The Earliest Astronomical Tables in French ( c . 1271)

Marx J. , Verzeichnis der Handschriften-Sammlung des Hospitals zu Cues a. Mosel (Trier, 1905), 209–11; Krchňak A. , “Die Herkunft des astronomischen Handschriften und Instrumente des Nikolaus von Kues”, Mitteilungen und Forschungsbeiträge der Cusanus-Gesellschaft , iii (1963), 109–80 (esp. p. 174).

King D. A. , The ciphers of the monks: A forgotten number-notation of the Middle Ages (Stuttgart, 2001), appendix K, p. 396.

MS Bernkastel-Kues, Hospitalsbibliothek 215, f. 128vb.

MS New York, Columbia University Library, Smith W.6 (41), f. 117v. See Pedersen F. S. , The Toledan Tables: A review of the manuscripts and the textual versions with an edition (4 vols, Copenhagen, 2002), 136–7 and 1566.

We are grateful to Françoise Vieillard (Ecole Nationale des Chartes, Paris), who studied the text of the tables and canons and has shown us this consistency from a morphological and phonetic point of view.

Lusignan Serge , private communication to J.-P. Boudet (13 April 2010).

Torrell J.-P. , Initiation à saint Thomas d'Aquin: Sa personne et son œuvre, 2nd edn (Paris, 2002), 318 seq.

Boudet J.-P. , “La bibliothèque de Clémence de Hongrie, un reflet de la culture d'une reine de France?”, in La cour du prince: Cour de France, cours d'Europe, XII^e–XV^e siècle , ed. by Gaude-Ferragu M. Laurioux Br Paviot J. (Paris, 2011), 499–514 (esp. pp. 509–11). See also Poulle E. , “William of Saint-Cloud”, in Dictionary of scientific biography , xiv (New York, 1980), 389–91.

More precisely you will find: Solar mean motion (f. 103r, see Table 3), lunar mean motion (f. 103v), lunar mean argument (f. 104r), nodes mean motion (f. 104v), Saturn mean motion (f. 105r), Jupiter mean motion (f. 105v), Mars mean motion (f. 106r), Venus mean argument (f. 106v), Mercury mean argument (f. 107r). All these mean motion tables are explicitly set for Paris, with 1139 as a radix and a 28-year cycle for the ans conquellit (anni collecti) until 2371.

More precisely you will find: Mean conjunction table explicitly set for Paris, collected years with 1064 as a radix and a 76-year cycle until 2052 (f. 121r); mean opposition table collected years, Paris, with the same radix and cycle (f. 121r); expanded years for conjunction and opposition (ff. 121v–122r); mean conjunction and opposition, by month (f. 122r). It is interesting to note that the mean motions have differing radices, because it will help us to address the question of the possible sources of these tables.

Pedersen , The Toledan Tables (ref. 4).

Considering that the issue of headings and links with the canons will be addressed if the fourth part of this presentation.

It also underscores the extraordinary usefulness of Pedersen's work for the history of medieval astronomy.

See Mercier R. , “Astronomical tables in the twelfth century”, in Adelard of Bath: An English scientist and Arabist of the early twelfth century , ed. by Burnett C. (London, 1987), 87–118; d'Alverny M.-Th Poulle E. Burnett C. (eds), Raymond de Marseille, Opera omnia , i (Paris, 2009); Poulle E. , “Un témoin de l'astrologie latine du XIII^e siècle, les tables de Toulouse”, in Comprendre et maîtriser la nature au Moyen Âge: Mélanges d'histoire des sciences offerts à Guy Beaujouan (Geneva, 1994), 55–81, repr. in idem, Astronomie planétaire au Moyen Âge latin (Aldershot, 1996), no. I; Pedersen F. S. , “The Toulouse Tables: A list of manuscripts”, Cahiers de l'Institut du Moyen Âge Grec et Latin , no. 68 (1998), 3–12; Campanus of Novara and medieval planetary theory: Theorica planetarum, ed. by Benjamin F. S. Toomer G. J. (Madison and London, 1971), 15–16; Poulle E. , “Astrologie et tables astronomiques au XIII^e siècle: Robert le Febvre et les tables de Malines”, Bulletin philologique et historique (jusqu'à 1610) du Comité des Travaux Historiques et Scientifiques (Paris, 1964), 793–831, repr. in Astronomie planétaire…, no. VII. See also Pedersen , The Toledan Tables (ref. 4).

We have consulted MS Paris, BnF lat. 7411, ff. 1r–102r (end of thirteenth century).

See Vallicrosa J. M. Millás , Estudios sobre Azarquiel (Madrid and Granada, 1943–50), 72–237; Boutelle M. , “The Almanac of Azarquiel”, Centaurus , xii (1967), 12–20. The simplest way to compute a mean motion table from an almanac is to derive a daily mean motion from the goal years cycle of the almanac and its correction (in Azarquiel's case this cycle is a 28-year one) and from this parameter to compute the table. While compatible with the values found in the table, this way of reconstructing it is by far the more complex at hand for the compiler of the French tables.

Cf. Pedersen , The Toledan Tables (ref. 4), 881, table AA12. A copy of this table is in Paris, BnF lat. 16208, a Parisian manuscript of the end of twelfth century/beginning of the thirteenth century.

MS Rennes, BM 593, ff. 1r, 7v–8v (extracts of a French translation of the canons of Peter of Dacia's Kalendarium and Willliam of Saint-Cloud's Kalendarium regine), and 41ra–42vb (partial translation of the canons of Prophatius's Almanach). There is a complete French version of the canons of William's Kalendrier de la reine but it is conserved only in the late fourteenth-century MS, Paris, Bibl. de l'Arsenal 2872, ff. 7ra–21vb. See also Boudet J.-P. , “La bibliothèque de Clémence de Hongrie” (ref. 8); Cl. Galderisi (ed.), Translations médiévales: Cinq siècles de traductions en Français au Moyen Âge (XI^e–XV^e siècle), ii/1 (Turnhout, 2011), 524–5, ii/2, 746 and 756.

MS Bernkastel-Kues, Hospitalsbibliothek 215, f. 127va.

See Carmody F. J. , Arabic astronomical and astrological sciences in Latin translations: A critical bibliography (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1956), 96, no. 7, and 101, no. 24; Pingree D. , “Abū Ma'shar”, in Dictionary of scientific biography , i, 37; Galderisi (ed.), Translations médiévales (ref. 18), ii/2, 1243–4.

MS Bernkastel-Kues, Hospitalsbibliothek 215, ff. 130va–vb.

Ibid., f. 132vb.

See Préaud M. , “L'horoscope de Baudoin de Courtenay, empereur latin d'Orient”, Anagrom , iii (1973), 9–45; St. Dörr , Der älteste Astronomietraktat in französischer Sprache : L'introductoire d'astronomie. Edition und lexikalische Analyse (Tübingen, 1998); Boudet J.-P. , Entre science et nigromance: Astrologie, divination et magie dans l'Occident médiéval (XII^e–XV ^esiècle) (Paris, 2006), 170 and pl. II and III; Galderisi (ed.), Translations médiévales (ref. 18), ii/2, 1240, 1242–3, 1250. However, the French language of the copyist of MS BnF, fr. 1353, does not have the Picard and Walloon features of our Cusanus manuscript.

Cf. Levy R. , The astrological works of Abraham ibn Ezra: A literary and linguistic study with special reference to the Old French translation of Hagin (Baltimore and Paris, 1927); Galderisi (ed.), Translations médiévales (ref. 18), ii/2, 1215–17.