CIMA 63 Titel Inhalt

12
1. Computus, medicine, and divination
(fols 1r-50r)
The ‗Tübingen Book‘ opens with a calendar (fols 1r-6v) and various computus tables
(fols 7r-9r and 10r-10v) to know the age of the Moon, the position of the Moon and of
the Sun in the signs of the zodiac, as well as the solar eclipses for the years 1452-1455.
As it is common in medieval computi, these tables are accompanied by a collection of
short texts, tables and figures dealing more generally with cosmology, medicine and
divination. 1
In the first place, we find illustrations of the planetary and zodiacal ‗melothesies‘ (fols
9v, 12v and 13r), i.e. the correspondences between the parts of the human body and the
seven planets or the twelve signs. These illustrations do not take place here by accident.
Knowledge of the zodiacal melothesy was held important because surgery (e.g.
bloodletting), as well as any sort of medication, had to be avoided when the Moon was
in the sign corresponding to the part of the body involved in the operation. 2 Fols 13v-
14r contain an illustration and a text on the twelve major winds and their influence on
the health.
Then follow the ‗rules of good health‘ (fols 14va-22r) attributed to ‗Meister Arnolt von
Monpolier‘ (Montpellier), who is probably identical with the distinguished physician
Arnold of Villanova (1240-1311). These rules deal with the daily maintenance of the
body (eating, drinking, sleeping, etc.) and, again, consider, among other things, the
proper time for bloodletting according to the position of the Moon in the zodiac (fol.
21ra-21rb).
The next pages are devoted to the four seasons (fols 23r-24va) and to the theory of the
planetary days and hours (fols 24va-25rb). These are the prefatory matter of a series of
weather prognostics, which immediately follow: prognostics according to the day of
1 Such collections have been extensively studied, in particular by Gundolf KEIL, Friedrich
LENHARDT and Christoph WEISSER, Vom Einfluß der Gestirne auf die Gesundheit und den
Charakter des Menschen. Faksimile des Ms. C 54 der Zentralbibliothek Zürich, Luzern, 1981-
1982, 2 vols. Francis B. BRÉVART, ‗The German Volkskalender of the Fifteenth Century‘,
Speculum, 63 (1988), pp. 312-342. Id., ‗Chronology and Cosmology. A German Volkskalender of
the Fifteenth Century‘, Princeton University Library Chronicle, 57 (1996), pp. 225-265. More
specifically on the technical parameters of the medieval calendar and computus – which
remained largely unchanged since the Carolingian times –, see Arno BORST, Die karolingische
Kalenderreform, Hannover, 1998 (Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Schriften, 46).
2 On the zodiacal melothesy, see Charles W. CLARK, The Zodiac Man in Medieval Medical
Astrology, PhD, University of Colorado at Boulder, 1979. More generally on the melothesies and
representations of the microcosm, see Jean SEZNEC, The Survival of the Pagan Gods. The
Mythological Tradition and Its Place in Renaissance Humanism and Art, New York, 1953
(transl. from French, Paris, 1940). Fritz SAXL, ‗Macrocosm and Microcosm in Medieval
Pictures‘, in Id., Lectures, London, 1957, I, pp. 58-72 (and II, Plates 34-42). Dieter BLUME,
Regenten des Himmels: astrologische Bilder in Mittelalter und Renaissance, Berlin, 2000.