{"id":2635,"date":"2016-04-06T15:52:40","date_gmt":"2016-04-06T19:52:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.nd.edu\/manuscript-studies\/?p=2635"},"modified":"2021-08-07T09:43:09","modified_gmt":"2021-08-07T13:43:09","slug":"in-defense-of-chaucers-astrolabe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/manuscript-studies\/2016\/04\/06\/in-defense-of-chaucers-astrolabe\/","title":{"rendered":"In Defense of Chaucer\u2019s Astrolabe"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chaucer\u2019s Treatise on the Astrolabe<\/em> has not, historically, won the hearts of many academics\u2014much less the hearts of undergraduates making their first forays into medieval literature. The text is a manual supposedly meant to explain the construction and use of the astronomical tool known as the astrolabe<\/em>. Most interest in Chaucer\u2019s Astrolabe<\/em> has focused on its preface, where the author\u00a0professes to write for his ten-year-old son \u201cLyte Lowys\u201d (\u201clittle Lewis,\u201d l. 1) but also speaks to a much more highly educated audience. In this preface, Chaucer makes claims about medieval education, science, and languages that help us piece together a medieval worldview. Few have ventured beyond these opening lines, however, to understand the mechanics of the astrolabe itself. The task is well worth the effort\u2014Chaucer\u2019s Astrolabe<\/em>, for all of its technicality, can help us understand the role of science in more traditionally \u201cliterary\u201d works like The Canterbury Tales<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"The
The \u201cChaucer\u201d Astrolabe, England, c. 1326 \u00a9 The British Museum<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The medieval astrolabe was used by teachers, students, travelers, and astrologers to locate themselves in time and space. The legendary (but likely spurious) story goes that Ptolemy\u2019s camel stepped on his celestial globe and, seeing it flattened on the ground, the Greco-Egyptian polymath was struck with the idea that the celestial sphere could be mapped in two-dimensional terms (Hayton 4). In actuality, the astrolabe developed gradually over the course of centuries\u2014it is a testament to the mixture of ancient Greek, Jewish, and Islamic thought that created the intricate texture of medieval Western science. The astrolabe made particular strides under the Abbasid caliphate in Baghdad, for instance, where it was used to schedule Islam\u2019s five daily prayers. Using geometric principles, it can calculate the time, the date, the position of the sun, and the spread of constellations that the user can expect to see on any given night.<\/p>\n

The last of these functions, I like to think, contributed to the intricate sequence of astrological references that threads through The Canterbury Tales<\/em>. Chaucer frequently matches up a point in time he mentions in his text with the location of the corresponding zodiac sign. The most famous example comes in the initial lines of the Tales<\/em>\u2019 \u201cGeneral Prologue\u201d: \u201cWhan that Aprill with his shoures soote\/ The droghte of March hath perced to the roote\u201d (\u201cAt the time that April\u2019s sweet showers have pierced March\u2019s drought to the root,\u201d l. 1-2). Chaucer gives us the approximate date, and follows up soon after with the time of day and the corresponding sign: \u201cand the yonge sonne\/ Hath in the Ram his half cours yronne\u201d (\u201cand the young sun has traveled halfway through the Ram [that is, Aries],\u201d l. 7-8). One can imagine Chaucer using his astrolabe to map out the astrological scenes that matched up with the settings of his text.<\/p>\n

\"The
The Bodleian Libraries, The University of Oxford, MS. Rawl. D. 913, fol. 29r<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The surviving manuscripts of Chaucer\u2019s Astrolabe<\/em> show that its early readers experienced it alongside not only scientific texts by astronomers like Abu\u2019Mashar, but also intermingled with poems like the popular French Romance of the Rose<\/em>\u2014the Astrolabe<\/em> therefore challenges us to reconsider the divide between the \u201cliterary\u201d and the \u201ctechnical.\u201d In a future post, I will walk step-by-step through my students\u2019 saga to build and use astrolabes this semester. In the meantime, suffice it to say that the experience helps the modern reader to imagine medieval texts within the spatial, visual, and cosmological terms with which their initial audiences would have understood them.<\/p>\n

My thanks to Amanda Bohne and Juliette Vuille for their stellar insights and advice.<\/em><\/p>\n

Erica Machulak
\nPhD in English
\nUniversity of Notre Dame
\nFounder of Hikma Strategies<\/a><\/p>\n

BIBLIOGRAPHY<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Riverside Chaucer<\/em>. Ed. Larry D. Benson. 3rd<\/sup> ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.<\/p>\n

Curry, Walter Clyde. Chaucer and the Mediaeval Sciences<\/em>. New York: Oxford University Press, 1926.<\/p>\n

Hayton, Darin. An Introduction to the Astrolabe.<\/em> \u00a9 2012<\/p>\n

Lindberg, David. The Beginnings of Western Science. 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008.<\/p>\n

North, J.D. Chaucer’s Universe<\/em>. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chaucer\u2019s Treatise on the Astrolabe has not, historically, won the hearts of many academics\u2014much less the hearts of undergraduates making their first forays into medieval literature. The text is a manual supposedly meant to explain the construction and use of the astronomical tool known as the astrolabe. Most interest in Chaucer\u2019s Astrolabe has focused on … <\/p>\n

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