The Casebooks
Forman's Casebooks
Portrait of Simon Forman.
Simon Forman (1552-1611) was the most popular astrologer in Elizabethan London. He was born near Salisbury in 1552, attended a grammar school, was apprenticed to a hosier and grocer, and spent a year and a half in Oxford. Through the 1570s and 1580s he worked as a teacher while studying the occult arts and serving several prison sentences. In 1592 he settled in London and established a thriving astrological practice. He kept detailed casebooks of his clients' questions about illness, pregnancy, stolen goods, career opportunities and marriage prospects. His other manuscripts include autobiographies, guides to astrology, plague tracts, alchemical commonplace books and notes on biblical and historical subjects. His only printed work was a pamphlet advertising a bogus method for divining the longitude while at sea. He accurately predicted his sudden death in September 1611.
For more information see works listed in Resources.
Forman's casebooks survive for 1596-1603 and contain 10,000 entries. The database is available for download in two forms: in the order that they appear in the casebooks (largely chronological) and sorted by name. A User Guide is also available for download.
Downloadable files:
- The database in casebook order: Excel file (3.5MB) or CSV file (1.3MB)
- The database ordered by last name: Excel file (3.5MB) or CSV file (1.3MB)
- User guide: PDF file (1.1MB)