The next eclipse recorded in the _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_ is somewhat difficult to explain. It is said that in 540 A.D. “The Sun was eclipsed on the 12th of the Calends of July [= June 20], and the stars appeared full nigh half an hour after 9 a.m.” Johnson’s calculations make the middle of the eclipse to have occurred at about 7.37 a.m. at London, two-thirds of the Sun’s diameter being covered. He notes that the Moon’s semi-diameter was nearly at its maximum whilst the Sun’s semi-diameter was nearly at its minimum—a favourable combination for a long totality. The visibility of the stars seems difficult to explain in connection with this eclipse, and therefore he suggests that the annalist has made a mistake of four years and meant to refer to the eclipse of September 1, 536 A.D., but this does not seem a satisfactory theory. The year after Pope Martin held a Synod to condemn the Monothelite heresy, an eclipse of the Sun took place. It is mentioned by Tycho Brahe in his catalogue of eclipses as having been seen in England. Johnson gives the date as February 6, 650 A.D., and finds that the Sun was three-fourths obscured at London at 3.30 p.m. The _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_ tells us under the year A.D. 664 that, “In this year the Sun was eclipsed on the 5th of the Nones of May; and Earcenbryht, King of the Kentish people died and Ecgbryht his son succeeded to the Kingdom.” Kepler thought this eclipse had been total in England, and Johnson calculating for London found that on May 1, at 5 p.m., there would only have been a very thin crescent of the Sun left uncovered on the southern limb, so that the line of totality would have passed across the country some distance to the N. of London. The eclipse of Dec. 7, A.D. 671, seems to be associated with a comic tragedy. The Caliph Moawiyah had a fancy to remove Mahomet’s pulpit from Medina to his own residence at Damascus. “He said that the walking-stick and pulpit of the Apostle of God should not remain in the hands of the murderers of Othman. Great search was made for the walking-stick, and at last they found it. Then they went in obedience to his commands to remove the pulpit, when immediately, to their great surprise and astonishment, the Sun was eclipsed to that degree that the stars appeared.”[73] Once again the question of visible stars is in some sense a source of difficulty. Hind found that the eclipse was annular on the central line. At Medina the greatest phase occurred at 10h. 43m. a.m. when 85/100ths of the Sun’s diameter was obscured. Hind suggests that in the clear skies of that part of the world such a degree of eclipse might be sufficient to bring out the brighter planets or stars. At any rate no larger eclipse visible at Medina occurred about this epoch. Prof. Ockley seems to refer to this eclipse in making, on the authority of several Arabian writers, the mention he does of an eclipse in the quotation just given.