Scholar examines reports of solar eclipses in the Middle Ages

Medieval News 'blog ^ | Sunday, February 07, 2010 | medieval news blogger (duh)

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Hundreds of solar eclipses were recorded by medieval chroniclers, offering historians of astronomy with some vital information about how people in the Middle Ages reacted to this phenomenon. The latest research into this subject has just been published in the Journal for the History of Astronomy. In his article, "Investigation of Medieval European Records of Solar Eclipses," F. Richard Stephenson states he wants to provide "an intriguing insight into the effects of solar eclipses over a wide range of magnitudes on largely untrained and unsuspecting observers." Using chronicles mainly from England, France, Germany and Italy, Stephenson finds hundreds of accounts. His study, however, is limited to 418 reports of eclipses that were reported from some identifiable location, such as a town. This allowed him to use scientific calculations to know what type of solar eclipse occurred there. The study finds a large variety of information reported from the chroniclers, with some offering interesting details. For example, one German chronicle reported in 1133, "on the 4th day before the Nones of August [Aug 2], the 4th day of the week, when the Sun was declining, towards the ninth hour the Sun in a single moment became as black as pitch and day was turned into night; very many stars were seen, objects on the ground appeared as they usually do at night..." Other accounts happened to be less vivid. A report from the city of Cologne in 1232 stated, "A partial eclipse of the Sun was seen after midday in the same year; (it was) not, however, very notable."

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Historical Eclipses and Earth's Rotation by F. Richard Stephenson	Studies in Medieval Astronomy And Optics by Jose Luis Mancha	Planets, Stars, and Orbs: The Medieval Cosmos, 1200-1687 by Edward Grant

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