Johannes de Muris

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Johannes de Muris , Jean de Meurs, (* around 1300 in Normandy , † around 1360) was a French mathematician , astronomer , musician and calendar reformer of the late Middle Ages .

Life

De Muris probably taught at the Sorbonne in Paris , where he had been a Magister since at least 1321. Its scientific activity is secured between 1317 and at least 1348. He probably died around 1360 or after 1350. From 1338 to 1342 he was one of the secretaries of the King of Navarre . In 1344 he became canon in Mézières-en-Brenne .

Johannes de Muris became one of the most influential music theorists of the Ars Nova . He looked at music from a mathematical point of view. His main works in the field of music theory were the Musica practica and the Musica speculativa . In addition, there were mathematical writings such as the Quadripartitum numerorum of 1343 and his writing on the calendar reform of 1317. Together with others, he was involved with Pope Clement VI. for a calendar reform: In 1344 he and Firmin de Bellevall were called by the Pope to Avignon for advice on a calendar reform. His elementary textbook on arithmetic was in use until the 16th century. He wrote numerous other books. His main mathematical work is Quadripartium numerorum (in four books). It mentions decimal fractions, but only in a special case in Book 3, the taking of a square root, and they are not developed systematically. It covers music theory, mechanics (with excerpts from Archimedes' hydrostatics) and applications of arithmetic. In Book 2 he deals with quadratic equations (following al-Chwarizmi and Leonardo of Pisa ) and also special cubic equations. Its verse is dedicated to Philippe de Vitry .

De Muris contributed to the spread of the Alfonsine tablets . In 1318 he measured the skewness of the ecliptic at Evreux (and observed the equinox ) with a specially built quadrant of 15 feet radius. He also observed conjunctions and records of further astronomical observations (such as the solar eclipse in 1337) in Bernay, Fontevrault, Évreux, Paris and Mézières-en-Brenne are preserved in a manuscript in the Escorial .

Fonts

Proportion schemes from the Libellus Cantus Mensurabilis

music

  • Musica practica
    • Ulrich Michels The music tracts of Johannes de Muris , supplements to the Archive for Musicology 17, Franz Steiner Verlag 1970 (Notitia artis musicae, Compendium musicae practicae)
  • Musica speculativa secundum Boethium abbreviata , Paris, Sorbona (1323) (Commentary on Boethius )
    • Christoph Falkenroth The musica speculativa of Johannes de Muris , supplements to the archive for musicology 34, Franz Steiner Verlag 1992
  • Ars nove musice , 1319
    • published in Martin Gerbert Scriptores ecclesiastici de musica sacra , III, St. Blasien, 1784 (as well as other musical writings such as Musica speculativa). Another older edition of Johannes de Muris' musical writings is E. De Coussemaker Scriptorum de musica medii aevi nova series , Paris, Volume 2, 1867, Volume 3, 1869
  • Libellus cantus mensurabilis
  • Questiones super partes musice

Math and astronomy

  • Canones tabule tabularum (1321), manuscripts a. a. in Paris, Vienna, Erfurt, Brussels, Berlin (with multiplication table for hexagesimal numbers for a conversion of the Alfonsine tables into this number system)
    • also as Tractatus canonum minutiarum philosophicarum et vulgarum, quem composuit Mag. Johannes de Muris Normannus . 1321
  • Quadripartitum numerorum (1343), manuscripts in Paris, Vienna
    • Editions Dissertation by G. l'Huillier, Paris 1979 (not published), parts of the 2nd book in A. Nagl Das Quadripartitum des Ioannes de Muris , Treatises on the history of mathematics, Volume 5, 1890, pp. 135-146, by Book 3 in LC Karpinski The Quadripartitum numerorum of John of Meurs , Bibliotheca Mathematica, Series 3, Volume 13, 1912/13, pp. 99-144, part of Book 4 in Marshall Claggett The science of mechanics in the middle ages , Madison / Wisconsin 1959
  • Arithmetica speculativa (around 1343)
    • Edition by Hubert LL Busard , Scientiarum historia, Volume 13, 1971, pp. 103-132
  • Figura inveniendi sinus kardagarum (with sine table according to Al-Zarquali )
    • Edition Maximilian Curtze documents on the history of trigonometry in the Christian Middle Ages , Bibliotheca Mathematica, Series 3, Volume 1, 1900, pp. 414–416
  • De arte mensurandi (completed around 1344); The book contains references to the knowledge of the writings of Archimedes in the translation of Wilhelm von Moerbeke and also a chapter on the squaring of the circle
  • Expositio tabularum Alphonsii
  • A book on the squaring of the circle has not survived; it is mentioned in the Canones Tabule Tabularum of 1321, as is a Genealogia Astronomy

Time calculation

  • Epistola super reformatione antiqui kalendarii (1317)
    • Christine Gack-Scheiding: Johannes de Muri's Epistola super reformatione antiqui kalendarii. A contribution to the calendar reform in the 14th century (= Monumenta Germaniae Historica. Studies and Texts, Vol.11). Hanover 1995
  • De regulis computistarum , 1337

literature

  • Johannes de Muris , arr. v. H. Leuchtmann et al. a. In: Lexikon des Mittelalters , Vol. 5, 1990, reprint Stuttgart 1999, Sp. 591
  • Hubert LL Busard (Editor): Johannes de Muris De arte mensurandi. A geometrical handbook of the fourteenth century , Boethius, Volume 41, Franz Steiner Verlag, 1998
  • Georges Sarton Introduction to the history of Science , Carnegie Institution 1947, Volume 3, p. 652
  • Article in Gottwald, Ilgauds, Schlote (ed.) Lexicon of important mathematicians , Leipzig 1990
  • Article in Helmuth Gericke Mathematics in Antiquity, Orient and Occident , fourier Verlag (second volume)
  • Emmanuel Poulle : John of Murs . In: Charles Coulston Gillispie (Ed.): Dictionary of Scientific Biography . tape 7 : Iamblichus - Karl Landsteiner . Charles Scribner's Sons, New York 1973, p. 128-133 .
  • Poulle Jean de Murs et les tables alphonsines , Archives d'histoire doctrinale et littéraire du moyen age, Volume 47, 1980, pp. 241-271

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ After Poulle, Dictionary of Scientific Biography, he is in the diocese of Lisieux born
  2. ↑ Information in his book about fractures (Tractatus canonum ...)
  3. ^ Gericke: Mathematics in the West. Fourier Verlag, p. 159.
  4. ↑ Whereby in his criticism of the calendar 1317 he still campaigned for the Toledaner tables .
  5. ↑ Olaf Pedersen , Mogens Pihl Early physics and astronomy , American Elsevier 1974, biographical entry p. 375
  6. ^ Letter to Pope Clement VI. (who died in 1352), printed in Pierre Duhem : Le systeme du monde. Volume IV, Paris, 1916, pp. 35-37, the letter concerned future conjunctions (1357, 1365), and on the conjunction of 1345 in Hubert Pruckner: Studies on the astrological writings of Heinrich von Langenstein . Leipzig 1933, pp. 222-226.
  7. ^ Poulle in Dictionary of Scientific Biography
personal data
SURNAME Muris, Johannes de
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Meurs, Jean de
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French mathematician, astronomer and calendar reformer
DATE OF BIRTH around 1300
PLACE OF BIRTH Normandy
DATE OF DEATH around 1360
Place of death uncertain: Paris