Calenderbutzer, das ist, Was von den Calender-Schreiber, Prognosticis zu halten, und wie weit ein Gottsfürchtiger Christ ihre Practica mit guten Gewisssen in acht nehmen könne [bound with] Astrologia vindicata, das ist, Warhafftige un[d] gründtliche Ableinung der ungegründeten und unerfindlichen Aufflag, darmit j[e]tziger zeit die Astrologia, in einem Tractätlin, der Calender Butzer genant, unter einem ertichteten Namen newlicher zeit aussgegangen, heydnisch, abgöttisch, unchristlich, aberglaubisch, gotterlesterisch, tülpisch und bübisch, gantz lesterisch und felschlich (wieder allen Ehrliebenden, Christlichen Prognosticanten meinung und fürgeben) verdampt wird

by Huldericus Schothusius (Melchior Mengwein) | Johannes Paceus and Theodor May (Majus)

[Germany], 1614; [Germany], 1616

[48]; [96] p. | 8vo | A-C^8; A-F^8 | 160 x 90 mm

First edition of the anti-prognostication Calenderbutzer bound with the second issue—and in an unusual case of plagiarism, simultaneously the second edition—of a pro-prognostication refutation specifically targeting the Calenderbutzer. With both pro- and anti-prognostication perspectives bound together, our volume offers an illuminating debate on the merits of astrology in the midst of an intellectual transition to more rigorous astronomy. Another edition of the Calenderbutzer followed in 1615, as well as a follow-up rebuttal to May. May first published his Astrologia vindicata in 1615, though we should hardly call it his. He largely copied a 1562 work of the same title by Johannes Paceus. This 1616 issue has the very same setting of type as the 1615, and was doubtless a case of leftover sheets given a fresh date. ¶ Little is known about Schothusius—or rather Melchior Mengwein, for whom Schothusius appears to have been a pseudonym. He was a student at Jena in 1593, a schoolmaster at Döllstedt in 1602, a pastor in Bienstädt in 1606, then pastor at Wechmar bei Gotha in 1618. He died in 1630. Mengwein certainly wasn't the first to rail against the astrologically based prognostications that appeared in annual almanacs and practica. Prognostication was fundamental to these complementary calendrical genres. Almanacs, for example, sometimes included daily weather forecasts and frequently advised on the most astrologically opportune times to let blood. Practica were structured as monthly guides to the year's most vital tasks and typically treated similar information in a slightly more expanded form. ¶ Mengwein makes his position clear in the preface. "I, like other Christians, do not want to consider the stars as bogeymen [Butzemänner] to be feared and avoided" (ich aber mit andern Christen...). Those seeking answers should really defer to God, "so that in their random business [wilkührlichen Seschäfften] they should look to and rely on God's omnipotence and not on the astrological almanac [Sternkucker Allmanach]." Mengwein opens with a brief review of astrology's fundamentals (A3v) then quickly moves on to that human habit of attributing earthly events to stars in the sky (A4r). Perhaps surprisingly for a provincial pastor, Mengwein relies most heavily on science to support his position. Rather than simply dismissing prognostication as contrary to God's law—though he does do so at the end—he undermines astrology by explaining what is really happening. Starting on A5r, for example, he explains how night follows day, and how astronomers have calculated the length of the seasons. He dedicates a few pages to meteorology, to the real cause of weather—"the exhalations and vapors that collect and are contained in the air" (A7r), and the sun's position in the sky, for example. He tackles illness, too, discrediting astrological predictions of plague, and explaining that plague epidemics come from poisoned air (citing the theories of French physician Jean Fernel). Several pages of medical discussion follow, citing the likes of Galen and Leonhart Fuchs. Mengwein then addresses the kinds of predictions calendar makers tended to provide, and only at the end, after so thoroughly marshaling science to his cause, does he present a scripture-based argument on why prognostications violate divine law. ¶ To counter Mengwein and defend astrological prognostication—which appears to have been May's livelihood—May fully appropriated Paceus's decades-old work, shamelessly adding his personal target (Calenderbutzer) to the original title. Mengwein almost certainly had not yet been born when Paceus published his Astrologia vindicata, so we can rule out the possibility that Paceus himself targeted some lost early edition of the Calenderbutzer. In fairness, we should call May's work an expanded edition of Paceus, as he does contribute some original content. For example, his second chapter, a list of eminent figures who endorsed astrology, is not in the 1562 edition. But May's first, fourth, and fifth chapters are nearly word for word as Paceus wrote them. As May appears to have led a very busy life preparing prognostications, perhaps he simply lacked the time to produce an original defense. ¶ The first chapter sheds light on the ongoing separation of astronomy and astrology, and at a time when their uneasy coexistence was reaching a crescendo. Paceus and May note that the two fields had long been one and the same (A4v), and call the separation "a newly invented thing and contrary to the old teachers" (A5r). Like Mengwein, Paceus and May do take their own dive into astronomy. They don't deny that faulty astrological work has been done, but rather exhort writers to use more reliable tables for their calculations (A6r). Even in May's time, astrology remained serious business, "a thoroughly reputable intellectual pursuit that fascinated Europe’s best mind and became very fashionable among elevated social groups, especially princes and courtiers" (Lindemann). But Mengwein and May found themselves on the tail end of the gravity that had long accompanied astrology. “From the end of the sixteenth century onwards," Ugo Baldini writes, "the situation changed in the Catholic countries"—though Protestant lands were hardly immune to this shifting landscape—and "books of astronomy paid increasingly less attention to astrological questions; the ephemerides restricted themselves to the parameters of celestial events alone; astronomical tables were separated from astrological ones, and the latter dwindled away. Publications on astrology did not cease, but they became a distinct genre to which university astronomers contributed increasingly less” (Baldini). ¶ Our deep affection for almanacs notwithstanding, we must given Mengwein the win in this debate. He mustered ample science while Paceus and May overwhelming relied on scripture. To be sure, Mengwein had the last (original) word, as he issued a further rebuttal in 1615. May's response? He issued the remaining 1615 sheets with this freshly dated title page, then just kept on publishing his prognostications. ¶ WorldCat reports no copies of any editions of either work in North America, and ours is the only copy of either work we find in auction records.

PROVENANCE: Related bibliographic citation in old ink on the front fly-leaf. Old cropped inscriptions at the foot of both title pages. Two spine labels, the bottom one completely illegible.

CONDITION: Contemporary binding of parchment manuscript waste over board, recycling a northern gothic liturgical manuscript, perhaps of the 15th century. The waste contains notated music on a four-line staff, including Gloriosi principes terrae quomodo in vita, plus three decorative initials in red and blue. Covering the rear board, one can plainly see the crease of the bifolium's gutter, with both old sewing holes and pricking holes. ¶ The paper of Astrologia vindicata quite browned, and the margins of both rather narrow; a few discreet wormholes in the last few leaves, affecting a little text. Worm track on the inside rear cover, with corresponding holes in the rear fly-leaf; parchment soiled, the spine especially, and the front cover dampstained; skinned paper remnants at the foot of the spine, extending less than an inch onto the boards. A satisfying little binding.

REFERENCES: USTC 2003638 (Calenderbutzer), 2531585 (Astrologia vindicata); VD17 1:027353R (Calenderbutzer), 15:741468M (Astrologia vindicata) ¶ Philipp Theisohn, Die kommende Dichtung: Geschichte des literarischen Orakels 1450-2050 (2012), p. 172 (attesting the 1614 first appearance of Schothusius's work, May's 1615 response, and Schothusius's additional 1615 follow-up); VIAF 3644149919435406650005 (for Mengwein's vitals); Ugo Baldini, "The Roman Inquisition's Condemnation of Astrology: Antecedents, Reasons and Consequences," Church, Censorship and Culture in Early Modern Italy (2001), p. 108 (cited above); Mary Lindemann, Medicine and Society in Early Modern Europe (2010), p. 29 (cited above), 251 ("In the early modern world, astrology was a reputable intellectual pursuit with a large scholarly and elite following. While astrological healing by the eighteenth century was by no means as widespread or reputable as it once had been, it formed an important part of the medical and healing landscape in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.”); John A. Schuster, "The Scientific Revolution," Companion to the History of Modern Science (1990), p. 226 (“Astrology was widely considered to be a science because it had a mathematical articulation, a textbook tradition going back to Claudius Ptolemy’s Tetrabiblos and a long traditional linkage with medicine and with the practitioners of the other mathematically-based sciences")

Item #791