Quack, conjurer, sex fiend, murderer—Simon Forman has been called all these things, and worse, ever since he was implicated (two years after his death) in the Overbury poisoning scandal that rocked the court of King James. But as Barbara Traister shows in this fascinating book, Forman's own unpublished manuscripts—considered here in their entirety for the first time—paint a quite different picture of the works and days of this notorious astrological physician of London. Although he received no formal medical education, Forman built a thriving practice. His success rankled the College of Physicians of London, who hounded Forman with fines and jail terms for nearly two decades. In addition to detailing case histories of his medical practice—the first such records known from London—as well as his run-ins with the College, Forman's manuscripts cover a wide variety of other matters, from astrology and alchemy to gardening and the theater. His autobiographical writings are among the earliest English examples of their genre and display an abiding passion for reworking his personal history in the best possible light, even though they show little evidence that Forman ever intended to publish them. Fantastic as many of Forman's manuscripts are, it is their more mundane aspects that make them such a priceless record of what daily life was like for ordinary inhabitants of Shakespeare's London. Forman's descriptions of the stench of a privy, the paralyzed limbs of a child, a lost bitch dog with a velvet collar all offer tantalizing glimpses of a world that seems at once very far away and intimately familiar. Anyone who wants to reclaim that world will enjoy this book.

"Charismatic, volatile and ambitious, Simon Forman rose from a poor country upbringing in Wiltshire, via a slave-apprenticeship in Salisbury and a spell as a servant in Oxford to become one of the wealthiest doctors in London. He was doctor to the giants of the theatre and his 'playbook' contains the first eye-witness accounts of Shakespeare's plays. Like most doctors he also cast horsocopes for all and sundry: from soldiers, courtiers and sailors to women on the look-out for marriage. On the fringes of intrigues at Court, he was linked to Sir Walter Raleigh's 'School of the Night' and to the famous Overbury poisoning case, starring the beautiful Countess of Essex.This lively account of his life sees him denounced as a quack, a crank, and an astrologer who used black magic - yet his meticulous case-notes are now a key source for Elizabethan medicine. Judith Cook also reveals his private life, deciphering, for the first time, his intimate coded diary detailing all his law cases and battles with the establishment and particularly his hectic sex life, a record of promiscuity as vivid as Pepys or Bowell. (One of his affairs was with Elizabeth Lanier, perhaps the 'Dark lady' of S

Alphabetically arranged entries cover the history of astrology from ancient Mesopotamia to the 21st century. In addition to surveying the Western tradition, the book explores Islamic, Indian, East Asian, and Mesoamerican astrology. The field of astrology is growing rapidly, as historians recognize its centrality to the intellectual life of the past and sociologists and anthropologists treat its importance in a number of modern cultures. Despite the historical and cultural significance of the subject, most reference works on astrology focus on instructional techniques and are written by astrologers with little or no interest in the history of the topic. This book instead offers an objective treatment of astrology across world history from ancient Mesopotamia to the present. The book provides alphabetically arranged entries by expert contributors writing on such topics as horoscopes, court astrologers, Renaissance astrology, and comets. While it considers the Western tradition, it also treats Islamic, Indian, East Asian, and Mesoamerican astrology. In doing so, it explores the role of astrology in shaping science, literature, religion, art, and other defining cultural traditions. Sidebars offer excerpts from various historical texts, while entries provide suggestions for further reading.

The high society of Stuart England found Frances Coke Villiers, Viscountess Purbeck (1602-1645) an exasperating woman. She lived at a time when women were expected to be obedient, silent, and chaste, but Frances displayed none of these qualities. Her determination to ignore convention contributed in no small measure to a life of high drama, one which encompassed kidnappings, secret rendezvous, an illegitimate child, accusations of black magic, imprisonments, disappearances, and exile, not to mention court appearances, high-speed chases, a jail-break, deadly disease, royal fury, and - by turns - religious condemnation and conversion. As a child, Frances became a political pawn at the court of King James I. Her wealthy parents, themselves trapped in a disastrous marriage, fought tooth and nail over whom Frances should marry, pulling both king and court into their extended battles. When Frances was fifteen, her father forced her to marry John Villiers, the elder brother of the royal favourite, the Duke of Buckingham. But as her husband succumbed to mental illness, Frances fell for another man, and soon found herself pregnant with her lover's child. The Viscountess paid a heavy price for her illicit love. Her outraged in-laws used their influence to bring her down. But bravely defying both social and religious convention, Frances refused to bow to the combined authority of her family, her church, or her king, and fought stubbornly to defend her honour, as well as the position of her illegitimate son. On one level a thrilling tale of love and sex, kidnapping and elopement, the life of Frances Coke Villiers is also the story of an exceptional woman, whose personal experiences intertwined with the court politics and religious disputes of a tumultuous and crucially formative period in English history.

In 1628, the English physician William Harvey published his revolutionary theory of blood circulation. Offering a radical conception of the workings of the human body and the function of the heart, Harvey's theory overthrew centuries of anatomical and physiological orthodoxy and had profound consequences for the history of science. It also had an enormous impact on culture more generally, influencing economists, poets and political thinkers, for whom the theory triumphed not as empirical fact but as a remarkable philosophical idea. In the first major biographical study of Harvey in 50 years, Thomas Wright charts the meteoric rise of a yeoman's son to the elevated position of King Charles I's physician, taking the reader from farmlands of Kent to England's royal palaces, and paints a vivid portrait of an extraordinary mind formed at a fertile time in England's intellectual history. Set in late Renaissance London, the book features an illustrious cast of historical characters, from Francis Bacon and John Donne to Robert Fludd, whose corroboration of Harvey's ideas helped launch his circulation theory. After he published his discoveries, Harvey became famous throughout Europe, where he demonstrated his theory through public vivisections. Although his ideas met with vociferous opposition, they eventually triumphed and Harvey became renowned as the only man in the history of natural philosophy to live to see a revolutionary theory gain wide currency. But just as intellectual ideas could be toppled, so too could kings. When Charles I was overthrown during the Civil War of the 1640s, his loyal court physician fell also, and Harvey, an unrepentant Royalist, was banished from London under the English Republic. He died in the late 1650s, a gout-ridden, melancholy man, uncertain of his achievement. A victim of the political turmoil of the times, William Harvey was nevertheless the mainspring of vast historical changes in anatomy and physiology. Wright's biography skillfully repositions Harvey as a man who embodied the intellectual and cultural spirit of his age, and launched a revolution that would continue to run its course long after his death.

"Originally published, in a slightly different format, as Circulation: William Harvey's revolutionary idea, in Great Britain by Chatto & Windus, 2012"--T.p. verso.

Voices of Shakespeare's England offers students and public library patrons over 50 primary documents that illuminate the character, personalities, and events of the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods. Voices of Shakespeare's England: Contemporary Accounts of Elizabethan Daily Life helps readers explore the era that produced, among other things, the world's greatest playwright. It brings together excerpts from over 50 primary documents written in William Shakespeare's lifetime, including letters, literature, speeches and polemics, official reports, and descriptive narratives. Voices of Shakespeare's England includes the works of Shakespeare himself, as well as other poets and playwrights, but it also expands beyond the literary world to cover politics, religion, economics, social change, and the royal court. By allowing Shakespeare's contemporaries to speak in their own voices, it offers an illuminating look at the breadth of Elizabethan society, including major historic events in England as well as Scotland, Ireland, the European continent, and even the new world of America.