Little Almanac

Eleventh House

The eleventh house follows the tenth and precedes the twelfth. It is succedent, one of the four houses that follow directly after an angle, in the classification set out at House Division. In the whole-sign aspect scheme it is in aspect to the first, second, third, fifth, seventh, eighth and ninth houses, and in aversion, sharing no aspect, with the fourth, sixth, tenth and twelfth.

The House of the Good Daemon

Ptolemy’s own text names this place directly: “the part sextile dexter to these thirty degrees,” meaning the arc around the ascendant, “called the House of the Good Daemon,” agathos daimōn 1 bk. III ch. 10.

Tradition

Held byDorotheus of Sidon, Carmen Astrologicum: The ʿUmar al-Tabarī Translation bk. I, c. 75 CE

Dorotheus ranks it third of the twelve places by strength, immediately following the midheaven and described as opposite the fifth 2 bk. I.

Tradition

Held byJulius Firmicus Maternus, Mathesis bk. II, Roman North Africa, c. 334-337 CE

Firmicus assigns Jupiter’s joy to the eleventh house, one part of a complete sevenfold scheme covering all seven planets 3 bk. II. Jupiter belongs to the diurnal team in the day and night division at Sect, together with the Sun and Saturn, whose own joys fall in the ninth and twelfth houses; all three diurnal planets have their joy above the horizon, the mirror image of the nocturnal planets’ joys below it.

Tradition

Held byWilliam Lilly, Christian Astrology bk. I, London, London, 1647

Lilly repeats the joy assignment directly, writing that Jupiter “doth especially rejoice in this House,” an agreement across roughly thirteen centuries. He assigns the eleventh house friends and friendship, hope, trust and confidence, and the praise or dispraise a person receives. Read for a king, it signifies favourites, counsellors and servants, allies, and the royal treasury; read for an army, its ammunition and soldiery. Read for a city governed by council, he gives a concrete civic analogy: the tenth house stands for the Lord Mayor of London, the eleventh for the Common Council, and the ascendant for the general body of the city’s commoners. He rules by this house the legs to the ankles, gives its colour as saffron, names Aquarius and Saturn as its consignificators, and reports it succedent and masculine, equal in force to either the seventh or the fourth house 4 bk. I.

Gap in the evidence

Friendship as this house’s leading signification is well attested from Lilly forward; the sources this entry draws on do not settle how early that specific reading, as against the “good fortune” and “good daemon” language of the earlier Greek and Arabic-transmitted material, became the dominant description of the place.

References

  1. Claudius Ptolemy, trans. F. E. Robbins. Tetrabiblos. Loeb Classical Library 435. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1940 (composed c. 150 CE). bk. III ch. 10. find a copy (catalogue search) recordprimary source

    The standard English reference and the chapter-numbering scheme this site adopts and names. Non-Robbins reprints number the chapters differently, so every locus here is given as Robbins numbering.

  2. Dorotheus of Sidon, trans. Benjamin N. Dykes. Carmen Astrologicum: The ʿUmar al-Tabarī Translation: Cazimi Press, 2019 (composed c. 75 CE). bk. I. ISBN 9781934586501 recordprimary source

    Second updated edition. A practitioner translation, cited alongside rather than instead of Pingree's 1976 Teubner critical edition. The Greek original is lost; the text survives through a Middle Persian intermediary into Arabic, which is itself part of why the Dorothean material needs careful reading.

  3. Julius Firmicus Maternus, trans. James Herschel Holden. Mathesis. Tempe, AZ: American Federation of Astrologers, 2013 (composed c. 334-337 CE). bk. II. ISBN 9780866906432 recordprimary source

    Complete translation of the eight books of the Mathesis in a single volume. A paperback impression exists under ISBN 9780866906197; edition details for both were confirmed against independent bookseller listings rather than a publisher's own catalogue page, which was not found online. Book II is the earliest surviving source to state the planetary joys as a complete scheme covering all seven planets.

  4. William Lilly. Christian Astrology. London, 1647 (composed 1647). bk. I. https://archive.org/details/b30338724 recordprimary source

    Second edition 1659. Where a figure differs between the two printings this site says which printing it is quoting.