Florence M. Grimm

“ Venus was the planet of love, Mars, of war and hostility, the sun, of power and honor, and so forth. Each was mysteriously connected with a certain color, with a metal, too, the alchemists said, and each had special power over some organ of the human body. The planet’s influence was believed to vary greatly according to its position in the heavens, so that to determine a man’s destiny accurately it was necessary to consider the aspect of the whole heavens, especially at the moment of his birth, but also at other times. ”

“ The beautiful fancy that the universe is governed by harmony had its origin in the philosophy of the Pythagoreans in the fourth century B. C., and continued to appeal to men’s imagination until the end of the Middle Ages. It was thought that the distances of the planetary spheres from one another correspond to the intervals of a musical scale and that each sphere as it revolves sounds one note of the scale. When asked why men could not hear the celestial harmony, the Pythagoreans said: A blacksmith is deaf to the continuous, regular beat of the hammers in his shop ”

“ But, since the stars by their movements and positions were the regulators of mundane events and human affairs, it followed that human destiny on the earth was also under the sway of this relentless power of Necessity or Fate. Now it was the Stoics alone who developed a thorough-going fatalism and at the same time made it consistent with practical life and virtue. ”

“ Furthermore, the belief in a geocentric system of the universe, which in Chaucer’s century was almost universally accepted, was of vast significance in man’s way of thinking. Accepting this view, all the heavenly bodies seemed to have been created for the sole benefit of man, inhabiting the central position in the universe; their movements, always with reference to the earth as a center, brought to man light, heat, changes of season—all the conditions that made human life possible on the earth. ”

“ If we stand on a high spot in the open country and look about us in all directions the earth seems to meet the sky in a circle which we call the terrestrial horizon. Now if we imagine a plane passing through the center of the earth and parallel to the plane in which the terrestrial horizon lies, and if we imagine this plane through the earth’s center extended outward in all directions to an infinite distance, it would cut the celestial sphere in a great circle which astronomers call the celestial horizon. ”

“ In the time of Hamurabi, 2,000 years before Christ, the Chaldeans worshipped as beneficent or formidable powers, the Earth, that may give or refuse sustenance to man, the Waters that fertilize or devastate, the Winds that blow from the four quarters of the world, Fire that warms or devours and all forces of nature which, in their sidereal religion, they confounded with the stars, giving them the generic name of ‘Elements.’ But the system that recognizes only four elements as the original sources of all that exists in nature, was created by the Greek philosophers. ”

“ Therefore, the ancients came to look upon the sun as a great and powerful god to be worshipped and propitiated by men. And if the sun was such a power, it was natural to believe that all the other bright orbs of the sky were lesser [Pg 52] divinities who exercised more limited powers on the earth. From this beginning, based, as we have seen, on a germ of fact, by the power of his imagination and credulity, man extended more and more the powers of these sidereal divinities, attributing to their volition and influence all the most insignificant as well as the most important terrestrial events. ”

“ Empedocles, as we have seen, taught that the variety in the universe was caused by the binding together of the four elements in different proportions through the harmonizing principle of love, or by their separation through hate, the principle of discord. We find this idea also reflected in Chaucer who obviously got it from Boethius. Love is the organizing principle of the universe; if the force of love should in any wise abate, all things would strive against each other and the universe be transformed into chaos. ”

“ Palamon explains the cause of his woe and when Arcite looks out and sees Emelye he too falls a victim to love. Then Palamon knits his brows in righteous indignation. Did he not love the beautiful lady first and trust his secret to his cousin and sworn brother? And was it not Arcite’s duty and solemn pledge to help and not hinder him in his love? Arcite’s defence shows that the fatalism that dominates his thought is a fatalism that excuses him for doing as he pleases: Love knows no law, but is a law unto itself. Therefore he must needs love Emelye. ”

“ By the end of the Roman imperial period astrology had transformed paganism, replacing the old society of Immortals who were scarcely superior to mortals, except in being exempted from old age and death, by faith in the eternal beings who ran their course in perfect harmony throughout the ages, whose power, regulated by the unvarying celestial motions, extended over all the earth and determined the destiny of the whole human race. ”

“ Throughout the poem, as in many of Chaucer’s writings, there is a curious mingling of pagan and Christian elements, a strange juxtaposition of astrological notions, Greek anthropomorphism and mediaeval Christian philosophy. But pervading the whole is the idea of determinism, of the inability of the human will to struggle successfully against the destiny imposed by the powers of heaven, or against the capricious wills of the gods. ”

“ Chaucer’s frequent use of astrology in his poetry would make it hard to believe that he was not considerably influenced by its philosophical aspects, at least in the general way that Dante was. Part and parcel of the dramatic action in most of his poems is the idea of stellar influences. Yet we cannot assert, with the same assurance that we can say it of Dante, that Chaucer believed, even in a general way, in the influence of the stars on human life. In Dante’s poetry, as we have said, the poet himself is always before us. ”

“ The earth was but a point in comparison with the immense sphere to which the stars were attached and which revolved about the earth once in every twenty-four hours, imparting its motion to sun, moon, and planets, thus causing day and night and the rising and setting of the heavenly bodies. The irregular motions of the planets were accounted for by supposing them to move on circles of small spheres called ‘epicycles’, the centres of which moved around the ‘deferents’, or circles of large spheres which carried the planets in courses concentric to the star sphere. ”

“ The sun must always appear to be on this circle, not only at all times of the year but at all hours of the day; for as the sun rises and sets, the ecliptic rises and sets also, since the earth’s rotation causes an apparent daily revolution not only of the sun, moon, and planets but also of the fixed stars and so of the whole celestial sphere and of all the circles whose positions upon it do not vary. ”

“ In the Hellenistic period, Zeno, the Stoic, and his followers proclaimed the supremacy of the sidereal divinities even more strongly than the schools of Plato and Aristotle had done. The Stoics conceived the world as a great organism whose “sympathetic” forces constantly interacted upon one another, governed by Reason which was of the essence of ethereal Fire, the primordial substance of the universe. To the stars, the purest manifestation of the power of this ethereal substance, were attributed the greatest influence and the loftiest divine qualities. ”

“ If the planet is on the left or west side of the meridian, and has a smaller altitude at the second observation than at the first, then the planet’s motion is retrograde. If the planet is on the east side of the meridional line when its altitude is taken and the second altitude is greater than the first, it is retrograde; and if it is on the west side and its second altitude is greater, it is direct. This method would be correct were it not that a change in the planet’s declination or angular distance from the celestial equator might render the conclusions incorrect. ”

“ Thus it is that Chaucer’s poetic references to the apparent daily motion of the sun about the earth are nearly always simply in the form of allusions to his rising and setting. Canacee in the Squieres Tale, (F. 384 ff.) is said to rise at dawn, looking as bright and fresh as the spring sun risen four degrees from the horizon. ”

“ In astrology the signs of the zodiac were called ‘houses’ or ‘mansions’ and each was assigned to a particular planet. When a planet was in its house or mansion, its power was very great. Each of the planets had also a sign called its ‘exaltation’ and in this sign its power was greatest of all. The sign opposite a planet’s mansion was called its ‘fall’ and that opposite its exaltation was called its ‘depression’; these were the positions of least influence. Mars’ mansions were Aries and Scorpio; his exaltation, Capricornus; his fall, Libra and Taurus, and his depression, Cancer. ”

“ Not only did the man of the Middle Ages see in the regular movements of the celestial spheres the instruments by which God granted him physical existence, but in the various aspects of heavenly phenomena he saw the governing principles of his moral life. The arrangement of the heavenly bodies with regard to one another at various times was supposed to exert undoubted power over the course of terrestrial events. Each planet was thought to have special attributes and a special influence over men’s [Pg 4] lives. ”

“ But there is present, too, in spite of all obstacles and defeats, an undying hope that somehow—by prayers and sacrifices to the celestial powers, or by the choice of astrologically favorable times of doing things—that somehow the course of human lives, mapped out at birth by the stars under the control of relentless destiny, may be altered. So the characters in Chaucer’s poems pray to the orbs of the sky to help in their undertakings. The love-lorn Troilus undertakes scarcely a single act without first beseeching some one of the celestial powers for help. ”

“ And if the heavenly bodies, by revolving about the earth in ceaseless harmony, effected the recurrence of day and night and of the seasons, and if their configurations were responsible for the minutest events in nature, was it not natural to suppose that, besides affecting man thus indirectly, they also influenced him directly and were responsible for his conduct and for the very qualities of his mind and soul? ”

“ The moon ‘shining with her full horns’ means with her horns filled up as at full moon when she is in a position opposite both earth and sun so that she reflects upon the earth all the rays of the sun. The moon “with derke hornes” refers of course to the waning moon, a thin crescent near the sun and almost obscured in his light, which approaching nearer the sun is entirely lost to our view in his rays and becomes the new moon.
Chaucer’s most interesting references to the moon are found in the prayer of Aurelius to the sun in the Frankeleyns Tale. ”

“ But when we are on the side of the moon that is turned away from the sun we face its unilluminated hemisphere and we say that we have a ‘new moon.’ Once in every 291⁄2 days the earth is in each of these positions with reference to the moon and, of course, in the interval of time between these two phases we are so placed as to see larger or smaller parts of the illuminating hemisphere of the moon, giving rise to the other visible phases. ”

“ God is the chief creator; therefore there must be other or inferior creators. Nature is a creator of inferior rank whom God has made his “vicaire” or deputy and whose work it is to create and preside over all things beneath the sphere of the moon.
IV Chaucer’s Astronomy
Chaucer’s treatment of astronomical lore in his poetry differs much from his use of it in his prose writings. In poetical allusions to heavenly phenomena, much attention to detail and a pedantic regard for accuracy would be inappropriate. ”

“ So priests foretold future events from the configuration of the heavens, but professed ability to ward off threatened evils by spells and incantations, or, by purifications and sacrifices, to make the promised blessings more secure.
Now the fatalism of Chaucer’s characters is something like this. The general belief in the determination of human destiny by Fortune or Necessity is present and is expressed usually at moments of deep despair, when the longings of the heart and the struggles of the will have been relentlessly thwarted. ”

“ The elements in mediaeval cosmology were assigned to a definite region of the universe. Being mortal and imperfect they occupied four spheres below the moon, the elemental region or region of imperfection, as distinguished from the ethereal region above the moon. Immediately within the sphere of the moon came that of Fire, below this the Air, then Water, and lowest of all the solid sphere of Earth. [Pg 23] Fire being the most ethereal of the elements constantly tends to rise upward, while Earth sinks towards the center of the universe. ”

“ The conspicuousness of astronomical lore in the poetry of Chaucer is due to its importance in the life of his century. In the mediaeval period, astronomy (or ‘astrology,’ for the two names were used indifferently to cover the same subject) was one of the vital interests of men. The ordinary man of the Middle Ages knew much more than do most men to-day about the phenomena of the heavens ”

“ The view of the universe which we find reflected in Chaucer’s poetry is chiefly based on the Ptolemaic system of astronomy, though it shows traces of very much more primitive cosmological ideas. The Ptolemaic system owes its name to the famous Alexandrian astronomer of the second century A. D., Claudius Ptolemy, but is based largely on the works and discoveries of the earlier Greek philosophers and astronomers, especially Eudoxus, Hipparchus, and Aristarchus, whose investigations Ptolemy compiled [Pg 5] and, along some lines, extended. ”