Richard Harvey (1560-1630) was an English astrologer, theologian and controversialist.

Life

Harvey was baptised 15 April 1560 at

Saffron Walden Saffron Walden is a market town in the Uttlesford district of Essex, England, north of Bishop's Stortford, south of Cambridge and north of London. It retains a rural appearance and some buildings of the medieval period. The population was 15, ...

, where his father John Harvey was a ropemaker. He was a brother of

Gabriel Harvey Gabriel Harvey (c. 1552/3 – 1631) was an English writer. Harvey was a notable scholar, whose reputation suffered from his quarrel with Thomas Nashe. Henry Morley, writing in the ''Fortnightly Review'' (March 1869), has argued that Harvey's Lati ...

and

John Harvey John Harvey may refer to: People Academics * John Harvey (astrologer) (1564–1592), English astrologer and physician * John Harvey (architectural historian) (1911–1997), British architectural historian, who wrote on English Gothic architecture ...

(also an astrologer). He entered

Pembroke Hall, Cambridge Pembroke College (officially "The Master, Fellows and Scholars of the College or Hall of Valence-Mary") is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. The college is the third-oldest college of the university and has over 700 ...

as a pensioner on 15 June 1575, proceeding B.A. 1578 and commencing M.A. 1581, and was elected fellow of his college. A noted

Ramist Ramism was a collection of theories on rhetoric, logic, and pedagogy based on the teachings of Petrus Ramus, a French academic, philosopher, and Huguenot convert, who was murdered during the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre in August 1572. Acco ...

, he once was placed in the stocks for breaking windows at

Peterhouse Peterhouse is the oldest constituent college of the University of Cambridge in England, founded in 1284 by Hugh de Balsham, Bishop of Ely. Today, Peterhouse has 254 undergraduates, 116 full-time graduate students and 54 fellows. It is quite o ...

, in retaliation for a student satire ''Duns Furens'' there. Harvey was ordained deacon and priest in 1585, and in 1586 became rector of

Chislehurst Chislehurst () is a suburban district of south-east London, England, in the London Borough of Bromley. It lies east of Bromley, south-west of Sidcup and north-west of Orpington, south-east of Charing Cross. Before the creation of Greater L ...

, in

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

Works

Harvey's first book ''An Astrological Discourse'' (1583) made some stir. In it he defended

judicial astrology Judicial astrology is the art of forecasting events by calculation of the planetary and stellar bodies and their relationship to the Earth. The term "judicial astrology" was mainly used in the Middle Ages and early Renaissance to mean the types of ...

, replying to his brother Gabriel., and gave a weather forecast for Sunday, 28 April 1583 of a great wind presaging further apocalyptic events. Harvey was here drawing on Cyprian Leowicz and

Regiomontanus Johannes Müller von Königsberg (6 June 1436 – 6 July 1476), better known as Regiomontanus (), was a mathematician, astrologer and astronomer of the German Renaissance, active in Vienna, Buda and Nuremberg. His contributions were instrumental ...

. With it Harvey printed ''A Compendious Table of Phlebotomie or Bloudletting'', of eight pages, containing an "auncient commendation" of

phlebotomy Phlebotomy is the process of making a puncture in a vein, usually in the arm, with a cannula for the purpose of drawing blood. The procedure itself is known as a venipuncture, which is also used for intravenous therapy. A person who performs a ph ...

. The prediction failed, and Harvey was ridiculed. He was mocked in the tripos verses at Cambridge, as his brother Gabriel's enemy

Thomas Nashe Thomas Nashe (baptised November 1567 – c. 1601; also Nash) was an Elizabethan playwright, poet, satirist and a significant pamphleteer. He is known for his novel ''The Unfortunate Traveller'', his pamphlets including ''Pierce Penniless,'' a ...

, reported, by the comic actor

Richard Tarleton Richard Tarlton (died September 1588), was an English actor of the Elizabethan era. He was the most famous clown of his era, known for his extempore comic doggerel verse, which came to be known as "Tarltons". He helped to turn Elizabethan theatre ...

, and by the ballad writer William Elderton. Thomas Heth wrote a reply. In 1590 Harvey published ''A Theologicall Discovrse of the Lamb of God and his enemies'' with a dedication to

Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, KG, PC (; 10 November 1565 – 25 February 1601) was an English nobleman and a favourite of Queen Elizabeth I. Politically ambitious, and a committed general, he was placed under house arrest following a ...

, The work comprised the substance of sermons which, according to Nashe, had been preached three years earlier. Harvey wrote that the book explained his attitude to the

Martin Mar-Prelate controversy The Marprelate Controversy was a war of pamphlets waged in England and Wales in 1588 and 1589, between a puritan writer who employed the pseudonym Martin Marprelate, and defenders of the Church of England which remained an established church. C ...

. He steered a middle line between the bishops and their opponents, and criticised "poets and writers, who had taken part in the dispute". An anonymous tract ''Plaine Percevall, the Peacemaker of England, sweetly indevoring with his blunt persuasions to botch up a reconciliation betwixt Mart-on and Mart-other'' (1590?) supported the

Puritan The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to purify the Church of England of Catholic Church, Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should become m ...

side of the controversy, and made contemptuous mention of the tract entitled ''The Pappe with a Hatchet'' ascribed to

John Lyly John Lyly (; c. 1553 or 1554 – November 1606; also spelled ''Lilly'', ''Lylie'', ''Lylly'') was an English writer, dramatist of the University Wits, courtier, and parliamentarian. He was best known during his lifetime for his two books '' Eu ...

. Harvey's abuse of men of letters stirred Robert Greene to the attack on Harvey and his brothers Gabriel and John, ''A Quippe for an Upstart Courtier'' (1592, not extant). In the literary quarrel which followed between Gabriel Harvey and Nashe, Greene's champion Nashe parodied Richard's ''Astrological Discourse'' of 1583 in ''A Wonderfull, strange, and miraculous Astrologicall Prognostication'', 1592. In his ''Strange Newes of the Intercepting of certain Letters'', 1592, Nashe spoke of Richard as "a notable ruffian with his pen". According to Nashe, Harvey lost his benefice through incompetency, and eloped with and married a daughter of Thomas Mead the judge. He may have gone blind, as Nashe alleged. Publications: * ''Mercurius sive lachrymæ in obitum D. Thomæ Smith'' (printed at the end of Gabriel Harvey's ''Smithus'', 1578). * ''An Astrological Discourse upon the great and notable Conjunction of two Superiour Planets, Saturne and Jupiter, which shall happen on the 28 day of April 1583 … with a briefe Declaration of the Effectes which the late Eclipse of the Sunne 1582 is yet hereafter to woorke: written newly by R. H. London, 1583'' (two editions), dedicated to John Aylmer, bishop of London. * ''Ephemeron sive Pæana: in gratiam propurgatæ reformatæque dialecticæ'', London, 1583, dedicated to the Earl of Essex, a Ramist work. * ''A Theologicall Discovrse of the Lamb of God and his enemies'', 1590. * ''Philadelphus, or a Defence of Brutes and the Brutans History'', London (by Iohn Wolfe), 1593, dedicated to the Earl of Essex, in which

George Buchanan George Buchanan ( gd, Seòras Bochanan; February 1506 – 28 September 1582) was a Scottish historian and humanist scholar. According to historian Keith Brown, Buchanan was "the most profound intellectual sixteenth century Scotland produced." ...

is addressed. It contains the first known use of the word "

Anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of behavi ...

" in English: "Genealogy or issue which they had, Artes which they studied, Actes which they did. This part of History is named Anthropology."

Notes

;Attribution {{DEFAULTSORT:Harvey, Richard 1630 deaths English astrologers 16th-century astrologers 17th-century astrologers 16th-century English Anglican priests 17th-century English Anglican priests English theologians Fellows of Pembroke College, Cambridge 1560 births