There were five techniques for determining planetary strength, called dignity<\/strong>, used by medieval astrologers, although their provenance is earlier and are described by Ptolemy: sign rulership, exaltation, triplicity rulership, terms (also called bounds), and faces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Sign rulership<\/strong> is the strongest of these. There are seven planets and twelve signs (planets beyond Saturn weren\u2019t known to medieval astrologers), but two of these planets have special significance as the lights \u2013 the Sun and the Moon. The Sun is given rulership of the sign Leo, and the Moon rules the adjacent sign Cancer. This leaves five remaining planets and ten signs, and so each planet is given two signs to rule: Mercury, the fastest moving, is given rulership of Gemini and Virgo, the two signs closest to Leo and Cancer; Venus, the next fastest moving, is given rulership of Taurus and Libra, the next signs out and so on in a symmetric pattern.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n Any planet in a chart that is in the sign that it rules is particularly strong. If a planet is in the sign opposite to the one it rules \u2013 for example, if Mars is in Taurus or Libra \u2013 the planet is said to be in detriment<\/strong>, and therefore weak. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The next strongest dignity is exaltation<\/strong>. Unlike the elegant symmetry of sign rulership, there is no obvious logic to exaltation. Saturn is exalted in Libra, Jupiter in Cancer, Mars in Capricorn, the Sun in Aries, Venus in Pisces, Mercury in Virgo (which it also rules), and the Moon in Taurus. Many texts even assign precise degrees to exaltation \u2013 the Sun is exalted in all of Aries, but particularly at 19\u00b0 of Aries. If a planet is in the sign opposite to the one in which it is exalted \u2013 for example, if Mars is in Cancer \u2013 the planet is said to be in fall<\/strong>, and therefore weak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By the Middle Ages, all signs were considered as being related to Aristotelian elements, as follows: Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius are fire signs, Taurus, Virgo, and Capricorn are earth signs, Gemini, Libra, and Aquarius are air signs, and Cancer, Scorpio, and Pisces are water signs. Ptolemy did not make the link between signs and elements, although he did group them into the same four sets which he called triplicities or triangles, and so rather cumbersomely referred to the \u201cAries-Leo-Sagittarius triplicity\u201d instead of the simpler \u201cfire signs\u201d. For this reason, the elemental rulerships are called triplicity rulerships<\/strong>. Each element (or triplicity) has three planets ruling it. Some schemes made use of all three planets, others were more complicated and had one of the planets as the day ruler, one as the night ruler, and one as the common ruler. For our purposes, though, we just consider the three planets ruling each element, as follows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fire signs: Sun, Jupiter, Saturn; Earth signs and Water signs: Moon, Venus, Mars; Air signs: Saturn, Jupiter, Mercury.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Terms<\/strong> or bounds<\/strong> are unequal segments of a sign. Each sign has five such segments, each one ruled by a particular planet excluding the Sun and the Moon, and there is no obvious logical pattern to them. The origin of these terms was apparently Egyptian, and the lack of logic appears to have frustrated Ptolemy, who developed his own system of terms to replace the illogical Egyptian ones (although as he gave very little in the way of explanation of his method, the logic of his supposedly improved system is still hard to see to a modern eye), which some medieval astrologers used in preference to the Egyptian ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The final sort of dignity involves faces<\/strong>, or decanates<\/strong>, which are ten-degree segments of each sign. The first decanate (that is, the first ten degrees) of Aries is in the face of Mars, the next decanate in the face of the Sun, and the final decanate degrees in the face of Venus. The first decanate of Taurus is in the face of Mercury, the middle decanate in the face of the Moon, and the final decanate in the face of Saturn. The sequence of faces for each ten-degree segment proceeds in the ever-repeating Chaldean order<\/strong> of planets: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury, and the Moon, so the first decanate of Gemini is in the face of Jupiter, since the previous decanate (the final ten degrees of Taurus) was in the face of Saturn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This diagram is a visual representation of all the dignities, referred to as essential dignities<\/strong>. The outermost ring shows the signs and each degree marked with a tick. The red and blue planets in the central ring show the signs ruled by those planets; the next ring out shows the exaltations of each sign; the third ring out shows the three triplicity rulers, colour-coded by element, the fourth ring out shows the term rulers; and the outer ring shows the face rulers of each ten-degree segment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How do we use this rather complicated looking wheel? Well, consider this example: Sue has Venus at 8 Libra and Mars at 22 Pisces. Which planet is the stronger of the two? The obvious answer would be that Venus is, since she\u2019s in rulership in Venus, whereas Mars has no clear connection to Pisces. However, let\u2019s take a closer look.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To use the wheel shown here, draw a line from the centre point to the place on the zodiac where each planet is. In this diagram, I\u2019ve just put in Venus and Mars for the above example.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For each planet, we see how many times it appears in the line drawn from the centre, and score accordingly. Let\u2019s start with Venus: the purple line goes from the centre to 8 Libra. The first ring it goes through is the rulership ring: does Venus rule Libra? Yes, Venus is shown in that ring, so she scores 5 points. Next out is the exaltation ring: is she exalted in Libra? No, Saturn is, so Venus scores no extra points here. Next out are the triplicity rulers: is Venus one of the three triplicity rulers of air signs? No, they\u2019re Saturn, Mercury, and Jupiter, so again Venus gets no extra points. Next out is the term ruler: is Venus the term ruler of 8 Libra? No, that’s Mercury, who is term ruler of the segment from 6 Libra to 14 Libra. Finally, the outer ring shows the face ruler of the 10-degree segment of 0 to 10 Libra: Moon, not Venus. So Venus has a total of 5 points, for rulership. Now we do the same with Mars. Mars gets no points for rulership or exaltation in Pisces, but he is one of the three triplicity rulers of water signs, so he scores 3 points. Moving out another ring, is he the term ruler of 22 Pisces? Yes, he is \u2013 he rules the segment from 19 Pisces to 28 Pisces, so he gets an extra 2 points. Finally, moving out one more ring, is he the face ruler of the last 10 degrees of Pisces? Yes he is, so he gets another 1 point. Altogether, then, Mars scores 6 points as opposed to Venus\u2019 5, so \u2013 perhaps surprisingly \u2013 is the stronger of the two planets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This wheel makes it easy to spot dignity: if you look along the purple line for Venus, you can only see Venus appear once, in the rulership ring. If you look along the purple line for Mars, you can see Mars appear three times, for triplicity, term, and face. Try this with your own planets and see which ones are particularly strong. If a planet has no dignity at all, it is said to be peregrine<\/strong> and acts independently, sometimes recklessly; it\u2019s a planet without support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Note: you can download<\/a> and print out this wheel. Feel free to share it, but please copy the credit and link.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/almuten.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/rulership.png\")
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