Medival objections

The medieval theologian Isidore of Seville criticized the predictive part of astrology.
In the seventh century, Isidore of Seville argued in his Etymologiae that astronomy described the
movements of the heavens, hile astrology had to parts! one as scientific, describing the
movements of the sun, the moon and the stars, hile the other, ma"ing predictions, as
theologically erroneous.#$%&#'(& In contrast, )ohn *oer in the fourteenth century defined
astrology as essentially limited to the ma"ing of predictions.#$%&#'+& The influence of the stars as
in turn divided into natural astrology, ith for e,ample effects on tides and the groth of plants,
and judicial astrology, ith supposedly predictable effects on people.#'-&#'.& The fourteenth
century s"eptic /icole 0resme hoever included astronomy as a part of astrology in his 1ivre de
divinacions.#'$& 0resme argued that current approaches to prediction of events such as plagues,
ars, and eather ere inappropriate, but that such prediction as a valid field of in2uiry.
3oever, he attac"ed the use of astrology to choose the timing of actions 4so5called interrogation
and election6 as holly false, and rejected the determination of human action by the stars on
grounds of free ill.#'$&#''& The friar 1aurens 7ignon 4c. +.89:+$$%6#'8& similarly rejected all
forms of divination and determinism, including by the stars, in his +$++ ;ontre les <evineurs.#'=&
This as in opposition to the tradition carried by the >rab astronomer >lbumasar 4=9=59986
hose Introductorium in >stronomiam and <e Magnis ;oniunctionibus argued the vie that both
individual actions and larger scale history are determined by the stars.#'9&