Notes.

ILLUSTRATIONS OF CHAUCER, NO. IX.
The Astronomical Evidence of the True Date of the Canterbury Pilgrimage.

As a conclusion to my investigation of this subject, I wish to place upon record the astronomical results on which I have relied in the course of my observations; in order that their correctness may be open to challenge, and that each reader may compare the actual phenomena, rigidly ascertained with all the helps that modern science affords, with the several approximations arrived at by Chaucer. And when it is recollected that some at least of the facts recorded by him must have been theoretical—incapable of the test of actual observation—it must be admitted that his near approach to truth is remarkable: not the less so that his ideas on some points were certainly erroneous; as, for example, his adoption, in the Treatise on the Astrolabe, of Ptolemy's determination of the obliquity of the ecliptic in preference to the more correct value assigned to it by the Arabians of the middle ages.

Assuming that the true date intended by Chaucer was Saturday the 18th of April, 1388, the following particulars of that day are those which have reference to his description:—

H. M.
Right Ascension{Of the Sun at noon - 2 .17·2
{Of the Moon at 4 p. m.12 . 5·7
{Of the star (δ. Virginis) 12 .25
° ′
North Declination{Of the Sun at noon -13 .47·5
{Of the Moon at 4 p. m. 4 .49·8
{Of the star (δ. Virginis) 6 .43·3
° ′
Altitude{Of the Sun at noon -45 .15
{Of the Sun at 4 p. m. 29 . 15
{Of the Moon at 4 p. m. 4 .53
{Of the star at 4 p. m. 4 .20
Azimuth-Of the Sun at rising -112 .30
H. M.
Apparent Time{Of the Sun at half Azimuth9 .17a. m.
{Of the Sun at altitude 45°9 .58a. m.
{Of the Sun at altitude 29° 4 . 2p. m.
{Of apparent entrance of
{ Moon's centre into Libra3 .45a. m.

It will be seen that, if the place here assigned to the moon be correct, Chaucer could not have described it more appropriately than by the phrase "In méné Libra:" providing (of which there can be little doubt) that he used those words as synonymous with "in hedde of Libra." "Hedde of Libra," "hedde of Aries," are expressions constantly used by him to describe the equinoctial points; and the analogy that exists between "head," in the sense head-land or promontory, as, for example, "Orme's Head," "Holyhead," "Lizard Head," and the like; and "menez" in the same sense, need not be further insisted upon. Evidence fully sufficient to justify a much less obvious inference has been already produced, and I am enabled to strengthen it still further by the following reference, for which I am indebted to a private communication from H. B. C.

"MENEZ, s. m. Grande masse de terre, ou de roche, fort élevée au-dessus du sol de la terre.

"MEAN, ou MAEN, s. m. Pierre, corps dur et solide qui se forme dans la terre.

"(En Treguier et Cornouailes), MÉNÉ."

(Gonidec, Dictionnaire Celto-Breton. Angoulême, 1821.)

This last reference is doubly valuable, in referring the word méné to the very neighbourhood of the scene of Chaucer's "Frankleine's Tale," and in dispensing with the terminal letter z, thereby giving us the verbum ipsissimum used by Chaucer.

I must not be understood as entertaining the opinion that Chaucer's knowledge of astronomy—although undoubtedly great, considering the age in which he lived and the nature of his pursuits—would have enabled him to determine the moon's true place, with such correctness, wholly from theory; on the contrary, I look upon it as more probably the result of real observation at the time named, and, as such, adding another link to the chain of presumptive evidence that renders it more probable that Chaucer wrote the prologues to his Canterbury Tales more as a narration (with some embellishments) of events that really took place, than that they were altogether the work of his imagination.

A. E. B.

Leeds, June, 1851.