Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive.) UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA STUDIES IN LANGUAGE, LITERATURE AND CRITICISM NUMBER 2 ASTRONOMICAL LORE IN CHAUCER BY FLORENCE M. GRIMM, A. M. _Assistant in the University of Nebraska Library_ EDITORIAL COMMITTEE LOUISE POUND, Ph. D., Department of English H. B. ALEXANDER, Ph. D., Department of Philosophy F. W. SANFORD, A. B., Department of Latin. LINCOLN 1919 CONTENTS I. Astronomy in the Middle Ages 3 II. Chaucer's Scientific Knowledge 9 III. Chaucer's Cosmology 12 IV. Chaucer's Astronomy 27 V. Astrological Lore in Chaucer 51 Appendix 79 ASTRONOMICAL LORE IN CHAUCER I ASTRONOMY IN THE MIDDLE AGES The conspicuousness of astronomical lore in the poetry of Chaucer is due to its importance in the life of his century. In the mediaeval period, astronomy (or 'astrology,' for the two names were used indifferently to cover the same subject) was one of the vital interests of men. The ordinary man of the Middle Ages knew much more than do most men to-day about the phenomena of the heavens; conveniences such as clocks, almanacs, and charts representing celestial phenomena were rare, and direct observations of the apparent movements and the relative positions of the heavenly bodies were necessary for the regulation of man's daily occupations. Furthermore, the belief in a geocentric system of the universe, which in Chaucer's century was almost universally accepted, was of vast significance in man's way of thinking. Accepting this view, all the heavenly bodies seemed to have been created for the sole benefit of man, inhabiting the central position in the universe; their movements, always with reference to the earth as a center, brought to man light, heat, changes of season--all the conditions that made human life possible on the earth.