12-11-2018, 02:08 AM
Koen
While I absolutely accept your reasons for being ok with the term, it does bring with it a number of expectations, which - especially for newcomers - make it seem that this point is somehow settled, presumably by someone or other's detailed investigations.
So from then on, they are likely to go hunting zodiacs for something 'like'.
The series doesn't form a zodiac series; Peter isn't the first person to observe that the diagrams do not accord in structure with the genre of astrological and horoscopic diagrams in the European tradition.
So what we can say, with the primary document as our witness, is that the series was used as a marker of months: only ten months, but that still lets one use the more neutral 'calendar', and others' research won't be accidentally diverted into (perhaps) inappropriate paths: inappropriate if the aim is correctly to understand the manuscript itself.
As for 'astrological' it seems to imply that any use of the 12 constellations implies horoscopic calculations, where in fact (as any survey will show quite soon) the great majority of such representations in the western ('Latin') Christian tradition are meant as calendars, matching the constellation to the work of that month: the 'Labours of the Months' or as any sort of reference to the annual cycle - we find them in breviaries and so on.
So I prefer 'calendar' for those fold-outs, and in general I think 'astronomical' is the better term, as that greater set includes the lesser and again is without prejudice.
But it will be as it will be.
While I absolutely accept your reasons for being ok with the term, it does bring with it a number of expectations, which - especially for newcomers - make it seem that this point is somehow settled, presumably by someone or other's detailed investigations.
So from then on, they are likely to go hunting zodiacs for something 'like'.
The series doesn't form a zodiac series; Peter isn't the first person to observe that the diagrams do not accord in structure with the genre of astrological and horoscopic diagrams in the European tradition.
So what we can say, with the primary document as our witness, is that the series was used as a marker of months: only ten months, but that still lets one use the more neutral 'calendar', and others' research won't be accidentally diverted into (perhaps) inappropriate paths: inappropriate if the aim is correctly to understand the manuscript itself.
As for 'astrological' it seems to imply that any use of the 12 constellations implies horoscopic calculations, where in fact (as any survey will show quite soon) the great majority of such representations in the western ('Latin') Christian tradition are meant as calendars, matching the constellation to the work of that month: the 'Labours of the Months' or as any sort of reference to the annual cycle - we find them in breviaries and so on.
So I prefer 'calendar' for those fold-outs, and in general I think 'astronomical' is the better term, as that greater set includes the lesser and again is without prejudice.
But it will be as it will be.