ASTROLOGIA MUNDA - Classical Astrologer Weblog

Book IV – Astrologia Munda
Introduction
till the murder of Hypatia in 415 AD. After the Byzantine Emperor Justinian
closed all of the schools in Athens (527 C.E.) the last refuges of science and
knowledge were yet to be found in Alexandria, but even more so, the old
traditions flourished in Persia.
It should be no surprise then that in the three centuries that followed, from the
Vandal conquest and the occupation of Rome until the coronation of
Charlemagne as the Holy Roman Emperor (c.800), the structure of western
Roman society disintegrated and in particular education and knowledge of the
sciences. Only in the Byzantine Empire and in spite of «radical» Christianity
was there relative stability ensuring that the arts and sciences were not totally
eradicated.
In Europe, these were the «Dark Ages» but in the midst of the degeneration,
there arose in the Middle East «The Religion» and with it came the conquest of
the centres of the remaining civilised nations by this new Arab power: in 635
Syria fell; in 637, Iraq; Persia by 641 and Egypt following in 642. By 670, the
Islamic Empire had spread to occupy most of North Africa. By 711, they had
conquered Visigoth Spain and had it not been for their defeat at Poitiers, France
in 732 by Charles Martel they more than likely would have occupied the greater
part of Southern Europe. While their empire rose quickly, unlike their
Germanic counterparts in Europe, their conquests left societies and cultures, for
the most part, intact enabling them to take possession of an intellectual world
rich in philosophy and science.
In 813, the House of Knowledge (Bait ha Hikma) was founded in Baghdad
establishing a place in which to assimilate the wealth of knowledge the new
empire had inherited. Observatories were constructed near Baghdad and
Damascus. Translation of Greek, Syriac, Persian and Sanskrit literature,
philosophical and scientific works were enthusiastically, if not passionately,
pursued. Astrologers, who had long fallen from favour in both Byzantine and
Roman cultures, now found benefactors and patrons in the Sunni Caliphs of the
Islamic Empire.
It was amongst this cultural rebirth that mundane astrology re-emerges. What is
evident is that this period saw the congregation of several lines of astrology, i.e.
that of the predominantly genethlialogical Hellenistic astrologers, Persian (or
Chaldean) astrologers, and elements from Indian Astrology. Without a doubt,
this period and place became a «crossroads» and «conjunction» of the main
astrological influences, cultures and teachings.
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