Tyco Brahe digitised - notes on a recent digitisation project at the library of University of Southern Denmark

Although I no longer work at the university library of University of Southern Denmark, I have a backlog of things to write and talk about regarding my work there, other projects, and of course the wonderful fragments and books from their special collections. This blogpost is one such blogpost, and it is more an announcement than a blogpost in itself.

 

RARA L 31
Syddansk Universitetsbibliotek

While I was finishing my own work at the library, there was another project that came to its close and was indeed finished. This was the digitisation of three books by Tyco Brahe that are found in the special collection, and one owned by Roskilde monastery. These books are Epistolarum astronomicarum libri primus, Historia coelestis, and, from Roskilde, De Nova Stella. This project was led and executed by astronomer Majken B. E. Christensen, research librarian Jakob Povl Holck, and astronomer and head librarian Bertil F. Dorch.

 

 
The project has made all these three books available for download in Pdf format, and an overview of the project can be found here (in Danish, but with links to the digitised copies) and also here (in Danish). This digitisation has allowed for primary sources to be freely available, and it has also served as a great first step in the digitisation of the material from the special collection, which will hopefully result in the digitisation of fragments and entire books from the throve of historically significant gems found in the library.

RARA L 31, col. 1

Syddansk Universitetsbibliotek

 
I was also able to contribute in a small way, since the fragment that was used as a binding to the edition of Epistolarum astronomicarum was one of the fragments I had been researching. I was asked to write a short description of the fragment, and this description (in Danish) can be found here. For those not fluent in Danish, I will summarise the key points of this manuscript here.


The fragment is cut vertically from a liturgical manuscript of uncertain date and provenance (though because it was printed and bound in Denmark it is likely that the manuscript has been used in either Denmark or Norway). The original manuscript was a breviary, and the fragment contains texts for the office for Sundays in the summer season. This can be seen from the indication in the picture above, which points to "in primo nocturno antiphoni", or the antiphons for the first nocturne. This is preceded by a hymn that has traditionally - though probably erroneously - been ascribed to Gregory the Great (d.604). This hymn has a complicated history, but that might be a subject for a future blogpost.  

 RARA L 31

Syddansk Universitetsbibliotek

 

Theodoricus Monk and the European Tradition - summary of a talk in Trondheim, 29.09.16

Yesterday I gave a talk as a part of the NTNU medieval seminar series in Trondheim, organized by the department for historical studies at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. The topic of my talk was a Latin chronicle from late twelfth-century Norway, and it was a great opportunity for me to explore an argument which I will later apply in my PhD thesis, albeit in a condensed form. In this blogpost, I give you a summary of my talk which I prepared for a visiting scholar from the UK. I hope to return to this subject in future blogposts, and I did touch on it to some degree in my previous blogpost.

The whirlpool Charybdis, placed in Northern Norway
Detail from Carta Marina (1539) by Olaus Magnus
Courtesy of Wikimedia

The Latin chronicle Historia antiquitate Regum Norwagiensum, the old history of the Norwegian kings, was written in the period 1177-87. Most likely, it was completed before archbishop Eystein Erlendsson went into exile in England in 1180. The book was composed by the monk Theodoricus - this is the name he gives himself in the prologue - and he dedicates the work to the archbishop. From this we can conclude that the author was part of the archbishop's household, and that he most likely was a Benedictine. Scholarly consensus now identifies him as Tore Gudmundsson, who had studied in the monastery of Saint-Victor in Paris, and who became archbishop of Nidaros in 1204.

The Historia was written in a time of great political turmoil, with the crowned king Magnus Erlingsson fighting against Sverre Sigurdsson who claimed that the throne of Norway was his by right, and who led his army into two important victories in the Trondheim area in 1179 and 1180. Theodoricus ends his account in the 1130s, saying that he deems it unfitting to recount such atrocities that are being performed in his own day.

The narrative of Historia antiquitate is interspersed with a total of 9 digressions which diverge from the story of the Norwegian kings. These digressions can be divided into three categories: 1) digressions contemporary with the narrative of the Historia (only one); 2) digressions connecting the Norwegian narrative with historical episodes from distant epochs (most of them); 3) digressions delving into natural history or natural philosophy (only 3).

The academic tradition has considered these digressions to be inexpert emulations of the European historiographical form. In this paper, however, I aim to show how the narrative appears when we take these digressions as serious and deliberate inclusions, and if we assume that Theodoricus knew very well what he was doing. From Theodoricus' own words, we can see that he understood the benefit of digressions as educational and entertaining, and that he was concerned with bringing Norway into the history of Christendom.

My claim is therefore that these digressions serve to do just that: To create thematic associations between Norwegian history and that history which is well known to a learned medieval audience, i.e. Roman history, biblical history, and even French and German history. In this way, Theodoricus carves out a place for Norway in the apocalyptic history of Christianity, progressing from Creation towards Judgement Day.

In my paper, I will only focus on the digressions which appear in the narrative of Olaf Haraldsson, the saint-king who was patron of the Norwegian kingdom and whose cult was a central aspect in Archbishop Eystein Erlendsson's strengthening of his archdiocese. In the narrative of Olaf, Theodoricus puts 4 of his 9 digressions, and it is here we find the only digressions that deal with natural history or natural philosophy. It is my claim that this is done to emphasize the typological connections between the saint-king and the history of the world, and to create a set of associations which an international clerical audience would be able to understand and appreciate. The purpose is, as stated, to bring Norway into its place in Christian history, and the natural focal point for such a purpose is Norway's primary saint, Olaf.

The digressions found in the Olaf narrative can be summarized as follows:

Chapter 13: In which we learn about where Olaf Haraldsson was baptized. Theodoricus admits that there are conflicting traditions concerning this question, and compares this with the similar disagreement concerning the baptism of Constantine the Great. Olaf becomes an antitype to Constanine, the emperor who legalized Christianity.

Chapter 17: A chapter solely concerned with a digression that touches on three elements, between which the only connection appears to be Theodoricus' association. First, he talks about the nature of the whirlpool Charybdis, situated in the Pentland Firth, and refers to Pliny, Genesis and Paulus Diaconus. Then, via Paulus, he talks about the Longobards, and from there he moves on to the Huns and how they slaughtered holy men and women on their rampage. This appears in chapter 17, while the death of Olaf by the hands of the pagan Norwegians appears in chapter 19.

Chapter 18: In which Olaf returns to Norway and marches on Stiklestad. After a description of the strength and powerful nature of his kinsmen, Theodoricus launches into a discussion about the decrease in the size of human bodies, comparing the kinsmen of Olaf to the men of Theodoricus' own time, and then with the Israelites crossing Jordan according to the Book of Joshua. The ensuing discussion is a complex engagement with Christian apocalyptic history and Neoplatonist ideas which were in the 12th century criticized by the School of Chartres. He finishes this chapter with a description of the relatively recent discovery of an inhumated body of giant stature in Rome, identified as Pallas, known from the Aeneid.

Chapter 20: After describing the martyrdom of Olaf in chapter 19, Theodericus dedicates chapter 20 to an overview of how different authorities have concluded in the question of how long ago the world was created. This exposition is followed by a summary of Olaf's reign in terms of how many years he was king, thus inserting the reign of Olaf in a grand historical context.

In sum, if we understand Theodoricus' digressions as deliberate tools for connecting the history of Norway with the history of the world, by creating associations between Norwegian historical episodes and episodes from the more global past, we understand Historia antiquitate Regum Norwagiensum not as the work of an amateur, but of a carefully constructed narrative which establishes a place for Norway in the Christian apocalyptic history. 

That Catholic Round World - flat earth as counter-medievalism

JESPER BAILIFF: Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, let us talk of something else. That is some disturbed nonsense, it can make you Catholic in the head
- Ludvig Holberg, Erasmus Montanus (Act 3, Scene 2) (my translation)

Ludvig Holberg, c.1747 by Johan Roselius
Courtesy of this website

One of the most pernicious myths about the Middle Ages remains the idea that medieval people held the earth to be flat. This myth was perhaps most famously propagated in a 19th-century novel about Columbus, where the belief in a flat earth was deployed as a foil to enhance Columbus' intrepid greatness as an explorer and trailblazer. The belief in the medieval belief in a flat earth has stuck resiliently to the collective consciousness, and even today it lingers more strongly than medievalists would like to think.

It is difficult to pinpoint the exact origin of the flat earth myth. In a previous blogpost I offered a possible source for the idea that this was a medieval conviction, but the trajectory is difficult to map. However, in this blogpost, I want to present a very curious case from the 18th century, in which the idea that the earth is flat is presented as a firmly Protestant idea, and in which the idea of a round earth is frowningly labelled Catholic (and as such practically medieval), and also Atheist. (The tendency to conflate Atheism and Catholicism in Protestant countries reaches back to the 16th century.) The case in question is fictional, as it comes from the comedy Erasmus Montanus, written by the Norwegian playwright Ludvig Holberg in 1722-23. However, despite the fictionality of the story, the way the roundness of the earth is treated is a funny and unusual affair, and one that I as a medievalist find very pleasing. The translations of the quotes from Danish are all mine.

Scene from Erasmus Montanus
Wilhelm Marstrand (1810-73)
Courtesy of this website

The plot of the comedy is the homecoming of Rasmus Berg who has been studying in Copenhagen and there taken the Latinised name Erasmus Montanus. Upon his return, he starts exercising his prowess as a debater and both proves and disproves that his mother is a stone. It all goes wrong when he claims that the earth is round, because his fellow villagers can all see that the earth is "as flat as a pancake", and to claim otherwise is "disturbed nonsense" which "can make one Catholic in the head" (act 3, scene 2). It is further remarked that to believe in a round earth "is nothing else than turn all religion on the head and lead people away from faith. A heathen can not preach worse" (act 3, scene 4). By defending his words and beliefs for the glory of philosophy, Erasmus Montanus antagonises his father-in-law-to-be and various other persons of note. When Erasmus tries to prove the roundness of the earth by various scientific observations, he is met with scorn bred from common sense, and the bailiff comments that Erasmus "is quite close to become an Atheist" (act 3, scene 5). The debate enrages his father-in-law-to-be so much that he ends the bethrotal between his daughter and Erasmus on the grounds that his family has always been good Christian people. In the end Erasmus is tricked into enrolment in the army by a local lieutenant, and to escape from this predicament he rescinds his opinions and professes loudly and desperately that the earth "is as flat as a pancake".

Erasmus Montanus disputing with a local parson
Wilhelm Marstrand, 1843
Courtesy of this website

In 1722 when Holberg wrote Erasmus Montanus, Denmark had been Protestant for almost two centuries. It is therefore difficult to tell whether Catholicism was still seen as something of the old order, something of the very distant past, or something whose presence in Denmark was seen as newfangled and novel. Traditionally in Protestant countries around this period, Catholicism is seen as a vestige of an old world, an ancient superstition, an echo from a dark age. This view is made very clear, for instance, in John Milton's Paradise Lost, where the fallen Adam witnesses the future history of mankind up to the point of salvation and the second coming. We can't tell whether this was also how Holberg's fictional farmers, bailiffs and lieutenants would have seen things, and therefore we don't know whether the round earth is considered an ancient superstition, or a newfangled invention of the universities. Nonetheless, it is interesting to see a feature so widely regarded as belonging to the Catholic Middle Ages as the flat earth presented as a Protestant tenet, and as such counter-medieval (although of course Holberg himself does not suggest this). It is a useful reference for people who still believe that men and women in the Middle Ages held the world to be flat as a pancake.

The steadfastness of Erasmus Montanus
Wilhelm Marstrand, before 1869
Courtesy of this website

The Transit of Venus

While I'm writing this the planet of Venus passes between the earth and the sun and can be seen as a dark speck against the sun's surface for those who have the right equipment. This astronomical phenomenon is called the transit of Venus and it occurs with a distinct regularity. The last time this happened was in 2004 and the next transit will be in 105 years' time. I am myself no astronomer and will refrain from going into details about the technical aspects, but I consider this a good excuse to commemorate one of the most important astronomers in the discipline's history.

In 1639 Jeremiah Horrocks (1618-41) discovered that despite what the planetary tables of Copernicus, Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler predicted there would be a transit of Venus on November 24 that year. Aside from proving the previous tables wrong the event showed that despite Tycho Brahe's postulation, the planets are not self-luminous objects. Despite his groundbreaking discoveries Horrocks was largely forgotten until the publication of two treatises in 1662. The transit of Venus was described in Venus in sole vista where Horrocks had jotted down a brief occasional poem. I will post it here in commemoration of Jeremiah Horrocks and his importance in the history of astronomy.

Thy return

Posterity shall witness; years must roll

Away, but then at length the splendid sight

Again shall greet our distant children's eyes.

Jeremiah Horrocks recording the transit of Venus, painted by J. W. Lavender in 1903

That Man may stare himself beyond Significance

We find, therefore, under this orderly arrangement, a wonderful symmetry in the universe, and a definite relation of harmony in the motion and magnitude of the orbs, of a kind that is not possible to obtain in any other way.

- The Harmonies of the World, Johannes Kepler

God hath made stars the foil

To set off virtues;
- The Foil, George Herbert

Two things fill the mind with ever-increasing wonder and awe, the more often and the more intensely the mind of thought is drawn to them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.

- Critique of Practical Reason, Immanuel Kant

Half-sequestered among trees and bushes, situated by one of the pathways through Yorkshire Museum Garden lies the York Observatory, an unostentatious, almost timid little building of octagonal shape. I first became aware of its existence several weeks after my arrival by more or less stumbling across it on a day I happened to walk that middle pathway running past the observatory. I remember being taken aback a bit by my discovery since it blends very well in with its surroundings, chiefly due to its stone having the same colours as the neighbouring trees. An equally unostentatious note in the window heralded quietly and shyly that the observatory was open every Saturday from 11.30 a.m. to 02.00 p.m., and I think this note sparked an immediate interest. However, I came to spend my Saturdays elsewhere during my stay, either because I would sleep long or because my attention would be directed elsewhere, and it is important to remember here just how unpresuming and plain this building really is, for how else dare I account for my neglect something as awe-inspiring as an observatory? Consequently it took me until one of the last weeks of my stay to pop by, and also this was by pure chance. I was on my way back from the post office and in passing I noticed that the observatory was open and I went in. 

  A road diverging into the middle and the lower path. Beyond the little lamp-post by the middle track, nestled among trees and evergreens lies the York Observatory.

Considering how awesome the subject and purpose of an observatory is, stepping inside this huddled building was a bit anticlimactic, both due to its modest size and the rather palpable lack of enthusiam prevalent in the blank stares of its staff. The Observatory is apparently first and foremost a science museum displaying a range of instruments from the early modern and modern period, although I did learn at a much later stage that the telescope is actually functioning and open for the public to utilise. Somehow this eluded me, yet during my very brief stay I noticed some interesting microscopes and found the exhibition to be enjoyable. 

  From left to right: revolving stage microscope from the 18th century, swift "paragon" binocular microscope from the early 20th century, Collins Mineralogists microscope from the 19th century.

"Faith" is a fine invention
When Gentlemen can see -
But microscopes are prudent
In an emergency.
- Emily Dickinson

The conception of the York Observatory took place at the first meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, which was hosted in 1831 by Yorkshire Philosophical Society. The structure was completed in the winter of 1832-33 and its designer may have been William Wilkins, whereas the roof is believed to have been designed by John Smeaton who is more famous for Eddystone Lighthouse. The cost of the project was £300, an investment it took six years for the Yorkshire Philosophical Society to recover from, but which proved most auspicious when Halley's Comet came around in 1835 and an eclipse of the sun occurred the consecutive year. 

 

The telescope above, a refractor telescope, was crafted by Thomas Cooke of York in 1850, but already in 1844 the Observatory was presented with a transit telescope that allowed for great accuracy in measuring the position of the stars. In 1858 the Observatory was refurbished and in the same year Donati's comet could be beheld. During the 20th century the building was for a long period neglected and out of use, but Yorkshire Philosophical Society raised enough money for its restoration in 1981.

York Observatory is another of the numerous little gems tucked away in this marvellous city and although it is in many ways humble and seemingly insignificant, it has its profound value. I just hope that one day I will come across some event held here where I may try the telescope of Thomas Cooke and stare myself beyond significance.

Land of the Ammonites

Howbeit for all this he obtained not the principality, but at the last received shame for the reward of his treason, and fled again into the country of the Ammonites.

- 2. Maccabees 5:7

The Horn of Ammon, which is among the most sacred stones of Ethiopia, has a golden yellow colour and is shaped like a ram's horn. The stone is guaranteed to ensure without fail dreams that will come true.

- Natural History, Pliny the Elder

Were the beautiful volute and cone shells of the Eocene epoch, and the gracefully sculptured ammonites of the Secondary period, created that man might afterwards admire them in his cabinet? 
- The Origin of the Species, Charles Darwin

As a part of the CMS excursion to Whitby in January we visited Whitby Museum, a charming and charmingly eclectic display of articles and items, covering the fields of natural history, Medieval history, modern history and what may be termed colonial history, all of which are on display in the main hall of the museum. It was a great delight to more or less randomly meander the various shelves and sections, and whenever the museum personnel noticed my interest in something particular, they would lecture me on the subject. It was in this way I learned a great deal about ammonites.

The coastline of Yorkshire is famous for its many fossils. It was due to the increasing amount of fossil discoveries caused by the alum mining of the early 19th century that local intellectuals decided to found the Whitby Literary & Philosophical Society in 1823, the main purpose being to establish a museum for the numerous finds.

into the country of the Ammonites.

- 2. Maccabees 5:7

I had previously never been exposed to large quantities of fossils in real life, so I became quite intrigued by the many beautiful specimens displayed in the museum. One of the museum guards perceived my interest and started lecturing me on the history of ammonites, a species found in great quantities in the Whitby area. As he told me how the ammonite shell was constructed and showed me how the ammonite had evolved through aeons and how their age could be established, I was immensely awestruck, first of all as a Christian, to behold the minute intricacies of Creation presented before me. Until then I had had only a vague interest in fossils, considering them fascinating yet not compelling to such an extent that I would give it a lot of thought, but all this changed as I learned about the ammonites and their history. To me it was a deeply religious and humbling experience to witness the complexity of primordial life, and this added another dimension to my appreciation of fossils.

When we were about to leave I rummaged through the souvenir shop and came upon a selection of ammonite fossils available for purchase. I was very excited to discover this, picked one I considered pretty and brought it to the counter. Fortunately it was the museum guard who had lectured me on ammonites who was behind the counter, and when he saw I wanted to buy an ammonite fossil he said he'd find an even prettier one. So he went into the backroom and returned with a box of nearly pristine ammonites of which I could pick the one I found to be the prettiest. I decided on one, paid the 3 pounds and left the Museum in many ways vastly richer than when I had entered.

Photographs taken by Ragnhild Birkeland.

The discovery of fossils is not solely a modern occurrence in Whitby. In the Middle Ages these petrified coils were found on the sea-shore, but naturally interpreted according to the worldview of the Medieval mind and given a legendary genesis that would explain their existence in plausible terms. Consequently there arose a legend claiming that Hilda, the founding abbess of Whitby Abbey in the 7th century, gathered the numerous serpents found on the site of the abbey and tossed them from the clifftop into the ocean, a story similar to that of St. Patrick and the expulsion of snakes from Ireland. In the process the serpents petrified and lost their heads, and the fossils of ammonites were therefore dubbed snakestones. Later, curiosity dealers used to carve serpent heads into the fossils in order to purvey these to credulous customers, hence the name Whitby snakestones. Snakestones, it is said, were used as charms agains snakebites, and three snakestones are found in the Whitby Town Arms.

How of a thousand snakes each one
Was changed into a coil of stone
When holy Hilda prayed.

- Marmion. A Tale of Flooden Field, Sir Walter Scott

Picture is taken from the Whitby Museum website

Picture taken from http://www.thewhitbyseagull.co.uk.

The name "ammonite" derives from the fossils' similarity in shape to the coiled horns of the Egyptian god Ammon, as noted by the Roman natural historian Pliny the Elder (23-79 AD), and has no etymological connection to the Ammonite nation found in the Old Testament. Ammonites were squid-like carnivores harrowing the Mezosoic seas some 240 million years ago and onwards to their extinction, together with the dinosaurs, at the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary. Due to their long duration they are considered one of the most successful species of world history. Among their living relatives are included the nautilus, whose shell is divided into chambers in the same manner as the ammonites. Also, like the ammonites, the nautuli lives only in the outermost chamber. Below is the shell of a nautilus exhibited in the Yorkshire Museum.

This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,
Sail the unshadowed main,--
The venturous bark that flings
On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings
In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings,
And coral reefs lie bare,
Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.

- The Chambered Nautilus, Oliver Wendell Holmes

The Yorkshire Museum also has a nice selection of ammonites, along with other fossils, but not nearly as extensive as that of Whitby Museum. However, I enjoyed spending time in the fossil section there too, and on one occasion I remembered to take pictures, something I sadly forgot when in Whitby. 

Sign showing the entrance to the geology room at Yorkshire Museum. 

The dead body of an animal, particularly a shelly one like an ammonite, acts as a nucleus around which lime and other rock forming minerals tend to accumulate.

- Life Stories, David Attenborough

Modern rendition of an ammonite. The tube-shaped implement close to its shell is called a siphuncle and served as an air-pump that helped them move through the water.

As a consequence of this new-found fascination I began to discover ammonite shapes and forms in everyday surroundings. Whenever I stood on the top of the stairs in the Constantine annex I would see that its winding route strongly resembled the coiling features of the ammonite. It may also have been this tendency of noticing ammonite shapes that caught my attention in the bookshop at Durham cathedral, where I bought Alister McGrath's splendid book Why God won't go away, which, despite not mentioning neither nautili nor ammonites, has a cross section of a nautilus shell on its cover. I'm heartily glad for it, since the book is an excellent read.