Abstract

Magic and superstition, we have long been told, governed popular mentalities in early modern England. Modern anthropology, however, suggests that semi-literate minds are more sophisticated in their understandings of the natural world. This paper explores iterations of English popular naturalism, or thinking about nature, in almanacs and household manuals from the late-sixteenth to the late-eighteenth centuries. All apply Aristotelian principles of substance and equilibrium to the observation and interpretation of natural phenomena. These range from the interpretation of dreams to weather forecasting. From the mid-seventeenth to mid-eighteenth centuries, epistemological changes started to appear in these publications, thanks to market forces in the booktrade and shifting perceptions of admissible truth-claims on the part of printers and print-audiences. This is more complex than a simple replacement of convictions. Since older notions of legitimate experience and evidence were, for the most part, undisturbed, popular print culture was imbued with both at the turn of the eighteenth century, constituting an imperfect synthesis of ideas.