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Ideas about the universe’s appearance, especially the arrangement of our solar system, were in a complicated transition in early modern England. The Ptolemaic System of the cosmos, with the earth in the center, dominated scientific and cosmological belief all through the Medieval period. In the mid 16th century, Nicolaus Copernicus published the theory that challenged and eventually replaced it, now known as the Copernican System. His 1543 book,
The intellectual climate of early modern England was not committed to a geocentric model, one with the earth in the center of the solar system. Beyond just a transition from the Ptolemaic to the Copernican System, the early modern period was a time for general questioning of what the universe looked like. As early as the 10th and 11th centuries, Islamic scholars were finding flaws in the Ptolemaic System. By the 16th century, Elizabethan scholars also found inconsistencies in the accepted world view.
Ptolemy (100–170 CE) was a Greek-Egyptian astronomer and geographer. His model of the universe, eventually known as the Ptolemaic System, summarized and combined eight centuries of Greek thought about the nature of the cosmos, including the idea of a division of the cosmos proposed by Aristotle. Hoping to solve some of the inconsistencies caused by a geocentric (Earth-centered) model of the universe, Ptolemy also created an elaborate model to explain the movements of the sun and planets. He combined all this into his
greatest, a name given to the book by Arabic readers in the Medieval period).
The Ptolemaic System held the Earth at the centre of the universe, around which everything else circled. Moving out from the Earth was a series of concentric rings, in which the moon, sun, planets, and the rest of the stars each had their own ring, called a
The spheres orbited in this determined order with small differences depending on the author or text, but the Earth was invariably at the centre, unmoving. The elements and the lunar sphere followed. The Ptolemaic System, partially based on Aristotle’s
Ptolemy had to account for numerous celestial irregularities in his system, which he did by proposing epicycles, an idea created by Apollonius of Perga (262?–190? BCE). This looping set of interlocking movements accounted for the retrograde motions of the planets, which is when a planet appears to move backwards in the sky because of its elliptical orbit around the sun.
The Roman Catholic church adopted the Ptolemaic model of the universe because it supported the Christian belief that humanity is one of God’s most important creations. It also complemented the Christian idea of Earth as a corrupted place. Christianity held the tenet that since the Fall of Adam in the Garden of Eden, the sub-lunary portion of the universe was tainted with sin and therefore was separated from the rest of the celestial cosmos.
Much of what the people of early modern England thought about the universe was molded by medieval Christian ideas, but that began in to change in the 16th century as scientific investigation occurred. Nicolaus Copernicus was a Polish astronomer, as well as a Roman Catholic canon. His book presenting his new system for the universe,
The heliocentric Copernican System holds that the sun is the stationary center around which the planets revolve. This affected everything about Copernicus’ idea of the universe. It meant that the Earth rotated around the sun and was no longer stationary. A non-stationary Earth meant that the stars no longer moved around the Earth but were stationary while the Earth rotated around the sun. Copernicus also proposed that the Earth had three kinds of movement: a daily rotation around its own axis, an annual rotation around the sun, and a third motion responsible for the precession of the equinoxes.
Other tenets of Copernicus’ theory include:
This last point was especially attractive to Copernicus and other astronomers because it removed the need for the complex geometry of epicycles that Ptolemy needed to explain retrograde movement.
Copernicus’ ideas went against the belief of a division between the holy and earthly spheres of the cosmos. It also contradicted several biblical verses suggesting the Earth was stationary. Because of this, Copernicus’
The Copernican System, despite its faults in some areas, set the stage for other thinkers, including Galileo, Johannes Kepler, and Isaac Newton, to expand upon a heliocentric universe. Copernicus kept the idea of the planets orbiting in perfect circles, but Johannes Kepler discovered their elliptical orbits in the early 1600s. Giordano Bruno, an Italian astronomer, attacked the common Ptolemaic idea of a finite universe, calling it the equivalent of having one’s brains
. His assertions spread widely in Europe, including at the English Court.
The Catholic Church was not fond of Copernicus’ ideas. Its officers burned Giordano Bruno at the stake in 1600 and placed Copernicus’
It is estimated that between 1543, when Copernicus’ ideas were first published, and 1600 no more than 10 thinkers believed in the main tenets of Copernican thought. Despite this, by 1700, the Copernican System was widely accepted among scientists. Thinkers like Galileo and Johannes Kepler gathered evidence that both proved Copernicus right and Ptolemy wrong. It is possible that this transition was influenced by Francis Bacon’s discussion of of the Scientific Method in 1620, which emphasized data as the definitive way to prove a theory, rather than relying on the senses and speculation.
Shakespeare has many references to the starry spheres.
In
She is so conjunctive to my life and soul That, as the star moves not but in his sphere, I could not but by her.
Two stars keep not their motion in one sphere, Nor can one England brook a double reign
Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven, Having some business, do entreat her eyes To twinkle in their spheres till they return.
Given that the importance of Copernican thought was not widely recognized when Shakespeare composed these references to the starry spheres, the familiar Ptolemaic model dominates his imagery.
Shakespeare never references Copernicus or his ideas in his works. However, some scholars, including Anna Cetera-Włodarczyk, Jonathan Hope, and Jarosław Włodarczyk, have pointed out how often Shakespeare uses references to this system failing in some way:
Shakespeare and many other educated early modern English thinkers would not have been completely cut off from information about astronomical debates happening separately from the start of the Copernican revolution. Indeed, astronomical almanacs and other works challenging the Ptolemaic model were available. Astronomy was a field in flux throughout the early modern era, and Shakespeare’s consistent breakdown of the Ptolemaic model can be interpreted as awareness of these debates.
