John of London and His Unknown Arabic Source

Kunitzsch P. , Arabische Sternnamen in Europa (Wiesbaden, 1959).

See ibid. , 45, 92–94, and the individual entries; cf. also pp. 39f of Kunitzsch P. , Typen von Sternverzeichnissen in astronomischen Handschriften des zehnten bis vierzehnten Jahrhunderts (Wiesbaden, 1966).

Edited, as “Typ VI”, in Kunitzsch , Typen , 39–46. While John of London's original list of “Typ VI” contains 40 stars, there exists also an abbreviated recension of the list containing 31 stars only, edited in the same work as “Typ VII”, pp. 47–50.

An edition of the Arabic versions and of Gerard of Cremona's Latin translation is being prepared by the present writer. For a study of the various texts and translations cf. below, ref. 14.

Seventeen “types” of such tables have been Edited by Kunitzsch , Typen.

This also becomes evident by comparing John's coordinates (both the longitudes and latitudes) to Ptolemy's: In both cases they are always different. One of the late mediaeval users has also realized this, but his conclusion was quite contrary to ours; to him, John's table was corrupta tabula, because it was not in harmony with the Almagest (see Kunitzsch , Typen, 39).

Kunitzsch , Typen , “Typ VIII” (compiled from the two tables of “Typ III” and “Typ VI”), continued in “Typ IX-XI”. Since John's table was an isolated item not forming part of a relevant context, it could easily be included by later compilers and writers in various other texts, such as Pseudo-Messahalla's astrolabe treatise or the Toledan tables. Also, some mediaeval Western astrolabes have used John's star nomenclature; see Kunitzsch , Typen, 40, n. 4.

My edition (in Kunitzsch , Typen) was made from seven manuscripts, now in Vienna, Paris, Erfurt, and Madrid. Two British manuscripts are mentioned by Thorndike L. , “Notes on some less familiar British astronomical and astrological manuscripts”, in Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, xxii (1959), 157–71, p. 161. Zinner E. , in his Verzeichnis der astronomischen Handschriften des deutschen Kulturgebietes (Munich, 1925), erroneously calls the author of the star table Johannes Sacrobosco instead of Johannes de Londoniis; cf. his nos. 4655–9.

The letter was edited and discussed by M[onsieur] Fontès, “Le manuscrit de Jean de Londres”, Bulletin de l'Académie des Sciences, Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres de Toulouse, i (Toulouse, 1897–98), 146–60; for reference to the star observations see p. 149, lines 18–19, and p. 153, lines 5–2 from bottom. Cf. also Thorndike L. , op. cit. (ref. 8), and his History of magic and experimental science , ii (New York and London, ¹1923; ²1964), 95. The same manuscript, Paris B.N. lat. 7413 (2), which contains the letter on fol. 19v-21r, later on contains also John's star table, on fol. 36r (followed, on fol. 36v, by a different star table, dated 1233, belonging to another tradition; edited in Kunitzsch , Typen, 67–71, “Typ XI”).

Erfurt Ms , Amplon. 4°369 (= g in the edition cited in ref. 3).

Fontès , op. cit. (ref. 9), 148, n. 1, and 159.

Additional evidence for John's personal derivation of the coordinates, independently of the classical traditions, can be deduced from the fact that nearly all of the longitudes and about half of the latitudes consist of full degrees, with no minutes added, which seems to result from the limitations of his observations. (The same again applies to the mediationes coeli and declinations added to the table in 1250 by John's pupil Rogerus Linconus.)

Reference is always made to the edition of John's star table cited above in ref. 3 (“Typ VI”).

Cf. Kunitzsch P. , Der Almagest: Die Syntaxis Mathematica des Claudius Ptolemäus in arabisch-lateinischer Überlieferung (Wiesbaden, 1974), 320, no. 531.

For full details cf. the works cited above in refs 1 and 2.

A connection to the 17th lunar mansion, called al-iklīl and located in βδπ Sco, as suggested in Kunitzsch , Typen, 46, note to no. 27, is not indicated as can now be deduced from the evidence in the Arabic Almagest.

For the full wording the reader is again referred to the edition cited in ref. 3.

For the traditional Arabic term used for this star see Kunitzsch , op. cit. (ref. 14), 264, no. 265.

For the several “bends” in the River, see Kunitzsch , op. cit. (ref. 14), 314ff., nos. 512, 515, and 518. Of these, Ishāq's translation of the Almagest uses al-mun‘ araj, “the bend, turn” (root-r-j) for 512 (2nd star of Eri in Almag. = β Eri), and for 518 (29th star of Eri in Almagest = 43, d Eri), but raj‘ at al-nahr, “the return of the river” (root r-j-‘) for 515 (18th star of Eri in Almagest = τ¹ Eri). Neither of these forms is identical to John's assumed‘ arjat al-nahr, “the bend of the river” (root‘ -r-j). Further, γ Eri, the star described by John (10th star of Eri in Almagest), is not located in any “bend” or “turn”, but rather in a (“interval”), Arabic al-bu‘d or al-masālfa, Gerard spacium (cf. Kunitzsch , loc. cit., 315, no. 514). Therefore, both John's name of the star and its astronomical identity are different from the classical traditions and undocumented in the sources. John's name has lived on in some modern star atlases and name lists as Angetenar, for τ² Eri (19th star of Eri in Almagest).

Cf. Kunitzsch , op. cit. (ref. 14), 198.

Markeb has lived on as a name for the star called κ Vel in modern astronomy.

See Kunitzsch , op. cit. (ref. 14), 259, no. 237. In the Arabic tradition, the term anf (“nose”) only occurs with ρ Ser ( Kunitzsch , loc. cit., 251, no. 186), γ Tau (ibid., 266, no. 276), and λ Cet (ibid., 307, no. 472), and additionally in the combination anf al-sāq, lit. “nose of the shin” (for Ptolemy's , the fore part of the shin). John's enif is still used today as a name for ε Peg.

The situation in John's table is confused. According to the coordinates, the star indicated is α Cet, and consequently Menkar has lived on as this star's name until the present time. According to Ptolemy, however, α Cet is situated on the snout, at the end of the jaw (Latin of Gerard: muscida/ extremitas mandibule; cf. Kunitzsch Kunitzsch , op. cit. (ref. 14), 307, nos. 473/74), whereas the “nose”, Arabic al-minkhar (from which John's word menkar is derived), is represented by λ Cet (ibid., 307, no. 472). John puts his α Cet on the nose, menkar, and adds: et secundum quosdam est in guttere eius (“and according to certain [people] it is in its [scil. the animal's] throat [or gullet, or neck]”). On the one hand, therefore, it would seem that in his alternative designation he imitates Ptolemy's twofold description of α Cet, whereas, on the other hand, his terms are not in harmony with Ptolemy's. We cannot, therefore, safely understand whether John here follows a hitherto “unknown Arabic source”, or simply has confused the material in the well-known available sources.

See Kunitzsch , op. cit. (ref. 14), 225, no. 46.

The most probable seems to be that the Arabic forms are variants of the name of α Gem on astrolabes and in astrolabe star lists (Arabic muqaddam al-dhirā‘ ayn (“the preceding one of the two forearms”)), and equally of the 7th lunar mansion, al-dhirā‘, consisting of αβ Gem, of both of which Latin transliterations circulated in the West since late tenth century in great variety. The first use of these forms, applied to α Cep, is in John's table. (Today, α Cep is still called Alderamin.) An often assumed derivation of John's Arabic forms from Arabic al-dhirā‘ al-yamīn (“the right [fore]arm”) appears highly doubtful because in Ptolemy's descriptions no “right arm” is mentioned for Cepheus (there is only a “left arm”, which however is Cep, not α); further, in the Arabic , al-dhirā‘ is mostly constructed as a feminine noun, so the correct composition would be al-dhirā‘ al-yumnā (which no longer allows the relation of the last part in the Latinized forms, -[v]minī, to an Arabic yamīn; and which also, with the repeated article al in front of the adjective al-yumnā, would not fit to the bare Latinized [v]min). If my hypothesis, to understand aldramin etc. in α Cep as a displaced derivate of the true name of α Gem or the 7th lunar mansion, αβ Gem, is rejected, then this would mean that John, in forming the name of α Cep, must have followed the “unknown Arabic source” because all the existing known Arabic sources do not have the underlying terms in connexion with α Cep. It may be inferred that in no. 8, α Per, ms d (which is a Spanish ms, Madrid, Bibl. Nac. 10053) cites an Arabic form algeb ymin (from Arabic al-janb al-ayman (“the right side, or flank”)) where the element ymin represents the Arabic masculine form al-ayman correctly used in combination with the masculine noun al-janb; whereas in α Cep, if al-dhirā‘ was really involved, a feminine form is required for the adjective. It cannot be excluded that the spelling -ymin for α Cep in ms d was a deliberate harmonization of the name of α Cep to that of α Per by a writer who had only a slight knowledge of Arabic and who took it upon himself to “correct” the name of α Cep whose historical development (as being derived ultimately from the names of α Gem, or the 7th lunar mansion) he was not able to determine from the sources. (It should be noticed that John obviously knew the lunar mansions well because in no. 10, α Tau , aldebaran, he explicitly adds the remark that this star is one of the stars making up the 4th lunar mansion: et est de quarta mansione lune.)

I.e., mss c and f of the edition cited above in Kunitzsch , Typen , and ms Bodl., Ashmole 191.I, fol. 39v, cited by Thorndike Thorndike , op. cit. (ref. 8), 161.

Cf. Kunitzsch P. , “Arabische Sternnamen — Sternnamen der Araber: Zur Begriffsbestimmung”, Sudhoffs Archiv, lxi (1977), 105–17.