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The Potter AlmanacsBernard Capp

I first encountered Col. Potter’s collection of almanacs in the mid-1970s, while researchingfor a monograph on the subject (published in 1979 as Astrology and the Popular Press).At thattime they were kept by his widow at the family home at Lambley House, Nottinghamshire,stored in several trunks, and I am delighted that the British Library has now been able toacquire some of the most important items. Almanacs, though still largely neglected byscholars, were among the most popular printed fare in the sixteenth and seventeenthcenturies, and one title – Old Moore’s Almanac, established in the late seventeenth century –continues to sell in huge numbers.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries almanacs were already best-sellers. Stationers’Company records from the later seventeenth century show sales approaching 400,000copies each year, all distributed and sold within a few weeks from late November orDecember. Prices were very modest.An Elizabethan almanac at 2d was affordable to almostanyone who had learned to read, and though prices gradually rose they remained modestat 3d-4d, or 6d for the largest items. Contemporaries agreed that most were purchased byordinary folk such as artisans and small farmers, and Bottom the weaver, poring over analmanac in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, represents a typical customer. Inevitably, the copiesbought by such men have long since perished. Most were probably thumbed to destruction,or thrown away at the end of the year, and it was proverbial that nothing was more uselessthan last year’s almanac.The copies that survive in the British Library’s excellent collection,and in the Bodleian and other major libraries, belonged to members of the landed elite orto professional men such as Anthony Wood.Wood, of course, was a bibliophile, while otherowners appear to have retained copies as much for the hand-written notes they had addedthemselves as for the sake of the printed text.

The publishing history of the almanac is fairly straightforward. Almanacs andprognostications were among the earliest printed works to appear in Germany in thefifteenth century, and most of the titles published in early Tudor England had been translatedfrom German, Italian or Flemish originals. Works by English compilers began to appearfrom the 1540s, shortly before the establishment of the Company of Stationers, with whichthe almanac’s history was to be closely bound. By 1567 there were nineteen different titles,but the government took fright at the publication of political prophecies and speculation in the face of the tensions culminating in the Northern Rebellion of 1569. From 1571 theproduction of almanacs became a strict monopoly, granted to two London stationers,Richard Watkins and James Roberts, an arrangement which facilitated supervision andcontrol. Numbers shrank, and the content of almanacs became far blander. In 1603 James I issued a new monopoly to the Company of Stationers which was not overturned until 1775.

The almanacs of the late Elizabethan and early Stuart periods are generally tame. Acombination of censorship and self-censorship meant that very little appeared in print thatwould trouble the authorities. But this situation changed dramatically from the 1640s, withthe emergence of highly partisan titles, initially parliamentarian or cavalier, and later Whig,Tory or Jacobite. Some of the compilers became celebrated, or at least notorious figures.William Lilly (fig. 1), the most famous of all, was often in trouble under theCommonwealth, and after the Restoration he was summoned to appear before aparliamentary committee suspicious that he might have secret information about the originsof the Great Fire. George Wharton, the most successful royalist compiler, was arrested eight

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Fig. 1. William Lilly. BL RB.23.a.24857.

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times but finally reaped his reward after the Restoration, receiving a baronetcy and a seniorpost in the Ordnance Office at Tower. The most notorious Whig compiler in the nextgeneration, John Partridge, was forced into exile in James II’s reign and later lampooned byJonathan Swift in the Bickerstaff papers, but he nonetheless died a rich man.

Why were almanacs so popular with the public? The answer lies partly in the remarkablywide range of functions they served, offering exciting glimpses into the secret and forbiddenworld of high politics while also supplying a fund of utilitarian information. They wereavailable in several formats.The sheet almanac, usually costing 1d, was designed to be pinnedto the wall like a modern calendar, and one series lives on to this day, the Oxford Almanack.Most almanacs were small octavo (sometimes duodecimo) booklets, usually of three sheets,and divided into two sections, the almanac proper and the prognostication, each bearing itsown title page. The almanac section contained astronomical and astrological data for theyear ahead: a calendar, the times of sunrise and sunset, lunar cycles, the zodiac, eclipses, andsaints’ days (fig. 2). Some editions gave two facing pages for each month. The right-handpage might be used to supply additional information, such as notable anniversaries andweather predictions, or left blank for the owner to make personal jottings.These almanacs,known in the trade as ‘blanks’, were the ancestors of modern pocket diaries, and manysurviving copies contain personal notes by the original owner, ranging from the weighty(such as a division list in the House of Lords) to the delightfully mundane (‘one of my teethfell out by the fire’).A copy of John Booker’s almanac for 1646 which survives among theOxinden manuscripts in the British Library is packed with miscellaneous notes by theoriginal owner, who used it to jot down names and addresses, gardening and farming notes,financial transactions and personal memoranda. He notes when his son Tom started school,observes (with more hope than confidence, perhaps) that his builder has faithfully promisedto complete the job within a month, and records that his cousin Henry has promised toleave him a treasured black sword if he dies first.The best example of the ‘almanac-as-diary’among the Potter collection is a copy of Gallen’s pocket-almanac once owned by SirEdward Bagot, who used the interleaved pages to record a wealth of personal memoranda.One page is headed ‘Bucks killed this yeare in my Parke’ (fig. 3), and lists the carcasses(whole or portions) given away to friends, relations and acquaintances. Lady Leigh, ‘Coz.Chadwicke’ and Parson Harrison appear among the recipients, reminding us that thedistribution of game played an important part in the mechanisms by which landownersmaintained cordial relations with equals and fostered gratitude and deference among theirinferiors. Susan Whyman has illuminated this subject in her fine Sociability and Power in Late-Stuart England (Oxford, 1999), a study of the world of the Verney family inBuckinghamshire.

The prognostication offered predictions and observations based on the astronomical andastrological data in the first section. In the Elizabethan and Jacobean period such predictionswere very general: observations about the weather; whether each season of the coming yearwas likely to prove healthy or sickly; indications of the harvest prospects; and vague hintsabout political change. From the 1640s some titles became far more explicit and partisan.Championing the parliamentary cause we find William Lilly, John Booker, and NicholasCulpeper, whose name lives on as a herbalist. Lilly and Booker were highly successful earlyspin-doctors, all the more so for being able to claim that their predictions were based on adispassionate reading of the stars. Lilly’s almanac was selling 30,000 copies a year by the1650s, and all three compilers also enjoyed an extensive practice as astrological consultants,attracting thousands of clients. Following the Restoration, which none of the compilers hadpredicted, men such as Lilly and Booker became necessarily far more circumspect in theirpolitical comments and predictions. Compilers in Charles II’s reign did not abandonpolitical speculation and prediction, but they wrote now in largely innocuous generalities,and with clear signals of their own devotion to Church and State. One predicted in 1673,for example, that ‘Busie brains spread their Fanaticisms confidently […] Obstinate Zealotsare not to be perswaded […] Some persons wilfully suffer a foolish Martyrdom for theirhumours’ (fig. 4). John Gadbury, an early parliamentarian who turned into a High Tory,

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Fig. 2. John Tanner, Angelus Britannicus: an ephemeris for the year of our redemption 1675 (London: printed by Thomas Ratcliffe and Nath.Thompson for the Company of Stationers, 1675). BL RB.23.a.24854.

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Fig. 3. Hand-written page by Sir Edward Bagot, ‘Bucks killed this yeare’. Gallen, 1652. A new almanack for thesaid year (London: printed by J. F. for the Company of Stationers, [1652]). BL C.194.a.339.

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Fig. 4. Thomas Trigge, Calendarium astrologicum: or An almanack, for the year of our Lord, 1673 (London: printedby A. Maxwell, for the Company of Stationers, 1673). BL RB.23.a.24853.

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published his resolve in 1673 ‘for time to come, to limit my self to such matter as shall proveinoffensive’, though he also took care to underline his astrological credentials by listing ninemajor political predictions which had proved correct, including the death of OliverCromwell and the overthrow of his son (figs 5-6).

The bookseller George Thomason, whose collection forms the core of the BritishLibrary’s holdings for the mid-seventeenth century, bought the titles published by compilerssuch as Lilly,Booker and Wharton.There existed, however, another and equally popular typeof almanac which Thomason ignored but which features prominently in Col. Potter’scollection. Many almanacs remained wholly utilitarian, non-political and non-partisan. Inthese works, the ‘prognostication’ section was filled not with predictions but with moreprosaic data. Such titles generally listed the main ‘highways’ of England and Wales, settingout the route a traveller would need to follow in undertaking a particular journey. Hewould find the total distance involved, the towns along the way, and the distance betweeneach.This was essential information when road maps were new, scarce and expensive. Mostalmanacs also offered tide-tables, information of rather narrow appeal today but directlyrelevant to tens of thousands of readers in the early modern period. It was not onlyinternational trade that was carried by water in this period; coastal shipping also carried thebulk of corn, coal and many other commodities being transported to other parts of thecountry, and was much cheaper and easier than road. Even in the early 1800s, we find JaneAusten noting in Sense and Sensibility that the Dashwood family chose to send theirfurniture and piano by sea when moving house from Sussex to Devon. And early modernLondoners of all social classes frequently turned to watermen and bargemen as the mostconvenient form of transport to carry them across the capital and beyond.

Almanacs provided basic medical advice too, with notes on good and bad times forletting blood and suggestions of the sort that now appear in the ‘lifestyle’ section ofmagazines.Almost every title carried a woodcut of the ‘Anatomy’ (see fig. 2), a human figurewith notes showing the parts of the body governed by each sign of the zodiac, necessaryinformation for bloodletting and administering other medical treatments. Many alsoprovided tips on diet, exercise, and even advice on appropriate times for sex.These mighttake the form of simple verses over each month’s page of the calendar (fig. 2, right-handpage), but in some editions grew into detailed and elaborate instructions. Thus Neve’salmanac for 1636 (fig. 7) guides readers on the most auspicious times for taking a bath –ideally in May or September, and with the moon in a propitious sign. Neve, a traditionalist,notes that nowadays ‘Bathings are commonly used rather for pleasure then for profit,especially where hot-houses are overmuch haunted’, and warns his readers to be ‘warie andcircumspect in resorting unto them without cause’.Among the other practical informationsupplied in almanacs, readers could also usually find details of country fairs, ready reckoners,and specimen legal forms, such as a bill of obligation or IOU. Some titles even suppliedspecimen wills, very useful when such documents were often drawn up at short notice byfamily friends without legal training.Another page was generally devoted to a ‘Chronology’,a list of key dates since the Creation. For humbler readers, this may have been their onlysource of historical information, and the selection of events (most of them repeated yearafter year) offers an intriguing glimpse of the influences that helped to shape the mind-setof simple readers. The early events listed were largely biblical, such as Noah’s flood, andalmost always included the legendary establishment of ‘Britain’ by Brute, a refugee fromfallen Troy. The Norman Conquest invariably appeared, as did the Spanish Armada (orElizabeth’s appearance before her army at Tilbury, assembled to repel the expected invasion),and the Gunpowder Plot, all key ingredients in the emerging Protestant island narrative.Other favourites were the invention of guns and printing. Less predictable, perhaps, wereevents such as the ‘new star’ (or nova) of 1572, significant for educated readers as well asastronomers because it threw into doubt the whole edifice of traditional cosmology, whichinsisted that the heavens were perfect and immutable.The chronology supplied by RichardAllestree in 1639 (fig. 8) was rather longer than most, with an unusually full list of Old

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Fig. 5. John Gadbury, Ephemeris, or,A diary astronomical, astrological, meteorological. For the year of our Lord,1673 (London: printed [by J. C.] for the Company of Stationers, [1673]), sig. B2. BL RB.23.a.24852.

Fig. 6. John Gadbury, Ephemeris, sig. B3. RB.23.a.24852.

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Fig. 7. John Neve, A new almanack and prognostication, with the forraigne computation serving for theyeere of our Lord God, and Saviour Iesus Christ, 1636 (London: printed by E[liz.].A[llde]. for theCompany of Stationers, [1636]. BL C.194.a.336.

Fig. 8. Richard Allestree, A new almanack and prognostication, for the yeere of our Lord God, 1639(Printed at London: by T. Cotes, for the Company of Stationers, [1639]). BL C.194.a.337.

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Testament events. Allestree was uncle of his more famous namesake, author of TheGentleman’s Calling, and the alternative dates he offers for the creation of the world, in amixture of English and Latin, were clearly intended in part to display his own learning.Many compilers felt ambivalent about setting their names to such humble fare as an annualalmanac, and looked for some device to assert their social and intellectual credentials. Severalemphasized that the almanac represented only a few weeks’ diversion from their moreserious studies. The London Almanack, a Restoration title, drew on the work of earlierchroniclers such as John Stow in turning the ‘Chronology’ into an exhaustive celebration ofthe city’s buildings, institutions and public services. Describing the conduits which broughtwater to the heart of the city, and the history of each, the author observes proudly that theyare not only ‘of eminent service’ to the public ‘but serve for Ornament and glory’ to thecity (fig.9).

Many compilers saw the almanac as a valuable educational tool, and not only in the fieldof history. While most speculated about the astrological significance of the eclipses, and theupheavals they might portend, many also tried to explain in layman’s terms the causes andcharacteristics of an eclipse (fig.10). They played a significant if often overlooked role inpopularizing the new science. It was through almanacs that many humble readers wouldhave been gently steered away from Ptolemy’s model of a universe with the earth at itscentre, through Tycho Brahe’s modification, to the heliocentrism of Copernicus. Compilerssupplied simple information about Galileo and later Newton too, and some providedsimplified accounts of recent discoveries and ideas published in the Transactions of the RoyalSociety. Information on astronomy was accompanied by advice on practical mathematics.Anumber of compilers were professional mathematicians working in such fields as land- andquantity-surveying, and several provided information of new instruments and how to obtainand use them. Compilers saw themselves as modern, scientific and progressive – notupholders of some old-fashioned and irrational creed.The humble almanac still has muchto offer anyone interested in understanding the cultural world of Tudor and Stuart England.

Fig. 9. Mercurius Civicus, The London almanack or,A compendium of the year, 1673 (London:printed by [Thomas Milbourn,] Thomas Ratcliffe and Nathaniel Thompson, for the Companyof Stationers, 1673). BL RB.23.a.24851.

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Fig. 10. ‘Of all the Eclipses this yeare’,Allestree, A new almanack […] 1639. BL C.194.a.337.