"En Jaime had even shown courteous interest for an hour or more while Lucas discoursed of stars and planetary motions and the nature of comets..." (p. 106)
But what was the medieval understanding of the nature of comets? The post, "James Blish: Doctor Mirabilis," (see here) begins by answering this question before going on to discuss other aspects of Blish's sole historical novel.
Anderson's The Last Viking Trilogy presents the prominent comet before the Battle of Hastings and there are many other blog references to "comet."
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
I only did a quick skim of the Wiki article about Adam Marsh, the 13th century Franciscan scholar, but it made no mention about any speculations by him about comets. Also, I noticed Anderson did not got into detail about what astronomers of that time thought comprised comets. The astronomy of the early 1300's in Europe was still framed or shaped by the ALMAGEST of Claudius Ptolemaeus. Last, Lucas might well have mentioned what Cathayan astronomers thought about the stars.
And the attention shown by En Jaime to Lucas' astronomical discourse shows he too was quite unusual, interested in other things besides the military arts.
Ad astra! Sean
Post a Comment