Different from the foregoing is another work dealing with four parts of judicial astrology which the manuscripts ascribe to Roger of Hereford. Its opening words[534] and the subjects of its four parts all differ from those of the other treatise. Its first part deals with “simple judgment”; its fourth part, with “the reason of judgment”; while its second and third parts instead of third and fourth, as in the foregoing treatise, deal with interrogations, now called Cogitatio, and elections.[535] I know of no manuscript where this second work is to be found complete; in fact, I am inclined to surmise that usually the manuscripts give only the first of its four parts.[536] It professes at the start to be a brief collection of rules of judicial astrology hitherto only to be found scattered through various works. Astrology is extolled as an art of incomparable excellence without which other branches of learning are fruitless. “They appear to a few through experiments; ... it gives most certain experiments.”[537] The first book treats of the properties of the signs and planets, of the twelve houses, and defines a long list of astrological terms such as respectus, applicatio, separatio, periclitus, solitudo, allevatio, translatio, collatio, redditio, contradictio, impeditio, evasio, interruptio, compassio, renuntiatio, and receptio.[538] Some tables are also given, in connection with one of which we are told that the longest hour at Hereford exceeds the shortest by eleven degrees and forty minutes.[539]
Book of Three General Judgments.
To Roger is also ascribed a Book of Three General Judgments of Astronomy, from which all others flow, which sometimes is listed separately in the manuscripts and apparently is found alone as a distinct work,[540] but in other manuscripts[541] seems to be an integral part of the work of four parts which we have just described. Its three general judgments are: gaining honors and escaping evils; intentio vel meditacio, which, like the cogitacio mentioned above, refers to interrogations; and comparatio vel electio which of course is elections. Thus the second and third parts of this Book of Three General Judgments deal with the same subjects as the second and third books of the work in four parts, which makes it difficult to distinguish them. I am inclined to think that in those manuscripts where the Book of Three General Judgments seems an integral part of the work in four parts, we really have simply the first of the four parts, followed by the Book of Three General Judgments.[542] At any rate it seems clear that most of Roger’s astrological composition is on the theme of interrogations and elections. Iudicia Herefordensis,[543] found in more than one manuscript, may come from a fourth work of his or be portions of the foregoing works.
Summary.
In this chapter we have treated of two Englishmen of the latter half of the twelfth century who are not generally known.[544] They were not, however, without influence, as we have already shown in the case of Daniel of Morley and as the number of manuscripts of the works of Roger of Hereford sufficiently attests for him. Daniel and Roger show that the same interest in astrology and astronomy from Arabic sources prevails at the close of the century in England as at its beginning in the cases of Walcher, prior of Malvern, and Adelard of Bath. Daniel, like Adelard, illustrates the relation of science to Christian thought; Roger, like Walcher, is an astronomer who makes and carefully records observations of his own,[545] while he trusts in astrology as based upon experience. As Alfred of England dedicated his translation of the pseudo-Aristotelian De vegetabilibus to Roger, so he dedicated his De motu cordis (On the Motion of the Heart) to a third Englishman, Alexander Neckam, to whom we turn in the next chapter for a picture of the state of science and his work On the Natures of Things (De naturis rerum) in his time.
[496] Fol. 88r.
[497] Fols. 88v-89r.
[498] Fol. 95v.
[499] Fol. 96.
[500] Fol. 94v.