What did people know about astronomy in the Middle Ages?  What would your SCA persona have known?  How would astronomy have fit into their world view?  It likely would have been more than just the use of “astrology” as we would define it today (that is, using the positions of objects in the sky for divination).  

Many of our personas, even going back to early in period, would have had knowledge of astronomy, sometimes more than many people know today.   Later, astronomy was considered an important part of the education of a refined person.  We’ll discuss what was known at the time, how that knowledge was developed, why it was considered important, and how it was shared through education and writing.  We’ll hear some examples of historic people, and in particular learn about the peculiar case of the Danish nobleman-astronomer, Tycho Brahe.

Header Image: Schedel, Hartmann. 1493. Seventh Day of Creation, Nuremberg Chronicles Fol. 5v.