Azemena Degrees
Definition
Azemena degrees, also called azemene or maimed degrees, are specific degrees scattered through the signs that traditional astrologers linked to inseparable bodily affliction. The Latin azemena, which Bonatti carries over from Arabic chronic-disease terminology, means roughly "debilitation." When a chief significator of the body, or the Moon, falls on one of these degrees, the doctrine reads it as a sign of a lasting congenital condition acquired in the womb and carried for life, such as natural blindness, deafness, lameness, or a hunched back, as distinct from an injury suffered later.
In Tradition
The tradition treats azemena degrees as a degree-level testimony of chronic, inborn bodily harm rather than circumstantial illness. The degrees are read off a fixed per-sign table inherited from Ptolemy and al-Qabisi. Authorities are firm that the marker is corroborative, not decisive: a single azemene placement is weighed alongside other testimonies of bodily affliction before any judgment about the native's health is reached.
In Practice
First identify the significators of the body and health: the Moon as the universal body-significator, the ruler of the Ascendant, and any planets in the first or sixth house. Note each one's exact degree, then check it against the per-sign azemena table; Bonatti's list marks degrees such as Taurus 6 to 10, Cancer 9 to 15, Leo 18, 27, and 28, Scorpio 19 and 28, Sagittarius 1, 7, 8, 18, and 19, and Capricorn 26 to 29, with later annotators adding a few more. If a body significator sits on an azemene degree, register it as a marker of possible inseparable congenital affliction. Then weigh it together with the rest of the bodily testimony, affliction of the first or sixth house and hard aspects from Mars or Saturn, and never let the degree stand alone as a verdict.
Historical Origin
Bonatti sets out the azemena degrees in his Liber Astronomiae, citing Ptolemy and Alchabitius (al-Qabisi) as his authorities and supplying a per-sign table. The per-sign degree doctrine persisted into later medieval and Renaissance Latin practice. Robert Hand's notes to the Liber Astronomiae translation distinguish the congenital azemena conditions from outwardly similar injuries acquired later in life.