His contemporaries criticized his astrological skills.

His contemporaries criticized his astrological skills.

By the time the first edition of “The Prophecies” was published in 1555, Nostradamus had already garnered quite a bit of notoriety from his almanacs, which he had begun to publish on an annual basis beginning five years earlier. The texts provided useful weather information for farmers and predictions for the coming year, and eventually caught the attention of the queen of France, Catherine de’ Medici, who summoned Nostradamus to Paris to explain his predictions and draw up horoscopes for her children. However, not all of the attention he received was positive. Professional astrologers of the time criticized his incompetent methodology and failure to adjust the predictions for his client’s birth dates or place. Laurens Videl published a pamphlet in 1558 entitled “Declaration of the abuses, ignorances and seditions of Michel Nostradamus” in which he railed against both the content of Nostradamus’ predictions and his lack of basic astrological skills, stating: “I can say with complete confidence that of true astrology you understand less than nothing, as is evident not merely to the learned, but to learners in astrology too, as your works amply demonstrate, you who cannot calculate the least movement of any heavenly body whatever.”