De cursu stellarum ratio

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De cursu stellarum ratio (also De cursibus ecclesiasticis ) is a script that Gregory of Tours wrote in Latin at the end of the 6th century . As expressed in the extended header, it is to set up the officium (worship, Stundengebet ) are used. The work is divided into two very different parts: explanations about the seven wonders of the world and information about the visibility of the sun, moon and some constellations . The Seven Wonders of the World lead to the second part of the text, but do not offer any relevant information, but only serve to entertain the reader or to show the erudition of the author. The title is included in the list of the writings of Gregory of Tours at the end of his main work Ten Books Stories , so that his authorship is not in doubt.

The Seven Wonders of the World (Sections 1 - 35)

From the 2nd century BC In the Hellenistic world, different lists of important buildings came into circulation as the Seven Wonders of the World , which were further developed in the Roman Empire and finally also by early Christian writers. Gregory of Tours follows this tradition. His list is: Noah's Ark , the city of Babylon , the Temple of Solomon , sepulcrum regis Persici - possibly the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus , the Colossus of Rhodes , the Theater in Heraclea, and the Pharos of Alexandria . Above all, he renounces works of art with a pagan reference, such as Artemis of Ephesus, and places biblical and ancient ideas in close connection. The city of Babylon, the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, and the Colossus of Rhodes are on most of the ancient lists. For the description of Babylon, the author mentions Paulus Orosius as a source, which he also cites word for word in some cases. The two biblical works were not counted among the seven wonders of the world either before or after Gregory von Tour.

Gregory of Tours added seven works of our Almighty God to the human works : ebb and flow of the sea, growth of plants, the phoenix , the Etna with a brief description from the Aeneid of Virgil , the hot spring of St. Barthélémy near Grenoble with one Fragment of poetry by Hilary of Arles , moon and sun. The Phoenix Gregory of Tours the seal ave De Phoenice of Laktanz removed. Despite some literal agreement, he changes the fable of the life, death and rebirth of the phoenix considerably.

Rises and sets of the sun, moon and constellations

In ancient times and well into the Middle Ages, it was customary to divide the day and night into 12 hours each, which were then of different lengths depending on the season ( unequal hours or temporal hours ). There was also the concept of the same hour or equinox , which is the 24th part of the full day from sunrise to sunrise. Gregory of Tours mostly uses equinox hours in his writing because that's the only way he can explain his subject matter.

The remarks on the sun and moon are adorned with the representation of a ray-bearing male head and a moon-crowned female head. The information about the stars is supplemented by a sketch that is intended to convey the appearance of the constellation.

The Sun (Sections 38-39)

Gregor von Tour created a table of the daylight duration for the 12 months. With these summary information he is in the tradition of Martianus Capella ( De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii , VIII 876-878). Gregor von Tours values ​​are based on the dates given there for Rhodes and Hellespont , VIIII hours for December ( winter solstice ) to XV hours for June ( summer solstice ). Of course, these values ​​do not agree with those observed in northern France. Martianus Capella also offers a more northerly degree of latitude with Diaborysthenus (Borysthenes) and Diariphaeon ( Riphae Mountains ). These are possibly not adopted because their not exactly determined location in Pliny the Elder ( Naturalis historia , IV 88) is associated with darkness and an icy north wind.

The moon (sections 40-41)

A table of the duration of the visibility of the moon on the individual days of the lunar month is drawn up. Calculated in equinox hours , these values ​​differ considerably for the individual months. Calculated in temporal hours , the difference is small and the specified values ​​roughly fit into this range. Gregory von Tour was able to find a basis for this table in Pliny the Elder ( Naturalis historia , XVIII 324f). Similar tables are also contained in several computus from the early Middle Ages. For example, the comprehensive Liber de Computo (edited Patrologia Latina CXXIX), the archetype of which may have been brought from Luxeuil to Burgundy during the lifetime of Gregory of Tour through Columban , in Chapter LXV contains such information.

Constellations (Sections 42-73)

The new topic begins with a list of the rises and sets of 14 constellations . Gregory of Tours states that he wants to use the names of the native rural dwellers and not the names of the ancient poets (Section 36), who were also used in the Middle Ages, e.g. B. were known in the Leiden Aratea . However, the term pliadas then appears . The name plaustrum for the big dipper can also be found in Ovid and in the Aratea of ​​Germanicus .

Already in the first printed edition an attempt was made to determine the constellations. By calculating the current starry sky back to the year 580 and comparing it with the sketches and taking into account the rising and setting, another attempt was made to identify the constellations and to evaluate the astronomical information. The Orion , the Big Dipper and the Swan were recognized with some certainty . However, the given times correlate only loosely with the calculated times for the latitude of Tours as well as for more southern latitudes, both in the same and unequal hours. In Sections 61 - 73, Gregory von Tours formulates regulations for the beginning of the vigils (prayer after sunset) and Matutin (prayer before sunrise) for the individual months on the basis of the preceding :

In octubre uero falcis illa cum oritur, mediam noueris esse noctem; ... deinde adtende rubeolam, quae cum hora diei uenerit secunda, si signum ad matutinum moueas, decim poteris ...

When the sickle rises in October, it is the middle of the night; then watch the shimmering red (star) that comes with the second hour of the day; if the sign is to Matutin, you can ...

The sources from which Gregor von Tour draws this knowledge are not known. Nocturnal prayer is prescribed by Augustine of Hippo . In the De Institutis Coenobiorum of Johannes Cassianus , the prayers are distributed over day and night (Book II, 17 ... stellarum cursu praestitutum congregartionis tempus explorans = ... determining the time of the meeting according to the course of the stars ). The nocturnal prayer times are also dealt with in the current Magister rule (33. The services in the night: ... from Easter to September 24th, the winter equinox, the brothers should start the nocturnes with the cock crow because of the shorter nights). In both texts, however, no attempt is made to link the numbers to the course of the sun, moon or the stars. Later, the aid of water clocks is introduced.

Living on and tradition

The work was only rarely distributed and used. Possibly the contained inaccuracies and wrong time information prevented this. Only two manuscripts have survived, one from the 8th century, which is kept in the Bamberg State Library (Fathers 61), and one from the 12th century in the Vatican (Cod. Urbinat. Lat. 67). The earliest edition was by Henr. Aenoth. Frid. Haase carried out according to the Bamberg manuscript in 1853, which also included traces of the sun, moon and celestial representation.

Text output

  • Henr. Aenoth. Frid. Haase: Gregorii Turonensis Episcopi libro De Cursu Stellarum ... , Breslau 1853

literature

  • Peter A. Clayton, Martin J. Price: Die Sieben Weltwunder , Stuttgart 2009
  • Gerhard Dohrn-van Rossum : The story of the hour , Munich Vienna 1992
  • Andreas Loose: Astronomical time determination in the early Middle Ages: De cursu stellarum by Gregor von Tours, Bochum 1988
  • Max Manitius : History of Latin Literature in the Middle Ages , Munich 1931
  • Stephen C. McCluskey: Astronomies and Cultures in Early Medieval Europe , Cambridge 1998
  • Marieluise Walla: The Phoenix bird in ancient literature and the poetry of Laktanz , Vienna 1969
  • Margarete Weidemann: Cultural history of the Merovingian period based on the works of Gregor von Tours , Mainz 1982

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Stephen C. McCluskey: Astronomies and Cultures in Early Medieval Europe , pp. 105-110
  2. ^ Peter A. Clayton, Martin J. Price: Die Sieben Weltwunder , pp. 209-214
  3. ↑ Jerzy Łanowski: Wonder of the World. In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume Supplementbd. X, Stuttgart 1893ff., Sp. 1021 f.
  4. ↑ Paulus Orosius: Orosii historiarum adversus paganos libri septem , Book II, Chapter 6
  5. ↑ Margarete Weidemann: Cultural history of the Merovingian period based on the works of Gregor von Tours , p. 390
  6. ↑ Max Manitius: History of Latin Literature in the Middle Ages , p. 222
  7. ↑ Marieluise Walla: The Phoenix bird in ancient literature and the poetry of Laktanz , p. 139f
  8. ↑ Andreas Loose: Astronomical Time Determination in the Early Middle Ages, p. 46 - p. 48
  9. ^ Ch. W. Jones: Bedae Opera de temporibus , 1943, p. 111
  10. ↑ Henr. Aenoth. Frid. Haase: Gregorii Turonensis Episcopi ... , Adnotatio, p. 42 - p. 47
  11. ↑ Andreas Loose: Astronomical Time Determination in the Early Middle Ages, p. 75 - p. 120
  12. ↑ Margarete Weidemann: Cultural history of the Merovingian period based on the works of Gregor von Tours , pp. 225–229
  13. ↑ Gerhard Dohrn-van Rossum: The story of the hour , p. 58f
  14. ↑ Andreas Loose: Astronomical time determination in the early Middle Ages, p. 250f, p. 17ff