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Do not fill this in! == Life == === Childhood === [[File:Nostradamus birthplace.jpg|thumb|upright=0.9|Nostradamus's claimed birthplace, [[Saint-Rémy-de-Provence]], photographed in 1997]] [[File:Nostradamus-plaque.gif|thumb|Municipal plaque on the claimed birthplace of Nostradamus in St-Rémy, France, describing him as an 'astrologer' and giving his birth-date as 14 December 1503 ([[Julian calendar]])]] Nostradamus was born on either 14 or 21 December 1503 in [[Saint-Rémy-de-Provence]], [[Provence]], France,{{sfn|Leroy|1993|p=24}} where his claimed birthplace still exists, and baptized Michel.{{sfn|Leroy|1993|p=24}} He was one of at least nine children of notary Jaume (or Jacques) de Nostredame and Reynière, granddaughter of Pierre de Saint-Rémy who worked as a physician in Saint-Rémy.{{sfn|Leroy|1993|p=24}} Jaume's family had originally been [[Jews|Jewish]], but his father, Cresquas, a grain and money dealer based in [[Avignon]], had converted to Catholicism around 1459–60, taking the Christian name "Pierre" and the surname "Nostredame" (Our Lady), the saint on whose day his conversion was solemnised.{{sfn|Leroy|1993|p=24}} The earliest ancestor who can be identified on the paternal side is Astruge of [[Carcassonne]], who died about 1420. Michel's known siblings included Delphine, Jean (c. 1507–1577), Pierre, Hector, Louis, Bertrand, [[Jean de Nostredame|Jean II]] (born 1522) and Antoine (born 1523).{{sfn|Lemesurier|2003|pp=143–146}}{{sfn|Leroy|1993|pp=32–51}}{{sfn|Lemesurier|1999|pp=24–25}} Little else is known about his childhood, although there is a persistent tradition that he was educated by his maternal great-grandfather Jean de St. Rémy<ref name="ref4">De Chavigny, J. A.: ''La première face du Janus françois'' (Lyon, 1594)</ref>—a tradition which is somewhat undermined by the fact that the latter disappears from the historical record after 1504 when the child was only one year old.{{sfn|Brind'Amour|1993|p=545}} === Student years === At the age of 14,{{sfn|Lemesurier|2010}} Nostradamus entered the [[University of Avignon]] to study for his [[Baccalauréat|baccalaureate]]. After little more than a year (when he would have studied the regular [[trivium (education)|''trivium'']] of [[grammar]], [[rhetoric]] and [[logic]] rather than the later ''[[quadrivium]]'' of [[geometry]], [[arithmetic]], [[music]], and [[astronomy]]/[[astrology]]), he was forced to leave Avignon when the university closed its doors during an outbreak of the plague. After leaving Avignon, Nostradamus, by his own account, traveled the countryside for eight years from 1521 researching herbal remedies. In 1529, after some years as an [[apothecary]], he entered the [[University of Montpellier]] to study for a doctorate in medicine. He was expelled shortly afterwards by the student ''procurator'', [[Guillaume Rondelet]], when it was discovered that he had been an apothecary, a "manual trade" expressly banned by the university statutes, and had been slandering doctors.{{sfn |Lemesurier |2010 |pp=48–49}} The expulsion document, ''BIU Montpellier, Register S 2 folio 87'', still exists in the faculty library.{{sfn|Lemesurier|2003|p=2}} Some of his publishers and correspondents would later call him "Doctor". After his expulsion, Nostradamus continued working, presumably still as an apothecary, and became famous for creating a "rose pill" that purportedly protected against the plague.<ref name="ref6">Nostradamus, Michel, ''Traite des fardemens et des confitures'', 1555, 1556, 1557</ref> === Marriage and healing work === [[File:Nostradamuss house at Salon-de-Provence.jpg|thumb|upright=0.9|Nostradamus's house at [[Salon-de-Provence]], as reconstructed after the [[1909 Provence earthquake]]]] In 1531 Nostradamus was invited by [[Julius Caesar Scaliger|Jules-César Scaliger]], a leading [[Polymath|Renaissance scholar]], to come to [[Agen]].{{sfn|Leroy|1993|pp=60–91}} There he married a woman of uncertain name (possibly Henriette d'Encausse), with whom he had two children.{{sfn|Leroy|1993|p=61}} In 1534 his wife and children died, presumably from the plague. After their deaths, he continued to travel, passing through France and possibly Italy.{{sfn|Leroy|1993|pp=62–71}} On his return in 1545, he assisted the prominent physician [[Louis Serre (physician)|Louis Serre]] in his fight against a major plague outbreak in [[Marseille]], and then tackled further outbreaks of disease on his own in Salon-de-Provence and in the regional capital, [[Aix-en-Provence]]. Finally, in 1547, he settled in [[Salon-de-Provence]] in the house which exists today, where he married a rich widow named Anne Ponsarde, with whom he had six children—three daughters and three sons.{{sfn|Leroy|1993|pp=110–133}} Between 1556 and 1567 he and his wife acquired a one-thirteenth share in a huge canal project, organised by [[Adam de Craponne]], to create the [[Canal de Craponne]] to irrigate the largely waterless Salon-de-Provence and the nearby Désert de la [[Crau]] from the river [[Durance]].{{sfn|Brind'Amour|1993|pp=130, 132, 369}} === Occultism === After another visit to Italy, Nostradamus began to move away from medicine and toward the "occult". Following popular trends, he wrote an [[almanac]] for 1550, for the first time in print Latinising his name to Nostradamus. He was so encouraged by the almanac's success that he decided to write one or more annually. Taken together, they are known to have contained at least 6,338 prophecies,{{sfn|Lemesurier|2010|pp=23–25}}{{sfn|Chevignard|1999}} as well as at least eleven annual calendars, all of them starting on 1 January and not, as is sometimes supposed, in March. It was mainly in response to the almanacs that the nobility and other prominent people from far away soon started asking for horoscopes and "psychic" advice from him, though he generally expected his clients to supply the birth charts on which these would be based, rather than calculating them himself as a professional astrologer would have done. When obliged to attempt this himself on the basis of the published tables of the day, he frequently made errors and failed to adjust the figures for his clients' place or time of birth.{{sfn|Lemesurier|2010|pp=59–64}}{{sfn|Brind'Amour|1993|pp=326–399}}{{efn|Refer to the analysis of these charts by Brind'Amour, 1993, and compare Gruber's comprehensive critique of Nostradamus's horoscope for Crown Prince Rudolph Maximilian.}}{{sfn|Gruber|2003}} He then began his project of writing a book of one thousand mainly French quatrains, which constitute the largely undated prophecies for which he is most famous today. Feeling vulnerable to opposition on religious grounds,{{sfn|Lemesurier|2003|p=125}} he devised a method of obscuring his meaning by using "[[Virgil]]ianised" syntax, word games and a mixture of other languages such as [[Ancient Greek|Greek]], Italian, [[Latin]], and [[Provençal dialect|Provençal]].{{sfn|Lemesurier|2003|pp=99–100}} For technical reasons connected with their publication in three instalments (the publisher of the third and last instalment seems to have been unwilling to start it in the middle of a "Century," or book of 100 verses), the last fifty-eight quatrains of the seventh "Century" have not survived in any extant edition. [[File:Nostradamus CI 1.jpg|thumb|Century I, Quatrain 1 in the 1555 Lyon Bonhomme edition]] The quatrains, published in a book titled ''Les Prophéties'' (The Prophecies), received a mixed reaction when they were published. Some people thought Nostradamus was a servant of evil, a fake, or insane, while many of the elite evidently thought otherwise. [[Catherine de' Medici]], wife of King [[Henry II of France]], was one of Nostradamus's greatest admirers. After reading his almanacs for 1555, which hinted at unnamed threats to the royal family, she summoned him to Paris to explain them and to draw up horoscopes for her children. At the time, he feared that he would be beheaded,{{sfn|Leroy|1993|p=83}} but by the time of his death in 1566, Queen Catherine had made him Counselor and Physician-in-Ordinary to her son, the young King [[Charles IX of France]]. Some accounts of Nostradamus's life state that he was afraid of being persecuted for [[Christian heresy|heresy]] by the [[Inquisition]], but neither [[prophecy]] nor [[astrology]] fell in this bracket, and he would have been in danger only if he had practised [[magic (paranormal)|magic]] to support them. In 1538 he came into conflict with the Church in Agen after an Inquisitor visited the area looking for [[Anti-Catholicism|anti-Catholic]] views.<ref name="Wilson2014">{{cite book |last = Wilson |first = Ian |title = Nostradamus: The Man Behind the Prophecies |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=jqvcAgAAQBAJ&pg=PT62 |date = 1 April 2014 |publisher = St. Martin's Press |isbn = 978-1-4668-6737-6 |pages = 62 ff }}</ref> His brief imprisonment at Marignane in late 1561 was solely because he had violated a recent royal decree by publishing his 1562 almanac without the prior permission of a bishop.{{sfn|Lemesurier|2003|p=124}} === Final years and death === [[File:Nostradamus epitaph.jpg|thumb|Nostradamus's current tomb in the [[Salon-de-Provence#Collégiale Saint Laurent|Collégiale Saint-Laurent]] in Salon-de-Provence in the south of France, into which his scattered remains were transferred after 1789]] [[File:140609-Salon-Nostradamus.jpg|thumb|Nostradamus statue in Salon-de-Provence]] By 1566, Nostradamus' [[gout]], which had plagued him painfully for many years and made movement very difficult, turned into [[edema]]. In late June he summoned his lawyer to draw up an extensive will bequeathing his property plus 3,444 crowns (around US$300,000 today), minus a few debts, to his wife pending her remarriage, in trust for her sons pending their twenty-fifth birthdays and her daughters pending their marriages. This was followed by a much shorter [[codicil (will)|codicil]].{{sfn|Leroy|1993|pp=102–106}} On the evening of 1 July, he is alleged to have told his secretary Jean de Chavigny, "You will not find me alive at sunrise." The next morning he was reportedly found dead, lying on the floor next to his bed and a bench (Presage 141 [originally 152] ''for November 1567'', as posthumously edited by Chavigny to fit what happened).{{sfn|Lemesurier|2003|p=137}}{{sfn|Chevignard|1999}} He was buried in the local Franciscan chapel in Salon (part of it now incorporated into the restaurant ''La Brocherie'') but re-interred during the [[French Revolution]] in the Collégiale Saint-Laurent, where his tomb remains to this day.{{sfn|Leroy|1993}} Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page