The equatorie of the planetis

The equatorie of the planetis is a 14th-century scientific work which describes an equatorium. It was discovered in 1952 by Derek J. Price, and has sometimes been ascribed to Geoffrey Chaucer because of its language and handwriting. It is written in English and contains astronomical tables; its ultimate source is Arabic.

Price published an abstract in 1953,[1] and the whole text (facsimile, transcription, and studies of the manuscript) in 1955.[2] He maintained the possibility that Chaucer authored the Equatorie, possibly as the missing part of his A Treatise on the Astrolabe, which describes the astrolabe, and is sometimes cited as the first example of technical writing in the English language; the Equatorie seems to make direct reference to it.[1] Since then, most other scholars of the Equatorie maintain that the evidence for Chaucer's authorship is very weak, and that the case is not proven.[2][3][4]

Discovery and description

Derek J. Price found the text in 1952 when he investigated a manuscript from the library of Peterhouse, Cambridge, MS 75.I. The manuscript featured 78 leaves of astronomical tables and text in English; the library's catalog assigned it to Simon Bredon, the astronomer of Merton College. Throughout the text and in many of the tables the year 1392 occurs, and the text must have been written around this year. How it came to Peterhouse is not known, but it probably happened during the 15th century; around 1540 it is entered in Peterhouse catalog, as Tab. aequ. planetarum autore Simon Bredon.[1] The Equatorie occupies eight pages in the manuscript; the phrase Radix chaucer appears on fol. 5v.[2]

That the manuscript is a holograph is confirmed, according to Price, by heavy corrections and interlineations (in the original hand) that appear to be alterations of style rather than copy edits—as if the original author were polishing their work. Price's linguistic analysis also suggests that the manuscript has no evidence of any other scribe or author having worked on it. If it is a holograph, then Bredon, who died in 1372, cannot have been its author. It is possible that the text is a translation of a now-lost Latin original, but either way, the text is based on an Arabic original.[1]

Manuscript

Peterhouse MS 75 was a composite manuscript; in 1952, after Price discovered the Equatorie in it, the manuscript was split into two parts (and both parts rebound): MS 75.I, containing the Equatorie, and MS 75.II, containing works by Nicholas Trivet and Vegetius.[5]

MS 75.I has two parts: fol. 1r-71r contains the tables, and 71v-78v the text. The vellum is of varying quality, with ten quires of pages measuring 365x260mm (except for the last quires). The ink is brown; there are signs of dampness on the upper edge, especially in the first quire, with some blurring in the fourth quire on the top of the pages. According to Schmidt, the dampness and the wear and tear on some of the quires is evidence that the quires spent some time unbound.[6] The manuscript is written by two hands, both writing in court hand.[7]

Chaucer's authorship

Price offered five points as indicators of Chaucerian authorship:[1]

  1. Style and scientific treatment of the material are similar to A Treatise on the Astrolabe;
  2. The text mentions that the year 1392 is the "Radix" (or "root") of Chaucer;
  3. The main hand (including that of the "Radix" note) resembles a document likely written in Chaucer's hand;
  4. Linguistic similarities between the Equatorie and Chaucer's work, including "verbal echoes of the Astrolabe;
  5. The author is influenced by Merton's school of astronomy but lives in London, and the writing is that of an amateur, not a professional astronomer; in addition, the writer is familiar with "the diplomatic cipher methods of his time"—all elements that correspond with Chaucer's biography.

Following the publication of the facsimile and transcription, G. Herdan published an article in which he concluded, based upon the percentage of words in the Equatorie of "Romance vocabulary" (which includes words from Old French, Anglo-Norman French, and Latin), that Chaucer was indeed the author: "The agreement between observation and expectation, or between fact and theory, is so striking that without going further into the question of statistical significance we may conclude that by the token of Romance vocabulary the Equatorie is to be regarded as a work by Chaucer".[8]

"Radix chaucer"

On f. 5v, in a note on a page full of tables, the manuscript has the number "1392", followed by that number in sexagesimal notation, and the text "deffea xpi & Rxa chaucer". Price, and following him other scholars, expanded this as "differentia Christi and radix Chaucer"—or "the difference (in number of days) between (the year of Christ) and the (year of the) radix of Chaucer"—the radix in question then being the year 1392.[9] Fred Norris Robinson was not at all convinced that this (third-person) reference indicated Chaucer's authorship.[10]

Content
Equatorium indicating the orbit of Saturn, 1551.
Main article: Equatorium

The text describes the construction of an equatorium, an instrument similar to the astrolabe—but where an astrolabe calculates the positions of the stars, an equatorium does that for the planets, according to the Geocentric model of Ptolemy.[1] The instrument is constructed from two discs, six feet in diameter. One of them is solid, and is marked with characteristics of the orbits of the various planets: their apogee, their equants, and other centers. The other disc consists of "a ring, a diametral bar, and a rule pivoted at the centre of the bar". The two discs are joined and simulate the motions of each of the planets. A divided circle around the rims of the two discs allow for the transferral of information from sets of tables (the Alfonsine tables, from a Parisian document) that contain the data for each planet.[1]

Cipher

A cipher is used for some comments on the tables, and Price gave the key. He could not, however, discern what the rationale of or the ordering behind the key was—whether it was perhaps based on some medieval version of the Greek alphabet, or whether there was "some key-phrase or sentence such as a name or family motto" behind it.[1]

References

Notes
  1. Price, Derek J. (1953). "The Equatorie of the Planetis (Abstract)". Bulletin of the British Society for the History of Science. 1 (9): 223–26. doi:10.1017/S095056360000083X. JSTOR 4024774.
  2. Blake, N. F. (1996). "Reviewed Work(s): The Authorship of The Equatorie of the Planetis by Kari Anne Rand Schmidt". The Review of English Studies. 47 (186): 233–34. doi:10.1093/res/XLVII.186.233. JSTOR 518116.
  3. Smith, Jeremy J. (1995). "Reviewed Work(s): The Authorship of The Equatorie of the Planetis by Kari Anne Rand Schmidt". The Modern Language Review. 90 (2): 405–406. doi:10.2307/3734556. JSTOR 3734556.
  4. Mooney, Linne R. (1996). "Reviewed Work(s): The Authorship of the Equatorie of the Planetis by Kari Anne Rand Schmidt". Speculum. 71 (1): 197–98. doi:10.2307/2865248. JSTOR 2865248.
  5. Schmidt 103.
  6. Schmidt 103–105.
  7. Schmidt 108–109.
  8. Herdan, G. (1956). "Chaucer's Authorship of the Equatorie of the Planetis: The Use of Romance Vocabulary as Evidence". Language. 32 (2): 254–59. doi:10.2307/411002. JSTOR 411002.
  9. Schmidt 4–5.
  10. Schmidt 8–9.

Bibliography
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