SOURCE: “Chronology and Cosmology: A German Volkskalendar of the Fifteenth Century,” in Princeton University Library Chronicle, Vol. LVII, No. 2, Winter, 1996, pp. 224-65.

[In the following excerpt, Brévart analyzes fifteenth century manuscripts of a Volkskalendar—a collection of astronomical, seasonal, and biographical data.]

In 1946, the Princeton University Library acquired a group of fifty-eight Western European medieval and Renaissance manuscripts from the Grenville Kane Collection.¹ Among them was a bound manuscript written in German and consisting of twenty-one parchment leaves measuring 19 x 14 centimeters, with approximately thirty lines to a page. According to a sheet of paper attached to the binding, the manuscript dates to the fifteenth century, and was “probably compiled about 1404.” On fol. 21r the colophon indicates that the scribe who copied the Princeton manuscript completed his work on 19 February 1435.²

The inventory of the Kane Collection declared that the manuscript was “founded on Sacrobosco,” a thirteenth-century astronomer, “but quite different.” As can now be proven, Kane MS. 52, as the Princeton book is designated, is an example of a literary genre of the fifteenth century known as the Volkskalender,³ Apparently, it is one of only two medieval German Volkskalender held by libraries in the United States.⁴

The German Volkskalender was transmitted in several manuscript versions, two of which gave rise to very prolific traditions. The first contained a Kalendarium (a handbook of chronological calculations) and various astrological treatises. The second included, in addition to these tracts, an extensive astromedical section. The text of the Volkskalender, particularly in its expanded form, conveyed practical information on a wide range of topics. It instructed its user on dietary, medical, and hygienic matters from month to month. It recommended propitious times for bloodletting and bathing, for sexual relations, pruning trees, purchasing and wearing new garments, or for changing residence. It also provided predictions regarding the weather, the outcome of a duel, or the probability of being apprehended again after escaping from jail. A book of such versatility, compiled and organized so that the information on any given topic could easily be retrieved, was considered an indispensable reference work by its owner. It served him throughout the year as a personal guide to all aspects of everyday life.⁵

The earliest German Volkskalender, now preserved in Augsburg,⁶ was compiled and perhaps translated in part or in its entirety from a Latin original by Johannes Wissbier of Gmünd in 1405.⁷ This Volkskalender began with a tract based on Aristotelian cosmology, continued with a sophisticated Kalendarium consisting of detailed descriptions of the different methods of time reckoning, explanations of seasons and leap year, a Cisiojanus as a mnemonic device used for locating a particular day in the year,⁸ and several tables and canons to shed light on their intricate mechanisms. There followed treatises on the twelve zodiacal signs and the seven planets. From this work, which I have designated as Version A of the Volkskalender, are descended approximately forty-five manuscripts.⁹ To my knowledge, there is not a single comprehensive investigation of this type of Volkskalender.¹⁰

About three decades later, there emerged a very different version of this work, hereafter referred to as Version B.¹¹ Besides the more or less obligatory Kalendarium, the tractates on cosmology, the signs,¹² and the planets¹³ encountered in Wissbier's text, this Volkskalender included a far wider assortment of practical texts. There are, for example, texts on the labors of the months,¹⁴ the four temperaments,¹⁵ phlebotomy and haematoscopy,¹⁶ uroscopy, bathing and purging,¹⁷ general advice regarding the treatment of various ailments and, most importantly, the unlucky days,¹⁸ days which were considered perilous particularly for bloodletting, but which also contained warnings against undertaking certain tasks. The B Version of the Volkskalender also offered a large selection of textual illustrations not included in Version A, for example the bloodletting man (or phlebotomy man),¹⁹ a figure surrounded by numbered arrows pointing to thirty-six veins of the body with brief indications (these not infrequently enclosed in roundels) of the specific ailments to be cured by venesection from that point; the zodiac man or homo signorum, a figure in which, according to melothesiac principle, the zodiacal signs were connected to the parts of the anatomy they were thought to govern²⁰; or an illustration of a patient in the process of being phlebotomized, cauterized, or of having cupping glasses applied to his or her body.²¹ Thus Version B provided—or, rather, attempted to provide—its user with a convenient pictorial aid as to the “where-when-how” of medical intervention.²² This type of Volkskalender may have originated in Swabia around 1440,²³ perhaps even earlier,²⁴ I am aware of twenty-five manuscripts of this version,²⁵ and more will surface as the search continues.

Undoubtedly because of its far greater appeal to the user and its potential for success from a mercantile viewpoint, Version B of the Volkskalender appeared in print as early as 1481 at the press of Johann Blaubirer under the title Teutscher Kalender,²⁶ and again in 1483 in a slightly abridged and somewhat reorganized form.²⁷ As such, the Teutscher Kalender was reprinted fifteen times as incunabulum until 1499, and continued to be printed in its conventional form with some degree of textual alteration until 1522, after which date it disappeared from the book trade.²⁸

But if Versions A and B made up the bulk of Volkskalender manuscripts during the fifteenth century, there were also numerous other works with more or less the same textual assemblage that circulated concurrently. However, not one of them succeeded in establishing any sort of continuity. What the incidence of so many different types of Volkskalender suggests is that, in the final analysis, it was immaterial to the consumers whether they obtained the B Version, or the considerably shorter and more sophisticated A Version, or even a textual montage of their own design, as long as the overall content of that book met their practical daily needs.²⁹

Since the majority of Volkskalender I have studied (in whatever version they presented themselves) were not transmitted individually, but rather were part of composite manuscripts which would meet the daily needs of their owners, the type of textual configuration in any given manuscript enables us to speculate about the purpose for which it was commissioned and, to some extent, offers us some clues as to the social status of its original owner. By far the most common type of textual arrangements are those involving the Volkskalender and medical works, suggesting that the Volkskalender with its readily available tools (e.g. astrological tables and illustrations) and its convenient format,³⁰ was owned and used primarily by peripatetic physicians.³¹ The Volkskalender was also bound together with botanical and juridical texts, or with works involving the treatment of horses, an indication that the owners may have included apothecaries, lawyers, veterinarians, or horse dealers—or a combination of any of the above. In a few isolated cases, the Volkskalender was incorporated into the same manuscript as works normally taught at the university (such as Sacrobosco's Sphaera mundi³²) or texts written in Latin, thus testifying to the erudition of their owners. Finally, we encounter manuscripts in which the Volkskalender was transmitted in the company of literary and religious works, in some cases in that of medical texts as well. Such combinations demonstrate exemplarily the fusion of the utile and the delectabile, and in particular the capability of the Volkskalender to be united with works of heterogeneous provenance to serve a common purpose in a well-to-do household.

In summary, Volkskalender manuscripts were distributed chiefly among members of the upper middle class (medical doctors, lawyers, notaries, apothecaries, veterinarians, and merchants) and members of the aristocracy who, culturally, differed little from their social inferiors, but who were far wealthier and could thus afford the lavishly illuminated manuscripts. Because the Volkskalender covered topics of vital interest to all and more or less fulfilled the function of a vademecum,³³ anyone with the necessary education to read and comprehend its contents, and above all with the financial power to buy it, could be regarded as a potential owner and user.³⁴ From these observations, one might infer that those same people also purchased the printed Teutscher Kalender when it was first published in 1481, and continued to do so in the following years.

.....

The term Volkskalender has given rise to much controversy and debate in recent years. To be sure, Volkskalender as employed in this study of fifteenth-century manuscripts is anachronistic because the term is also used to denote a distantly comparable literary genre of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.³⁵ Its application to the medieval works under consideration, first by Ernst Zinner (1925) and many others thereafter,³⁶ is unfortunate, for it tends to evoke the romanticized notion that the Volkskalender was circulated among all echelons of society, in particular among the common people, das gemain volk,³⁷ a viewpoint which is completely erroneous.

To add to the confusion, the term has been used synonymously with others to designate the same genre. Apart from Volkskalender, scholars have referred to this work as Almanach,³⁸Kalender,³⁹Buchkalender, and Kalenderbuch.⁴⁰ Elsewhere, astronomisches Lehrbüchlein,⁴¹volkstümliches Lehrbuch⁴² or simply Volksbuch⁴³ have been employed, while yet another group of scholars increasingly seems to be agreeing on the more elaborate term Iatromathematisches Gesundheitsbüchlein,⁴⁴Iatromathematisches Corpus,⁴⁵ or Iatromathematisches Hausbuch.⁴⁶ Occasionally they refer to this work simply as Hausbuch: “The best designation for this work is that of a kind of Housebook.”⁴⁷ What is to be understood by the concept Hausbuch, “Housebook,” remains at best very vague. German scholarship tends to utilize this word to denote a miscellany manuscript owned (or thought to be owned) by a member of the wealthy and educated bourgeoisie, and containing poetic and utilitarian works,⁴⁸ with numerous textual illustrations:

In recent years, the term ‘Housebook’ has been used increasingly synonymously with ‘manuscript of miscellaneous content,’ and those manuscripts that comprise several texts of varying kinds are referred to as ‘Housebooks’. This is particularly common when poetic works and texts from the sphere of utilitarian, pragmatic literature are transmitted in one and the same codex, and when the scribe or owner of that codex was a member of the bourgeoisie. The work is then referred to as a ‘Housebook’ with the intention of identifying the manuscript more precisely.⁴⁹

The only reference work, to my knowledge, which attempts to define ‘Hausbuch’ is the Sachwörterbuch der Mediävistik:

[‘Housebook’ refers to] a particular form of Late Medieval miscellany, in which extremely heterogeneous texts have been compiled according to the frequently didactical interests of the head of the household or of a family, to constitute an educational textbook or a reader. The term ‘Housebook’ is also employed to refer to those compilations intended as instructions in aspects of daily life (cf. the ‘Iatromathematical Housebook’). The Wolfegg-Hausbuch is famous for its illustrations.⁵⁰

In his recent article on the Hausbuch, B. Schnell makes tabula rasa of practically every criterion which had hitherto been used as a determinant of the Hausbuch concept:

It is of no relevance whether the manuscript in question is a composite manuscript, i.e. one containing texts both in Latin and in the vernacular, whether it was written by one or more scribes, whether it is illustrated or not; nor does it matter if its owner or commissioner was a nobleman, a member of the bourgeoisie, or a cleric. Nor can the form (verse or prose), the genre, or type of text be considered as a criteria.⁵¹

For Schnell's definition of Hausbuch, two conditions must be met. The first is that the internal configuration of the individual manuscripts not be predetermined simply for the sake of grouping related genres or texts of similar contents, but rather exclusively according to the interests and needs of their owners. The second stipulates that there be a direct connection between the book in question and a particular person or family, whose history is known:

In defining the character of the ‘Housebook’, it is of far greater significance that neither the literary genre nor the contextual connections of the works comprising the manuscript serve as explanation for the manner in which the codex was assembled, but rather solely the personal interests of the owner in possessing the most varied types of texts and bits of information. And furthermore, that a close connection exists between the book and one particular person or a family, in other words, between the book and a ‘house’. And for this, knowledge of the biography of the owner is absolutely essential.⁵²

Schnell's definition is based in part on the assumption that the original owner had a variety of texts bound into one codex according to his specifications. But how are we to know today what these were, since the owners only rarely expressed themselves on this subject? In fact, one could argue, any conceivable textual arrangement, even those that are excluded in Schnell's definition, may very well have suited a particular owner's needs and provided him with the information he desired. Therefore, theoretically, any miscellany manuscript might fulfill Schnell's first criterion. The second requirement of the Hausbuch definition is that biographic details about the owner be available. As anyone who has ever worked with medieval manuscripts will readily attest, such a condition occurs only in exceptional cases. Thus, in the final analysis, the term Hausbuch is applicable only to a handful of manuscripts and not to our text, apart from a few isolated cases. Schnell concludes that “a book such as this one, which was written on parchment and was illustrated, is in fact not a Housebook. Therefore, it should be named differently, for instance ‘Iatromathematical compendium'”⁵³—yet one more term to add to our already long list! In order not to contribute any further to the terminological chaos, I have opted to retain the established nomenclature and to employ Volkskalender as the designation of the literary genre under scrutiny in this article, but with great caution regarding its possibly anachronistic usage.

Let us now focus our attention on Kane MS. 52 which, according to the inventory of the Grenville Kane Collection, is said to be an “astronomical treatise, based on Sacrobosco.” Unquestionably, it contains astronomical material. The first nine folios of the manuscript comprise calendrical tables written in red, blue, green, and black, together with several unfinished diagrams illustrating the theory of lunar and solar eclipses (fols. 1r and 1v). The text is rubricated throughout, and is interspersed with a few tables (fols. 18r; 19r; 20r) and diagrams depicting the cosmos (fol. 11v) or used for finding the Metonic number⁵⁴ (numerus aureus) and the dominical letter⁵⁵ (littera dominicalis) (fol.15r).

One look at Kane MS. 52 reveals that the text is more or less identical to that of the cosmology and the Kalendarium encountered in Version A of the Volkskalender. Like most other Volkskalender, it begins with Johannes Wissbier's words: Aristotiles vnd andre meister die von der natur geschrieben hant … (fol. 10r). Both the cosmological tract and the Kalendarium of Kane MS. 52 ultimately go back to Sacrobosco, that is to Johannes de Sacrobosco's Sphaera and his Computus, written in the early thirties of the thirteenth century.⁵⁶ Sacrobosco was the author of treatises on the Astrolable⁵⁷ and the Quadrant⁵⁸ and “an undefatigable … writer”⁵⁹ of elementary textbooks such as De sphaera mundi, De computo ecclesiastico or De anni ratione, and De algorismo or De arte numerandi, which were all taught as part of the curriculum in almost every European university during the Middle Ages. He remained influential well into the seventeenth century.⁶⁰ His works were copied and translated into several languages, commented by many, partially incorporated into other major works, and quoted or alluded to countless times. Therefore, the probability that the originator of Volkskalender Version A utilized Sacrobosco, in whatever context his works were available to him, is quite high.

Within a few folios, the author of the cosmology as it appears in Kane MS. 52⁶¹ synthesizes a wealth of information and ideas reminiscent of a variety of works and commentaries by Greek, Arabic, and Western philosophers.⁶² He discusses the structure of the universe with its nine concentric spheres, beginning with that of the moon, Mercury, Venus, the sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, the firmament, and ending with the primum mobile, the sphere which according to medieval thought was considered to be the originative source of all movement within the universe⁶³; the central and immovable position of the earth; the four elements and their being subject to continual alteration; and the influence of the macrocosm on the microcosm,⁶⁴ particularly of the moon on the sublunar regions on account of its proximity to terrestrial things.⁶⁵ Some medieval writers of the twelfth century postulated another, outermost sphere beyond the primum mobile, an immobile Empyrean full of light, the abode of the saints and place where they were created. Although Kane MS. 52 makes no verbal reference to this sphere, an unfinished diagram (fol. 11v) depicts what may be regarded as a rudimentary knowledge of, or, at the very least, an awareness of this notion.

The text also mentions the two celestial motions, the first a daily movement from east to west, the second a rotation contrary to that and equivalent to one degree in a hundred years.⁶⁶ Of the great circles, only the zodiac receives any attention. While every circle in the cosmos is visualized as a line or circumference, the zodiac alone is perceived as a surface twelve degrees wide, with each of the twelve signs occupying thirty degrees. The line dividing the zodiacal band through the middle is called the ecliptic. The author explains that when the sun and moon are on that line, there occurs an eclipse of the sun or of the moon. But he is quick to add that determining the exact time of an eclipse is a tedious matter and is best left to those possessing the necessary knowledge.⁶⁷ The tract concludes with calculations of the Earth's circumference and diameter, providing the numerical values in stades and in German miles.

The obvious textual parallels with Sacrobosco's Sphaera suggest that the author of the cosmology found in Kane MS. 52 was inspired by that work. Yet, certain details are included here that are not found in Sacrobosco's text. First, there is a comparison of the entire cosmological arrangement to the contents of an egg.⁶⁸ Second, the text stresses the sphericity of the Earth, arguing that the Earth only appears flat to us because of its immensity. Even mountains do not affect its spherical shape, any more than does a millet seed placed on the surface of a skittleball.⁶⁹ Finally, the author calls attention to the central position of the sun among the planets and its likeness to a king.⁷⁰ What these observations suggest is that the author of the cosmology used Sacrobosco's Sphaera and/or consulted one of the numerous Latin commentaries in circulation which included this additional information.⁷¹ In his catalogue of astronomical manuscripts, Zinner⁷² indicates that the Latin text of Wissbier's cosmology in German is located in Munich,⁷³ the original being, of course, considerably older. Whether or not the translator of this text also relied on German sources⁷⁴ cannot be determined.

Like his Sphaera, Sacrobosco's Computus offered in textbook format practically all the material needed to comprehend medieval chronology:⁷⁵ it provided information on the division of time (second, minute, hour, day, etc.), the natural and the artificial hours of the day, the solar and lunar cycles, the seasons, leap year, the Metonic cycle, epacts, and the dominical letter. It made available ingenious mnemonic devices to simplify the highly technical computational procedures⁷⁶ as well as tables and charts for ascertaining the positions of the planets in the zodiac. But most importantly, it instructed the reader of this book in how to calculate the date of Easter Sunday and hence of the remaining movable feasts. Most of this information may be found in Volkskalender Version A, represented here by Kane MS. 52, but its author, eager to teach or to parade his erudition, even goes so far as to give a detailed account of time reckoning employed by Jews, Greeks, and Christians (fol.14v) and to warn of the dire consequences if leap year were not observed: “However, if we did not observe the leap years and left out the six hours, then in 732 years Christmas day would fall on John Baptist's day in the middle of summer, and John Baptist's day in the middle of winter. And the [dates of the] other Feasts would be moved correspondingly.”⁷⁷ His critical thinking manifests itself further when he interjects that astronomers and chronologists do not all share the same opinion as to the exact amount of time by which the years increase. The best among them, however, agree that the years change by six hours less twelve minutes, and this difference, though apparently minimal, amounts to one full day in one hundred twenty years. To correct this mistake, he adds, it would be necessary to omit leap year every hundred twenty years, but this is not permitted unless ordered by papal edict.⁷⁸ Elsewhere, he states that his own lunation tables are based on the reliable Alfonsine tables and are therefore astronomically sound (nach warem lauff), unlike those he encountered in other almanacs which were computed by simply adding the mean interval (nach mittelm lauff). The difference in lunation times between the two methods is quite significant, he assures us, but alerting the layman about this discrepancy would serve no purpose.⁷⁹ Proudly he stresses that his tables are not only accurate, he himself computed them specifically for the town of Feldkirch for which he gives the geographical coordinates with reference to Paris.⁸⁰

As was the case with the treatise on cosmology, the elucidation of the direct source(s) of the Kalendarium of Kane MS. 52 is open to speculation.⁸¹ What we do know is that Johannes Münzinger, then rector of the grammar school in Ulm,⁸² composed a Latin Kalendarium in 1404.⁸³ His pupil, Johannes Wissbier of Gmünd, prepared an expanded version of this Kalendarium⁸⁴ and probably translated the text himself into German (or reproduced an already available German translation). That text of the Kalendarium, now preserved in the Augsburg manuscript,⁸⁵ was completed on 17 January 1405⁸⁶ and is considered to be the prototype of the calendrical section of Volkskalender Version A.⁸⁷

Whereas the traditional Volkskalender Version A includes an additional two treatises, one on the signs of the zodiac,⁸⁸ the other on the seven planets,⁸⁹ the text of Kane MS. 52 stops abruptly after the Kalendarium. The fact that there is a colophon clearly marking the end of the book indicates that the two astrological tractates were never intended to be part of that book. Rather, it appears that Princeton's Kane MS. 52 was commissioned by a serious, literate, and numerate buyer possessing rudimentary knowledge of mathematics, astronomy, and Latin⁹⁰ who was obviously not interested in its popular astrological contents, but solely in the more sophisticated.

Notes

1. For a listing and brief description of the Western European medieval and Renaissance manuscripts in the Kane Collection, see Seymour de Ricci and William J. Wilson, Census of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the United States and Canada, 3 vols. (New York, 1935-1940), here vol. 2, pp. 1889-1900 (MS 52 on p. 1899), and Supplement to the Census … originated by C. U. Faye, continued and edited by W. H. Bond (New York, 1962), p. 306. Also Dorothy Miner, “The Manuscripts in the Grenville Kane Collection,” Princeton University Library Chronicle 11, no. 1 (Autumn 1949), 37-44, here p. 38.

2. “Et finivi dominica ante festum Cathedra Sancti Petri. Anno domini millesimo quadringentesimo tricesimo quinto per manus &c.” I am grateful to Michael J. H. Curschmann, Professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures at Princeton University and Director of the Program in Medieval Studies, for calling my attention to this manuscript.

3. In a previous article, I discussed the genre: see Francis B. Brévart, “The German Volkskalender of the Fifteenth Century,” Speculum 63 (1988), 312-342 (hereafter referred to as Brévart, “Volkskalender”). Some of the information in the pages that follow was taken, at times verbatim, from that article. I welcome the opportunity here to update my study bibliographically either with works that have been written since, or that had escaped me then. Also, I have made every attempt to include titles of comparable investigations by scholars of French and English Fachliteratur where appropriate. Inevitably, a few works already mentioned in my Volkskalender article will have to be cited here again when the present context requires it.

4. Rosy Schilling, ed., “A Facsimile of an Astronomical Medical Calendar in German (Studio of Diebolt Lauber at Hagenau, about 1430-1450) from the Library of Colonel David McC. McKell,” University of Kentucky Libraries. Margaret I. King Library, Bulletin 18 (Lexington, 1958). See Ferdinand Geldner, “Ein astronomisch-medizinischer Kalender aus der Werkstatt Diebolt Laubers in Hagenau,” Börsenblatt für den deutschen Buchhandel: Frankfurter Ausgabe 78a (30 September 1959), 1318, and H. Knaus, “Elsässische astronomische Handschriften des 15. Jahrhunderts,” Börsenblatt 104 (30 December 1959), 1955-56. A list of surviving Volkskalender like Kane MS. 52, together with their locations in libraries and private collections, may be consulted in the Appendix.

5. For a listing of similar Volkskalender in Old French (Le Calendrier des Bergers) and Middle English (The Shepherd's Calender), see H. Oskar Sommer, ed., The Kalender of Shepherdes (London, 1892), pp. 11-26 and 27-57. See also Émile Socard, “Étude sur les almanachs et les calendriers de Troyes (1497-1881),” Mémoires de la Société académique d'agriculture, des sciences, arts et belles-lettres du Département de l'Aube 45, 3rd Series, vol. 18 (Troyes, 1881), pp. 217-254; Herbert G. Hayne, “The Story of the Almanac,” The Library Association Record 15 (1913), 398-407, and P. Saintyves, “L'enseignement des almanachs du XV^e au XX^e Siècles sur l'influence de la lune,” Hippocrate 4 (Paris, 1936), 257-266 and 330-343; Lister M. Matheson and Ann Shannon, “A Treatise on the Elections of Times,” in Lister M. Matheson, ed., Popular and Practical Science of Medieval England (East Lansing, Michigan, 1994), pp. 23-59. For a discussion of the medieval concept of compilatio and of the role played by the compilator, see Alastair J. Minnis, “Late-Medieval Discussions of Compilatio and the Rôle of the Compilator,” Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur 101 (1979), 385-421, and Neil Hathaway, “Compilatio: From Plagiarism to Compiling,” Viator 20 (1989), 19-44.

6. Universitätsbibliothek, MS III, 1 4⁰1, fols. ^*1r-^*7v and 1r-26v; see Ernst Zinner, Verzeichnis der astronomischen Handschriften des deutschen Kulturgebietes (Munich, 1925), p. 355, nr. 11538.

7. Ernst Zinner, “Der deutsche Volkskalender des 15. Jahrhunderts,” Naturforschende Gesellschaft Bamberg 33 (1952), 46-50, here p. 46.

8. The Cisiojanus is a popular mnemonic poem written in Latin and designed to help remember the sequence of feast days throughout the year. It consists of exactly 365 syllables in the form of twelve hexameter couplets, one for each month. Each syllable corresponds to an abbreviated saint's day or feast, in the order of their occurrence, so that the text as a whole comprehends every day of the year. The Cisiojanus originated in the late twelfth century, and the numerous versions, found mainly in calendrical literature, extend well into the fifteenth century. German Cisiojani occur from the fourteenth century on. See Arne Holtorf, “Cisioianus,” Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters: Verfasserlexikon, 2d ed., revised by Kurt Ruth, 1 (1978), 1285-1289 (hereafter Verfasserlexikon); Peter Amelung, Das ist der teutsch Kalender mit den figurë, gedruckt zu Ulm im Jahre 1498 von Johannes Schäffler (Zurich, 1978), p. 125; Rolf Max Kully, “Cisiojanus: Comment savoir le calendrier par coeur,” in Bruno Roy and Paul Zumthor, eds., Jeux de mémoire. Aspects de la mnémotechnie médiévale (Montréal, 1985), pp. 149-156.

9. See appendix for a list.

10. Apart from Zinner, Verzeichnis and “Der deutsche Volkskalender,” see Viktor Stegemann, Aus einem mittelalterlichen deutschen astronomisch-astrologischen Lehrbüchlein (Reichenberg, 1944; repr. Hildesheim, 1973).

11. The text of this Volkskalender was published by Gundolf Keil, Friedrich Lenhardt, Christoph Weisser, eds., Vom Einfluß der Gestirne auf die Gesundheit und den Charakter des Menschen. Faksimile des Ms. C 54 der Zentralbibliothek Zürich (Lucerne, 1981-1982).

12. Brévart, “Volkskalender,” pp. 317-319; M. de Vries, “Die cracht der mane,” Verslagen en berigten uitgegeven door de vereeniging ter bevordering der oude Nederlandsche letterkunde 4 (1847), 5-22; Jakob Grimm, “In welchem Zeichen man Freunde kiesen solle,” Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum 8 (1851), 542-544; J. Verdam, “Een onbekend gedicht over de hemelteekenen,” Tijdschrift voor Nederlandsche tall- en letterkunde elfde deel. Nieuwe reeks, derde deel (1892), 299-305; Michael Jacoby, “Die Übernahme orientalisch-mittelmeerischer Zodiak-Systeme in die Germania,” Amsterdamer Beiträge 18 (1982), 63-77; Irma Taavitsainen, “A Zodiacal Lunary for Medical Professionals,” in Matheson, Popular and Practical Science, pp. 283-300.

13. Brévart, “Volkskalender,” pp. 319-321; J.D.F. Sotzmann, “Die xylographischen Bücher,” Serapeum (1842) nr. 12, 177-190 and nr. 13, 195-208; Ludwig Bechstein, “Das Planetenbüchlein. Ein noch unbekanntes Xylographum,” Deutsches Museum für Geschichte, Literatur, Kunst und Alterthumsforschung 1 (1842), 243-252; J. Zahn, “Ueber ein Planetarium in Holztafeldruck,” Serapeum 1864 nr. 1, 1-8; Julius Zacher, “Die zehn Altersstufen des Menschen,” Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie 23 (1891), 385-412; Friedrich Lippmann, Die sieben Planeten (Berlin, 1895); A. Hahn, “Kleine Mitteilungen: Einfluß der Planeten,” Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen 106 (1901), 351 [edition of a Middle English text]; Fritz Saxl, “Beiträge zu einer Geschichte der Planetenkinderdarstellungen im Orient und Okzident,” Der Islam 3 (1912), 151-177 and “Probleme der Planetenkinderbilder,” Kunstchronik und Kunstmark 54, neue Folge 30 (1919) 1013-1021; P. J. Heather, “The Seven Planets,” Folk-Lore 54 (1943), 338-361; Franz Boll, “Die Lebensalter,” in F. B., Kleine Schriften zur Sternkunde des Altertums, ed. Viktor Stegemann (Leipzig, 1950), pp. 156-224; Kurt Volkmann, Das Becherspiel. Darstellungen des Zaubers in der bildenden Kunst: Das 15 und 16. Jahrhundert (Düsseldorf, 1954); Francis B. Brévart, “Planetentraktate (und ‘Planetenkinder’-Texte),” Verfasserlexikon 7 (1989), 715-723; Uwe Fleckner et al., eds., Aby M. Warburg. Bildersammlung zur Geschichte von Sternglaube und Sternkunde im Hamburger Planetarium (Hamburg, 1993), pp. 264-271 and 280-283; Peter Brown, “The Seven Planets,” in Matheson, Popular and Practical Science, pp. 3-21; Theresia Berg and Udo Friedrich, “Wissenstradierung in spätmittelalterlichen Schriften zur Kriegskunst: Der ‘Bellifortis’ des Konrad Kyeser und das anonyme ‘Feuerwerksbuch’,” in Jan-Dirk Müller, ed., Wissen für den Hof. Der spätmittelalterliche Verschriftlichungsprozess am Beispiel Heidelberg im 15. Jahrhundert (Munich, 1994), pp. 169-232, here pp. 199-201.

14. Brévart, “Volkskalender,” pp. 316-317; Anton Birlinger, “Kalender und Kochbüchlein aus Tegernsee,” Germania 9 (1864), 192-207, here pp. 192-198; Joseph Baader, “Vorschriften eines mittelalterlichen Kalenders über Gesundheitspflege,” Anzeiger für Kunde der deutschen Vorzeit, neue Folge 11 (1864), 332-336; P. Gall Morel, “Die zwölf Monate,” Anzeiger für Kunde der deutschen Vorzeit, neue Folge 19 (1872), 215-218; Petrus Alberdingk Thijm, ed., Kalender en Gezondheidsregels (Gent, 1893); N. de Pauw, ed., “Gedicht op den Kalendier,” Middelnederlandsche Gedichten, vol. 1 (Ghent, 1893-1897), pp. 581-595; Hans Koegler, “Einige Basler Kalender des XV. und der ersten Hälfte des XVI. Jahrhunderts,” Anzeiger für schweizerische Altertumskunde, neue Folge 11 (1909), 153-169, 235-246, 330-349, here pp. 163, 238-240, 243-244; Émile Roy, “Un régime de santé du XV^e Siècle,” Mélanges offerts à Émile Picot, vol. 1 (Paris, 1913), pp. 151-158; Max Joseph Husung, “Über die Entwicklung der Monatsbilder in Kalendern,” in Buch und Einband. Aufsätze und graphische Blätter zum 60. Geburtstage von Hans Loubier (Leipzig, 1923), pp. 13-32; J. Morawski, “Les douze mois figurez,” Archivum Romanicum 10 (1926), 351-363; Rossell Hope Robbins, “English Almanacks of the Fifteenth Century,” Philological Quarterly 18 (1939), 321-331, here p. 322; and Robbins, ed., Secular Lyrics of the XIVth and XVth Centuries (Oxford, 1952), pp. 73-76; Rainer Reiche, “Einige lateinische Monatsdiätetiken aus Wiener und St. Galler Handschriften,” Sudhoffs Archiv 57 (1973), 113-141; Agi Lindgren, “Eine altschwedische Fassung von ‘Meister Alexanders Monatsregeln,” in Gundolf Keil, ed., Gelêrter der arzenîe, ouch apotêker. Beiträge zur Wissenschaftsgeschicte. Festschrift zum 70. Geburtstag von Willem F. Daems (Pattensen/Hannover, 1982), pp. 301-321; Hans Jeske, “Zu den deutschen Monatsnamen,” Studia Neophilologica 55 (1983), 31-46; Ortrun Riha, “Die ‘Utrechter Monatsregeln’. Untersuchungen zur Textgeschichte,” Würzburger medizinhistorische Mitteilungen 3 (1985), 61-76; O. Riha, “Frühmittelalterliche Monatsdiätetik. Anmerkungen zu einem komplexen Thema,” Würzburger medizinhistorische Mitteilungen 5 (1987), 371-379; O. Riha, “Editionsprobleme bei kompilierten Gebrauchstexten,” Würzburger medizinhistorische Mitteilungen 7 (1989), 105-142; O. Riha, Wissensorganisation in medizinischen Sammelhandschriften. Klassifikationskriterien und Kombinationsprinzipien bei Texten ohne Werkcharakter (Wiesbaden, 1992), pp.140-156 (see my review in Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum 124 [1995] 103-107); Linne R. Mooney, “Diet and Bloodletting: A Monthly Regimen,” in Matheson, Popular and Practical Science, pp. 245-261; Faith Wallis, “Medicine in Medieval Calendar Manuscripts,” Manuscript Sources of Medieval Medicine, ed. Margaret Schleissner (New York, 1995), pp. 105-143, here pp. 133f. n. 19.

15. Brévart, “Volkskalender,” pp. 323-324; Adalbert Jeitteles, “Mittheilungen aus Grazer Handschriften. 2: Von den vier Temperamenten,” Germania 20 (1875), 440-444; C. von Hardenberg, “Die vier Temperamente,” Germania 27 (1882), 413-415; Erik Björkman, ed., Everhards von Wampen Spiegel der Natur (Upsala, 1902), pp. 1-17; Lynn Thorndike, “De complexionibus,” Isis 49 (1958), 398-408 and “Two Other Passages ‘De complexionibus’,” Isis 54 (1963), 268-269; Laurel Braswell-Means, “A New Look at an Old Patient: Chaucer's Summoner and Medieval Physiognomia,” The Chaucer Review 25 (1991), 266-275; Klaus Bergdolt/Gundolf Keil, “Humoralpathologie,” Lexikon des Mittelalters 5 (1991), 211-213.

16. Brévart, “Volkskalender,” pp. 324-326; Karl Sudhoff, “Laßtafelkunst in Drucken des 15. Jahrhunderts,” Archiv für Geschichte der Medizin 1 (1908), 219-288; Robbins, Secular Lyrics, pp. 77-80; Laurel Braswell, “The Moon and Medicine in Chaucer's Time,” Studies in the Age of Chaucer 8 (1986), 145-156, here pp. 154f.; F. Lenhardt, “Zur Blutschau Heinrich Laufenbergs,” Würzburger medizinhistorische Mitteilungen 4 (1986), 9-21; Johannes Mayer, “Die Blutschau in der spätmittelalterlichen deutschen Diagnostik,” Sudhoffs Archiv 72 (1988), 225-233; Ortrun Riha, Wissensorganisation, pp. 118-127.

17. Brévart, “Volkskalender,” pp. 327-328; C. M. Kauffmann, The Baths of Pozzuoli (Oxford, 1959).

18. Brévart, “Volkskalender,” pp. 328-329; F. Ed. Schneegans, “Notice sur un calendrier français du XIII^e siècle,” in Mélanges de philologie Romane et d'historie littéraire offerts à Maurice Wilmotte, 2 vols. (Paris, 1910), vol. 1, pp. 619-652, here pp. 622f. and 640f.; Karl Sudhoff, “Zur Geschichte der Lehre von den kritischen Tagen im Krankheitsverlaufe,” Sudhoffs Archiv 21 (1929), 1-22; Robbins, Secular Lyrics, pp. 67-70; Linne Mooney, “A Middle English Verse Compendium of Astrological Medicine,” Medical History 28 (1984), 406-419, here pp. 413-415. The author concludes with the following remark: “I haue sayd als I hafe sens; for-gif me if it be (wrang), / And excuse me sere frend, for the mater was hard & strang [= arduous],” p. 416, lines 135-136; Riha, Wissensorganisation, pp. 128-133; Laurel Means, “Electionary, Lunary, and Questionary: Toward Defining Categories of Middle English Prognostic Material,” Studies in Philology 89 (1992), 367-403, here pp. 383-384; Wallis, “Medicine in Medieval Calendar Manuscripts,” pp. 117f. and passim.

19. Either one of these terms is preferable to ‘vein man’, a designation reserved “for the illustrative tradition, found mostly in later anatomical texts, depicting veins and arteries for instruction in anatomy rather than as a guide to bloodletting.” Linda Ehrsam Voigts, “Scientific and Medical Books,” in Jeremy Griffiths and Derek Pearsall, eds., Book Production and Publishing in Britain, 1375-1475 (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 345-402, here p. 395 n. 75. In addition to Lenhardt's excellent survey of the iconographical tradition of Volkskalender Version B (cf. Keil, Lenhardt, and Weisser, Vom Einfluß der Gestirne, pp. 157-189, here pp. 186f.) and Viogts, ibid., pp. 373f., see the reproductions of miniatures of bloodletting men in Harry Bober, “The Zodiacal Miniature of the Très Riches Heures of the Duke of Berry—Its Sources and Meaning,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 11 (1948), 1-34, plates 8a, 8c, 9a, 9c, 9d, 10b, 10c, 11b, and 11c; Boyd H. Hill, Jr., “The Fünfbilderserie and Medieval Anatomy,” unpublished dissertation, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 1963, and “A Medieval German Wound Man: Wellcome MS 49,” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 20 (1965), 334-357; John Murdoch, Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Album of Science (New York, 1984), plates 265 and 267; Peter Murray Jones, Medieval Medical Miniatures (London, 1984), fig. 54; M.-J. Imbault-Huart, La Médecine au moyen âge à travers les manuscrits de la Bibliothèque Nationale (Paris, 1983), plate 46.

20. Melothesia assigns parts of the body to the zodiacal signs which govern them. For a list of signs and their corresponding body parts see the Commentary on Johannes de Sacrobosco's Sphaera by Robertus Anglicus in The Sphere of Sacrobosco and Its Commentators, ed. Lynn Thorndike (Chicago, 1949), pp. 167f. See also Willem F. Daems, “Dialoge-Bilder-Entwürfe. Himmel und Erde schaffen den Menschen,” Die Drei. Zeitschrift für Wissenschaft, Kunst und soziales Leben (1981), 177-194, here p. 180; Ernest Wickersheimer, “La médecine astrologique dans les almanachs popularies du XX^e siècle,” Bulletin de la société d'histoire de la médecine 10 (1911), 26-39. But melothesiac principle could also assign each of the seven planets individual parts of the body, or plants, which they governed, very much like the signs; even the seven liberal arts were thought to be under planetary influence. See Anton Hauber, Planetenkinderbilder und Sternbilder. Zur Geschichte des menschlichen Glaubens und Irrens (Strasburg, 1916), p. 223, and Edward Grant, “Medieval and Renaissance Scholastic Conceptions of the Influence of the Celestial Region on the Terrestrial,” Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 17 (1987), 1-23, here pp. 8f. For an illustration of the ‘planet man’ see Monique Santucci, “L'Homme et les planètes dans les planches de l'homme anatomique et de l'homo astrologicus,” Le soleil, la lune et les étoiles au moyen age, in Sénéfiance 13 (1983), 361-375, here pp. 364-368. Regarding the relationship between planets and plants, see Bernard Ribemont, “Du verger au cosmos: Plantes et planètes dans la tradition médiévale,” Vergers et jardins dans l'univers médiéval, in Sénéfiance 28 (1990), 313-327. For reproductions of zodiac man miniatures, see besides Bober, “Zodiacal Miniature,” Murdoch, Antiquity, plates 81, 265, and 266; Jones, Miniatures, pp. 69-71 and fig. 29; Imbault-Huart, Médecine, plates 14-18. That the zodiac man and the bloodletting man were combined into one figure is not unusual. Voigts, “Scientific,” p. 373.

21. Voigts, “Scientific,” provides a picture of a woman performing the operation of cupping on a female patient, p. 374. For further examples see p. 396 n. 81.

22. That, in the final analysis, neither the illustrations nor the written text were sufficient for an individual to be able to accomplish the tasks described above (or others), is suggested by Michael Giesecke, “‘Volkssprache’ und ‘Verschriftlichung des Lebens’ im Spätmittelalter—am Beispiel der Genese der gedruckten Fachprosa in Deutschland,” Literatur in der Gesellschaft des Spätmittelalters, ed. Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht (Heidelberg, 1980), pp. 39-70: “Die meisten schriftlichen Beschreibungen dienten […] nicht dazu, denjenigen, die eine bestimmte Handlung nicht ausführen können, mit Hilfe des Buches die fehlenden Kenntnisse nachzuliefern. Die Funktion war vielmehr in erster Linie, eine Stütze für das Gedächtnis desjenigen zu liefern, der die Handlung ausführen kann, in der Regel für den Schreiber selbst. Seine ‘Nachkommen’ konnten später die Aufzeichnungen einsehen, um sich eine Bestätigung für ihr Vorgehen, das sie zuvor gelernt haben mußten, aus ihnen zu holen,” p. 62. O. Riha, Wissensorganisation, points out clearly that some of the texts, because of their numerous inadequacies, could not have served their users as the vade mecum they were intended to be. Thus, for example, one of the compilers, unsure about the medical advice he is giving and fearing the dire consequences which the literal following of his directions might bring about for a patient, refers the reader, so as to be “on the safe side,” to the works of experts: “der Kompilator gibt sich nicht nur durch die unzähligen Fehler erschreckende Blößen … sondern verweist—offenbar beeindruckt durch die fatalen Folgen eines terminlichen Fehlgriffs—selbst auf Experten, deren Rat zur Sicherheit einzuholen ist. Die Funktion als Vademekum oder Nachschlagewerk bei eigenverantwortlichem Handeln ist damit ad absurdum geführt; der Text ist somit für Mediziner unbrauchbar …” (p. 133). See also p. 165.

23. Cf. Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cgm 28.

24. Cf. Nuremberg, Staatsarchiv, MS 426). See Brévart, “Volkskalender,” p. 330 n. 83. In the title of his unpublished dissertation, André Parent proclaims (without any justification in the progress of his study) that the manuscript he intends to publish, Karlsruhe, Badische Landesbibliothek (olim Donaueschingen, Fürstlich-Fürstenbergische Hofbibliothek), MS 494, represents the oldest extant Volkskalender B: “Das ‘Iatromathematische Hausbuch’ in seiner bisher ältesten Fassung: die Buchauer Redaktion Heinrich Stegmüllers von 1443,” Université de Montréal 1988. See also his article “Das ‘Iatromathematische Hausbuch’ in Heinrich Stegmüllers Buchauer Redaktion von 1443. Anmerkungen zu Textwiedergabe, Kommentar und Wörterverzeichnis,” Würzburger medizinhistorische Mitteilungen 7 (1989), 169-177.

25. Earlier inventories in Keil, Lenhardt, and Weisser, Vom Einfluß der Gestirne, p. 158 (10 mss.); Bernhard Schnell, “Ein Würzburger Fragment des ‘Iatromathematischen Hausbuchs’. Ein Beitrag zu dessen Überlieferungsgeschichte,” Würzburger medizinhistorische Mitteilungen 5 (1987), 123-141, here pp. 131-134 (15 mss.). See appendix for an updated list.

26. Hain 973f.; Karl Sudhoff, Deutsche medizinische Inkunabeln (Leipzig, 1908), pp. 232–234 nr. 272; Ernst Zinner, Geschichte und Bibliographie der astronomischen Literatur in Deutschland zur Zeit der Renaissance (Stuttgart, 1964), p. 100 nr. 135.

27. Francis B. Brévart, “Johann Blaubirers Kalender von 1481 und 1483: Traditionsgebundenheit und experimentelle Innovation,” Gutenberg-Jahrbuch 63 (1988), 74-83. According to Jürgen Hamel, Zentralkatalog alter astronomischer Drucke in den Bibliotheken der D[eutschen]D[emokratischen]R[epublik] bis 1700, 5 vols. (Berlin-Treptow, 1987-1993), here vol. 4 (1991), p. 296 nr. 3616, another copy of Blaubirer's extremely rare Kalender from 1481 is located in Dessau, Stadtbibliothek, Cod. Georg 866. I have not yet verified this information.

28. For a listing of the incunabula see Zinner, Geschichte und Bibliographie, pp. 100-131, nrs. 135 [1481]; 136 [1481]; 180 [1483]; 181 [1483]; 183 [1483]; 286 [1487]; 326 [1488]; 394 [1490]; 395 [1490]; 475 [1492]; 576 [1495]; 618 [1496]; 650 [1497]; 691 [1498]; 724 [1499]. See also Amelung, Das ist der teutsch Kalender, pp. 132-159.

29. In a study to follow shortly, I will discuss the various textual configurations of those other Volkskalender and the techniques employed in compiling such works.

30. For the incidence of portable booklets such as ‘girdle books’ and ‘folding almanacs’ and for iconographical material, see Voigts, “Scientific and Medical Books,” p. 356, and Wallis, “Medicine in Medieval Calendar Manuscripts,” p. 139 n. 41.

31. For a diverging view see Bernhard Schnell, “Das ‘Hausbuch’ als Überlieferungsträger. Zu Michael de Leone und zum ‘Iatromathematischen Hausbuch’,” Würzburger Fachprosa-Studien. Beiträge zur mittelalterlichen Medizin-, Pharmazie- und Standesgeschichte aus dem Würzburger medizinhistorischen Institut (Pattensen/Hannover, 1994), pp. 118-133, here p. 128. The necessity for a medical practitioner to be cognizant of astrology/astronomy is made abundantly clear in numerous medical and astrological manuscripts, in which it is stated that a medical practitioner who is ignorant of this science is worthless and possibly a danger to his patients. Hence the warnings: “Ypocras, who was a physician and a most worthy master, asked: ‘What manner of physician is he who does not know astronomy [medicus non astronomiam ignorat]?’ No one ought to place himself in the hands of any physician who is less than perfect.” Laurel Braswell, “Moon and Medicine,” p. 146. And: “yppocras [beschribet], ‘das sich kein krancker mensch sol lassen vnder die hende des artzet, der siech nit verstet in der kunst astronomia'” (Freiburg, Universitätsbibliothek, MS 458, fol. 349r). The comparison of such a physician with a blind eye is not uncommon, for instance in a Low German calendar from the year 1528: “Eyn arste de de Astrologien nicht weit / Is gelyck einem oge sunder macht,” whereas one who is well versed in this art deserves full praise: “Eyn arste der Astrologien gelert / Is aller ere vnde laues [praise] werdt.” C. M. Wiechmann, Mecklenburgs altniedersächsische Literatur, 3 vols. (Schwerin, 1864-1885), here vol. 3, p. 124. See, too, Maurice Rollet, Médecins astrologues, Diss. Paris 1910; Oswald Feis, “Arzt und Astrologe. Lesefrucht,” Sudhoffs Archiv 18 (1926), 269-270; Ernest William Talbert, “The Notebook of a Fifteenth-Century Practicing Physician,” Texas Studies in English 21 (1942), 5-30; James K. Mustain, “A Rural Medical Practitioner in Fifteenth-Century England,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 46 (1972), 469-476; Lynn White, Jr., “Medical Astrologers and Late Medieval Technology,” Viator 6 (1975), 295-315; Gundolf Keil, “Die frag ist, ob der arczet schuldig sey oder nit. Eine ortolf-haltige Bearbeitung der =Quaestiones de medicorum statu< aus dem spätmittelalterlichen Schlesien,” in Konard Kunze, Johannes G. Mayer, Bernhard Schnell, eds., Überlieferungsgeschichtliche Editionen und Studien zur deutschen Literatur des Mittelalters. Kurt Ruh zum 75. Geburtstag (Tübingen, 1989), 189-209, here pp. 201-203.

32. In the German translation by Konrad von Megenberg in the mid-fourteenth century; see Francis B. Brévart, ed., Konrad von Megenberg. Die Deutsche Sphaera (Tübingen, 1980). See also Birgit Zimmermann, Das Hausarzneibuch. Ein Beitrag zur Untersuchung laiemedizinischer Fachliteratur des 16. Jahrhunderts unter besonderer Berücksichtigung ihres humanmedizinischen-pharmazeutischen Inhalts, Diss. Marburg/Lahn 1975, and Volker Zimmermann, Rezeption und Rolle der Heilkunde in landessprachigen handschriftlichen Kompendien des Spätmittelalters (Stuttgart, 1986), reviewed by Francis B. Brévart in Bulletin of the History of Medicine 63 (1989), 489-90.

33. For an attempt at a definition of this concept see Gerrit Bauer, Das ‘Haager Aderlassbüchlein’. Studien zum ärztlichen Vademecum des Spätmittelalters, I (Pattensen/Hannover, 1978), pp. 165-181 and Riha, Wissensorganisation, pp. 23-24.

34. For comparable findings in Middle English literature see Laurel Means, Medieval Lunar Astrology. A Collection of Representative Middle English Texts (Lewiston / New York, 1993), pp. 68-74.

35. Brévart, “Volkskalender,” p. 313 n. 13; Klaus Matthäus, “Zur Geschichte des Nürnberger Kalenderwesens,” Archiv für Geschichte des Buchwesens 9 (1969), cols. 965-1396.

36. Zinner, Verzeichnis, pp. 354-355 nrs. 11535-65 and “Der deutsche Volkskalender;” Klaus Schönfeldt, Die Temperamentenlehre in deutschsprachigen Handschriften des 15. Jahrhunderts, Diss. Heidelberg 1964, pp. 85-93; Ute Müller, Deutsche Mondwahrsagetexte aus dem Spätmittelalter, Diss. Berlin 1971, pp. 60-63; 72f.; 77f.; 141; Maria Mitscherling, ed., Medizinisch-astrologischer Volkskalender (Leipzig, 1981), p. 10.

37. For an analysis of this social group see Robert H. Lutz, Wer war der gemeine Mann? Der dritte Stand in der Krise des Spätmittelalters (Munich, 1979) and Francis B. Brévart, “Spätmittelalterliche Trivialliteratur. Methodologische Überlegungen zu ihrer Bestimmung und Erforschung,” Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen 224 (1987), 14-33, here pp. 20-24. Martin Germann sees as recipient of calendars ‘das gewöhnliche Volk’, “Fundort Bucheinband: ein Zürcher Kalender auf das Jahr 1482,” Gutenberg-Jahrbuch 68 (1993), 66-87, here p. 75. According to Mitscherling, Medizinisch-astrologischer Volkskalender, the general populace preferred reading materials that were easily digestible: “die breite Masse wollte leichter verdauliche Kost, wie sie die Volkskalender boten” (p. 13). And elsewhere: “[Unsere Handschrift: Gotha, Forschungsbibliothek Chart. B 1238] ist eine dem Verständnis des einfachen Menschen angepaßte Kompilation des astrologisch-medizinischen Wissens im Spätmittelalter, wie sie in ähnlicher Form große [!] Verbreitung in den deutschen Handschriften des 15. Jahrhunderts fand” (p. 10). Further information on this topic may be found among the individual essays of the collection Pharmazie und der gemeine Mann. Hausarznei und Apotheke in der frühen Neuzeit, ed. Joachim Telle (Weinheim, 1988). For a discussion of the “expectations” of a reader of Trivialliteraatur see Brévart, “Trivialliteraatur,” pp. 31-33, in particular nos. 3 and 4. In this context, Riha, Wissensorganisation, makes the interesting observation that overlapping and repetitions of the information not only were not regarded as a nuisance by the users (as we, moderns, might infer), they were in fact welcomed as a stylistic means to render the conveyed materials more palatable: “inhaltliche Überschneidungen … [werden] unter dem Aspekt der thematischen Abrundung und Vollständigkeit wieder gern in Kauf genommen” (p. 163).

38. Robert Junkelmann, “Blaubirers Kalender vom Jahre 1481,” Zeitschrift des deutschen Vereins für Buchwesen und Schrifttum 3 (1920), 74-78, here p. 75; Müller, Mondwahrsagetexte, p. 61.

39. Helmut H. Schmid, “Ein Nürnberger Kalender von 1430 und Johann Blaubirers Kalender von 1483,” Festschrift für Eugen Stollreither (Erlangen, 1950), pp. 247-253, here p. 247. In her dissertation, Müller, Mondwahrsagetexte, uses ‘Kalender’ and ‘Almanach’ interchangeably (p. 61), as well as ‘Kalender’ and ‘Volkskalender’, pp. 72f., and ‘Volkskalender’ and ‘Kompendium’, pp. 141f.

40. Beat Trachsler, Vom Aderlassen und Bräute machen (Basel, 1974), uses ‘Buchkalender’ and ‘Kalenderbuch’ synonymously (p. 23).

41. Viktor Stegemann, Lehrbüchlein.

42. Zinner, Verzeichnis, p. 527.

43. Kurt Pfister, Teutscher Kalender. Faksimile-Ausgabe der Holzschnitte. Mit einem Nachwort (Munich, 1922), utilizes in his Afterword the terms ‘Volksbuch’, ‘Volkskalender’, and ‘Buchkalender’ synonymously.

44. Alfred Schmid, ed., Conrad Türsts Iatro-mathematisches Gesundheitsbüchlein für den Berner Schultheiβen Rudolf von Erlach (Bern, 1947). ‘Iatromathematik’ or astrological medicine refers to the application of astrological principles to medicine. Cf. Karl Sudhoff, Iatromathematiker vornehmlich im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert (Breslau, 1902).

45. Lorenz Welker, Das ‘Iatromathematische Corpus’. Untersuchungen zu einem alemannischen astrologisch-medizinischen Kompendium des Spätmittelalters mit Textausgabe und einem Anhang (Zurich, 1988), uses the designation in his title and the term ‘medizinisches Kompendium’ indiscriminately throughout the study.

46. Keil, Lenhardt, and Weisser, Vom Einfluβ der Gestirne; Parent, Hausbuch; Schnell, “Würzburger Fragment.”

47. “Wir verstehen das kleine Werk am besten als eine Art Hausbuch.” Mitscherling, Medizinisch-astrologischer Volkskalender, p. 9. In her study, “Medicine in Medieval Calendar Manuscripts,” F. Wallis refers to this type of text as anthology: “computus manuscripts do not always—indeed only rarely—contain exclusively computus materials. They usually present themselves as anthologies, … with the computus material as the controlling element (the ‘encyclopaedic’ model),” p. 109, or as the “host” to medical material, p. 110.

48. For examples in English literature of the Middle Ages see Laurel Braswell, “Utilitarian and Scientific Prose,” Middle English Prose. A Critical Guide to Major Authors and Genres, ed. A.S.G. Edwards (New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1984), pp. 337-387.

49. Schnell, “Hausbuch,” p. 118: […] den Begriff ‘Hausbuch’ [verwendet man] in den letzten Jahren […] immer mehr als Synonym für eine ‘Sammelhandschrift vermischten Inhalts’ […] und [nennt] Handschriften, die zahlreiche Texte aus ganz verschiedenen Textsorten vereinen, ‘Hausbuch’ […]. Vor allem wenn, in ein und derselben Handschrift, poetische Werke und Texte aus dem Bereich der Fachliteratur, der pragmatischen Literatur überliefert werden und der Schreiber bzw. Besitzer des Codex noch dazu ein Bürgerlicher war, spricht man gerne von einem ‘Hausbuch’, in der Absicht, die Handschrift näher zu charakterisieren.

50. Peter Dinzelbacher, ed., Sachwörterbuch der Mediävistik (Stuttgart, 1992), p. 334: “eine besondere Form der spätmittelalterlichen Sammelhandschrift, in der verschiedenartigste Texte nach dem (oft didaktischen) Interesse eines Hausvaters oder einer Familie zu einem Lern- und Lesebuch zusammengestellt werden […]. Auch Kompilationen, die zum Zweck der Belehrung anderer in deren häuslichem Leben entstanden, nennt man Hausbuch (zum Beispiel das Iatromathematische Hausbuch). Berühmt für seine Illustrationen ist das Wolfegg-Hausbuch.” (All abbreviations in this compact article and elsewhere have been resolved for the convenience of an American readership). For more information on the (lavishly illuminated) Wolfegg-Hausbuch mentioned in this quote see Helmuth Th. Bossert and Willy Storck, eds., Das mittelalterliche Hausbuch. Nach dem Originale im Besitze des Fürsten von Waldburg-Wolfegg-Waldsee (Leipzig, 1912), and R. v. Retberg, Kulturgeschichtliche Briefe über ein mittelalterliches Hausbuch des 15. Jarhd. aus der fürstlich Waldburg-Wolfeggischen Sammlung (Leipzig, 1865).

51. Schnell, “Hausbuch,” p. 130: Dabei spielt es keine Rolle, ob es sich […] etwa um eine Mischhandschrift (das heißt eine Handschrift, die lateinische und volkssprachliche Texte enthält) handelt, ob die Handschrift von einer oder von vielen Händen stammt, ob die Handschrift illustriert ist oder nicht, ob der Besitzer beziehungsweise Auftraggeber ein Adeliger, Bürger oder Kleriker ist. Und kein Kriterium kann schließlich die Form (Vers oder Prosa) und die Gattung oder Textsorte sein.

52. Schnell, “Hausbuch,” p. 130: “Vielmehr gehört […] zum Wesen eines ‘Hausbuchs’, daß sich erstens die ‘Mitüberlieferung’ (das heißt die Summer der in der Handschrift enthaltenen Texte) nicht mit dem literarischen Genus oder mit inhaltlichen Beziehungen erklären läßt, sondern einzig und allein aus dem privaten Interesse des Besitzers an den verschiedenartigsten Texten und Informationen. Und zweitens, daß eine enge Verbindung zwischen dem Buch und einer bestimmten Person beziehungsweise Familie, mit anderen Worten, einem ‘Haus’ besteht. Die Kenntnis der Biographie des Besitzers ist dabei unverzichtbar.” This definition appears to be tailored for Middle English commonplace books. See Ulrich Frost, Das ‘Commonplace Book’ von John Colyns. Untersuchung und Teiledition der Handschrift Harley 2252 der British Library in London (Frankfurt am Main, 1988), pp. 69-95 with a list of eight such works (pp. 79-80).

53. “Das in der Regel auf Pergament geschriebene und illustrierte Buch ist an sich kein Hausbuch; es müßte daher anders genannt werden, etwa ‘Iatromathematisches Kompendium’.” Schnell “Hausbuch,” p. 130.

54. The Metonic number refers to the number of a given year in a lunar cycle. This designation goes back to Meton, a fifth-century b.c. Athenian, who recognized that 19 years after a given new moon another new moon would take place on the very same day of the month. For any year, the Metonic number is obtained by dividing the number of the year in question by 19 and adding 1 to the remainder. As a legend would have it, this discovery excited the Athenians' admiration to such a degree that they caused Meton's calculations to be engraved in golden characters in the Agora, hence the other commonly used name “golden number” (numerus aureus). See Siegmund Eisner, ed., The Kalendarium of Nicholas of Lynn (Athens, Georgia, 1980), p. 5.

55. In ecclesiastical computi it was the custom to assign to each day of the year a letter of the alphabet between A and G, starting with A for 1 January, B for 2 January, G for 7 January, and again A for 8 January, etc. Whichever letter fell on the first Sunday of the year was called the Sunday or dominical letter (littera dominicalis) for that year, and every time that letter occurred during the year, it would be a Sunday. In a leap or bissextile year, the dominical letter remained valid until St. Matthias's day (24 February). From that day on, it was lowered by one in the alphabetical order, and that letter then became the Sunday letter for the rest of the year. In the diagram found in Kane MS. 52, fol. 15r, the letters in the outer circle represent the letters for each day of the week. In a leap year, the new dominical letter (from 24 February on) is placed in the inner circle directly beneath the old one, thus proceeding in a clockwise direction, E under F, G under A, B under C, and so on throughout the seven sequences of leap years. A knowledge of both the golden number and the dominical letter was necessary to compute the date of Easter or any of the other movable feasts.

56. Thorndike, Sphere of Sacrobosco, pp. 3-14.

57. Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 28229, fols. 70r-75r, incipit: “Dico quod astrolabium est nomen grecum cuius interpretatio …” Lynn Thorndike and Pearl Kibre, A Catalogue of Incipits of Medieval Scientific Writings in Latin (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1963), col. 423. This work is not mentioned in Thorndike, Sphere of Sacrobosco, pp. 3-5. See the instructive booklet by Roderick S. Webster (author and mathematician) and Paul R. MacAlister and Frolydia M. Etting (designers of graphics and the astrolabe), The Astrolabe. Some Notes on its History, Construction and Use (Lake Bluff, Illinois, 1975).

58. Incipit: “Omnis scientia per instrumentum operative …” Thorndike and Kibre, col. 1003.

59. Robert Steele, ed., Compotus Fratris Rogeri (Oxford, 1971), p. xx. For a partial inventory of Sacrobosco's mathematical works see Menso Folkerts, “Mittelalterliche mathematische Handschriften in westlichen Sprachen in der Berliner Staatsbibliothek. Ein vorläufiges Verzeichnis,” in J. Dauben, ed., Mathematical Perspectives (New York, 1981), pp. 53-93 (passim) and “Mittelalterliche mathematische Handschriften in westlichen Sprachen in der Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel,” Centaurus 25 (1981), 1-49 (passim).

60. Francis B. Brévart, ed., Johannes von Sacrobosco, Das Puechlein von der Spera. Abbildung der gesamten Überlieferung, kritische Edition, Glossar (Göppingen, 1979), pp. 7-10, and “Johannes de Sacrobosco (Sacrobusto, -buschus), John of Holywood (-walde, -bush) oder Halifax,” Verfasserlexikon 4 (1983), 731-736, here p. 733.

61. Fols. 10r-13r.

62. Brévart, “Volkskalender,” pp. 322-323; Christa Baufeld, “Zur Widerspiegelung des mittelalterlichen Weltbildes in Enzyklopädien des Mittelalters,” Jahrbuch für Geschichte des Feudalismus 12 (1988), 51-75.

63. Alistair C. Crombie, Augustine to Galileo. The History of Science A.D. 400-1650 (London, 1952), pp. 52-58; Jean-Paul Deschler, Die astronomische Terminologie Konrads von Megenberg (Frankfurt am Main, 1977), pp. 82-90; Edward Grant, “Cosmology,” Studies in Medieval Science and Natural Philosophy (London, 1981), Nr. II, pp. 265-302, here pp. 275-280.

64. Hans Unterreitmeier, “Deutsche Astronomie/Astrologie im Spätmittelalter,” Archiv für Kulturgeschichte 65 (1983), 21-41, here p. 35; Edward Grant, “Medieval and Renaissance Scholastic Conceptions of the Influence of the Celestial Region on the Terrestrial,” The Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 17 (1987), 1-23.

65. Laurel Braswell, “Popular Lunar Astrology in the Late Middle Ages,” University of Ottawa Quarterly 48 (1978), 187-194; and Braswell, “Moon and Medicine,” pp. 145-156; Danielle Jacquart, “Theory, Everyday Practice, and Three Fifteenth-Century Physicians,” Renaissance Medical Learning. Evolution of a Tradition, ed. Michael R. McVaugh and Nancy G. Siraisi in Osiris 6 (1990), 140-160, here pp. 148f.

66. On the plurality of celestial motions see Grant, “Cosmology,” pp. 278-279.

67. Kane MS. 52, fol. 12v: “Wanne aber daz gescheen sal, daz mag nyemand wissen dann mit großer arbeit, vnd hort auch vil gross kunst darzu; darumb lassen ichs hie blieben.”

68. Kane MS. 52, fol. 10v: “Es sprechent die meister des gestirns, daz die hiemelschen […] speren sind ix ober eyn ander vnd sin yn eyn ander beslaißen als der dodter [egg yolk] yn eyme eye an [except] die oberste spere, daz ist die oberste spere vnd die ix, vnd die selbe ist vnbeslaißen, want oben der selben ix spere ist keyn begrifflich ding. Vnd die selbe oberste spere […] die mogen wir nit gesehen vnd ist zu latine gnant ‘primum mobile’.” See Stegemann, Lehrbüchlein, pp. 66-67 and 68-70 for the Latin sources of this comparison, and Francis B. Brévart, “Die ‘Mainauer Naturlchre’. Ein astronomisch-diätetisch-komputistisches Lehrbuch aus dem 14. Jahrhundert. Mit einer Quellenuntersuchung,” Sudhoffs Archiv 71 (1987), 157-179, here p. 160.

69. Kane MS. 52, fol. 11r: “Vnd ist daz erterich ront, doch duncket es vns glich, daz ist syner grosste scholt. Daz gebirge benymet yme auch nit vil syner rondekeit me dan als viel, als eyn hirsen korn vff eyner kogel were.” Stegemann, Lehrbüchlein, pp. 71-74.

70. Kane MS. 52, fol. 11r: “Darunder die sonne; darvmb ist sie daz mittel vnder den planeten als ein konig vnder sinne folk in syme riche, wand drye planeten sint ober der sone vnd drye vndir der sonne.” Stegemann, Lehrbüchlein, p. 66-68; cf. Michel Salvat, “Barthélemy L'Anglais, Traités du soleil et de la lune, traduits par Jean Corbechon (1372). Edition et commentaire,” Le soleil, la lune et les étoiles au Moyen Age in Sénéfiance 13 (1983), 339-357, here p. 345 nr. 4, 346 nr. 9, 347 nr. 18. For the association of the sun with the human heart (particularly in medical works) see Henry E. Sigerist, “Deutsche medizinische Handschriften aus Schweizer Bibliotheken,” Sudhoffs Archiv 17 (1925), 205-240, here p. 219; Trachsler, Vom Aderlassen: “Noch Tycho Brahe (1546-1601), der berühmte Astronom, glaubte, dass das Herz als Wärmequelle des Körpers der Sonne entspreche” (p. 19); Santucci, “L'Homme et les planètes,” pp. 365 (and adjoining figure) and 367; Kristian Bosselmann-Cyran, =Secreta mulierum< mit Glosse in der deutschen Bearbeitung von Johann Hartlieb. Text und Untersuchungen (Pattensen / Hannover, 1985): “Dy Sunn das ist gar ain herczenlicher vnd kuniglicher stern vnd … ist ain aug aller welt vnd gibt nach gott allem lebenden das leben” (p. 177, lines 4-6).

71. Cf. Thorndike, Sphere of Sacrobosco, pp. 143ff.

72. Zinner, Verzeichnis, p. 503.

73. Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 4394 (ca. 1477), incipit: “Aristoteles et philosophi ceteri scribentes de naturis …” (fol. 62r). Thorndike and Kibre, Catalogue, p. 57; Zinner, Verzeichnis nr. 10334, erroneously gives the folio numbers as 62r-92v. The cosmological tract is found on fols. 62r-65r. There follow the treatises on the planets (fols. 65r-73r) and the signs (fols. 73r-78r) which constitute the Latin version of the German translation in Volkskalender Version A.

74. For instance Lucidarius, ed. Felix Heidlauf (Berlin, 1915); Die Mainauer Naturlehre, edited as part of a study by Martin Mosimann, Die ‘Mainauer Naturlehre’ im Kontext der Wissenschaftsgeschichte (Tübingen, 1994), Beiheft pp. 1-48, and Brévart, “‘Mainauer Naturlehre'”; Konrad von Megenberg's Buch der Natur, ed. Franz Pfeiffer (Stuttgart, 1861), or his Deutsche Sphaera, ed. Brévart. See Klaus Arnold, “Konrad von Megenberg als Kommentator der ‘Sphaera’ des Johannes von Sacrobosco,” Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters 32 (1976), 147-186.

75. Hermann Grotefend, Zeitrechnung des deutschen Mittelalters und der Neuzeit, 2 vols. (Hannover, 1891-1898, repr. Aalen, 1970); Friedrich Karl Ginzel, Handbuch der mathematischen und technischen Chronologie, 3 vols. (Leipzig, 1906-1914); A. Blanc, L'Homme emprisonne le temps. Les calendriers (Paris, 1986); Gerhard Dohrn-van Rossum, Die Geschichte der Stunde. Uhren und moderne Zeitordnung (Munich, 1992); Arno Borst, The Ordering of Time. From the Ancient Computus to the Modern Computer (Chicago, 1993). See also Anatole de Montaiglon, “Documents inédits sur le comput,” Société nationale des antiquaires de France. Annuaire 6 (1853), 169-191; Lynn Thorndike, “Computus,” Speculum 29 (1954), 223-238; Joachim Mayr, “Der Computus Ecclesiasticus,” Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie 77 (1955), 301-330; Arvid Lindhagen, “Länge und Alter des Mondes in den Kalendarien des Mittelalters,” Arkiv för Matematik, Astronomi och Fysik 9 (1913-1914), 1-27. Further James Orchard Halliwell, ed., “The Preface to a Calendar or Almanac for the Year 1430,” Rara Mathematica (London, 1839), pp. 89-93; Eduard Mall, ed., Der computus des Philipp von Thaun (Strasburg, 1873); Adolf Dresler. “Von alten Kalendern,” Der Druckspiegel 14 (1959), 459-463; Eisner, The Kalendarium of Nicholas of Lynn; John B. Friedman, “Richard de Thorpe's Astronomical Kalendar and the Luxury Book Trade,” Studies in the Age of Chaucer 7 (1985), 137-160; Eckehard Simon, The ‘Türkenkalender’ (1454) Attributed to Gutenberg and the Strasbourg Lunation Tracts (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1988), pp. 17-24; Laurel Means, “‘Ffor as moche as yche man may not haue þe astrolabe’: Popular Middle English Variations on the Computus,” Speculum 67 (1992), 595-623; Linne R. Mooney, “The Cock and the Clock: Telling Time in Chaucer's Day,” Studies in the Age of Chaucer 15 (1993), 91-109; Wallis, “Medicine in Medieval Calendar Manuscripts,” passim.

76. Means, “Variations,” pp. 602 and 623.

77. MS Kane 52, fol. 14r.: “hilde man aber der schalt jare nit vnd die vj oren vnder weg liesse, so geschee is in vij [hundert] vnd xxxij jaren, daz der crist tag zu wyhennachten qweme zu sand Johans dag zu mitten somer vnd sand Johans dag des deuffers zu mittem wynter; vnd also verwandelt [sich] auch die andern hochzyt.”

78. Kane MS. 52, fol. 14r: “Wulden wir aber der irrungen vberich werden, so musten wyr ie in 120 jaren 1 schalt [jar] vnder wegin laißen, dann so verblieben die hochzytt vnverwandelt in den jaren. Aber daz ist verbodten, es geschaech von gemeynem raid der paffeit. Darumb mussen wir irrungen lieden alsam.” This is an allusion to the urgently needed calendar reform which, after many attempts and prolonged resistance, was finally carried out by Pope Gregorius XIII in 1582 under the supervision of the astronomer Aloysius Lilius. That year, ten days were eradicated from the calendar: October 4 was followed by October 15. See Dresler, “Kalender,” p. 460; Zinner, Geschichte und Bibliographie, pp. 25-28, and Thomas Kröll, “‘mer ist zewissen von dem schaltiar …’. Der Beitrag des Stamser Mönchs Vitus de Augusta zur Kalenderreform des Jahres 1582,” in Alfred A. Strand, ed., Studia Stamsensia (Innsbruck-Stams, 1984), pp. 45-63.

79. Kane MS. 52, fol. 19r.

80. Kane MS. 52, fol. 19r: “Aber die zytt des nuwen mands zu suchen ist hart vnd mit groβer arbeit, vnd darumb ist yrer wenig, die ys suchent. Aber daz han ich gesucht vnd in diesen kalender gesatzt, vnd ist dieser kalender gesatzt mit aller rechenunge vff die lenge vnsir statt zu Veltkirchen, dye dem orient neher ist dann Paris vmb 24 minuten eyner vren oder bynoch daby.” Whether those tables were computed for Feldkirch on behalf of the patrons and good friends who may have resided in that town and requested this service from him cannot be determined. “Herumb wil ich etwaβ durch bedte willen etlich myner gnedigen heeren vnd auch myner lieben frunde vnd gesellen yn zu dynst zu lieb vnd fruntschafften schriebin von der sonen vnd auch von des mandes lauffte vff daz sie de baβ wissen, waz zu dunde abir zu laiβen vnd auch me cluckheit die gut zu wissen sint zu leren” (fol. 10v—similar wording fol. 21r). Such a statement is more likely to be a topos. See Sigerist, “Medizinische Handschriften,” p. 237; and Bosselmann-Cyran, =Secreta mulierum<, p. 10 (with additional bibliographical notes); Paul Oskar Kristeller, “Der Gelehrte und sein Publikum im späten Mittelalter und in der Renaissance,” in Hans Robert Jauss und Dieter Schaller, eds., Medium Aevum Vivum. Festschrift für Walther Bulst (Heidelberg, 1960), pp. 212-230, here pp. 220f.; and Ernst Robert Curtius, Europäische Literatur und lateinisches Mittelalter (Bern, 1948), p. 93: “Unzählige mittelalterliche Autoren versichern, sie schrieben auf Befehl. Die Literaturgeschichten nehmen das als bare Münze. Doch ist es meistens nur ein Topos.” But the implication here is nevertheless unmistakable. The Volkskalender was meant to be circulated within the circle of friends, for them to consult when they needed it: “Offenkundig wird aus dieser Bemerkung jedoch, daβ dieses Kompendium für viele gedacht war, daβ es allen Bekannten bereitwillig zur Einsicht gegeben werden sollte. Demnach kann man wohl allgemein für die astrologischen Praktiken voraussetzen, daβ nicht nur ihr Besitzer bei ihnen Rat holte, sondern auch Freunde und Nachbarn. Wer selbst nicht lesen konnte, lieβ sich die Voraussagen vielleicht vorlesen oder behielt sie im Gedächtnis. Und so dürfte der Rezipientenkreis noch gröβer gewesen sein, als die ohnehin ziemlich reiche astronomischastrologische Textüberlieferung erkennen läβt.” Müller, Mondwahrsagetexte, p. 142. See Klaus Schreiner, “Gebildete Analphabeten?” Wissensliteratur im Mittelalter und in der frühen Neuzeit. Bedingungen, Typen, Publikum, Sprache, ed. Horst Brunner and Norbert Richard Wolf (Wiesbaden, 1993), pp. 296-327.

81. For a survey of computistical works which circulated in the Middle Ages see Means, “Variations,” pp. 596ff.

82. Zinner, Verzeichnis, writes about him: “Magister und Leiter der Schulen in Ulm, musste sich wegen einiger Äusserungen über das Sakrament am 12. X. 1385 in Prag verteidigen, nach einer vorhergehenden Verhandlung am 12. IX. 1385 in Ulm” (p. 475 n. 7412).

83. Augsburg, Universitätsbibliothek, MS III,1 4°1, fols. 140v-146v.

84. Fols. 146v-160r. Zinner, Verzeichnis, nr. 7413 and note on p. 475.

85. Fols. *1r-*7v and 4v-15r.

86. Zinner, “Der deutsche Volkskalender,” p. 46.

87. The other sections of the Volkskalender in that manuscript are: cosmology (fols. 1r-4v); treatise on the signs (fols 15v-22v); treatise on the planets (fols. 22v-26v).

88. Incipit: “Nu sall ich etwas schriben von natur vnd aigenschaft der 12 zaichen vnd des ersten von dem wider …” (MS III,1 4°1, fols. 15v-22v). Zinner, Verzeichnis, nr. 8035.

89. Incipit: “Saturnus ist der obrost planet vnd loffet durch die 12 zaichen in 30 jaren …” (MS III,1 4°1, fols. 22v-26v). Zinner, Verzeichnis, nr. 8370; Stegemann, Lehrbüchlein, published the German and Latin texts, pp. 35-59. Although several versions of planet texts circulated during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries (cf. Francis B. Brévart, “Planetentraktate und ‘Planetenkinder’-Texte,” Verfasserlexikon 7 [1989], 715-723), the planet treatise of Volkskalender Version A is, to my knowledge, the only one to offer at the conclusion of the text a theoretical passage on what it is exactly that constitutes a planet's child: “der mensch ist des planeten kind, der geborn wirt als in siner muter leib empfangen wurd zu der zeit, so der planet groszen gewalt hat oder so er von orient vff stat vnd ob der planet vil seiend die denn gewalt hand oder die denn von orient vff stat, welcher denn der gewaltig ist, der aygnet ym das kind vnd geit jm den aygenschaft nach siner natur. Es gesicht aber selten, das ein planet vollen gewalt vnd herschaft hab vnd darumb geit er jm so vil syner aygenschaft als er mag vnd die andern planeten geben jm auch ir aygenschaft, als sie kraft habend vnd darumb hat ein mensch nit allain aines planeten aygenschaft, etlicher hat zwayer planeten aygenschaft, etlichs trier, etlichs allersamd von yechlichen planeten etwaz wening oder vil. Doch haist ain mensch des planeten kind von dem der mensch allermaist aygenschaft hat.” Stegemann, ibid., p. 63.

90. Cf. the tables fols. 3r-9r. Means, “Variations,” pp. 595 and 602.