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Astronomical Dating for Some of Lydgate's Poems

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 August 2021

Johnstone Parr
Johnstone Parr*
Affiliation:
University of Alabama
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Extract

The exact dates for the majority of the writings of John Lydgate have not been ascertained. Occasionally Lydgate tells specifically when he composed a poem by inserting into it a statement concerning the time of composition which makes the dating somewhat obvious; other poems have been dated according to style and versification, age of manuscripts, and topical allusions to historical events. The present paper discusses the dating of four of Lydgate's works—Temple of Glas, Troy Book, Siege of Thebes, and The Title and Pedigree of Henry VI—by means of the astronomical allusions in these poems.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 67 , Issue 2 , March 1952 , pp. 251 - 258
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1952

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References

Notes

1 The fullest account, now somewhat out-of-date, is that entitled “Chronology of Lydgate's Writings” in Lydgate's Temple of Glas, ed. J. Schick, EETS, ES, No. lx (1891), pp. lxxxv-cxiv.

2 Ibid., pp. cxiii-cxiv.

3 This is commonplace astronomical knowledge. Specific calculations of the positions of the planets may be determined from Paul V. Neugebauer, Tafeln zur Astronomischen Chronologie (Leipzig, 1914), Vol. ii, recommended to me by the Director of the Nautical Almanack at the U. S. Naval Observatory, and used for the calculations throughout this paper. The time employed is, of course, that of the Julian calendar; and all positions of the planets listed throughout the present paper are calculated for noon of the day cited. At noon, 14 December 1403, the sun was actually 0° 54‘ 36“ in Capricorn, and Luna was 3° 12‘ 36” in the same sign.

4 The only other attempt to date the poem (so far as I am aware) is that of Henry Noble MacCracken, “Additional Light on the Temple of Glas,” PMLA, xxiii (1908), 128-140. Nullification of Schick's dating allows us to observe more favorably MacCracken's evidence and suggestion that the proper date for the Temple of Glas is 1420.

5 See Lydgate's Troy Book, ed. Henry Bergen, EETS, ES, No. xcvii (1906), p. ix; and W. W. Skeat, “The Date of Lydgate's Siege of Troy,” The Academy, 7 May 1892, pp. 445-446.

6 Neugebauer (see n. 3, above). On 3 November 1412 Sol was at noon actually 20° 3′ 36“ in Scorpio. It is interesting to observe that in the Almanack for the year 1344 (Digby MS. 178) reproduced in facsimile in R. T. Gunther's Early Science in Oxford (Oxford, 1923), ii, 53, one may see plainly that on 31 October 1344 Sol was 16° 36′ 30” in Scorpio, and on 3 November was 19° 39′ 13“ in Scorpio. (The sun, of course, is in virtually the same position on 31 October of any year, its position shifting only a few seconds annually.)

7 Neugebauer (see n. 3, above). On 3 November 1412 Luna was 4° 25‘ in Scorpio; on 4 November she had progressed to 23° 55‘ in Scorpio.

8 Lydgate's Siege of Thebes, ed. Axel Erdmann, EETS, ES, No. 108 (1911), and Lydgate's Siege of Thebes, ed. Axel Erdmann and Eilert Ekwall, EETS, ES, No. 125 (1930). The citation is from the latter, p. 95. Cf. also Eleanor P. Hammond, “Lydgate's Prologue to the Story of Thebes,” Anglia, xxxvi (1908), 360-376.

9 Emil Koeppel, Lydgate's Story of Thebes, Eine Quellenuntersuchung (Munich, 1884); cited by J. Schick, p. civ. Koeppel contended that Lydgate's Epilogue would surely have contained a lament for the death of Henry V, who died unexpectedly on 31 August 1422, had the Siege of Thebes been unfinished at that time.

10 Schick, pp. ciii-civ, emphasized the expression “Myd of Aprille” at the beginning of the Prologue.

11 Erdmann and Ekwald, pp. 8-10.

12 Specifically it began (as everyone remembers) when in April the “yonge sunne” had in the Ram (Aries) run his “halfe cours.” Skeat pronounced correctly that this particular “halfe cours” means not “half his course” but the latter half of Sol's course through Aries, which course ended when Sol entered Taurus on 12 April. In short, the Pilgrimage began when Sol had run through the last half of Aries and had progressed a few degrees into Taurus. Skeat's interpretation is clinched by the fact that in the Man of Law's Prologue Chaucer specifically mentions that the day—obviously the second one of the journey—is 18 April. Cf. W. W. Skeat, The Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer (Oxford, 1900), v, 1-3.

The duration of the Pilgrimage is not certain. Four days (actually three and a half days) seems right, and is suggested by Henry Littlehales and F. J. Furnivall, Some Notes on the Road from London to Canterbury, Chaucer Soc. Publications (1898), pp. 40-42; H. S. Ward, The Canterbury Pilgrimages (London, 1904, 1927), pp. 219-281; Francis Watt, The Canterbury Pilgrims and Their Ways (London, 1917), pp. 82-83; and Skeat, op. cit., v, 415. A three-day journey (actually two and a half days) is suggested by J. S. P. Tatlock, “The Duration of the Canterbury Pilgrimage,” PMLA, xxi (1906), 478-485. The latter points out that a two- or five-day journey is out of the question, leaving a three- and four-day journey as the only probabilities. Cf. also W. W. Lawrence, Chaucer and the Canterbury Tales (New York, 1950), p. 43, and J. M. Manly, ed. The Canterbury Tales (New York, 1928), pp. 68-69.

13 If Saturn is (let us say) 18 degrees in Virgo and Luna is 18 degrees in Pisces, then the two planets are in exact opposition; but there can be a difference between the degrees of the two planets by as much as 7 or 8 degrees and they will still be considered in “opposition.”

14 Neugebauer (see n. 3, above).

15 This is because the planets travel through the circle of the heavens at different speeds. For instance, Saturn makes a complete revolution through the zodiac in 29 years and 167 days; Jupiter makes a complete revolution in 14 years and 314 days. Obviously it will be many years before Jupiter will be in Cancer in April at the same time that Saturn will be in Virgo.

16 See Schick, pp. lxxxvi ff.

17 See Schick, p. xciii; and Henry Noble MacCracken, The Minor Poems of John Lydgate, EETS, OS, No. 192 (1934), pp. 613 ff. (Citations are from MacCracken's edition.)

18 Cf. John Matthews Manly, “The Date and Interpretation of Chaucer's Complaint of Mars,” Harvard Stud, and Notes in Philol. and Lit. (Boston, 1896), v, 110-112, where a list of calculations using the Alphonsine Tables is given. Manly uses Alfonsi Hispaniarum Regis Tabulae et L. Gaurici Artium doctor is egregii Theoremata (Venice, 1524). Cf. also note 6, above.

19 For example, there existed also the obsolete 11th-century tables of Al Zarkali (Arzachel), as well as the less popular ones of Henry Bate and of Jacob ben Mahir. And particularly in England existed those of William Rede, Fellow of Merton College at Oxford, though these seem to be based on the Alphonsine Tables. Cf. R. T. Gunther, Early Science in Oxford (Oxford, 1923), ii, 44-67; Lynn Thorndike, A History of Magic and Experimental Science (New York, 1934), iii, 122, 197, 284, et passim; George Sarton, Introduction to the History of Science (Baltimore, 1931), ii, 759, 837, 850, et passim.

20 Grateful appreciation is expressed to the University of Alabama Research Committee for the purchase of photostats of Neugebauer's Tafeln.