Do you ever wish you had a way to see into
the future, to see how events might play out? The editors at the AND would
certainly love to have this ability! As evidenced by a numerous medieval
writings, the desire to predict or foretell the future, or predire in Anglo-Norman, has been a longstanding wish of many.
Two of the most recent additions to the
Dictionary library are Tony Hunt’s Writing
the Future: Prognostics Text of Medieval England
(Textes littéraires du Moyen Âge
24, Paris, 2013) and Stefano
Rapisarda’s Manuali medievali di chiromanzia (Biblioteca
Medievale 95, Rome, 2005). Both of these books contain
editions of Anglo-Norman texts which could be used to tell the future – texts
to interpret the lines on hands, the meaning of dreams, the zodiac, the moon,
the stars...[1]
 |
| Palmistry, BL Additional 11639, f. 115 |
Lunarie, a term attested in another prognostic text edited by T. Hunt[2],
refers to a ‘lunary’, a text that provides a collection of predictions based on
the day of the lunar month. These lunaries provide a wide range of very
practical predictions, including the best time for blood-letting, the fates of
children born on that day, the medical prognosis for those that are sick and
general statements about the day.
The full moon falls on the 27th
this month, and the lunary in Oxford, Bodl. Libr. Ashmole 342 provides this
prediction for the first moon:
La
prime lune est bone a comencer totes choses, vendre ou achater. Ki enmaladira,
ben eschapera e garra. L’enfant ke nestra serra de grant age. Le soynge turnera
a grant joye. Bon seigner fet de veyne. Future
68
[The first moon is good for beginning all
things, selling or buying. Those who will fall ill, will escape and recover.
The child who is born will live to a great age. Worry will turn to great joy.
Good bloodletting can happen from a vein.]
While the many prose and verse lunaries do
not always agree on their predictions, most seem to agree that the first day of
the lunar cycle is a good day for new beginnings. So plan your weekend
accordingly!
Prognostic texts based on a combination of
the zodiac and the months of the year were also common, and provide information
on the fates of individuals born in certain months, under certain signs, with
different predictions for men and women (the predictions for women are much
shorter). So what is in store for the dictionary editors based on their birth
months?
Il
serra de ouel estature de cors. Il avera bel chevelure. En acune tens il avera
plenté e en autre tens defaute [...] Il avera le[s] dens large. Il espousera
treys femmys e le un irra de ly sans revenyr [...] Le[s] premere [en]fans que
il ad serrunt femmeles. Ky o ly mange ou beve il dirrent mal de ly e volenters
voylent combatre o ly. Quant il est de age de .xxiii. ans, une grant renoumé
avera [...] il vivera a l’age de .lxix. ans e il morra en autre tere de une
espeye ou de doulur de ventre en jour de mardy. Future 144
[He will be of regular physical stature. He
will have beautiful hair. At some times he will have plenty and at other times
not enough. He will have large teeth. He will marry three women and one will
leave him without returning. The first children he will have will be female.
Those who eat or drink with him will speak ill of him and wish to fight him.
When he is 23 years old, he will be famous. He will live to the age of 69 and
will die in another land from a sword or a pain in the stomach on a Tuesday.]
Ele
serra honuré. Ele avera fort corouce. [...] Ele serra sages. Un jour ele serra
seyn e une autre jour serra dolant. Ele avera treys barons e entre ly e la
premere serra grant corouce e grant changle e de le[s] deus ele avera fiz e
fillez. De ces que ele eyme ele eydera volenters. Ele avera descord entre ly e
sa veysyne. Ele morra en le jour de judy en dolur de la senestre coste Future 143
[She will be honoured. She will have a
great anger. She will be wise. One day she will be healthy and another ailing.
She will have three husbands and between her and the first will be a great
anger and bickering and of the other two she will have sons and daughters.
Those whom she loves she will help voluntarily. There will be discord between
her and her neighbour. She will die a day in July of a pain the left rib.]
A bit of a mixed bag for us both, though we
clearly need to line up more marital partners!
 |
| BL Arundel 377, fol. 5, Calendar page for September and October |
Another series of texts predicts future
events based on the day of the week the event or major holidays fall. For
example, the text in Oxford, Bodl. Libr. Digby 86 offers predictions based on
the day on which Christmas is celebrated. Christmas Day falls on a Friday this
year so,
Si
avient par venderdi, iver mervilous sera, ver bon, esté sech, [...], Aust sech.
Vendeinge bone et plentivous. [...] Chevalers cumbatrirount. Plenté de oille.
Noveles entres princes serount. Ouailles e boys perirount. Les vendredis de cel
an bon est de toutes choses comencer. Future
208
[If it (=Christmas) occurs on a Friday, the
winter will be marvellous, spring good, summer dry, August dry. The harvest
will be good and plentiful. Knights will fight. Plenty of oil. There will be
news between the princes. Loss of sheep and wood. Fridays of this year will be
good for beginning things.]
Next year looks like a promising year –
Fridays might be a good time to put into action some of the new plans we have
in store for the dictionary. The price of oil might go down, but we better not
buy any more sheep.
 |
| BL Egerton 2572, fol.51. Description from the BL: A volvelle, a device with a moveable disc rotating with a fixed matrix, the pointing moveable index of which could be set at the sign and degree of the zodiac for a particular day in order to predict the best time to provide medical treatment: the moving central part of the volvelle, with the pointer, is inscribed in red with numbers from 1-30; in the concentric circles around this are drawings of the signs of the zodiac, their names, and the names of the months and emblems for the occupations of the months |
Numerous dictionary entries will be
improved thanks to these new editions, with new citations to illustrate words
such as geomancie ‘the art of
divination by means of signs derived from the earth’, or new variants spellings
such as maginacioun for machination. Multiple new entries will be created based on the vocabulary
attested here: juracioun meaning
‘blasphemous oath’, malageous to mean
‘a sick person’ or soungerie to mean
‘a book of dreams’.
We predict that these new texts will
greatly aid our understanding of the uses of Anglo-Norman and may even bring us
our first attestation of prediction and
prognostication![3]
[HP]
[HP]
[1] There still remains material to be edited
of this type, which would undoubtedly enrich the dictionary even further. For example, the
catalogue entry for BL Ms. 18210 Additional notes that ‘ff. 85-103: Treatises on palmistry (or
chiromancy), spatulomancy (the use of the shoulder bone in divination),
geomancy and hematoscopy (prognostication by inspection of the blood) in
Anglo-Norman French. The texts on spatulomancy and hematoscopy are unique’.
These latter texts are not currently edited.
[2] Tony Hunt, 'Les
Pronostics en anglo-normand: Méthodes et documents', in Richard Trachsler,
Julien Abed and David Expert, 'Moult
obscures paroles': Études sur la prophétie médiévale, Paris, 2007, 29-50.
[3] The word prediction appears
in English from the mid
sixteenth-century only and slightly earlier in Middle French. It was attested
in Classical Latin so its absence from the Anglo-Norman lexis is surprising. The
word prognostication is attested in Middle French from 1355 and in Middle English from
1400 which strongly suggests that it would have been present in Anglo-Norman.
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