Book Launch: England’s First Astrology Book, by Chris Mitchell

The Celestial Arts Education Library is proud to be partnering with the Sophia Centre for the Study of Cosmology and Culture at the University of Wales Trinity St. David and Kepler College to launch "England's First Astrology Book: Roger of Hereford's Judicial Astrology", by Chris Mitchell.

Join us for an exciting discussion with the author!

The twelfth century saw a huge renaissance of astrology in Christian Europe, as numerous astrological texts were translated from Arabic into Latin. An English scholar called Roger, teaching in the cathedral school at Hereford, made use of these new translations to produce a textbook of horary astrology for his students, creating the first astrology textbook in England: Judicial Astrology. Roger’s seminal textbook contains many techniques that are not well-known among astrologers today, even among traditional astrologers, but are fascinating and worth trying out in your own astrology practice. Roger was teaching in England but, like all scholars of his time, wrote his textbook in Latin, and until now it has never been translated, meaning Roger’s innovative work has been largely hidden for over eight centuries. This book addresses that gap; it’s the result of nearly a decade of research that Chris Mitchell did for his PhD, unearthing the original manuscripts, transcribing the scrawling and heavily abbreviated handwriting, and translating the often confusing text into English. However, that PhD did not provide a full translation but focused on academic aspects of the text; this book is aimed not at academics, but at astrologers.

This book aims to give Roger a voice – a modern voice, where instead of talking to you in Latin or archaic English, he can go through his techniques and explain them in modern English. Roger’s original text doesn’t have many worked examples, although as a teacher Roger probably would have done worked examples in the class in front of the students, so there are numerous examples in this book. Recreate the experience of learning astrology in Roger’s classroom, but from the comfort of your own twenty-first-century home rather than a hard classroom bench.