Ensoulment

[nablator]

Lodi Nauta, The Preexistence of the Soul in Medieval Thought, in Recherches de Théologie ancienne et médiévale 63, 1996, 93-135, p.8:

In the famous ninth metre in Book III (O qui perpetua), for example, Boethius wrote that God had each soul allotted to a star, a light chariot (a levis currus), for its companion from which it descended at its appropriate time into a body.

The star is the companion of the (anthropomorphic) soul.

(MarcoP was faster!)

The text of De consolatione philosophiae does not actually mention stars. The "light" (meaning not heavy, or swift) chariots carry the souls and lesser lives (?) in heaven and earth:

"Tu causis animas paribus vitasque minores provehis et levibus sublimes curribus aptans in caelum terramque seris, quas lege benigna, ad te conversas reduci facis igne reverti."