Time, Astronomy, and Calendars

This volume makes available two little-known twelfth-century Latin sources on mathematical astronomy: the anonymous Ptolomeus et multi sapientum… (c.1145), which is attributable to the famous Jewish astrologer Abraham Ibn Ezra, and the surviving second part of Robert of Chester’s Liber canonum, which accompanied the Tables of London (c.1150). Both texts are introductory-level works originally written to educate a Latin Christian audience in the concepts and techniques involved in computing with astronomical tables. They are here presented in critical editions with facing English translations. The accompanying introductions and in-depth commentaries elucidate their significance in the context of twelfth-century Latin astronomy.

This book explores the notebooks of S. Belle, an astrologer who lived in late fifteenth-century France, as a case study of late medieval astrological practice. These notebooks combine astrological doctrine, a large collection of horoscopes, an almanac, and three complete judgements of nativities. By studying Belle’s methods, processes of learning, and practices, this book contributes to a better understanding of the internal architecture of astrology in the pre-modern world; this includes its techniques, methodologies, goals, transmission, and development throughout history. It offers an internalist view of the practice of astrology, as a counterpart to the existing research into astrology’s social and cultural impact.

Calendars in the Making investigates the origins of calendars we are most familiar with today, yet whose early histories, in the Roman and medieval periods, are still shrouded in obscurity. It examines when the seven-day week was standardized and first used for dating and time reckoning, in Jewish and other constituencies of the Roman Empire; how the Christian liturgical calendar was constructed in early medieval Europe; and how and when the Islamic calendar was instituted. The volume includes studies of Roman provincial calendars, medieval Persian calendar reforms, and medieval Jewish calendar cycles. Edited by Sacha Stern, it presents the original research of a team of leading experts in the field.

Contributors are: François de Blois, Ilaria Bultrighini, Sacha Stern, Johannes Thomann, Nadia Vidro, Immo Warntjes.

Astronomical and astrological knowledge circulated in many ways in the ancient world: in the form of written texts and through oral communication; by the conscious assimilation of sought-after knowledge and the unconscious absorption of ideas to which scholars were exposed.
The Circulation of Astronomical Knowledge in the Ancient World explores the ways in which astronomical knowledge circulated between different communities of scholars over time and space, and what was done with that knowledge when it was received. Examples are discussed from Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Greco-Roman world, India, and China.

During the Middle Ages and early modern times tables were a most successful and economical way to present mathematical procedures and astronomical models and to facilitate computations. Before the sixteenth century astronomical models introduced by Ptolemy in Antiquity were rarely challenged, and innovation consisted in elaborating new methods for calculating planetary positions and other celestial phenomena. Essays on Medieval Computational Astronomy includes twelve articles that focus on astronomical tables, offering many examples where the meaning and purpose of such tables has been determined by careful analysis. In evaluating the work of medieval scholars we are mindful of the importance of applying criteria consistent with their own time, which may be different from those appropriate for other periods.

During the later Middle Ages (twelfth to fifteenth centuries), the study of chronology, astronomy, and scriptural exegesis among Christian scholars gave rise to Latin treatises that dealt specifically with the Jewish calendar and its adaptation to Christian purposes. In Medieval Latin Christian Texts on the Jewish Calendar C. Philipp E. Nothaft offers the first assessment of this phenomenon in the form of critical editions, English translations, and in-depth studies of five key texts, which together shed fascinating new light on the avenues of intellectual exchange between medieval Jews and Christians.

The study of time, astronomy, and calendars, has been closely intertwined in the history of Western culture and, more particularly, Jewish tradition. Jewish interest in astronomy was fostered by the Jewish calendar, which was based on the courses of the sun and the moon, whilst astronomy, in turn, led to a better understanding of how time should be reckoned.
Time, Astronomy, and Calendars in the Jewish Tradition, edited by Sacha Stern and Charles Burnett, presents a wide selection of original research in this multi-disciplinary field, ranging from Antiquity to the later Middle Ages. Its variety of approaches and sub-themes reflects the relevance of astronomy and calendars to many aspects of Jewish, and more generally ancient and medieval, culture and social history.

Contributors include: Jonathan Ben-Dov, Reimund Leicht, Marina Rustow, Francois de Blois, Raymond Mercier, Philipp Nothaft, Josefina Rodriguez Arribas, Ilana Wartenberg, Israel Sandman, Justine Isserles, Anne C. Kineret Sittig, Katharina Keim, and Sacha Stern

A Survey of European Astronomical Tables in the Late Middle Ages is a first attempt to classify and illustrate the numerous astronomical tables compiled from about the 10th century to the early 16th century in the Latin West. The compilation of astronomical tables was a major and dynamic intellectual enterprise. These tables respond to a wide variety of astronomical problems and computational needs, and contain a large number of ingenious solutions proposed by astronomers over the centuries. In the absence of algebraic notation and mathematical graphing techniques, a table was often the best way to transmit precise information to the reader. Indeed, an astronomical table is not a just a list of data, but a structured way to present numerical information of astronomical interest.

"...the whole book which is an excellent guide for all those who are interested in the history of medieval European astronomy and, especially, in medieval astronomical tables."
Julio Samsó, University of Barcelona

The beginnings of scientific chronology are usually associated with the work of the great Renaissance philologist Joseph Scaliger (1540–1609), but this perspective is challenged by the existence of a vivid pre-modern computistical tradition, in which technical chronological questions, especially regarding the life of Jesus, played an essential role. Christian scholars such as Roger Bacon made innovative breakthroughs in the field of historical dating by applying astronomical calculations, critical exegesis, and the study of the Jewish calendar to chronological problems. Drawing on a wide selection of sources that range from late antiquity to 1600, this book uses the history of the date of Christ’s Passion to shed new light on the medieval contribution to science and scholarship.