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I came across a story linking Chaucer and an exceptionally high tide in Brittany which hasn't been posted on this MB. The only thread we have on Chaucer discusses whether he was murdered, so I searched deeper and found this quirky thread. The Chaucer reference comes in here:
Waves of truth in Chaucer fiction
Tim Radford, Science Editor The Guardian, Monday 6 March 2000
A physicist believes he has solved an astronomical mystery at the heart of one of Chaucer's Canterbury tales.
Deep in the text of the Franklin's Tale, a story of magic, blackmail and forbidden love in 14th century Brittany, the poet may have secreted evidence of one of the earth's highest-ever high tides.
Writing in the April issue of Sky and Telescope magazine, Donald Olson of South-West Texas state university argues that what scholars had regarded for 600 years as pure romance might be based on a real event.
In the tale, the beautiful young wife Dorigen, pining for her absent husband, makes a foolish vow about the treacherous rocky coast with the words "woulde God, that all these rockes blake, were sunken in helle for his sake". The youth Aurelius, sighing with lust, does a deal with a magician to indeed make the rocks disappear - and "through his magic, for a day or tway, it seemed all the rockes were away".
This event happened in the "colde, frosty season of December". Of course, it left the young Dorigen obliged to pay the usual Chaucerian fee of sacrificing her virtue - and presented modern astronomers with an interesting challenge.
The challenge is that the magician who did the apparently supernatural deed "knew the rising of his moon well". Prof Olson was aware that Chaucer knew a thing or two about astronomy, had once written a treatise on an astrolabe, or star-finder, and might have used a real event for his plot: an abnormally high tide that submerged the rocks.
He and two colleagues calculated that on December 19 1340 not only were the sun and moon aligned to produce an eclipse, but each body was very nearly at its least possible distance from the earth - a rare combination that must have led to exceptionally high tides. This type of alignment has occurred only a handful of times in recorded history. It will not happen again until 3089.
Medieval astronomers had already noticed a link between the conjunction of sun and moon, and high tides. Chaucer was known to have visited France several times in the 1360s and 1370s and must have been familiar with Brittany's dramatic tides. He was born in 1340 or early 1341 and as a grown man, the scientists argue, he would have certainly checked his horoscope.
If he had calculated the positions of the sun and moon at his birth, he might well have discovered the unusual tide-raising configuration of December 19 1340, and used it as the hinge of his plot for the Franklin's Tale.
For those who want to know the story's ending, Dorigen confesses to her husband and prepares to keep her promise, but Aurelius proves far too much of a gentleman to claim his reward. The magician waives his fee and all ends happily.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2000/ma ... reychaucer
This is specially interesting to me, as in days gone by I frequently sailed amongst the rocks of Brittany, and experienced the strong tides there. (The Rance Estuary in NE Brittany has the third highest tides in the world.)
And the Moon (in the thread title) is the prime raiser of tides...Ginando said:Very good read and well written. My only worry is that Eddy Pen will read this and conclude that time travellers moved the planets into these positions as confirmed by writings in The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer. (You'll need to read his post in Dooparts)
Waves of truth in Chaucer fiction
Tim Radford, Science Editor The Guardian, Monday 6 March 2000
A physicist believes he has solved an astronomical mystery at the heart of one of Chaucer's Canterbury tales.
Deep in the text of the Franklin's Tale, a story of magic, blackmail and forbidden love in 14th century Brittany, the poet may have secreted evidence of one of the earth's highest-ever high tides.
Writing in the April issue of Sky and Telescope magazine, Donald Olson of South-West Texas state university argues that what scholars had regarded for 600 years as pure romance might be based on a real event.
In the tale, the beautiful young wife Dorigen, pining for her absent husband, makes a foolish vow about the treacherous rocky coast with the words "woulde God, that all these rockes blake, were sunken in helle for his sake". The youth Aurelius, sighing with lust, does a deal with a magician to indeed make the rocks disappear - and "through his magic, for a day or tway, it seemed all the rockes were away".
This event happened in the "colde, frosty season of December". Of course, it left the young Dorigen obliged to pay the usual Chaucerian fee of sacrificing her virtue - and presented modern astronomers with an interesting challenge.
The challenge is that the magician who did the apparently supernatural deed "knew the rising of his moon well". Prof Olson was aware that Chaucer knew a thing or two about astronomy, had once written a treatise on an astrolabe, or star-finder, and might have used a real event for his plot: an abnormally high tide that submerged the rocks.
He and two colleagues calculated that on December 19 1340 not only were the sun and moon aligned to produce an eclipse, but each body was very nearly at its least possible distance from the earth - a rare combination that must have led to exceptionally high tides. This type of alignment has occurred only a handful of times in recorded history. It will not happen again until 3089.
Medieval astronomers had already noticed a link between the conjunction of sun and moon, and high tides. Chaucer was known to have visited France several times in the 1360s and 1370s and must have been familiar with Brittany's dramatic tides. He was born in 1340 or early 1341 and as a grown man, the scientists argue, he would have certainly checked his horoscope.
If he had calculated the positions of the sun and moon at his birth, he might well have discovered the unusual tide-raising configuration of December 19 1340, and used it as the hinge of his plot for the Franklin's Tale.
For those who want to know the story's ending, Dorigen confesses to her husband and prepares to keep her promise, but Aurelius proves far too much of a gentleman to claim his reward. The magician waives his fee and all ends happily.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2000/ma ... reychaucer
This is specially interesting to me, as in days gone by I frequently sailed amongst the rocks of Brittany, and experienced the strong tides there. (The Rance Estuary in NE Brittany has the third highest tides in the world.)