Chaucer's Works, Volume 3 — The House of Fame; The Legend of Good Women; The Treatise on the Astrolabe; The Sources of the Canterbury Tales

by Geoffrey Chaucer

There are two astrolabes in Merton College, besides a plate exhibiting astronomical tables. These are all described in a paper entitled 'Remarks on an Astrolabe belonging to F. A. Hyett, Esq.,' written by my friend Robert Taylor, M.A., and printed in the Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archæological Society, vol. xii. Mr. Taylor further describes two Astrolabes in the British Museum.

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This word has several senses in Chaucer. It means (1) the discs of an astrolabe; (2) a set of tablets; (3) astronomical tables; and (4) the game of 'tables.'

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'Pertuis: m. A hole. Pertuis de l'Araigne, the centre of an Astrolabe; the hole wherein all the tables thereof are, by a pin or naile, joined together.'—Cotgrave's French Dictionary.

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As far as I can ascertain.

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Here insert—[they mene]—which CP omit.

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