedication to Conrad Tockler, another Leipzig academic who published practicas for 1504-1514, whom Eyssenmann describes as his teacher. It closes with two additional texts, addressed to Wolfgang Christophorus Udalriuch, son of Udalrich LIndacher of Leipzig, and Conrad Funck of Leipzig, son of Andreas Funck.

Contributions to additional works

1. Dedication (to Conrad Funck of Leipzig, son of Andreas Funck) in a Latin edition of excerpts from Plutarch's De viris clarissimis liber. Leipzig: Jakob Thanner, 1509. VD16 ZV 12591.
2. Dedication (to "Simperto Widenman de Schretzen") in an edition of Petrus Gaszowiec's Computus novus. Leipzig: Wolfgang Stöckel, 1514. VD16 P 1863.
3. Six lines of Latin verse contributed (along with verses from eighteen other intellectuals) to Hieronymous Dungersheim's Confutatio apologetici cuiusdam sacre scripture falso inscripti ad illustrissimum principem Georgium Saxonie ducem. Leipzig: Wolfgang Stöckel, 1514. VD16 D 2947.
   The Munich BSB copy is from the library of Hartmann Schedel.

Secondary literature

• Eis, Gerhard. "Beiträge zur Spätmittelalterlichen deutschen Prosa aus Handschriften und Frühdrucken." Journal of English and Germanic Philology 52 (1953): 76–89.
• Zoepfl, Friedrich. "Der Mathematiker und Astrologe Simon Eyssenmann aus Dillingen." Jahrbuch des Historischen Vereins Dillingen an der Donau 61/63 (1961 1959): 86–88.

Georg Meder reads Wilhelm Friess

File this under "things I wish I had seen two years ago."

When writing about prophecies, prognostications, or other sixteenth-century booklets, one naturally wonders who the readers were. (That was the question Xenia von Tippelskirch asked of me and Courtney Kneupper in June at the conference in London about "Dietrich von Zengg.") Usually the only evidence is indirect - who is the printer, what audiences does that printer usually serve, what kinds of demands does the text make on the reader.

But sometimes we have the good fortune of finding someone in the sixteenth century who quotes or cites the work in question. Here, for example, is what Georg Meder says about the second prophecy of Wilhelm Friess in Meder's practica for 1583 (VD16 M 1853, fol. c5r):

Halt auch gentzlich darfür / das derselbige ein gewiser vorbot sein / eines schnellen grossen Kriegsvolcks / so vom Nidergang gegen Mitternacht zuziehen werde / da denn andere mehr Bundsverwandten sich versamlet / und dann mit gemeinem hauffen auff die Berg Israel herein fallen werden. Man lese hievon Wilhelmi Frysii Mastricensis weissagung / so ime von einem Angelo, Anno 77. den 24. Aprilis ist eröffnet worden / und albereit vor lengst in Truck ausgangen ist / und halt hiegegen das 39. und 39. Capitel des Propheten Ezechieleis / und denn auch das 19. und 20. Capitel der Offenbarung Joannis des Evangelisten / so wirdt man endlich befinden / was für jammer sich erheben / und wie Gog und Magog mit all seinem anhang sich wider uns versamlen / und letzlichen nach dem Ezechiele / mit allem solchen grossen hauffen Volcks / vom Himel herab sol nidergelegt und ausgetilget werden. Aber wir Teutschen verachten alle solche warnung / glauben weder den Propheten / noch andern Wunderzeichen / so schier alle tag am Himel und auff Erden sich begeben / ja wol auch den Engeln nicht / und solchs am meisten dise / so andere zu bus vermanen solten. Derhalben wir anders nichts / denn endlichen uberfals Gog und magogs zugewarten haben.

From the date that Meder cites, it's clear that he had read one of the Basel editions printed by Samuel Apiarius, or a copy of one of those editions, probably printed in 1577. Prior editions attribute the vision to 1574, and later ones change the month and year.

For an astrologer, Meder strikes an unusually (but hardly unique) apocalyptic tone. This was not a new development for Meder; one finds similar references in his earlier and alter prognostications. Meder's reading of Wilhelm Friess also appears to begin earlier than 1582. He states in his practica for 1580 (VD16 M 1852, fol. c4r):

[Because of various eclipses and comets,] weiß ich anders nichts zu iudicirn, denn was in fertiger Practica vermeldet / nemlich das ein Occidentischer Potentat / mit hülff etzlicher mitternechtigen und Orientischen Monarhen von mitternacht hero ein unzelich Volck zusammen bringen / und auff die berg Israhel herein fallen / und deß heerlager der heiligen umbringen werden. [Read Ezechiel 38-39 and Revelation 18-19; those who cause this bloodbath will have their reward.] Denn was einmal der liebe Gott von diser grossen und letzten Niderlag und feldschlacht (deren gleiche keine von anfang der welt niemals sich begeben hat) durch seine lieben Propheten und Apostel zuvor verkündiget / wirdt zu diser jetzigen Zeit gewißlich erfüllet werden müssen / wie dann hievon auch neulich ein Prophecey außgangen / in Belgico beschehen / hievon genugsame Zeugniß gibt / und wir gewißlich bessers nichts zu erwarten haben.

The combination of ideas and sources in both practicas is nearly identical, so that it seems that the "Belgian prophecy" is none other than that of Wilhelm Friess of Maastricht. In his practica for 1579 (VD16 M 1851, fol. e4v), Meder explicitly identifies the mountain: "auff den Bergen Israhel / das ist / (wie es denn von allen außgelegt wirdt) in Germania."

Georg Meder is another astrologer about whom not much is known. There are eleven known practicas from him, spanning the years 1577-1599. On the title page, he is described as an astronomer and poet in Kitzingen, and his practica for 1578 (VD16 ZV 22615, fol. a3r) gives Mainbernheim, just south of Kitzingen, as his ancestral origin. The dedications of his practicas suggest a long and difficult search for stable patronage. He dedicated his practica for 1578 to Marggrave Georg Friedrich I of Brandenburg-Ansbach, but for 1579 he dedicated his work to the mayor and city council of Rothenburg ob der Tauber, and to the mayor and city council of Kitzingen the year after that. His practica for 1583 was dedicated to the mayor and city council of Windsheim. For 1597, he dedicated his practica to a lesser nobleman, Johann Fuchs von Dornheim, and for 1599, he refers to a lawyer, Johann Büttner, as his lord and patron. One can't escape the impression of a continuous decline in the status of the patrons to which Meder aspired. His location does not change, however. After his practica for 1577 places him in Dettelsbach, the rest of his practicas give his location as Kitzingen. Meder seems to have been a Lutheran of the Philipist variety, with little good to say about Catholics or Calvinists, while also rejecting the followers of Matthias Flacius.

Astrological prognostications and Bildungsniveaulimbo in the sixteenth century

Now that I've had a chance to check about half of the facsimiles that I discovered, have I found anything interesting? Yes, yes I have.

* * *

One of the constitutive features of practicas, or annual astrological prognostic booklets, is how they identify themselves as a reduced version of some other text. The genre as a whole defines itself as the specific and concrete application of theoretical texts, but practicas also describe themselves as reduced versions of other works. Johannes von Glogau, the first German astrologer whose practicas appeared in print, regularly referred the readers of his Latin prognosticastions to another work for the complete astrological argumentation, usually with a phrase such as Horum omnium cause patent in iudicio maiori. Georg Tannstetter made reference to such a work as late as 1523, but by then most astrologers had switched to referring readers not from a smaller to a larger work, but from a German to a Latin work for the complete astrological reasoning. Interestingly, these longer works with more extensive reasoning do not seem to have been published, and one may wonder if they actually existed. While there are many practicas that were published in both Latin and German translation, the astrological argumentation is usually similar in both. So for their authority, practicas often direct the reader to other texts that are nearly unattainable, if they exist at all.

Even eight-leaf vernacular astrological booklets did not constitute the extreme low end of popular versus learned, however. One of the facsimiles I found this week is VD16 H 3291, an extract from the practica for 1548 of Simon Heuring (see the facsimile here). Looking through VD16, this work appears to be unique, as I don't find any other similar extracts from annual prognostications. Comparing its text to Heuring's complete German practica for 1548 (VD16 H 3290), the extract is clearly based on the complete practica, but the text has been radically shortened. Compare the first sections of each; shared material from the complete practica is underlined, while new or added words in the extract are in bold.

VD16 H 3290	VD16 H 3291
Das Erst Capitel / Von den Planeten so diß 48. Jar regieren und herschen werden.	Von Regierung der Planeten.
Auß dem Lauff aller Planetenn / Auch eingang der Sonnenn in die 4. Angel. zeichen / Als da sindt der Wider / Kreps / Wag / unnd Steinbock erlernenn wir / Das in disem 48. Jar abermals Saturnus am geweltigsten sein / Und mit hinwegnemen viler waydlichen leut / Das fürnembst Regiment habenn sol / Mit welchem sehr der gütig Jupiter lauffen / Unnd sein wütenn etwas wirdt miltern wöllenn / Das dieweil er so gar / Nicht allein für sich selbest / Sonder auch auß krafft der grossenn Finsternuß /  Darzu der andern Constellation krefftig / Wenig schaffenn / Dieweil der mars das Zaichenn auch darzu thon / Unnd mit Saturno in sterblicher und blutdürstigender art / einreissenn wird / Gott der almechtig wöll ein genediges einsehen haben / das doch nicht so gar grosser unradt / als höhlich zubesorgen / wie und zum teil gantz wol verdient / volge.	In disem Acht und viertzigisten Jar / wird abermals Saturnus / das fürnembst Regiment haben / unnd vil tapffere Leütte hinweg nemen. Unnd wiewol der gütig Jupiter / sein wüten etwas zu miltern begert / So wirdt doch der grimmig Mars / dem Saturno zu hilff / mit sterblicher und blůtdürstiger art / einreyssen.

It's noteworthy that the extract includes two sections, on human fates and on cities or regions, that do not appear as chapters in Heuring's complete practica. The texts are drawn from his chapter on illness, but are moved to new sections following the section on war. This is exactly where human fates and geographical areas would typically be treated in practicas, for example in those of Johannes Virdung. Heuring's preface, on the other hand, disappears entirely.

From the comparison of the text and other features of just these two editions, we can get a sense of steps that sixteenth-century editors took to adapt texts to less educated and less practiced readers:

• larger type face
• fewer lines of text per page
• smaller text blocks
• clearer distinction between texts and paratexts
• simpler syntax, reduction in dependent clauses
• explicit marking of sentence breaks
• more certainty in statements about the future, less hedging or ambiguity
• switch from numbered chapters to topical sections
• more traditional organization of topics
• reduction of metadiscourse

One thing that isn't missing from the extract is diglossia, however: Unlike the complete practica, the title page and concluding leaf of the extract include the motto "Iusto, et Spem suam in Domino ponenti, secura sunt omnia" ("All things are assured to the just and he who places his hope in the Lord").

Adding an author to a fragmentary incunable prognostication

Identifying the author of a fragmentary annual prognostication is sometimes difficult, requiring a significant amount of research. Other times, it only takes a few minutes.

This week, the Heidelberg university library released a facsimile of ISTC ip01005937/GW M35611, a fairly extensive fragment that is lacking an incipit, so no author had been identified. Leaf 1v did provide a complete list of chapters, however, and the structure looked familiar. After checking my records, I found that the text of the fragment was identical to that of another incucanble edition: Bernardinus de Luntis, Judicium for 1492 (Rome: Stephan Plannck, [around 1492]; ISTC il00392200, GW M19510). The identity of the two texts can be verified by comparing the facsimile provided by the BSB, so Bernardinus de Luntis should be added as the author to ISTC ip01005937/GW M35611. I sent a note on to Berlin to that effect.

Bernardinus de Luntis is otherwise known to ISTC/GW only through one additional practica, for 1493: ISTC il00392300/GW M19511, again printed by Stephan Plannck. It's not unusual for astrologers to have a career in print that only lasted a few years, but the distribution of surviving copies is a bit odd in this case: apart from one copy in the Vatican, the other three are all in German-speaking Europe, in Basel, Heidelberg, and Munich. Apart from a brief mention by Simon de Phares in his Recueil des plus célèbres astrologues, not much appears to be known about Bernardinus de Luntis.

Update: Klaus Graf adds a few more references to Bernardinus de Luntis here.

The Strange and Terrible Visions of Wilhelm Friess, Chapter Two: A Seditious Prophecy

The Dutch printer Frans Fraet was executed in Antwerp in January 1558. What we know about Fraet's career as a printer is largely due to the careful scholarship of Paul Valkema Blouw, who established that Fraet was the most prolific (and necessarily anonymous) printer of Reformation literature in Antwerp in the 1550s, and Valkema Blouw suggested that Fraet's publication of Protestant works was the cause of his execution. (See Paul Valkema Blouw, “The Van Oldenborch and Vanden Merberghe Pseudonyms or Why Frans Fraet Had to Die,” Quaerendo 22 (1992): 165–90, 245–72.)

The documents concerning Fraet's trial do not say much about printing heretical works, however. What they do extensively document is that Fraet was accused of printing seditious works, and the only work the trial documents specifically identified was a "very evil rebellious prognostication under the name of a Master Willem de Vriese." This prophecy contained "many grievous things against the secular and also the clerical rulers" and intruded in the affairs of "all clerical and secular princes and potentates and also the common people, arousing the same to sedition or desperation." All copies of Fraet's edition have been lost, but by connecting the many German editions of the prophecies of Wilhelm Friess to Fraet's publication, we now have a clear indication of what Fraet had printed. I provide a complete English translation of the most widespread German edition.

There are a few remaining mysteries whose solutions I leave up to the reader. What might Hans van Liesvelt have thought about these events? He had printed two prognostications by Willem de Vriese whose Protestant subtext wasn't difficult to discern, and now Frans Fraet had brought the name of de Vriese into connection with seditious printing. At the same time, Fraet was at least a personal acquaintance, a fellow Antwerp printer who published his own writings with Maria Ancxt, Hans van Liesvelt's mother. If an anonymous tract printed by Fraet was receiving official scrutiny, Hans van Liesvelt would very likely have been able to identify Fraet as the printer. If suspicion was falling on Hans van Liesvelt as the printer of de Vriese's earlier works, he would have had strong motivation to implicate Fraet. But would Hans van Liesvelt have saved himself by sending Frans Fraet to the same fate that had befallen Hans van Liesvelt's father a decade earlier?

In the same way, there are arguments and evidence to support the view that "Willem de Vriese" was a historically tangible human being, a medical doctor and citizen of Maastricht who died around 1557, as well as the view that "Willem de Vriese" was always a fictive author persona, including the prognostications for 1555 and 1556, Fraet's edition of 1557, and the later calendars and practicas published under the name of Willem de Vriese in 1581 and 1596. I sense essay questions waiting to be assigned.

O Fortuna (in digital facsimile)

This week, the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek released a digital facsimile of Clm 4660, best known as the Carmina Burana. The manuscript is described in several recent BSB catalogs, including catalogs from 1994, 1998, and 2000. The manuscript opens with a great illustration of the Wheel of Fortune, a concept that I've needed to introduce to students when teaching medieval and early modern literature but also when teaching nineteenth-century literature. It's relevant to Gottfried Keller's Kleider machen Leute, for example.

Having an online facsimile of the Carmina Burana is nice, as it now gives me an almost plausible excuse to play Orff in class. It also raises the question: What other medieval and early modern depictions of the Wheel of Fortune are available in online facsimile - that is, embedded in their original context and with supporting scholarly apparatus? Google image search will give you lots of examples, but what if you want to know about an image's source?

First, here's Clm 4660.

Another of my favorites is from Wenzel Faber von Budweis's practica for 1490 (GW 9595/ISTC if00005440), which ties changing human fortunes to astronomical cycles.

The Wheel of Fortune shows up in some odd ways in title page illustrations for several of Johannes Virdung's practicas, but the only one with an online facsimile is his practica for 1523 (VD16 V 1280). In this illustration, either Aries is accidentally placed, or the zodiacal ram is the one turning the wheel.

Matthias Brotbeihel's practica for 1544 (VD16 B 8424) includes on its title page what looks like a Wheel of Fortune held by a divine arm and with four eclipses mounted on it.

The text to the side reads:

Ich bin der alle ding regiert
Mich im Regiment niemands irrt /
Das glückrad hab ich in meinr händ
Nach meinem willen ich das wänd.

("I am the one who rules all things. No can move my governing from its course. I hold the wheel of fortune in my hand and turn it according to my will.")

The humanist Jakob Henrichmann's 1509 parody prognostication (VD16 H 2041) features a woodcut that looks to me like a parody of the Wheel of Fortune.

The Strange and Terrible Visions of Wilhelm Friess, Chapter One: A Strange Prognostication

As the alleged author of the most popular German prophetic pamphlet of the later sixteenth century, "Wilhelm Friess" sounds very much like pure fiction, as the pamphlet supposedly contains a prophecy found with Friess after his death in Maastricht. So I was surprised to discover that earlier works attributed to "Willem de Vriese" of Maastricht had actually been printed in Antwerp a few years before the first German pamphlets appeared. Examining the Dutch origins of "Wilhelm Friess" turned into the first chapter of The Strange and Terrible Visions.

To trace the story of "Wilhelm Friess," I had to start more than a decade before the first German pamphlets were printed with the Antwerp printer Jacob van Liesvelt, who was executed in 1545 for violating the imperial edicts on printing. His widow Maria Ancxt and his son Hans van Liesvelt continued in the printing business, including in their publication programs several annual astrological prognostications. Hans van Liesvelt published two practicas for 1555 and 1556 attributed to "Willem de Vriese" of Maastricht.

I have the name in quotation marks because there is no clear indication that "Willem de Vriese" ever existed. Supposedly an aged and well-known doctor, the city archives have no trace of him. At first glance, his practicas appear to be quite conventional, but a closer look reveals a clearly pro-Reformation message and some notable straying from scientific astrology, including a prediction that "many things that were prophesied long ago will be fulfilled this year." The practica for 1556 predicts the eventual downfall of "Esau Pharmona," supposedly a Slavic prince who oppressed the Christians under his rule. I argue that "Esau Pharmona" is a stand-in for Hapsburg rule over the Netherlands, and that the hidden transcript of de Vriese's practicas - to borrow a highly useful concept from James C. Scott's Domination and the Arts of Resistance - was pro-Reformation, anti-Hapsburg agitation at a place and time where it could have severe repercussions, as Hans van Liesvelt knew all too well.

6240 digital editions from Regensburg in one day

On Tuesday, I checked the RSS feeds of newly digitized books from German libraries like I always do.

The BSB feed occasionally has high-output days with over a hundred new editions. But the count of new items ran into the hundreds and kept going.

RSS feeds sometimes have hiccups where dates reset - either on my end or on their end, I'm not sure - and I re-download everything they have available. Recently I've had a couple incidents of this, and ended up with over a thousand new messages, most of them dated to 1 January 1900 or similarly improbable dates. But the BSB count hit four digits and showed no signs of slowing down.

It didn't stop until it hit 6240 new items. I assumed I'd experienced another date hiccup, but the dates all looked recent and well-formed.

Since reading through the whole list wasn't possible, I searched through the titles and found several that sounded interesting. It looks like most of these 6000+ editions are new material from Regensburg libraries but were digitized in connection with and now appear in the catalog of the BSB. Several of the newly digitized works are not listed in VD16, including two practicas.

• Johann Kandler. Practica Auff das Jar ... M.D.LXXXIII. Regensburg: Hans Burger, [1582]. (catalog entry, facsimile)
• Winckler, Georg. Summarische Practic auff das Jar, M.D.LXXII. D. Georgij Wincklers, Würtenbergischen bestelten Medici zu Bietikheim. Nuremberg: Valentin Fuhrmann, [1571]. (catalog, facsimile)

Johannes Virdung online (updated)

Update  6 December 2013: Several new editions of Virdung's works have recently come online, particularly from the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek and the Landesbibliothek Coburg, so I'm updating this post. I've also added a section for Virdung's works on apocalyptic themes, including his prognostication on a false prophet for 1503, on the Antichrist for 1525, and his 1512 invective against the Persian astrologer Lucas (actually a late appearance of the "Toledo Letter"; see Gerd Mentgen, Astrologie und Öffentlichkeit im Mittelater, 114-16). The Latin and German editions of 1512 have still not been digitized, but the work was included in Goldast's Politica imperialia of 1614, which is available.

* * *

New online this week from dilibri, the digitalization portal for Rheinland-Pfalz, is Johannes Virdung's practica for 1534. My argument in Printing and Prophecy (and in expanded form in an upcoming AGB article) is that Virdung, even more than Wenzel Faber von Budweis, helped create the characteristic form of the German annual astrological prognostication that stayed quite stable for many decades. The Bayerische Staatsbibliothek has digitized quite a few of Virdung's Latin practicas of the 1490s, the crucial period for the genre's development, but few of the German practicas that are most important for driving the developement, and the later practicas are much more sparsely represented online. Only some of Virdung's numerous other works are available. At the moment, I find:

Almanacs and calendars
Almanach, 1492 [Latin]. ISTC iv00301000, GW M50705
Almanac for Heidelberg, 1498 [German]. ISTC iv00302000, GW M50711

Incunable practicas
Prognosticon 1491 [Latin].  ISTC iv00302055, GW M507162
Prognosticon 1491, for Leipzig [German]. ISTC iv00302050, GW M5072210
Prognosticon 1492, for Leipzig [Latin]. ISTC iv00302120, GW M50725
Prognosticon 1492 [Low German].  ISTC iv00302200, GW M50728
Prognosticon 1493, for Leipzig [Latin]. ISTC iv00302215, GW M50732
Prognosticon 1495 [Latin]. ISTC iv00302240, GW M50737
Prognosticon 1497 [Latin]. ISTC iv00302257, GW M50742
Prognosticon 1497 [German].  ISTC iv00302259, GW M50745
Prognosticon 1498 [Latin].  ISTC iv00302264, GW M50748
Prognosticon 1500 [German]. ISTC iv00302270, GW M50750

Postincunable practicas
Practica for 1511. VD16 ZV 15221
Practica for 1523. VD16 V 1280
Practica for 1526. VD16 V 1284

Practica for 1531. VD16 V 1290
Practica for 1534. VD16 V 1292
Practica for 1537. VD16 V 1294


Comet prognostications
Comet 1506. VD16 V 1259
Comet 1506. VD16 V 1260
Comet 1531. VD16 V 1255
Comet 1532. VD16 V 1254

Others
Lunar signs 1514. VD16 V 1263
Lunar signs 1514.  VD16 V 1264
Eclipse prognostication 1513. VD16 V 1317
Eclipse prognostication 1519. VD16 V 1315
Nova medicinae methodus (1532). VD16 V 1267 
Nova medicinae methodus (1533). VD16 V 1268
De cognoscendis et medendis morbis ex corporum coelestium positione libri IV (Venice 1584).


Prognostication on the conjunctions of 1524
[Landshut: Johann Weißenburger], 1521 [Latin]. VD16 V 1303
Oppenheim: [Jakob Köbel, 1521]. VD16 V 1304
[Cracow: Vietor], 1522 [Latin].
Oppenheim: [Jakob Köbel, 1522]. VD16 V 1305
[Augsburg : Melchior Ramminger], 1523. With prognostication of Sebastian Ranßmar. VD16 V 1306/R 211
Oppenheim: [Jakob Köbel, 1523. VD16 V 1310
[Augsburg: Heinrich Steiner 1542]. VD16 V 1300
Strasbourg: Jakob Cammerlander, 1542. With "Hidden Prophecy" of Johann Carion. VD16 V 1301

as the Große Practica (with the Prognosticatio of Johannes Lichtenberger)

[N.p.: n.p.], 1543. VD16 L 1611

Apocalyptic works
Prognostication of a False Prophet on the Great Conjunction of 1504. VD16 V 1296
Invective against Lucas (VD16 V 1265), reprinted in Melchior Goldast, Politica imperialia... (VD17 1:018471V)
Prognostication on the Antichrist (1525). VD16 V 1302

Coburg LB Mo A 12

Over the last several weeks, the Landesbibliothek Coburg has released digital facsimiles of the entire content of a volume (shelf mark Mo A 12) compiled in the sixteenth century mostly including practicas and other astrological prognostications from Grünpeck, Virdung, Carion, and many others, including eight booklets that appear to be unique copies. The appearance of more digital facsimiles is always to be welcomed, and the contribution from Coburg is particularly important. For the survival of early modern pamphlets, compiled volumes like this were essential. There are similar volumes in Erlangen, Zwickau, and several other places that I'd love to have available online, and I'd like to see more research done on how these volumes were compiled, and by whom, and why. Coburg's online catalog provides links to the facsimiles (search for "mo a 12" as the Signatur).

The appearance of these facsimiles does point to one problem that none of the digitalization projects have effectively solved, however. While the booklets were collected and bound together as a single unit, the electronic facsimiles obscure many features of the compilation, including the binding and the sequence of pamphlets. The Coburg catalog at least makes it possible to get a list of all the pamphlets in the volume when searched by shelf mark, but in other catalogs it's nearly impossible to determine what else is contained in a compiled volume, and what order any other elements occur in. There are still some things where spending time in Coburg or München can't be entirely replaced by staring at facsimiles.

Johannes von Glogau and the Earliest German Practicas

Now in print:

Green, Jonathan, and Oliver Duntze. “Johannes von Glogau and the Earliest German Practicas: On the Dating and Authorship of Fragmentary Prognostications.” Gutenberg-Jahrbuch 88 (2013): 68–85.

When I was revising chapter five of Printing and Prophecy, "Practica teütsch," on astrological prognostic booklets, I noticed that there were a few early practica authors whose work I hadn't seen, so I ordered facsimiles. There was also an anonymous fragment in Berlin, dated no more precisely than 1474-78, possibly the earliest German practica of them all, so I ordered images of it as well. Once they arrived, I glanced at them. They didn't seem to change the chapter, so I moved on.

Last spring I took a closer look at the fragment, which consists of two unfolded sheets. If you virtually reconstructed the resulting gathering, what would it look like, and how would the text be organized? Were there any datable astronomical facts?

It turned out the fragment might be datable, and the sequence of chapters looked quite similar to the sequence used by Johannes von Glogau. As stereotyped as practicas were, individual astrologers often had their own particular style, especially in the early period before the genre conventions were fully established.

I asked Oliver what he thought. He provided some useful corrections. He also pointed out another undated fragment that followed a similar sequence of chapters. Could it be dated as well? We decided it could, and so a joint research project was born, culminating in the article that just appeared in Gutenberg-Jahrbuch.

For dating fragments like these, which turn up with some frequency, we make two methodological contributions. In combination with typographic analysis, diving into the arcana of early modern astrology often permits a precise dating. Also, familiarity with the authors' individual styles will sometimes permit attribution to a particular author.

Consequently, we were able to date the earliest German practica to 1477 with possible manuscript evidence of another for 1476, all by Johannes von Glogau. This points to the route by which printing astrological booklets came to German lands, shows how important the vernacular was even in the earliest period, and makes German practicas somewhat more like contemporaries rather than late imitators of the Italian astrologers.

Practica teütsch: Reading the fine print

This week e-rara.ch released digital facsimiles of four astrological prognostications for the year 1605 from the Stadt- und Universitätsbibliothek Bern. These four practicas are remarkable in that none of them had previously been found in VD17, and because the authorship has been misattributed in two cases.

Practica teütsch, ca. 1505: market collapse or bibliographic accident?

One of the questions I couldn't definitively answer when Printing and Prophecy went to press was what exactly happened to the market for annual astrological prognostic booklets - the Practica teütsch - after 1500. The graph of editions per year starts to decline int the late 1490s, and then it falls dramatically at the end of the century and never reaches its previous height until the late sixteenth century. Here's what the graph looks like grouped by half-decade:

Rearguing Transtecter

Well, this is annoying. I'd like to declare George Transtecter a fictive author unrelated to Georg Tannstetter and be done with it, but I keep running through the counter-arguments. So for the sake of fairness, here's the argument that Transtecter is really Tannstetter.

1. It is only to be expected that Tannstetter selected different ruling planets for the year in the Latin and French practica for 1513, and predicted entirely different fortunes for those governed by Mercury, because the Latin practica was calculated for Vienna (48 degrees north), while the French one was calculated for Leuven (51 degrees north). Tannstetter was a university-trained astrologer who would have known how to take the different latitutdes into account, and the astrological elections in question are sensitive to changes in location (see J. D. North's Horoscopes and History).
2. Although Tannstetter was in Vienna, he composed a practica for  Leuven because of an inquiry from there, as the preface to the French practica states: "Car ie suis prest tousiours deu respondre a Louuain ou ailleurs deuant tous maistres qui sentendent a cest faculte." Since he was writing for Leuven rather than Vienna, Tannstetter primarily addressed the fortunes of the Low Countries and neighboring lands, rather than Central Europe.
3. The French edition calls itself a translation from the Latin, and it was printed in Geneva, so it's not surprising that some details (like Tannstetter's name) became deformed somewhere along the way.
4. The French practica calls its author a "docteur en medicine et en astrologie." The Latin practica for the same year refers to Tannstetter, who had only just begun his studies of medicine, only as "astronomie professor." This may not be an error: according to Franz Stuhlhofer's essential article (“Georg Tannstetter,” Jahrbuch des Vereins für Geschichte der Stadt Wien 37 [1981]: 24), Tannstetter advanced to doctor of medicine in May 1513. Midyear is late for the publication of a practica, but if Tannstetter had answered an inquiry after May 11, he could have genuinely given his academic credentials as doctor of both astronomy and medicine. That would make the French practica the earliest printed work to reflect Tannstetter's doctorate in medicine. On the other hand, the French practica includes predictions for the weather beginning in January. There's still something odd about the timeline here.
   
5. In 1523, Tannstetter expressed disdain for Arabic astrologers, preferring instead the Greeks for the foundations of his art. In 1513, however, when the French practica cites Haly and Albumasar, his attitude may not have been so one-sided. His earliest known practica, for 1505, cites as his authority the rules of "Ptholomei Pheludinai, Hali abenragel, Albumasaris, et aliorum in scientia stellarum edoctorum." His practica for 1512 cites Ptolemy, Haly Abenrodan, and Almansor.  Disqualifying the French practica based on its citation of Arabic authorities really is an untenable argument.
6. Both the French and Latin practicas subdivide human fortunes according to the governing planet. The French practica assigns people in the typical manner according to occupational classes, so that the children of Venus, for examples, are defined as "ieunes galans damoiselles pucelles chantres menestriers danceurs et tous ceulx qui ayment musicque et plaisance." Tannstetter's practicas for 1511, 1519, and 1524 rather unusually subdivide people according to their nativity, while the Latin practicas for 1512 and 1513 do not specify the basis of their subdivision. The different approaches raises serious doubts about the authorship of the French practica, and would be more serious still if not for Tannstetter's practica for 1505, which does assign people to planets by occupational class (including the group, for example, of "Puelle, matrone, cantores, Instrumentorum musicalium pulsatores.")
7. What we're left with is a structural argument: Tannstetter's practicas maintain a nearly constant structure from 1505 to 1525, and the French practica does not follow it. The table below compares the organization of the two practicas.

Latin 1513	French 1513
Dedication to Maximilian I
Laudatory verses
1. General configuration of the year	Introduction
2. Governing planets	Governing planets
3. War and peace	General disposition of the year
4. Disease	Winter weather
5. Agriculture	Spring weather
6. Various regions and cities	Summer weather
7. Human fortunes by planet	Autumn weather
8. General disposition of the four seasons	Dispositions of the twelve months
9. Lunar conjunctions by month	Agricultural fertility and price changes
	Disease
	War and peace
	Human fortunes according to ruling planet
	Various regions and cities
	Conclusion
	Tabular almanac

In other words, the French practica places Tannstetter's customary final chapters at the beginning of the practica. It's not impossible that a printer could have done that on their own initiative to follow the local style, but it seems unlikely that Tannstetter himself would have done so.

Now that I've gone through it again, I'm somewhat more inclined to see Transtecter as Tannstetter, but with some significant distortions occurring between Vienna and Geneva, and a few other odd things going on. We still can't be sure that the French practica really is Tannstetter's, but it's moving further into the realm of possibility.

I suspect that Georg Tannstetter and George Transtecter are not the same person

But that doesn't mean that I think George Transtecter is a real person.

This week, e-rara.ch released digital editions of several French prognostic pamphlets printed in Geneva, including translations of the Practica auf Europa of Paracelsus, the practicas for 1533 of Anton Brelochs and for 1523 of Johannes Stabius, a practica for 1508 by "Haly Nyvord," and another for 1513 by "George Transtecter."

Now I don't believe for a minute that "George Transtecter" is supposed to be anything else except the name of Georg Tannstetter, a prominent Viennese astrologer who published practicas for 1505-1525, especially since the name "George Transtecter" (or even just "Transtecter") is found nowhere else. This doesn't appear to be a case of slight variants resulting in two authorial names (see "Separated at birth" I and II), however. The problem is that Tannstetter's practica for 1513, available in facsimile, is already known, and it differs in fundamental ways from Transtecter's. Tannstetter selected Mars and Venus as the ruling planets for the year, while Transtecter chose Saturn and the Sun. Tannstetter refers to the authority of Ptolemy and Hippocrates, while Transtecter also refers to the Arabic astronomers Albumasar and Haly. The arrangement of chapters and topics are entirely different. Tannstetter predicts adverse fortune and terror for those ruled by Mercury, while Transtecter predicts good fortune and luxury for the same people. Tannstetter's prognostication for lands and cities is broadly concerned with central Europe and mentions Vienna by name - where Tannstetter lived and worked - while Transtecter's prognostication is cast for Louvain and included the fortunes of France, England, Scotland, Brabant, and Flanders, and the cities of Louvain, Brussels, Antwerp, and Ghent.

What I suspect is going on here is that someone else's prognostication was published under Tannstetter's name, or a name close enough to profit from Tannstetter's renown, and perhaps imitating his style as well. Contemporary astrologers including Lucas Gauricus, Johannes Virdung, and, a decade later, Tannstetter himself complained of their names being falsely attached to others' prognostications. That seems to be the case here as well.

I could be convinced otherwise. The two practicas are not entirely lacking in similarity. Perhaps Tannstetter was asked to write a prognostication for Louvain, and the difference in latitude between Vienna and Louvain led to different predictions for the same groups of people. But for now, I remain very suspicious of "George Transtecter."

Sibyls in print

The Sibyllenweissagung was just one of several different siblline texts that were significant for early printing. Since the 1480s, there were also compilations of prophecies from the twelve sibyls, mostly consisting of devotional considerations of the life of Christ from the imagined perspective of pre-Christian sibyls. The earliest in print was Philippus de Barberiis's Sibyllarum et prophetarum de Christo vaticinia, first printed in 1481 (ISTC ib00118000). German printers produced editions beginning in 1516 and 1517, eventually replacing the text with a German adaptation, but the original image cycle was remarkably stable.

The stability of the images is underscored by a work recently digitalized by the SLUB Dresden: Ernst Freymund, Der Klugen Sibyllen verbessert astrologischer Weissagungs-Calender auf das Jahr 1741 (Nürnberg, 1741; VD18 90148967). The title page depicts four sibyls; below is the Tiburtine Sibyl.

Among the many printed depictions of the Tiburtine Sibyl from preceding centuries, here is one from one of the sibylline compilations printed by Christian Egenolff in the 1530s.

Finally, here is the Tiburtine Sibyl as she appears in the collection of Philippus de Barbareriis, printed in the early 1480s.

That's 260 years of iconographic stability, which could very likely be extended even earlier by looking at manuscript material. To judge by a quick scan of the pages, Freymund's calendar for 1741 doesn't appear to contain any of the sibylline texts, but the final section does consist of an astrological prognostication whose format wouldn't have been at all unusual for 1581.

Digital edition of the week: Caspar Brunmüller, Geistliche immerwärende Practic auff das M.D. LX. jar (probably)

Dilibri.de released a new digital edition this week of a calendar for 1560. Usually I don't find calendars interesting, or at least I haven't yet figured out how to read calendars in order to discover what's interesting about them, but sometimes calendars hold a few surprises. Like this one.

The title page isn't promising. It offers only the barest of calendrical information, not even hinting that the basic calendar is followed by an extensive, sixty-leaf religious contrapractica. A quick glance at the usual places doesn't turn up an author, and the entry for VD16 ZV 26458 doesn't list one, either.

Running the title through WorldCat, however, turns up the note that this is listed as an alternate title for Caspar Brunmüller's Geistliche immerwärende Practic auff das M.D. LX. jar (VD16 B 8606). WorldCat entries for sixteenth-century books have to be read with some care, but the identification of the two editions as the same work by Brunmüller might just have something going for it, as they're both 85 printed folios. Silvia Pfister's Parodien astrologisch-prophetischen Schrifttums doesn't mention Brunmüller, so someone should check a copy of Brunmüller's Geistliche immerwärende Practic against the online edition. With any luck a digital copy will come online soon.

Virtual reality versus the real world (early modern practica edition)

One of the many fantastic features of online digital facsimiles is that you can inspect primary sources at length without being tied to the opening hours of a research library that is inconveniently located on another continent. It's important not to let ease of access lead to overstating the significance of online editions, though. What's online right now is not the same as what was printed five hundred years ago.

I've been keeping track of practica facsimiles for some time. I've undoubtedly missed some, while a few I've recorded are not actually available online. Still, the following graph gives a pretty decent overview of the progress that digitalization projects have made, at least for one kind of early modern pamphlet. The red columns show the counts of practica editions per decade (primarily from ISTC and VD16/17), while the blue columns show how many of these have been digitized. The years on the x-axis mark the end of a decade.


As you can see, there's robust growth in the number of editions from 1521 to 1550 that is not reflected by the digital editions. In fact, coverage is pretty meager from 1501 to 1590, but excellent for the decade of 1591-1600. The situation after that is truly mixed: very few are available as complete facsimiles, but VD17 provides Schlüsselseiten for nearly all of them, so you can at least see the title page and incipits.

The average percentage of editions digitized for all 150 years is 17.5%, but coverage is highly variable by decade:



The German incunable digitalization projects have done pretty well. After that, coverage is much lower except for the 1590s. The reason, I suspect, is that the historical transmission of practicas frequently took the form of compilations of dozens or scores of pamphlets that were bound together as a single large volume, and often the pamphlets are mostly drawn from a few years or decades. Half or more of the facsimiles in each decade are from the collection of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, with the exception of the 1470s and 1550s, where none of the facsimiles are from the BSB. I suspect that the excellent coverage from the 1590s, with some 80% of the facsimiles from München,  is the result of the BSB digitizing one or two compilation volumes at some point. The Stadtbibliothek Trier has recently released several more practica facsimiles from the 1590s via dilibri.de, so the imbalance is only growing at the moment.