Early Modern England and Wales How rational were supernatural beliefs in Early modern England and Wales?

Supernatural beliefs and belief in witchcraft were popular during the early innovative period. To consider the rationality of these beliefs necessitates that we consider them in the context of the period. To compel our modern ideas of rationality and reason upon the beliefs of this period takes them totally kayoed of context and renders them irrelevant and possibly plane ridiculous. When we study them in spite of appearance the period we can see the beliefs as part of the organise of society and being affected by cultural, religious and policy-making occurrenceors, this in turn gives us a good rear end on which to judge their rationality.

Probably the most widesp ingest of all beliefs that could be considered supernatural is star divination. This was taken quite seriously and whereas today we leave alone look at our horoscopes for entertainment, major decisions such as Elizabeth I coronation were made after consultation with astrological advisors. This illustrates the fact that this cannot be disregarded as merely a put down class method of entertainment nor can it be attributed to ignorance on behalf of the believers. As literacy increased and printing became more popular so did astrology, Almanacs were very popular, reaching a titanic amount of people. In the seventeenth century approximately five million almanacs were sold, even people who were not literate may have had them read to them, so we can see there was a large audience for this popular method of astrology.

The rationality of these almanacs and the use of astrology were based on the scientific knowledge of the time. The belief roughly the body was that it consisted of four humours and in order for the person to outride healthy they had to keep these humours in good balance, each humour; Blood, phlegm, Black bile and yellow bile related in different ways to the planets and...

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