Astrology, Almanacs, and the Early Modern English Calendar is a handbook designed to help modern readers unlock the vast cultural, religious, and scientific material contained in early modern calendars and almanacs. It outlines the basic cosmological, astrological, and medical theories that undergirded calendars, traces the medieval evolution of the calendar into its early modern format against the background of the English Reformation, and presents a history of the English almanac in the context of the rise of the printing industry in England. The book includes a primer on deciphering early modern printed almanacs, as well as an illustrated guide to the rich visual and verbal iconography of seasons, months, and days of the week, gathered from material culture, farming manuals, almanacs, and continental prints. As a practical guide to English calendars and the social, mathematical, and scientific practices that inform them, Astrology, Almanacs,and the Early Modern English Calendar is an indispensable tool for historians, cultural critics, and literary scholars working with the primary material of the period, especially those with interests in astrology, popular science, popular print, the book as material artifact, and the history of time-reckoning.

About the Author

Phebe Jensen is Professor of English at Utah State University, USA. She is also the author of Religion and Revelry in Shakespeare's Festive World (2008).

Alison A. Chapman (Foreword) is Professor of English at the University of Alabama, Birmingham.

Book Information
ISBN 9780367609290
Author Phebe Jensen
Format Paperback
Page Count 338
Imprint Routledge
Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
Weight(grams) 620g