Abstract
In spite of the immense worldwide popularity of the calendar that opens the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, its astronomical content remains underappreciated and its purpose ill-understood. This holds true in particular for the inclusion of a “new Golden Number” (Nombre d’or nouvel), which corrects the standard lunar computation used by the medieval Church. The source for this correction, as this article seeks to demonstrate, was a revised table of Golden Numbers drawn up in 1345 by John of Murs and Firmin of Beauval in the context of a calendar reform project initiated by Pope Clement VI. In a similar vein, the daytime lengths recorded in the Très Riches Heures most likely derive from John of Murs’ astronomical tables known as Patefit (c. 1329/1332). These findings stand in opposition to a recent hypothesis put forward by Lebigue (2014), who instead links the Très Riches Heures to a calendar reform project pursued by Pierre d’Ailly in 1411–1417.
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References
1.
MS Chantilly, Bibliothèque du château, 65 (1284), fols 1v–13r. A high-resolution colour scan of the entire manuscript is available at <http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Tr%C3%A8s_Riches_Heures_du_Duc_de_Berry_scan_2004>. For an introduction to the manuscript, see R.Cazelles and J.Rathofer, Illuminations of Heaven and Earth: The Glories of the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry (New York: Abrams, 1988).
2.
The historical development of the medieval kalendarium is documented in A.Borst, Die karolingische Kalenderreform (Hannover: Hahn, 1998); Borst, Der karolingische Reichskalender und seine Überlieferung bis ins 12. Jahrhundert , 3 vols (Hannover: Hahn, 2001). A seriously outdated, but to some extent still useful, account of the history of the Golden Number is offered in W.É.van Wijk, Le Nombre d’Or: étude de chronologie technique suivie du texte de la Massa compoti d’Alexandre de Villedieu (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1936).
3.
L. Delisle, Notice sur un livre d’astrologie de Jean Duc de Berri (Paris: Librarie Techener, 1896); M. Smeyers, “Lubert Hautscilt, Abt van de Brugse Eeckhoutabdij (1393–1417): over handschriften, planeten en de toekomst van Vlaanderen,” in Academiae Analecta (Mededelingen van de Koninklijke Academie voor Wetenschappen, letteren en Schone Kunsten van België: Klasse der schone kunsten 55/1) (Brussels: AWLSK, 1995), pp. 39–104, 73–7; A. García Avilés, “Imágenes de los decanos en el Liber astrologiae de Fendulus (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, ms. Lat. 7330),” Locus amoenus , 1, 1995, pp. 33–46.
4.
See H. Bober, “The Zodiacal Miniature in the Très Riches Heures of the Duke of Berry – Its Sources and Meaning,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes , 11, 1948, pp. 1–34, who uses the quiring and the presence of blank pages preceding the “zodiac man” to argue that, in their original design, the TRH -calendar was meant to include instructions for blood-letting and further auxiliary material such as a table for finding the moon’s location in the zodiacal signs.
5.
The chronology of the TRH ’s different stages of elaboration, which involved about two dozen scribes and painters, is too complex to be outlined here in any detail. See the overview in P.Stirnemann, “Combien de copistes et d’artistes ont contribué aux Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry ?” in É. Taburet-Delahaye (ed.), La création artistique en France autour de 1400 (Paris: École du Louvre, 2006), pp. 365–80. Note that most of the calendar miniatures were only completed in the 1440 s by an “intermediate master,” possibly Barthélemy d’Eyck, with additional work by Jean de Colombe ca. 1485. See L. Bellosi, “I Limbourg precursori di Van Eyck? Nuove osservazione sui ‘Mesi’ di Chantilly,” Prospettiva , 1, 1975, pp. 24–34; R. Cazelles, “Les étapes de l’élaboration des Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry,” Revue française d’histoire du livre , 10, 1976, pp. 3–30; C. Reynolds, “The ‘Très Riches Heures’, the Bedford Workshop, and Barthélemy d’Eyck,” The Burlington Magazine , CXLVII, 2005, pp. 526–33.
6.
See “Appendix C: Astronomical and Calendrical Data in the Très Riches Heures,” in M. Meiss, French Painting in the Time of Jean de Berry: The Limbourgs and Their Contemporaries (Text Volume) (London: George Braziller, 1974), pp. 421–32, 480–1, which was reprinted as Chapter 41 in O. Neugebauer, Astronomy and History (New York: Springer, 1983).
7.Ibid ., p. 429.
8.Ibid ., p. 431.
9.
See the edition with extensive introduction and presentation of supplementary materials in Petrus de Dacia and Petrus de S.Audomaro, Opera Quadrivialia , 2 vols (edited by F.S. Pedersen, Copenhagen: Gad, 1983–1984), 1, pp. 203–456.
10.
MS Oxford, Bodleian Library, Digby 149, fols 124r–5v, 128r–33v. Several further specimens are discussed in C.P.E. Nothaft, “Medieval Astronomy in Catalonia and the South of France: The ‘Improved’ Lunar Kalendarium of Friar Raymond (Ramón) Bancal (ca. 1311) and Its Predecessors,” Llull , 31, in press.
11.
MSS include Oxford, Bodleian Library, Digby 228, fols 50r–53r; Oxford, Bodleian Library, Fairfax 27, fols 71r–79r; London, British Library, Egerton 831, fols 1r–9v (a copy made in 1341, which omits eclipses before that date); London, British Library, Sloane 286, fols 15r–24v (no canons), in the addition to the ones listed in Petrus de Dacia, Opera Quadrivialia (edited by Pedersen (ref. 9)), 1, pp. 420–1. There is also a condensed version of Elveden’s calendar in MS Erfurt, Bibliotheca Amploniana, 4° 345, fols 89r–94v. Here, the seconds are omitted, while the eclipse information is added in two columns showing only the year of the 19-year cycle in which a solar or lunar eclipse is going to occur. Only the cycle from 1330 to 1348, but with identical conjunction times (hours and minutes only), is found in the German calendar of MS Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cgm 32, fols 5v–11r.
12.
See J.D. North, Chaucer’s Universe (Oxford: OUP, 1988), pp. 87–104; S.Eisner (ed.), The Kalendarium of Nicholas of Lynn (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1980); L.R.Mooney (ed.) The Kalendarium of John Somer (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1998); M.P. Kuczynski, “A New Manuscript of Nicholas of Lynn’s ‘Kalendarium’: MS Chapel Hill 522, fols. 159r–202r,” Traditio , 43, 1987, pp. 299–319; C. O’Boyle, “Astrology and Medicine in Later Medieval England: The Calendars of John Somer and Nicholas of Lynn,” Sudhoffs Archiv , 89, 2005, pp. 1–22. A third continuation, made in York by the Augustinian friar Richard de Thorpe, has also been preserved. See J.B. Friedman, “Richard de Thorpe’s Astronomical Kalendar and the Luxury Book Trade at York,” Studies in the Age of the Chaucer , 7, 1985, pp. 137–60.
13.
On their early history and reception, see J. Chabás and B.R. Goldstein, The Alfonsine Tables of Toledo (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2003). The tables were edited by E. Poulle, Les Tables Alphonsines avec les canons de Jean de Saxe (Paris: Éditions du CNRS, 1984).
14.
See F. Kaltenbrunner, “Die Vorgeschichte der gregorianischen Kalenderreform,” in Sitzungsberichte der philosophisch-historischen Classe der kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften (Vienna), 1876, 82, pp. 289–414, at pp. 360–7; R. Klug, “Der Astronom Johannes von Gmunden und sein Kalender,” Jahresbericht des K.K. Staats-Gymnasiums zu Linz , 61, 1912, pp. 1–35, and the repertory in K.Chlench, “Johannes von Gmunden – Handschriftenverzeichnis,” in R. Simek and K. Chlench (eds), Johannes von Gmunden (ca. 1384–1442): Astronom und Mathematiker (Vienna: Fassbaender, 2006), pp. 195–223, at pp. 200–9.
15.
This text is edited and discussed in C.P.E. Nothaft, “The Chronological Treatise Autores Kalendarii of 1317, Attributed to John of Murs,” Cahiers de l’Institut du Moyen-Âge Grec et Latin , 82, 2013, pp. 1–89. See now also Nothaft, “John of Murs and the Treatise Autores Kalendarii (1317): A Problem of Authorship,” Sudhoffs Archiv , 99, in press.
16.
MS Paris, BnF, lat. 7420A, fols 101r–7v. See A. Thomas, “Pierre Vidal, frère prècheur, astronome,” in Histoire littéraire de la France , vol. 35 (Paris, 1921; repr. Nendeln: Kraus, 1971), pp. 624–7.
17.
E. Déprez, Clément VI (1342–1352): lettres closes, patentes et curiales , vol. 1.2 (Paris: Boccard, 1925), col. 209 (no. 1134): “Cum super quibusdam dubiis seu defectibus aureum numerum tangentibus, ad utilitatem universalis ecclesie declarandis, seu corrigendis, tu, tanquam peritus, ut intelleximus, in talibus dicaris existere multipliciter oportunus …” The letter in question is dated 25 September 1344.
18.
See C. Schabel, “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 , 66, 1996, pp. 187–215; Schabel, “Ad correctionem calendarii… The background to Clement VI’s initiative?” Cahiers de l’Institut du Moyen-Âge Grec et Latin , 68, 1998, pp. 13–34, and the fresh account in C.P.E.Nothaft, “Science at the Papal Palace: Clement VI and the Calendar Reform Project of 1344/45,” Viator , 46, in press, which also deals with an unpublished Tractatus de tempore celebrationis paschalis by the monk Jean des Thermes.
19.
See the edition in Schabel, “John of Murs” (ref. 18), pp. 204–5.
20.
This is “T4” in Schabel’s edition (ibid ., p. 214). The Arabic numbers from 1 to 19 found in the column for each month represent the year in the 19-year lunar cycle in which the marked date will be the seat of a new moon (conjunction).
21.
See G. Ouy, Les manuscrits de l’abbaye de Saint-Victor , 2 vols (Turnhout: Brepols, 1999), pp. 503–4. A pdf of the entire codex is freely available at <http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b9076819z.r=15104>
22.
A third option, that the TRH and the Tractatus relied on a common source, is unlikely given the way John and Firmin present their calendrical table as a new construction. See, for example, Schabel, “John of Murs” (ref. 18), p. 205, ll. pp. 302–5: “Numerum autem novum prime tabule sic formavimus: Quesivimus in quibus horis erit coniunctio media solis et lune ad meridianum Ierusalem per unum ciclum 19 annorum ab anno domini 1349, in quo curret unitas pro aureo numero, inchoando diem a media nocte precedente.”
23.
For the Parisian meridian, see, for example, R.L. Kremer and J. Dobrzycki, “Alfonsine Meridians: Tradition versus Experience in Astronomical Practice c. 1500,” Journal for the History of Astronomy , 29, 1998, pp. 187–99, 194. All data mentioned in this article were checked using the simulation of the Alfonsine Tables in Raymond Mercier’s programme “devplo” <http://www.raymondm.co.uk>.
24.
See ref. 22 above.
25.
See ref. 22 above.
26.
Use of the Toledan standard meridian can be safely excluded, given that the Golden Number I in July falls on the 16th, whereas the Alfonsine Tables would place it on 15 July 23:40 hours. This is transferred to 16 July 00:28 hours by adding 12° to the meridian of reference.
27.
See, for example, the tables of coordinates printed at the very end of Tabulae astronomicae illustrissimi Alfontii regis castellae (Venice, 1483), where Toledo has the standard longitude of 11° from the Western reference point, whereas Jerusalem has 56°. The same coordinates appear in F.S. Pedersen, The Toledan Tables , 4 vols (Copenhagen: Reitzel, 2002), pp. 1512–3. The correct distance between both cities would be ca. 39;15°.
28.
The Exhortatio was first printed in Pierre d’Ailly, Tractatus de imagine mundi et varia ejusdem auctoris et Joannis Gersonis opuscula (Louvain, ca. 1480–83), sigs g5r–h2r. The best account of d’Ailly’s reform effort is still Kaltenbrunner, “Die Vorgeschichte” (ref. 14), pp. 326–36, although parts of it are in need of revision.
29.
J.B. Lebigue, “Jean de Berry à l’heure de l’Union: les Très Riches Heures et la réforme du calendrier à la fin du Grand Schisme,” in C.Barralis, J.P. Boudet, F. Delivré and J.P. Genet (eds), Église et État, Église ou État? Les clercs et la genèse de l’État moderne (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 2014), pp. 367–89. See also Smeyers, “Lubert Hautscilt” (ref. 3), pp. 95–9.
30.
d’Ailly, Exhortatio (ref. 28), sigs. h6r–7r.
31.
Lebigue tries to account for the lack of congruity with d’Ailly by claiming that the revised Golden Number in the TRH was due to an incompetent calculator, who took the calendrical new moons to recede at a rate of 1.5 h per year rather than per 19-year cycle. In light of the results presented in this article, this thesis is so obviously flawed that it requires no further refutation. See Lebigue, “Jean de Berry” (ref. 29), 371n13.
32.
d’Ailly, “Exhortatio” (ref. 28), sig. g7r.
33.
Schabel, “John of Murs” (ref. 18), p. 209, l. 465.
34.
MS London, British Library, Royal 12.C.XVII, fols 210rb: “Explicit kalendarius [!] solis et lune cum suis utilitatibus prenotatis, quem ego sub ingenii paucitate composui. Primo propter utilitatem communem, que est eligenda pocius singulari. Secundo propter emendationem kalendarii antiqui, qui fuit minus bene compositus a Romanis.”
35.Ibid ., fols 146r–51v. I have also checked the copy in MS Erfurt, Bibliotheca Amploniana, qu. 371, fols 2r–7v, which shows identical data as far as the equinoxes/solstices and daylight lengths are concerned. For more on the Patefit , see J.Chabás and B.R. Goldstein, “John of Murs’ Tables of 1321,” Journal for the History of Astronomy , 40, 2009, pp. 297–320, 313–7; R.L. Kremer, “John of Murs, Wenzel Faber and the Computation of True Syzygy in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries,” in S. Kirschner, A. Kuhne, P. Kunitzsch and J.W. Dauben (eds) Mathematics Celestial and Terrestrial (Stuttgart: Wissenschaftliche Verlagsgesellschaft, 2008), pp. 147–60. I discuss the work’s date in the appendix to Nothaft, “John of Murs” (ref. 15). The calendar in John’s earlier Kalendarium solis et lune (1321) displays the same equinox/solstice dates, although an auxiliary table puts the entry into Cancer on 13 June. See J.Chabás and B.R.Goldstein, “John of Murs revisited: The Kalendarium Solis et Lune for 1321,” Journal for the History of Astronomy , 43, 2012, pp. 411–37, at pp. 414–7, 421.
36.
Neugebauer, “Appendix C” (ref. 6), p. 421.
37.
For details, see Nothaft, “Science” (ref. 18).