The Computistical Works Ascribed to Robert Grosseteste

Author(s): Richard C. Dales

Source: Isis, Vol. 80, No. 1 (Mar., 1989), pp. 74-79
Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of The History of Science Society
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NOTES & CORRESPONDENCE

THE COMPUTISTICAL WORKS ASCRIBED TO ROBERT GROSSETESTE
By Richard C. Dales*

Four computisticalworks-three computiand a calendar-have been ascribedto

Robert Grosseteste by S. HarrisonThomson. Thomsonplaces the Kalendarium
first in order of composition, followed by the CompotusI, which he dates "before 1220."He puts the Compotuscorrectoriusthird, suggestingthat it may have
been written earlierthan circa 1232, the date assigned by Robert Steele. Last he
places the Compotusminor,which he dates 1244on the basis of a phraseon folio
107vof the only extant manuscript:"sed a nativitatedominielapsi sunt 1200anni
et eo scilicet 44 amplius."IThese works have recently attracted quite a bit of
attention. Sir RichardSouthernhas challengedthe dating and order that Thomson assigned. Jennifer Moreton, of Trinity College, Dublin, questions Grosseteste's authorshipof two of the computiand the Kalendarium.And an edition of
the computi is now being prepared by Bernard Malone of the University of
Southern California.In my 1961 article on Grosseteste's scientific works, I intentionallyomitted any considerationof the astronomicaland computisticalmaterialbecause I felt that they presentedtheirown peculiarproblems,which I was
not then in a position to solve.2 Here I will begin to fill that lacuna by investigating the nature, relationship,and authenticityof the three computi.
Southernhas made a notable start toward clearingup some of the misunderstandingsunderlyingThomson's dating. In the first place, he points out that the
phrase "scilicet 44," which led Thomson to assign the composition of the Compotus minor to 1244, was a marginalnote; it does not belong in the text and in
fact contradictsthe computationin the text. Noting that only old-fashionedauthorities (John Beleth, Dionysius Exiguus, and Gerlandus)are mentionedin the
CompotusI, Southernassigns this work to about 1195and places the Compotus
minor(which Thomsonhad dated 1244)about ten years later. He dates the Compotus correctorius1215-1220.3In changingthe dating, Southernhas altered the
order, and hence the relationship, of the three works. But he has overlooked
some remarksin the text that make his solutionimpossibleas it stands, although
much closer to the truththan Thomson's.
JenniferMoreton has denied that Grosseteste wrote either the CompotusI or
* Departmentof History, Universityof SouthernCalifornia,Los Angeles, CA 90089-0034.
1 "Fromthe birth of the Lord, there have elapsed 1200 years, and more than that, to wit,

44":
Compotusminor, Dublin, TrinityCollege MS 441, fol. 107v. See also S. HarrisonThomson, The
Writings of Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, 1235-1253 (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press,

1940),pp. 94-97, 106;and Compotuscorrectorius,BritishLibraryMS Add. 27589,printedin Opera

hactenus inedita fratris Rogeri Baconis, ed. Robert Steele, 9 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1926),

Vol. VI, pp. 212-267.

2

R. W. Southern, Robert Grosseteste: The Growth of an English Mind in Medieval Europe (Ox-

ford: ClarendonPress, 1986),pp. 127-131;JenniferMoreton, "RobertGrosseteste, John of Sacrobosco, and the Calendar," in Proceedings of the Warburg Institute Grosseteste Symposium (May

1987), ed. John McEvoy (forthcoming);and Richard C. Dales, "RobertGrosseteste's Scientific

Works,"Isis, 1961,52:381-402. I am obliged to JenniferMoretonboth for allowingme to see her
paperin draftform and for her personalcorrespondenceon the subject.
3 Southern,Robert Grosseteste,p. 131.
ISIS, 1989,80: 74-79

74

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GROSSETESTE'SCOMPUTI

75

the Compotus minor (although she concedes his authorshipof the Compotus
correctorius).She arguesinstead that both are early versions of Sacrobosco's De
anni ratione, into which more advancedcalculationswere subsequentlyinserted.
In fact, there is much material common to Sacrobosco and the two computi
attributedto Grosseteste. Moretonhas raised some interestingquestions, and we
are obliged to consider the possibility that Grosseteste may not have written the
first two computi.
The work that Thomson designatesas the CompotusI exists in a single manuscript from the second quarterof the thirteenthcentury, Oxford, Bodleian MS
679, folios 65r-75r. It is ascribedat both the beginningand the end: "Hic incipit
compotus magistriRobertiGrosseteste"across the top of folio 65r and "Explicit
compotusmagistriRobertiGrosseteste"on folio 75r. The manuscriptcontainsno
diagramsor tables, althoughthe text refers to the lines and columns of tables. Its
chapters are the usual ones for a computus:De duplici anno, De septimana,De
mense, De anno, De concurrentibus,De regularisolari, De bissexto (i.e., leap
year), De ciclo solari, De divisione anni, De anno lunari, De epactis et regularibus, De regularilunari, De saltu lune, and De festis mobilibus.The authorities
this computus mentions-Gerlandus, John Beleth, Dionysius Exiguus, and
Theophilusof Alexandria-were alreadyout of date by the late twelfth century,
as was Isidore of Seville, whose work it uses but who is not named. It contains a
numberof mnemonic verses and frequently quotes Ovid's Fasti for illustrative
purposes. Althoughthere is no trace of Arabicastronomy,the authordoes tell us
that "the Arabs begin the day at noon, saying that the sun was made at noon"
(folio 65r) and that the Arabs begin the year at the summer solstice (folio 67r).
The CompotusI also contains an Aristoteliandictum based on Physics 2.195a:
"Nam posita causa efficiente et immediate,et ponitureius effectus" (folio 65r).
Since there is a great deal of similarityamongcomputiin general, and much of
the computationalinstructionin both the CompotusI and De anni ratione appears nearly verbatim in dozens of twelfth- and thirteenth-centurycomputi, I
shall concentrateon the distinctivecharacteristicsof the CompotusI that hint at
its authorshipand date of composition. It begins by distinguishingbetween the
practice of computus, whose purpose is simply to contrive devices for determining the movable feast days of the church and which is thereforeconcerned only
with the motions of the moon and sun, and the science of astronomy, which is
concerned with the true measurementof time and with the motions of all the
planets.4But the author does not confine himself to this. He is very concerned
about the errors in the calendar and in the computistic traditionthat have resulted in the feast days coming earlierthan they should. Because of such errors,
he complains, we do not know the exact days of the solstices or equinoxes. The
summer solstice is supposed to coincide with the birth of John the Baptist and
the winter solstice with the birthof Christ.But they do not, because we make the
year too long. The author calculates how much time has been lost as a result:
assumingthat the solstices did coincide with the birthsof John and Jesus, he says
that "from the birth of the Lord, there have elapsed one thousand and two
are ten times 120 years, and
hundredyears, and more than that. In this nunmber
thus the winter solstice has now retrogressed by ten days."5 After a lengthy
4 "Subiectumautem huius scientie est tempus-non dico tempus secundumsubstantiamtemporis
nequeinquantumest numerusprimimobilis, sed inquantumdividiturin partessuas que considerantur
ab ecclesia secundum motum solis et lune. ... Compotistaenim considerattempora mensurata
secundummotumistorumduorumplanetarum... Nec curat motus aliorumplanetarum":Oxford,
Bodl. MS 679, fol. 65r.
s "Sed a nativitatedominielapsi sunt .M. et CC. anni et eo amplius,in quo numerosunt X.es .C.
et .XX. anni, et ita per .X. dies retrogressitiam solstitiumhiemale":ibid., fol. 69v.

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76

RICHARD C. DALES

discussion of the errors that result from the computistical rule-of-thumb

methods, the last of which is the computation of the saltus lune, he concludes in
some exasperation that "although the subtraction of one day rests on authoritative authors, nevertheless it contains many doubtful things and a good admixture
of falsehood, which I shall verify at another time when the opportunity permits."6 Thus the author of the Compotus I explicitly promised a subsequent work
that would correct the vexed problems of the tradition-that is to say, a computus correctorius.
There seems then to be no good reason to doubt Grosseteste's authorship of
the Compotus I. The ascriptions themselves, which certainly predate 1250, are
strong evidence. Although it is true that famous names tend to attract the attribution of spurious works, the Compotus I is attributed not to Lord Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, as one might expect of a false claim, but simply to
master Robert Grosseteste, who was at the time an unbeneficed provincial master, if we can accept Southern's plausible reconstruction of Grosseteste's early
life.7 Another strong bit of evidence is the author's promise to write a more
satisfactory work when time permitted. The Compotus correctorius exactly fulfills such a promise, and Grosseteste's authorship of that work is too well attested to be questioned. I might point out an additional consideration, that of
style. The sentence spanning folios 68r and 68v of the Compotus I is typically
Grossetestian in its length, complexity, and coherence:
Sed quia difficile esset istas sex horas cuilibet anno continuareita quod numquam
redacte in diem alicubi poneretur,quia secundumhoc, si annus precedens incipit a
mane, secundus a meridie,tertiusa vespere, quartusa medianocte, et sic feria sanctorumvariantur,et ita principiumIanuariiposset ascenderequod esset circa equinoctium vernale et ulterius, ita quod principiumanni esset in tam longis diebus sicut sit
dies soisticii estivalis, ideo provisumest ut sex hore excrescentes in primo anno et
sex in secundo et sex in tercio transferanturad sex horas quarti anni, et erunt in
quartoanno .XXIIII. hore, id est unus dies sic particularitercollectus, et interponitur
Februario,quia mensiumbrevissimusest.8
The Compotus minor, which Southern rightly places second in order, exists
only in Dublin, Trinity College MS 441 (ca. 1325), folios 104v-1 1 Ir. It is ascribed
to Grosseteste (somewhat ambiguously) in the table of contents, written by a
coeval hand, but not in the text. On close inspection, the Compotus minor turns
out not to be a separate work at all, but a condensation, sometimes by paraphrase, sometimes by omission, of the Compotus I. There is no reason to believe
that Grosseteste had any hand in this abridgment. It was made by someone who
wanted a useful, uncomplicated computus without the alternative procedures,
redundant mnemonics, illustrative material, and confusing questions that Grosseteste had introduced into the Compotus I. It begins: "Those matters that were
left out of the other treatise on the computus, or that were presented less clearly
or otherwise, can be found here."9 If we assume that the "other treatise on the
6 "Sed nota quod licet hec subtractiosit ab auctoribusautentica,tamen in se multiplicemhabet
questionis scrupulumet falsitatisadmixtionem,que alias pro loco et temporeverificabimus":ibid.,
fol. 73v. The saltus lune is the extra day that must be insertedin the last year of the nineteen-year
solar cycle.
7 Southern,Robert Grosseteste(cit. n. 2), pp. 63-82.
8 Oxford,Bodl. MS 679, fol 68r-v. See the discussionof Grosseteste'sstyle in RobertGrosseteste,
De cessatione legalium, ed. RichardC. Dales and EdwardB. King (London:OxfordUniv. Press,
1986),pp. xv, xxix.
9 "Que vel dimissa sunt in alio tractatucompoti vel minus lucide vel aliter dicta quam ibi, hic
reperiripossunt":Dublin, TrinityCollege MS 441, fol. 104v. See Southern,Robert Grosseteste(cit.

n. 2), p. 128; and Thomson, Writings of Grosseteste (cit. n. 1), pp. 95, 97.

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GROSSETESTE'S COMPUTI

77

computus" is the Compotus I, as Southern claimed, the statement makes no

sense, since the Compotusminorcontains nothing,aside from the marginalnotation "scilicet 44," that is not in the CompotusI, and it sometimes states things
less clearly (not more)but never otherwisethanthe CompotusI. Muchless could
it refer, as Thomson claimed, to the Compotus correctorius, a much more sophisticatedwork than either the CompotusI or the Compotusminor. We have no
way of knowing what other treatise on the computusis meant, but a likely suggestion is that an earliercopyist of the work than the scribe of the Dublin manuscript, having copied out some such treatise that he found unsatisfactory,added
the Compotus minor as a corrective. Whether he or someone else made the
condensation I can see no way of determining.There are several other places
where the text says that the rules for doing a particularcomputation may be
found in the other computus. Moreton, creditingI. S. Robinsonwith the suggestion, holds that in these cases the Dublin scribe is referringto the Compotus
correctorius, which he has just copied out. This is entirely possible. But we
cannot make the same assumptionabout the computusreferredto in the opening
sentence, given the characterof the Compotuscorrectorius.
Thomson dated the Compotusminor 1244because in the marginopposite the
phrase "from the birth of the Lord there have elapsed one thousand and two
hundredyears and more than that," the scribe or annotatorhas written "scilicet
44." This marginaladditiondoes not appearin the text at the correspondingpart
of the CompotusI, and it clearly does not refer to the composition date of that
treatise. Moreton, arguingthat the Compotusminor is a condensationof Sacrobosco's De anni ratione, suggests that the date may have been inferredby the
scribe from an anonymousline of verse, ".M. Christibis .C. quaterdeno quater
anno," which someone added to the quotationfrom Boethius's De consolatione
philosophiae 3.9 that concludes both De anni ratione and the Compotus minor.

This may be. It is also possible that the marginalnote refers to the date when the
abridgmentwas made. But these are only guesses. All we can say for certain is
that it does not refer to the compositiondate of the Compotusminor. In fact, as I
have suggested, the Compotusminor should be regardedmerely as a condensation of the CompotusI made sometime after the composition of the latter and
before circa 1325, when the Dublin manuscriptwas written.
We know, on the evidence of Oxford MS Bodleian, Savile 21, that by
1215-1216Grosseteste had come into contact with a considerableamountof Arabic astronomy. In this manuscriptGrosseteste has written out, in his own distinctive hand, several works of Thebit (Thabitibn Qurra), some Arabic astronomical tables (including eclipse tables), and several astrological tables and
diagrams.The date that Grosseteste copied this materialcan be determinedfrom
internal evidence as 1215-1216.10This provides a terminus ante quem for the
CompotusI, since that treatise shows no knowledgeof Arabicastronomybeyond
the fact that the Arabs began the day at noon and the year at the summer solstice. Grosseteste had promisedin the CompotusI that he would look into some
of the traditionalcomputisticalproblemswhen he got a chance; the works copied
in the Savile manuscriptshow that he got the chance by about 1215.
The resultingwork was the Compotus correctorius.This is a much more advanced work than the CompotusI. It retains many of the mnemonicverses and
some of the wording of the earlier work, but its focus is on solving the most
10

See S. Harrison Thomson, Latin Bookhands of the Later Middle Ages, 1100-1500 (Cambridge:

CambridgeUniv. Press, 1969),plate 89, where a specimenleaf is reproduced.One of the diagramsis

labeled: "Hec est figuraconiunccionissatumi et iovis annis arabis612 profectis mensibus5 diebus
20," which correspondsto 1215-1216.See also the discussionof the Savile manuscriptin Thomson,
Writings of Grosseteste, pp. 30-33.

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RICHARD C. DALES

78

serious problemsof the computusratherthanprovidinga handyelementarymanual for provincial clergy. Its chapter headings immediatelysignify its more advanced purpose:
1. De causa bissexti et de modis magis verificandikalendarium,et de ratione inveniendi annumbissextilem. 4. De ostensione erroriskalendariinostri in sumptioneprimationum,et in positione cicli novadecimaliset cicli epactarum,et de modo sumendi
primacionessecundumveritatem.5. De modo extrahendiannos et menses Arabumex
annis Christi. ... 10. De ostensione erroris nostri in sumptioneterminorumet locorum festorummobilium,et de modo sumenditerminoset loca festorummobilium
secundum doctrinamkalendariinostri. 11. De ratione compositionis tabularumad
inveniendafesta mobilia."

This computus is firmlybased on the best astronomicalworks, both Greek and

Arabic, translatedduringthe precedinghalf century. It refers to Aristotle several
times without mentioninga title; probably the Metaphysica vetus is meant. It
makes considerableuse of Ptolemy'sAlmagest, with one specific citation,Almagest 4.2. The Arabs are also much in evidence, with citations of Thebit, "Abrachis" (possibly a corruptionof cAli ibn Abi al-Rijal),Albategni(al-Battani),Arzachel (al-Zarqali),the Toledan Tables, and most interestingly, Alpetragius
(al-Bitrfiji).In Chapter 1 Grosseteste says that Alpetragiushas recently found a
way to explain "how it is possible to save the processions and stations and retrogradationsof the planets, and the reflexions and inflexions and other appearances in the mannerof Aristotle, and without the eccentric and epicycle."12Alpetragius's De motu celorum, written in about 1185, had been translatedinto
Latin by MichaelScot in 1217.Thus we need only allow enoughtime for Grosseteste to have read this work (or heard about it, since he does not reproduceany
of the technical details), to assign a terminus post quem for the Compotus cor-

rectorius.13Circa 1220is about as close as we can come. Grosseteste treated his

new authoritieswith the same criticalacumenas he did the traditionalones: they
were not to be accepted without reservationsimply because they were the latest
thing. But he recognizedtheir general superiorityto the traditionalmaterialsand
used them to good effect in correctingthe errorsof the older computi.
This leaves only the Kalendariumto be considered, and it may be disposed of
briefly. Thomson assigned the work to Grosseteste on the basis of several late
thirteenth-centurymanuscriptascriptionsand because, he says, Grosseteste explicitly referred to his own Kalendarium in the Compotus correctorius and the

Compotusminor.14But there are many more unascribed than ascribed manuscripts of the Kalendarium,and the ascriptionswe do have are too late to be
trustworthy.Moreover, it is simply not true that Grosseteste referredto his Kalendarium in his computi. The phrase "our calendar" often appears in these
works, but always in the sense of "the ecclesiastical calendarin common use."
Finally, Moreton has pointed out that this Kalendariumis nearly identical with
that of Roger of Hereford.
This study, I hope, has clarified some problems concerning Robert Grosseteste's computisticalworks. The most importantquestionis his authorshipof the
CompotusI and its date. I thinkwe may be reasonablysure that Grosseteste was
Opera ... Rogeri Baconis, ed. Steele (cit. n. 1), pp. 212-213.
Ibid., pp. 235 (Almagestcitation),217 (quotation).
13 For the Latin version see al-Bitrfiji,
De motibuscelorum,ed. FrancisJ. Carmody(Berkeley/Los
Angeles: Univ. CaliforniaPress, 1952).For the Hebrewand Arabicversions and Englishtranslation
see al-Bitrtiji,On the Principlesof Astronomy,ed. BernardR. Goldstein,2 vols. (New Haven, Conn.:
Yale Univ. Press, 1971).See also Southern,RobertGrosseteste(cit. n. 2), pp. 130-131.
14 Thomson,
Writingsof Grosseteste(cit. n. 1), p. 106.
12

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GROSSETESTE'SCOMPUTI

79

the author. The similaritiesbetween this computus and Sacrobosco's De anni

ratione can more easily be explained by assuming that Sacrobosco used the
CompotusI than the other way around;it is also possible that both men simply
appropriatedcommon computisticlore. There is nothinginnovativein the Compotus I except the author's more than usual concern about the errors in the
calendar. Even his computationof the time lag as one day in 120 years is not
original. The treatment of errors in the calendar was part of the computistic
tradition.It is not the fact that such concernsarise, but the mannerin which they
are expressed, that points to Grosseteste as the authorof the CompotusI. The
date of this treatise, on the basis of the date given in the calculationson folio 69v,
should, it seems to me, be placed shortlyafter 1200.
The Compotus minor is an abridgment, not of De anni ratione, but of the
CompotusI. It omits the redundant,illustrative,and confusingmaterialand appeals to the contents of anothercomputusto supplyrulesfor variouscomplicated
calculations,thus saving the scnrbethe troubleof copying them. In no way does
it augment or correct either the Compotus I or the Compotus correctorius.
The Compotus correctorius fulfills the promise of the Compotus I that the

authorwill returnto the difficultproblemsof the traditionalcomputusat a later

date. The Savile manuscriptand the use in the Compotuscorrectoriusof Alpetragius'sDe motu celorumindicatethat Grossetestehad alreadybegun the study
of Arabic astronomyby 1215-1216and probablycomposed the Compotus correctorius around 1220.

This study should provide a firmerbasis for the study of Grosseteste's other
astronomical works: De impressionibus aeris, De motu supercaelestium, and De
sphaera.

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