Seb Falk: The Astronomer and the Astrolabe (1327)

In this episode we venture on a journey of scientific discovery and meet one of the most important figures in English medieval science.

Geoffrey Chaucer has gone down in history as the ‘father of English literature’ and his Canterbury Tales are celebrated across the globe as the earliest work of fiction in that language. Less well known, but equally important, is his Treatise on the Astrolabe, the first technical manual written in English, in which he describes how to make and use these extraordinary instruments. Astrolabes were calculating devices, the smartphones of their day, which enabled scholars to make accurate observations of the stars and planets, and to calculate a huge range. 

In this period, scholars were almost always monks, their interest in astronomy and use of astrolabes were partially motivated by the need for accurate timekeeping and working out church dates like Easter. Seb Falk, our guide this week, reveals the wonders of scientific discovery in late medival England in his absorbing book, The Light Ages, A Medieval Journey of Discovery.

In this episode he takes us back to the early fourteenth century to a seminal year in the life of Richard of Wallingford, one of the best-known scholars of his day: a gifted astronomer, inventor, Abbot and ultimately, victim of leprosy.

Show Notes

Scene One: Summer 1327, Oxford University.  Richard of Wallingford is just finishing up his time at Oxford and composing two of his most important scientific works.

Scene Two: Autumn 1327, St Albans to Avignon, via London. Richard has been elected abbot and is making his way to have his appointment confirmed by the pope in Avignon. 

Scene Three: Winter 1327/Spring 1328, St Albans. Richard returns to St Albans and begins work on his marvellous astronomical clock. 

Memento: The abbot’s Albion instrument, which he invented but which is long since lost. We know exactly how it worked because the instructions for it are one of those important works he wrote in 1326-7 at Oxford.

People/Social

Presenter: Violet Moller

Guest: Seb Falk

Production: Maria Nolan

Podcast partner: Unseen Histories

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