Tales from the Library, Part 3

A non-robot snippet from my current research project...

I recently came across the story of the death of Gerard, bishop of Hereford and then Archbishop of York. He was suspected by his congregation at York of being a necromancer, on account of the fact that he would spend part of every afternoon reading a book of astrology (the Mathesis of Julius Firmicus). One day, feeling unwell, he dismissed his servants and went into his garden to get some relief. His servants later found him dead with the book of astrology under his pillow. The canons at York were so enraged by the un-Christian practices of their archbishop that they refused to allow him to be buried in York Minster, and "would hardly suffer a lowly clod of earth to be thrown on him outside the gates."

Mathesis was written in the middle of the fourth century, and it circulated throughout the Middle Ages. There was a flurry of interest in astral science (astronomy and astrology) right around Gerard's lifetime, and most of the activity in England was in Hereford and its environs. But I guess the Good News of the Mathesis hadn't yet penetrated into the north...