Before Grosseteste: Roger of Hereford and calendar reform in eleventh- and twelfth-century England.
Abstract
The existence in the West Country - that area of England that is nearest to the Welsh border - in the eleventh and twelfth centuries of a group of scholars with scientific interests has long been recognized. The part that compotus played in the development of these interests was noted, but it has not been studied in any detail. It was here that a proposal for a reform of the ecclesiastical calendar, based not only on the reckoning traditionally attributed to Dionysius Exiguus but relating also to observed phenomena, was arrived at, then verified with the use of newly available scientific ideas from Arabic sources. One reason for the neglect of this topic is that three very important computistical treatises - the eleventh-century Compotus of Gerland and those of Roger of Hereford and the writer who has been identified with a certain "Constabularius", both from the twelfth century - have not been printed. The aim of this article is to explain why the study of compotus flourished in the West Country and then to examine its development in these and related treatises.
- Publication:
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Isis. Journal of the History of Science Society
- Pub Date:
- December 1995
- Bibcode:
- 1995Isis...86..562M
- Keywords:
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- History of Astronomy: Calendars