Inga Duncan Thornell
idthornell@dunthor.com
Kepler BA IS102
Final Paper
February 27, 2005
John Dee is the man most popularly associated with the
intersecting spheres of science, astrology and magic in Elizabethan England.
A controversial and famous
personage for most of his life, he is said to be
the inspiration for both the character of Prospero in William Shakespeare's
The Tempest and Faust in Christopher Marlowe's Dr Faustus. He
was acquainted with the occultist Jerome Cardan, cartographers Gerard
Mercator, Matthias Haker, and geographer Abraham Ortelius. He was a long
time friend and tutor of Sir William Pickering, the English Ambassador to
Charles V at Brussels and was introduced to the young King Edward VI by
William Cecil, later Lord Burghley.
Robert Dudley, the future Earl of Leicester, introduced him to Queen Elizabeth I. Dee was an adviser on matters of navigation in connection with the early English voyage of Richard Chancellor and Hugh Willoughby in 1553 to attempt to find a Northwest Passage to Cathay (the Indies, China) and in 1582, even made a failed attempt to introduce the Gregorian calendar to England. He wrote the preface to an English translation of Euclid, published in 1570. Primarily a mathematician, John Dee made his living as an astrologer. As Tester reminds us, �astrology was one of the most practical sciences of the age. Apart from the astrology, the almanack forecasts and so on, it was essential for calendar making and for Medicine and all uses of herbs, and rules of health, for horticultural and agricultural practices, for navigation and for cartography. A man like Dee was of great importance in society� (1).
A Brief Biographical Sketch
Dee�s father Roland, according to Woolley, held a position in Henry VIII�s court as a �gentleman sewer.� Other books describe him as a gentleman�s gentleman or valet but the role of sewer is arguably more probable for someone who could claim distant kinship with the Tudor monarchy, �sewer, like so many court positions at the time, hovered between the ceremonial and the functional. It is unlikely Roland would have been expected to stitch the king�s clothing, but he may have been involved with and maintaining the innumerable fabrics that furnished the king�s palaces and person� (2). Very appropriately for an astrologer, Dee�s birth is not commemorated by a birth certificate or a diary entry but by a natal chart �now among his papers at the Bodleian Library in Oxford. Some biographical information can be gleaned from the chart. He was born at 4:02 P.M. on 13 July 1527. His birthplace was 51 degrees and 32 seconds north of the equator, which is roughly the latitude of London� (3).
Biographers agree that Dee received a bachelor�s degree from St. John�s College in Cambridge at the age of 15 in 1542, where he studied math and astronomy. He went on to receive an MA at Cambridge in 1548. Holden notes �He is nearly always referred to as �Dr.,� although he was an M.A. of Cambridge University and not professionally trained as a physician.�(4). His �passion was mathematics which was still regarded in some circles with suspicion. The seventeenth-century antiquarian John Aubrey reported that during the Tudor era the authorities had burned Mathematical books for conjuring books. Mathematics was still popularly associated with the magical �black arts� the corrupted form �calculing,� being synonymous with conjuration. Pythagoras, the semi mythical figure hailed as one of the founding fathers of mathematics, was himself considered to be a magician. It was he who argued that numbers had inherent powers� (5).
In 1555 Dee was imprisoned, ostensibly for calculating, conjuring and witchcraft. This probably referred to casting nativity horoscopes for the Princess Elizabeth. The charge was that he "endeavored by enchantements to destroy Queene Mary" (6). Most writers assume he was attempting to determine the date of Mary�s death. He was acquitted of charges of treason, but remained for some time in the custody of Bishop Bonner of London until freed that same year by an act of the Privy Council. Upon the accession of Elizabeth I, Lord Morley, one of the queen�s favorites, asked Dee to pick a �propitious day� for her coronation.
He wrote a total of 79 manuscripts in his lifetime, but his occult interests, the perennial accusations of conjuring, and the period he spent scrying with Edward Kelley has overshadowed many of his other achievements. Much of his library was destroyed by a mob during his absence to the continent with Kelley when they thought he was in league with the Devil. Despite constantly having to defend himself from these accusations, he was for a number of years a private confidant and adviser to Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603), sometimes signing his dispatched to her as �007� with the top of the 7 extended over the zeros to represent the idea that he was the Queen�s �eyes.� (This is what gave Ian Fleming the idea for the designation of his popular spy character �007� (7). He turned down offers of appointment in other countries and hoped for an appointment as Court Philosopher in England but this role never became a reality. Elizabeth did appoint him chancellor of St. Paul�s Cathedral in London and then Warden of Manchester College. He held the wardenship until his retirement in 1603. He was married three times and had eight children. When Elizabeth I died in 1603, her successor, James I, opposed any hint of astrology or magic and Dee's career was over. �He retired to Mortlake, the village of his birth, and died in late 1608 or early 1609. Unfortunately, both the parish registers and Dee's gravestone are missing� (8).
Dee�s Library
John Dee collected 4000 rare books and 700 manuscripts, many of which are now to be found in the British Museum. His was generally agreed by scholars to be the largest philosophical, magical and scientific library in Elizabethan England, possibly in all of Renaissance Europe. In comparison the University of Cambridge possessed 451 books and manuscripts at the time. Dee wrote a �Supplication to Queen Mary for the recovery and preservation of ancient writers and monuments� in an attempt to stimulate interest in rescuing manuscripts from the dissolved Monastic libraries and to induce the English to establish a national collection. Dee�s own library is currently being reconstructed online from his own catalogue by the John Dee Society whose membership feels that �this reconstruction should be of interest to a broad cross-section of the academic community, as well as to students of the Western magical tradition� (9). His library contained many almanacs which are of interest to historians. �Almanacs or ephemeredes� were among the most popular books to be produced in these still early days of printing, and Dee would accumulate more than fifteen different sets in his library over the years. It was one of these that he used to work out his birth chart� (10). Dee�s own birth chart was drawn up in the square post-Byzantine format. Woolley notes, �The information it contains is basically the same as that contained in a modern chart, except that the positions of Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto are missing, as these planets had yet to be discovered. The chart is highly accurate. Dee managed to map the position of each heavenly body in the sky to within a few minutes of arc (a minute being one sixtieth of a degree), with the exception of Mercury, which is nearly two degrees adrift. The ascendancy which marks the position of the sign of the zodiac rising on the eastern horizon, is out by just under one degree� (11). No interpretation accompanies the chart but that is not unusual.
Dee made his living as an astrologer with many well known people consulting privately with him. Queen Elizabeth I was said to be so impressed with him that she had him give her lessons in astrology. She is known to have visited Dee at his home in Mortlake, including one time shortly after his first wife's death, which took place March 16, 1575. Dee writes: "The Queen's Majestie, with her most honorable Privy Council, and other the Lords and Nobility, came purposely to have visited my library: but finding that my wife was within four hours before buried out of the house, her Majestie refused to come in; but willed to fetch my glass so famous, and to show unto her some of the properties of it, which I did. Her Majestie being taken down from her horse by the Earle of Leicester, Master of the Horse, at the church wall of Mortlake, did see some of the properties of that glass, to her Majestie's great contentment and delight" (12).
John Dee is still current news as can be seen in any Internet search:
- This news story appeared on Fri 10 Dec 2004: Daylight Raid on Science Museum Gallery By David Stringer, PA. A rare 16th Century clairvoyance crystal and valuable documents were snatched in a daylight raid on a gallery at the Science Museum, it was confirmed today. The irreplaceable artifacts were taken at around 4.30 pm yesterday, when thieves smashed a glass cabinet in an exhibition space on the fifth floor of the building in South Kensington, London.Museum staff have launched an internal inquiry, but do not yet know if the raiders were specifically targeting the items, estimated to be worth around �50,000. The crystal, used as a tool by mediums and for curing disease, belonged to maverick philosopher, mathematician and astrologer John Dee, a consultant to Elizabeth I. He lived between 1527 and the turn of the 17th Century, becoming a leading authority on �angel-magic� and beliefs that man had the potential for divine power. Also taken was a statement about the crystal�s use by author and pharmacist Nicholas Culpeper, written on the reverse of ancient deed manuscripts in the mid-1600s. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1398477,00.html
- The John Dee Society has been formed to produce a standard edition of the published and unpublished works of Elizabethan England's great polymath, antiquarian and magus Dr. John Dee. Secondly, we seek to reconstruct John Dee's Library, based on his Catalogue of manuscripts and books of 1583, prior to its dispersal throughout Europe. To this end, we have begun assembling a microfilm archive of Dee's manuscripts and books from the libraries where they now reside, and are in the process of transcribing this material for eventual publication. http://www.johndee.org/
- A play called The Queen's Secret Eye: It�s the story of John Dee, the man who inspired Ian Fleming to create James Bond. Actor, inventor, scholar, and spy, John Dee is the first and founding member of Her Majesty�s Secret Service. Queen Elizabeth the first�s, that is. Driven by a friend�s murder and a boundless thirst for knowledge, Dee seeks the Saphea, a mystical measuring device. The Grand Inquisitor seeks the same prize, bent on destroying England and Creation itself. From the boards of a London stage to the decks of the Spanish Armada, Dee must choose between his quest for truth and his Queen. http://www.subverbis.com/writer.htm
John Dee is most remembered for exemplifying the Elizabethan era rather than for his original works. Dampier writes �The prevailing confusion between magic and science is well seen in the person of John Dee (1527-1608), who spent much time in astrology, alchemy and spiritualism, but was also a most competent mathematician and an early supporter of the Copernican theory� (13). His works, like those of Kepler, Lilly, Cardan and others combine the astronomical and astrological, the mathematical and the occult in a way that was usual in their day but is unfashionable in light of the current definitions of science. While modern Science Historians are able to separate Kepler�s astrological career from his scientific discoveries, Dee suffers from the fact that he was so well known for his occult, astrological, and alchemical beliefs that this is impossible. Dee is remembered as Dee the astrologer or Dee the conjurer, rather than Dee the mathematician, or Dee the navigator. John Dee himself would certainly have preferred �Dee the Philosopher.�
Citations:
- Tester, Jim, A History of Western Astrology, Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press 1987, page 226.
- Woolley, Benjamin. The Queen�s Conjurer: The Science and Magic of Dr. John Dee, Adviser to Queen Elizabeth I, Henry Holt and Company LLC, 2001, page 5.
- Ibid, page 3.
- Holden, James Herschel, A History of Horoscopic Astrology, Tempe, Arizona: American Federation of Astrologers 1996, page 172.
- Woolley, Benjamin, page 12.
- Clulee, Nicholas H. John Dee's Natural Philosophy: Between Science and Religion, Routledge, 1988, page 33.
- Holden, James Herschel, page 172.
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dee
- The John Dee Society http://www.johndee.org/
- Woolley, Benjamin, page 8.
- Ibid, page 8.
- Halliwell, James Orchard Esq. F.R.S., Editor, The Private Diary Of Dr. John Dee, And The Catalogue Of His Library Of Manuscripts, From The Original Manuscripts In The Ashmolean Museum Oxford, And Trinity College Library, Cambridge, Printed For The Camden Society, By John Bowyer Nichols And Son, Parliament Street. London: M.Dccc.Xlii, page 9 Notes.
- Dampier, William Cecil, A History of Science and its Relations with Philosophy and Religion, Cambridge, First edition 1929; last revised edition 1948; repr 1966), page 144.
Bibliography:
Clulee, Nicholas H. John Dee's Natural Philosophy: Between Science and Religion, Routledge, 1988
Dampier, William Cecil, A History of Science and its Relations with Philosophy and Religion, Cambridge, First edition 1929; last revised edition 1948; repr 1966).
Deacon, Richard John Dee Scientist, Geographer, Astrologer and Secret Agent to Elizabeth I, Frederick Muller Ltd.) Fleet Street, London, 1968.
Halliwell, James Orchard Esq. F.R.S., Editor, The Private Diary Of Dr. John Dee, And The Catalogue Of His Library Of Manuscripts, From The Original Manuscripts In The Ashmolean Museum Oxford, And Trinity College Library, Cambridge, Printed For The Camden Society, By John Bowyer Nichols And Son, Parliament Street. London: M.Dccc.Xlii.
Holden, James Herschel, A History of Horoscopic Astrology, Tempe, Arizona: American Federation of Astrologers 1996.
Liss, Terry Alin, Magic And Science In The Writings Of John Dee University Of washington Master Of Arts Thesis 1974
Meadows, Denis, Elizabethan Quintet, Longmans, Green And Co Inc, London, 1956
Perry, Marvin, Western Civilization: A Brief History, Volume II From the 1400s, Houghton Mifflin Company 1997.
Sherman, William H., John Dee : The Politics Of Reading And Writing In The English Renaissance / University Of Massachusetts Press, United States Of America 1995.
Tester, Jim, A History of Western Astrology, Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press 1987.
Thomas, Keith, Religion and the Decline of Magic, Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Peregrine Books 1971.
Woolley, Benjamin. The Queen�s Conjurer: The Science and Magic of Dr. John Dee, Adviser To Queen Elizabeth I, Henry Holt And Company LLC, 2001
Websites:
The John Dee Society: http://www.johndee.org/
Colonization: http://www.swgc.mun.ca/nfld_history/nfld_history_colonization.htm
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dee
John Dee and Astrological Physics: http://gfisher.org/chapter_10.htm
Magic: http://www.deliriumsrealm.com/delirium/mythology/magick_dee.asp
Calendar: http://www.hermetic.ch/cal_stud/jdee.html
Scrying mirrors and seals:
http://photo.megalithia.com/gallery/johndee