Modes of engagement with astrology in seventeenth-century England

Abstract

Astrology played an important part in the propaganda wars which accompanied the mid-seventeenth-century English Civil Wars, and it remained both influential and controversial in the decades following. At present, the dissemination of astrological ideas in seventeenth-century English publications is better understood than their audience's reception of those ideas. The discrepancy is due partly to the fact that the former is better documented than the latter. It is exacerbated by the controversy surrounding seventeenth-century English astrology, as a result of which much of the commentary on its public reception has likely been skewed to fit the commentator's argument. This thesis will investigate some of the letters which well-known seventeenth-century astrologers received from correspondents with varying levels of interest and expertise in astrology. In context, the letters present an opportunity to examine the flow of communication into the core astrological community from those outside or on the periphery.