Johannes de Sacrobosco. Computus, Quadrans, De sphaera, Algorismus, CautelaeThis episode we celebrate the  winter’s solstice with a grab-bag of comets, eclipses, and meteors, as well as earthquakes, tempests, and plagues.

This Episode’s Texts:

  • The Chronicle of Holyrood. The Church Historians of England, edited and translated by Joseph Stevenson, vol. IV, part I, Seeley’s, 1856, pp. 61-75. Google Books.
  • The History of the Church of Hexham, by John the Prior. The Church Historians of England, edited and translated by Joseph Stevenson, vol. IV, part I, Seeley’s, 1856, pp. 3-32. Google Books.
  • The Chronicle of Melrose. The Church Historians of England, edited and translated by Joseph Stevenson, vol. IV, part I, Seeley’s, 1856, pp. 79-242. Google Books.

References:

  • Dall’Olmo, Umberto. “Meteors, Meteor Showers and Meteorites in the Middle Ages: From European Medieval Sources.” JHA, vol. 9, 1978, pp. 123-134.
  • Cesario, Marilina. “Fyrenne Dracan in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.” Textiles, Text, Intertext: Essays in Honour of Gale R. Owen-Crocker, edited by Maren Clegg Hyer and Jill Frederick, Boydell and Brewer, 2016, pp. 153-170.
  • Foote, Sarah. “Plenty, Portents, and Plague: Ecclesiastical Readings of the Natural World in Early Medieval Europe.” God’s Bounty?: The Churches and the Natural World, edited by Peter Clarke and Tony Claydon, Boydell Press, 2010, pp. 15-41.
  • “Canterbury Monks Witness Creation of Moon Crater.” Medieval Archives, 18 June 2011, http://www.medievalarchives.com/2011/06/18/canterbury-monks-witness-creation-of-moon-crater/

Image: Diagram of a lunar eclipse, from a manuscript of Johannes de Sacrobosco’s Computus, Quadrans, De sphaera, Algorismus, Cautelae, France, ca. 1260. In the collection of the New York Public Library.