Once I was a clever boy learning the arts of Oxford... is a quotation from the verses written by Bishop Richard Fleming (c.1385-1431) for his tomb in Lincoln Cathedral. Fleming, the founder of Lincoln College in Oxford, is the subject of my research for a D. Phil., and, like me, a son of the West Riding. I have remarked in the past that I have a deeply meaningful on-going relationship with a dead fifteenth century bishop... it was Fleming who, in effect, enabled me to come to Oxford and to learn its arts, and for that I am immensely grateful.


Monday, 30 January 2023

A fourteenth century almanac decoded


The Mail Online website has an article about a fourteenth century almanac that was an early gift to the Royal Society. Until now part of it has remained in code until that was understood by researchers.

The almanac posseses in part similarities to the calendar pages of Books of Hours, but also to portable devices such as those in the Museum of the History of Science in Oxford that are perpetual calendars as well as to the astrolabes in that collection and elsewhere. All of these are a reminder that the antique and medieval worlds were much more formed by mathematical and scientific formulations than is the current popular perception - but then you would need some maths in order to build cathedrals….



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