John of Murs's Tabulae Permanentes for Finding True Syzygies

For a survey of this problem during the Middle Ages, see J. Chabás and B. R. Goldstein, “Computational astronomy: Five centuries of finding true syzygy”, Journal for the history of astronomy , xxviii (1997), 93–105. On Ibn al-Kammād, see Chabás J. Goldstein B. R. , “Andalusian astronomy: al-Zij al-Muqtabis of Ibn al-Kammād”, Archive for the history of exact sciences , xlviii (1991), 1–41.

See Chabás Goldstein , op. cit. (ref. 1, 1997), 99.

Chabás J. Goldstein B. R. , “Nicholaus de Heybech and his table for finding true syzygy”, Historia mathematica , xix (1992), 265–89.

John of Murs wrote most of his works in Paris and, together with John of Lignères and John of Saxony, was one of the Parisian adapters of the astronomical tables of Alfonso X of Castile, compiled two centuries before by the astronomers at his service at Toledo. On the astronomical activity of John de Murs, see Poulle E. , “John of Murs”, in Dictionary of scientific biography (New York, 1970–80), vii, 128–33; Beaujouan G. , “Observations et calculs astronomiques de Jean de Murs (1321–1344)” in Actes du XIVe Congrès International d'Histoire des Sciences (Tokyo-Kyoto, 1974), ii, 27–30.

See Scabel Ch. , “John of Murs and Firmin of Beauval's letter and Treatise on Calendar Reform for Clement VI”, Cahiers de l'Institut du Moyen Âge Grec et Latin , no. 66 (1996), 187–215; Scabel Ch. , “Ad correctionem calendarii…: The background to Clement VI's initiative?”, ibid. , no. 68 (1998), 13–34; Poulle , op. cit. , 131. For the predictions for the conjunction of 1345, see Goldstein B. R. Pingree D. , “Levi ben Gerson's Prognostication for the conjunction of 1345”, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society , lxxx/6 (1990), esp. p. 7.

One of us (B. P.) is currently working on the edition of the Gmunden's canons, in the framework of a survey of his astronomical work, as a partial fulfilment for a thesis to be presented at the École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris.

For an excerpt of the table itself, see Chabás Goldstein op. cit. (ref. 1, 1997).

London, MS 24070 is dated in 1437. In Munich, MS 14783, f. 200v, a date is given: “in die s. egidi abbatis 1450”, that is, 1 September 1450. This manuscript, together with Munich, MSS 737 and 739, and Nürnberg, MS Cent VI 23, are the only manuscripts of the list not to have the colophon. Munich, MS 19550, bears the date 1460 (f. 160v), and the dates for Munich, MS 737, are 1440–44. In Vatican, MS 1376, several dates of 1458 are given at the end of the canon; one of them corresponds to 16 November, and on the lower margin there is a signature: “Frater Fredericus 1458”. Vienna, MS 5268 is dated 1433–37, and Vienna, MS 5151, ff. 117v–119r, contains a different canon for the use of the table, written by John of Gmunden, and dated 20 May 1440. Its incipit is: “Sciendum quod in hiis tabulis presupponintur….” MS 5268, f. 48v, also includes a small circular graph, possibly drawn by another hand, which has been interpreted as an astronomical instrument (see Firneis M. G. , “Johannes von Gmunden — Der Astronom”, in Hamann Günther Grössing Helmut (eds), Der Weg der Naturwissenschaft von Johannes von Gmunden zu Johannes Kepler (Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-Historische Klasse, Sitzungsberichte, ccccxcvii; Vienna, 1988), 65–85).

Vogel K. , “John of Gmunden”, in Dictionary of scientific biography (ref. 4), vii, 117–22.

Thorndike L. , A history of magic and experimental science , iv (Baltimore, 1934), 464.

See Poulle , op. cit. (ref. 4), 130, 133.