Traditionally, Lunaries have been classified according to their form and content into two types. On this website, I have grouped them, as follows, into three. [1]
- Collective Lunaries, offering advice on the timing of a number of different life activities. They make up the largest type of lunar prognostics in this collection. As the name denotes, these Lunaries feature numerous quotidian themes: nativities, illness and bloodletting, the significance of dreams, recovery of stolen goods, the fate of fugitives. Whether in verse or prose, Collective texts provide varied advice relevant to medical, personal, social and even political situations.
- Specialized Lunaries, focusing on just a few, mostly medical, topics. This small number of lunar prognostications sometimes adjoins the Lunaries proper. They are described as Specialized because of their limited subject matter and their structure.
- Pictorial Lunaries. This third type has only scattered examples in the general tradition, and to the best of my knowledge, there are no obvious French versions –though assignment is difficult because as the name implies, the “texts” are in fact mostly symbols. Nonetheless, I am including the famous Rawlinson D 939 from the Bodleian Library at Oxford in this collection, as an example of the third type, because I believe it may point to the existence of French pictorial Lunaries yet to be found. The sometimes puzzling contents of this calendar have yet to be deciphered by any scholar. On the strength of comparisons across this collection, I have offered my own tentative interpretation.
Collective Lunaries
Prefaces
Collective Lunaries, especially those in verse, often begin with a preface. Here, Solomon and the prophet Daniel–sometimes both– are cited as the text’s authority:
Sains Daniel/En son temporre/Si ke nous dist/Li vies estores/Prophetes fu/De grant sienche/Et sot des songes/La sentense…. Li quel sont boin/Selonc la lune/Et li quel traient a rankune. (Saint Daniel in his time, as the old accounts tell us, was a prophet of great knowledge, who knew the interpretation of dreams…. Which [dreams] are good according to the Moon and which bring trouble.) BNF 2039
and:
Salemon quy ot la seignorie De scienche et de clergie […] Moult luy dist des choses mondaines, Pui lui aprist les souveraines. Des ars moult bien l’endoctrina Et de la lune luy moustra Toute sa forche et tout son cours Et les croissans et les destours. De la lune fist une table. (Solomon, who had the mastery of science and knowledge […] told him many things about the world and then taught him about the higher realms; and he instructed him well in the magical arts and showed him the moon’s powers and all its revolutions, and its waxings and its wanings. And he made a chart of the moon.) Innsbruch Tiroler Landesarchiv MS 478
It is not unusual for Solomon to be mentioned within the Lunary text in short phrases giving the scribe authority and credence: […] si cummes nous trouvons en la table, Salmon quy fist l’escripture, Nous en demonstre le nature. ([…] as we see in the chart, written by Solomon, which shows us [the Moon’s] operation). Innsbruch Tiroler Landesarchiv MS 478
General Sense of the Day
Most Lunaries first declare whether the day is “good” or “bad” to engage in any activity. Days are “bone et de molt grant profit” — good and very useful– or “la pieur” ––the worst–BNF 837). “This is a good/bad day for doing anything” is a common beginning to a Moon Day. Activities to pursue or avoid, such as buying, selling, getting married, sometimes follow without further elaboration.
Daily Life
Domestic issues, like arranging marriages– and getting married– schooling or punishing children, putting them to work or to learn a trade, moving from one house to another, and even the timing for wearing new clothes are all dictated by the day of the moon.
Horticultural and agricultural activities also depend on appropriate planetary timing: tree-planting, digging ditches, plowing, sowing and storing seed, as well as caring and breeding horses and other farm animals, as well as moving beehives.
Some Moon Days are good for hunting, others for fishing, yet others for selling horses. Others are related to one’s property’s improvements: setting pipes and restoring streams, building bridges and ditches.
Also timed by the lunar calendar are propitious days for traveling by sea, leaving one’s country, and going on pilgrimage. Whether a person will return home or die abroad is determined by the Moon Day on which the journey begins.
Taking charge of interpersonal and political aspects of life are decisions influenced by astrology too: there are good Moon Days for negotiating disputes and avoiding litigation, as well as days to wage battle, take oaths, and petition one’s neighbors if one has a complaint.
Nativities
In many of our Collective Lunaries, a large portion of each Moon Day is dedicated to nativities, often describing the personality and physical appearance of boys and girls born on that day. Specific locations of a child’s birthmark [2] (seing, enseinge, signe) are described, sometimes differentiated by gender. They can be very specific: […] son seing sera soubz la mamelle/ou au chief ou dessoubz l’esselle ([…] her birthmark will be under her breast or on her head or under her armpit) BNF 2043 or
Ara son signe el front (she will have her sign on her forehead) , or en la bouche ou el sorcil (on his mouth or on his eyebrow) BL Sloane 2806.
A child’s future is predetermined by the stage of the Moon on his birthday. If born on a certain “good” day, boys who are virtuous, wise and courtly are praised. “Bad days” bring forth proud, quarrelsome or covetous boys who steal or otherwise lead “bad lives”(de male vie) . They die in battle, are burned or hung. Occasionally they drown.
Similar fates await girls. Religious, chaste and sensible ones are rewarded with blameless lives, stable marriages, offspring, and good reputations. Material wealth tends to also follow.
By contrast, girls born on “bad days” are fated to be lecherous (de son corps luxuriouse), covetous or lighthearted/comical (boufonne) and lead miserable lives, often dying in penury (male vie).
Still despite unfortunate beginnings, some girls manage to end up happy: Un barum fust a la meschine; Beal et large ert saunz fine. (A baron will forcibly take the young girl; She will be beautiful and generous forever) Cambridge Trinity Ms O.5.32.
Fugitives, Thieves and The Recovery of Stolen Goods
We know that theft was a very serious crime in the Middle Ages, and loss of property was a constant preoccupation for most people [3]. Punishing it harshly helped to maintain the social order.
In our texts, robbers are either found or flee. If they escape and are found, they are punished (hung) or brought back, presumably to face their accusers. The themes of robbery, recovery of stolen objects and the fate of fugitives are intermingled, with thieves and escapees generally indistinguishable.
A few examples illustrate this convergence:
Liu futif apres grant temps ert trovee/et larcine ert remenee (the fugitive will be found after a long while/and the stolen goods will be returned) Cambridge Trinity Ms O.5.32
A peine sera trouve/Ce qui sera la nuyt emble (the object stolen tonight / will be found with difficulty) BNF 2043
Le larrecin si est cougneu/Et le larron sera pendu. (The robber will be recognized/and the thief will be hung) BNF 2043
Dreams
In some manuscripts, Lunaries are introduced as songuaires, or Dream Books: Yale Beinecke MS 395 and Oxford Digby 86. Explanations of the meaning of dreams is traditionally attributed (together with Solomon) to the prophet Daniel, the Biblical interpreter of dreams Brussels KBR 11004-17 [4]
Also, Prophetes fu De grant sienche, Et sot des songes La sentense, Et de cascun jour Tout la faire Sot avenir, Dire et retraire. (Daniel was a prophet of great knowledge who knew the meaning of dreams, And he knew how to predict the events of each day to come, and to tell and retell [them]) BNF 2039
As potential harbingers of fortune or misfortune, dreams were thought to be determined by the lunar day in which they occurred [5]. In the Lunaries, dreams will either come true, bring joy or misfortune, or have no significance at all.
Bon est le songe de la nuyt/Car veu sera bien en proufit (Tonight’s dream is good because it will be seen to [bring] great advantage). BNF 2043
Li songes riens ne senefie. (The dream means nothing) BNF 2039, or Vostre soynge ne dites a nul homme; il en seront avenir grant mal. (Do not tell anyone your dream, for it will bring great misfortune). Oxford, Ashmole 342
In some cases, the Lunary predicts how many days will pass before the dream comes true. In others, dreamers are warned not to describe their “vision” at all or only — again– after a certain time. Le soynge denz .xxx. jours en vendra (The dream will come true in thirty days) Oxford, Ashmole 342.
Dreams on certain days are never, ever, to be described under any circumstances: Del songe en pais nul ne le die. (Calmly, nobody should tell his dream) BNF 2039.
Illness And Recovery
S’aucun chiet en maladie….(if someone falls ill) BNF 15219, or Li malade languira (The sick will languish) Oxford Ashmole 342.
Sickness predictions among the Lunaries tend to be simple: the ill will either suffer, recover, or die. Although sometimes specific maladies, such as dropsy, are mentioned, most texts just refer to the patient being bed-ridden, falling ill or being “sick” (etre greve par mal, cheoir en maladie).
The duration of an illness as well as its outcome can be calculated by the Moon Day of onset: Cil qui par mal ert greve/longuement sera sans sante (He who is afflicted by illness will be sick for a long time) BNF 15219
and
Li malades garra dedens .iii. jours ou il morra tost apres grant maladie (The sick will heal in three days or he will die after a great illness) Modena 32.
Qui s’acouchera malades il morra. (Whoever is bedridden with illness will die) BL Sloane 2806.
Bloodletting
With few exceptions, Lunaries mention bloodletting, prescribing or discouraging the practice according to the Moon Day. Governed like other bodily fluids by lunar power, “unbalanced” blood was an indicator of disease. Galen’s writings and teachings expanded the Hippocratic theory of humors and made bloodletting a common technique for healing throughout the Roman Empire. During the Middle Ages, it was the most common form of medical treatment.
Specific times to let blood or to avoid it appear often in the Lunaries:
Al houre de terce poez seygner. (You can let blood in the third hour)
By contrast: Ne seygner n’ert pas bon de nule houre. (Do not let blood; it is not good to do at any time) Oxford, Ashmole 342.
Occasionally, the administration of medicine is encouraged: Ki amaladist il languira e a peyne eschapera. Si il n’eyt medecine en haste. (One who falls ill will languish and barely escape if he is not quickly given medicine) Oxford, Ashmole 342.
Specific Lunaries recommend very specific locations and methods for the procedure:
Li sainnie de vainne est bonne avant tierce. (Bleeding from the vein is best before the third hour) BL Sloane 2806
De son corps fait bon saing ouster, Pour jarser ou pour ventouser. (It is good to remove blood from one’s body either by scarification or by cupping) BNF 2043
Scribal Voice
Some interruptions in the listing of predictions occur especially in the versified texts. They can be stock phrases, with the scribe inserting his own emphasis or commentary, such as De la lune vint et .v. ay a dire (I can tell you about the twenty-fifth Moon), Modena Estense 32
or
[…] la lune vint et sys. E[s]t comme cel devant, beaus amys (The twenty-sixth Moon day is like the one before, dear friends) Cambridge, Trinity O.5.32.
Other scribal insertions are first and second person statements [6] seen mostly in prologues and epilogues. Though they function to fill in lines and provide suitable rhymes, [7] these phrases also serve to establish a dialogue between the scribe and his audience. Legitimacy and authority are granted to both the text, derived from learned sources such as Solomon and the prophet Daniel, and to the scribe transmitting their sage advice.
The scribe addresses his readers in the plural form:
Tout verrez vostre soinge (You will see everything in your dream) and Si priez Deu ke il vous garde d’ encombrer. (So pray God that he keep you from being embarrassed) Oxford, Ashmole 342
Sometimes, he uses the more familiar second person: Ce jour en mer tu entreras, Ja mal ne peril n’y auras […] Garde si tu as ton corps cher, Ne te fay ce jour point seigner (Today you can go to sea; you will never be in danger there […] Be aware, if you value your body, not to have your blood drawn today) BNF 15219
Se tu veus marchander, tu gaaigneras de legier (If you wish to trade, you will easily make a profit) Modena Estense 32.
Biblical References
It is not uncommon for French Lunaries, as well as Middle English, German and Latin texts, to match days of the Moon with the birth of important Biblical figures, mostly from the Old Testament:
Adam, the first man, is often said to have been born on the first day of the Moon:
La premere lune fu Adam forme/Cel jor est profitable en tote ren ourer (Adam was formed on the first day; this day it is good to begin all things) […]
Cain, true to his reputation, is said to have been born on the mostly inauspicious third Day of the Moon:
Luna iiia. Li mals Caym nasqui/Le jor fet a garder. Trove ert li futif (Third Moon Day: The evil Cain was born; be careful on this day. The fugitive will be found). (Beinecke, MS 395)
Another account of Adam’s birth mentions his first glimpse of the moon as the reason for Eve’s creation: Saiche que le premier jour que adam vit la lune, ill apella fame et par amont ja ce jour quelle estoit nee. (Know that on the first day that Adam saw the moon, he named woman and that was the day that she was born) Mazarine 3636
Dramatic and iconic Bible stories are sometimes associated with particular days in the lunar cycle. It is implied that specific astral configurations existed during these well-known events in the past (fall of theTower of Babel, Sodom and Gomorrah) and projected good or bad outcomes to the present day. [8]
Al diszesetime jur perirent les cites qui bien dervirent le dampnedeu maleicun, Sodome e Gomorre urent nun (On the seventeenth day the cities who well deserved God’s damnation [curse] perished: they were called Sodom and Gomorrah) Worcester Cathedral, MS 61
Psalm citations [9] also appear in some Lunaries. They can serve as a sort of incantation at the beginning of the Moon Day:
Beatus vir qui non abiit. Le premier jor de la lune est bon a fere totes choses. (Psalm 1,1) Blessed is the man [who has not followed the counsel of the impious]. The first day of the moon is good for doing all things) BL Additional 17914
Psalms are also located within the day’s agendas. Here, for instance, it appears between a Biblical event and a prediction: La terce lune fu Caym nez [….]Saume: Tu autem domine susceptor meus est. (Psalm 3,4) Qui emblira ren, le larcin sera tost trove. On the third day Cain was born […] Psalm: But you, Lord, are my supporter. Whoever steals anything, the robber will be quickly found. Digby 86
Specialized Lunaries
The predictions in this type of Lunary are organized by the thirty lunar days of the Moon’s cycle, like Collective Lunaries. But additional paragraphs are sometimes added to the end of these lists. In them, the scribes either elaborate on the “dangerous” nature of the days in question or propose a different set of dangerous days. Combining calendars in the same text, some lists switch from lunar timing (“second Moon Day”) to regular calendar months and weekdays (“the sixth Monday of April”).
The generally brief Specialized Lunaries described below, feature few, and often only one, theme. They fall roughly into three categories:
- Illness Lunaries — predict the trajectory of sicknesses
- Bloodletting Lunaries — advise of dangerous dates and propitious times for the procedure
- Perilous Lunar Days — warn of carrying out medical and other activities on specific Moon days
Undoubtedly many more of these short prognostics exist in manuscripts yet to be transcribed and collected. I hope their presence here will encourage further scholarly research on them.
Illness Lunaries
Some Specialized Lunaries predict the fate of people falling ill on each day of the lunar month. Practitioners could apply these adaptable prescriptions month to month without referring to a fixed calendar.
In one example, Daniel– who in other Lunaries is linked to dream divination– is cited as the medical text’s source: C’est la table de Daniel le prophete sur ceuls qui commencent ou prannent maladie. (This is the table of the prophet Daniel about those who are beginning [to feel ill] or are catching an illness) BNF Arsenal 2782,
A more expansive illness Lunary, written in rhyming couplets, foretells if the sick will suffer, recover, or die on each of the thirty Lunar days and defines the length and gravity of the patient’s illness. Whether medicine will help in healing depends also on the specific Moon day. BNF 2074
The Tradition of Perilous Days
“Unlucky days, Perilous Days” or “Egyptian days” [10] are lists naming three, twelve or twenty-four fixed days of the calendar year considered dangerous. They are often found with other astrological calendars and prognostic treatises.
For example: Ces soun les perilous jours de l’an en queux mal est a homme ou a bestes estre seyne ou ascun chose commencer, c’est a savoir: Le premier lundy del mois d’averill, le premier lundy del moys d’aoust, et la darrere lundy del mois de Decembre […] (These are the perilous days of the year in which it is bad to bleed men or animals or to begin anything, that is: The first Monday in April, the first Monday in August, and the last Monday in the month of December) (Rawlinson C 814, f 3r/v). [11]
It is not uncommon for Perilous Days texts to adjoin Lunaries. Here are some examples from our collection:
Cambridge, Trinity O 5 32, f 28vb , site of a Collective Lunary, lists thirty-three days of the calendar year (dolerous jours de l’an) to avoid:
Janever en ad 7 , c’est a savoir le primer, le 2, le 4, le 6, le 11, le 16 et le 19. Feverer en ad 3: le 15, le 16, et le 19. Etc… January has seven, that is, the first, second, fourth, sixth, eleventh, sixteenth and nineteenth. February has three: the fifteenth, sixteenth and nineteenth,etc…
Likewise, Yale, Beinecke MS 395, home of two Lunaries in our collection, lists thirty-two days of the calendar year dangerous for bloodletting, but also for falling ill, traveling, getting married, or beginning any activity:
Les doleros jours et les plus perillos de l’an…. Il i a en l’an .xxxii. jors…. En genever .vii. Jors: le premer et le second e le quart e le quint e le dime e le quinzime e le disutime, etc. (The miserable and the most perilous days of the year… there are thirty-two in the year… In January, seven days: the first and second, the fourth and fifth and the tenth and the fifteenth and the eighteenth, etc.) Yale, Beinecke MS 395, f 183va.
BNF 15219 (f 18v-19r) also presents a short paragraph of perilous days after a Collective Lunary. Here again, the days are calendrical, not lunar, and predict nativities: Il y a xxi jours perilleux. Cil qui achouchera en nul de ces jours …. (There are thirty-one perilous days. She who bears a child on any of these days….)
Of note also is the brief Perilous Days text found at the end of the Collective Lunary in Modena Estense 32.. Termed Mortex, the three Mondays in the calendar year (in August, September and April) predict quick deaths during bloodletting and in battle and announce the painful fate of children born on these days.
Bloodletting Lunaries
Another Specialized Lunary also invokes the prophet Daniel, this time in regard to bloodletting:
Phlebotomie: C’est la table que Daniel le prophete fit pour les/ saigniez selon les disposicions de la lune. ( Bloodletting: This is the chart that Daniel the prophet made for the times for bloodletting according to the lunar configuration.) BNF Arsenal 2782,
Moon Days are defined as “good” or “not good” for bloodletting procedures, with specific timing recommended for best results (“from noon onwards”, “all day”).
The epilogue, like traditional Perilous Days, [12] advises users that tapping the proper veins when blood-letting on three calendar days will protect the patient from other diseases:
Dit Daniel que cestes choses doit on regarder diligemment et dit que quiconques se saignera du bras droit le xvie jour du mois de mars et le xve jour d’avril de la beine du chef et le 6e iour en la fin du [ ] mais de may du bras quel que l’on vouldra. […] Et ceste regle dessus tu feras maladie en tez oculis, apostumie ne fieuvre de toute l’annee ne auras. (Daniel advises that these things are to be diligently observed and that whoever is bled from the right arm on the sixteenth day of the month of March, and the fifteenth day of April from the vein of the head, and the sixth day at the end of the month of May, from whichever arm one wants.[…] And [if you follow] this rule above you will not have eye illnesses, nor abscesses (tumors) nor fevers all year long). BNF Arsenal 2782
Perilous Lunar Days
We have seen that traditional “dismal days” [13] are common companions to Lunaries and other prognostic texts. But there are some Malurez jours e […] perilous or doleros lists that are ordered by lunar rather than fixed calendar dates. Here two systems of time measurement, the lunar and the calendrical, complement each other. Although these Perilous Lunar days focus mostly on medical advice and phlebotomy, added material pertaining to other topics is not unusual.
British Library, Arundel 230 (f 6r) [14] lists lunar days for each month of the year; on those Moon Days both blood-letting and trading are to be strictly avoided. For instance: Le meis de Septembre, la .xii.lune e la .xxiiii (in the month of September, the twelfth and the twenty-fourth Moon day).
But in an added eight lines, the scribe adds catastrophic outcomes for those having children, getting married, traveling (“If a person sails, he will be in danger”) engaging in judicial matters and trading [15] on those particular Lunar days.
Oxford Digby 86 presents two Lunar Perilous Days texts appended to the bottom of a Collective Lunary. They occupy portions of four folios under the heading of “Beda”, the philosopher Bede, often cited as an early author of Perilous Days lists. Written in a different and more hurried hand, the brief compositions seem to have been composed at a later date.
- The first (f 42v-43r) lists lunar days for each calendar month when it is dangerous to begin any activity at all.
- The second (f 44v-45r) describes three perilous Moon days of the year, in the months of August, April and December. Bloodletting or taking medicine on each of these days will lead to death six or four days afterwards, both for men and animals. Dining on goose will cause death on the fortieth day.
In the case of BNF 1745, a Specialized Lunary expands a simple list of “bad” days to take on non-medical topics found in Collective Lunaries. It first lists lunas temedoyras (fearful days) for every month except December; it omits bloodletting entirely.
El mes de januyer la luna prime e la vi.a es temedoyra […] E del mes de octoyre la luna vi.a e la viii.a atrassi. (In the month of January the first and the sixth Moon Days are to be feared [ … ] And in the month of October, the sixth and the eighth Moon day also).
An epilogue elaborates further. The Moon, it explains, influences illnesses, nativities, marriages, embarking on journeys, trading, seeking assistance and managing personal relationships. The scribe then warns, addressing his user directly:
Si vols conoysser las [amis]tansas de totas causas e d’omes e de femnas e de companhas , ho d’autras cauzas, esguarda lo cours de la luna. (If you wish to understand or know the attraction or correspondence of all things, of men and women, and of companions, and of other things, pay attention to the cycle of the Moon). BNF 1745
Pictorial Lunaries
Rawlinson D 939 is described as “Six part unbound calendarial and astrological pieces of the most singular and curious character” in the Bodleian Library Catalog. The six pieces of vellum are folded into squares, forming a pocket-sized rectangular booklet. It dates from the late 14th century.
This manuscript contains extraordinarily beautiful drawings. In addition to images of a man named Harry the Hayward blowing into a horn, his dog Talbart on a leash beside him, there are drawings of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, and many other Biblical figures. Seasonal calendars depict activities month by month; other calendars list activities of the four seasons and illustrate Church feasts. There is also a month-by-month prognostic based on thunder, and Middle English verses on the influence of the Planets.
The pictorial Lunary is on the last piece of parchment, on folio 6. For analysis and discussion, click here.
Footnotes
[1] Throughout this study, I follow the typology of lunaries (Collective and Specialized) established by earlier scholars: C. Weisser, Studien zum mittelalterlichen Krankheitslunar, Pattense/Han 1982, 422-424, and L.S. Chardonnens, Anglo Saxon Prognostics, 393-467. In the present study, Rawlinson D 939 is used as a placeholder for future discoveries of similar wordless texts.
[2] Birthmarks, or moles, are commonly called lunares in Spanish, and are attributed to the Moon’s influence. On the role of scars and birthmarks in medieval literature, see Kathryn Dickason, Sacred Skin: The Religious Significance of Medieval Scars, Signs and Society, vol. 10, 2022.
[3] In late Anglo Saxon England, robbery (rapicitates) was especially called out among all other injustices (et omnes iniquitates) as deserving of royal punishment; it is mentioned specifically in the oaths that newly inaugurated kings swore to their people to justify their forthcoming rule. This is sometimes interpreted as highlighting the importance of theft prevention in early medieval law for preserving the relatively primitive social order: T. Lambert, Law and Order in Anglo-Saxon England. Oxford: Oxford University Press.. 2017, 63 ff. and 207-213.
[4] Two specialized Lunaries, one for the timing of bloodletting and the other for the recovery from illness, both in BNF Arsenal 2782, use the term “Daniel’s Table” (table de Daniel le prophete) despite their predictions not being about dreams.
[5] See Hunt, Writing, for a concise summary of medieval Dream Books, 2013, 253-265. Also S. Kruger, Dreaming in the Middle Ages (Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature). Cambridge, 1992.
[6] T. Hunt, “The Beginnings of Medical Instruction in Medieval France”, Romania 131, 523/524 (2013) 409-451 mentions the “personal” tone of medical texts and the use of the first person; C. J .Brown, “Authorial and Narrative voices in Late Medieval Vernacular Texts” in Poets, Patrons, and Printers: Crisis of Authority in Late Medieval France (1955) 197–246. Cornell University Press. Read more.
[7] Taavitsainen, Middle English (155 sq) mentions that the phenomenon is rare in English literature before the 15th century texts printed by Caxton. She cites one Middle English Lunary urging the audience to listen to the scribe’s words: Lordynges lasse and more /Lysteneth alle to my lore (Oxford, Ashmole 198).
By contrast with the Middle English texts, we have noted scribal addresses in some of the earliest Lunaries in this collection, dating from the 13th century.
[8] Taavitsainen, Middle English, 102-110. See also London, BL Royal Ms 12 C xii and Brussels, Bibliotheque Royale de Belgique MS 11004-17.
[9] Paris, BNF Fr 2039 and BNF Fr 1745 also include Psalms. Some scholars have interpreted Psalm citations as parts of dream divinations, where the Bible was used as a book of divination. Perhaps in the Lunaries the presence of a Psalm provided some sort of protective power to the predictions. Taavitsainen, Middle English, 104sq.
[10] For a summary of Perilous Days in Latin and French, Hunt, Writing, 229-247. Also, Chardonnens, László. “‘The Good and Evill Dayes of the Moneth to Worke in’: Lunaries in European Magic Manuscripts.” International Journal of Divination and Prognostication 1.1 (2019): 100–122.
[11] Similarly, BL Sloane 3550, f 216v tells us: [the patient] ne vivera lungement.
[12] The conflation of Perilous Day lists with “thematically adjacent materials” (i.e., lunaries) is discussed in Hunt, Writing, 230 sq.
[13] Chardonnens, László Sándor. “‘The Good and Evill Dayes of the Moneth to Worke in’: Lunaries in European Magic Manuscripts.” International Journal of Divination and Prognostication 1.1 (2019): 100–122.
[14] First mentioned in P. Meyer, “Bribes de litterature anglo-normande” Jahrbuch für romanische und Englische Literatur, VII (1866), 47.
[15] A similar list of perilous lunar days in Latin attributed to Bede appears in Oxford, Rawlinson D 248, f 12v. See Hunt, Writing, 236-237.