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‘The Service of Astronomy’: European star-gazing and its implications in the Middle Ages (2024)
Journal Article
Gasper, G. (2024). ‘The Service of Astronomy’: European star-gazing and its implications in the Middle Ages. Journal of Physics: Conference Series, 2877, Article 012029. https://doi.org/10.1088/1742-6596/2877/1/012029

What follows is an exploration of medieval European astronomy focussing on the twelfth and thirteenth centuries as a period of significant change in terms of technologies and learning largely via the inheritance from Greek and Islamicate astronomical... Read More about ‘The Service of Astronomy’: European star-gazing and its implications in the Middle Ages.

“In the shape of a cooking pot over the fire”: Records of solar prominences in the 1180s (2023)
Journal Article
Gasper, G. E., & Tanner, B. K. (2023). “In the shape of a cooking pot over the fire”: Records of solar prominences in the 1180s. Endeavour, 47(3), Article 100875. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.endeavour.2023.100875

The second half of the 1180s witnessed an unusual number of solar eclipses visible within Europe in quick succession. These were recorded or referenced in a wide range of sources, from chronicles in Latin and Old Church Slavonic to the earliest epic... Read More about “In the shape of a cooking pot over the fire”: Records of solar prominences in the 1180s.

A cooking pot lit by fire (2023)
Journal Article
Gasper, G. E. M., & Tanner, B. K. (2023). A cooking pot lit by fire. Astronomy and Geophysics, 64(1), 1.36-1.37. https://doi.org/10.1093/astrogeo/atac091

Recent research into the records of eclipses in the Chronicle of the English monk, Gervase of Canterbury, has indicated that an entry for the year 1187 C.E. may contain a description of solar prominences being visible during the total eclipse of that... Read More about A cooking pot lit by fire.

A Marvellous Sign and A Fiery Globe: A Medieval English Report of Ball Lightning (2022)
Journal Article
Gasper, G. E., & Tanner, B. K. (2022). A Marvellous Sign and A Fiery Globe: A Medieval English Report of Ball Lightning. Weather, 77(7), 232-234. https://doi.org/10.1002/wea.4144

We describe an entry in a twelfth century monastic chronicle, compiled and composed by Gervase of Canterbury (c. 1145–c. 1210), which gives a credible description of ball lightning. It predates the earliest known report of the phenomenon from England... Read More about A Marvellous Sign and A Fiery Globe: A Medieval English Report of Ball Lightning.

Magnifying Grains of Sand, Seeds, and Blades of Grass: Optical Effects in Robert Grosseteste’s De iride (On the Rainbow) (circa 1228–1230) (2021)
Journal Article
White, R. C., Gasper, G. E., McLeish, T. C., Tanner, B. K., Harvey, J. S., Sønnesyn, S. O., Young, L. K., & Smithson, H. E. (2021). Magnifying Grains of Sand, Seeds, and Blades of Grass: Optical Effects in Robert Grosseteste’s De iride (On the Rainbow) (circa 1228–1230). Isis: A Journal of the History of Science Society, 112(1), 93-107. https://doi.org/10.1086/713724

In his treatise On the Rainbow (De iride), composed nearly four hundred years before the first known telescope, the English polymath Robert Grosseteste identified three striking optical effects: distant objects can be rendered close by; close-by larg... Read More about Magnifying Grains of Sand, Seeds, and Blades of Grass: Optical Effects in Robert Grosseteste’s De iride (On the Rainbow) (circa 1228–1230).

‘The Moon Quivered Like a Snake’: A Medieval Chronicler, Lunar Explosions, and a Puzzle for Modern Interpretation (2020)
Journal Article
Gasper, G. E., & Tanner, B. K. (2020). ‘The Moon Quivered Like a Snake’: A Medieval Chronicler, Lunar Explosions, and a Puzzle for Modern Interpretation. Endeavour, 44(4), Article 100750. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.endeavour.2021.100750

Despite some scepticism, the suggestion by Hartung in 1976 that the report in the chronicle of Gervase of Canterbury corresponded to a meteorite impact with the moon in 1178, creating the Giordano Bruno crater, retains considerable support, particula... Read More about ‘The Moon Quivered Like a Snake’: A Medieval Chronicler, Lunar Explosions, and a Puzzle for Modern Interpretation.

Bernard of Clairvaux, Material and Spiritual Order, and the Economy of Salvation (2019)
Journal Article
Gasper, G. E. (2019). Bernard of Clairvaux, Material and Spiritual Order, and the Economy of Salvation. Journal of Medieval History, 45(5), 580-596. https://doi.org/10.1080/03044181.2019.1658617

This article explores themes connected to the spiritual and the material, especially in connection with order and economy, in the thought of the Cistercian abbot Bernard of Clairvaux (1090/1–1153). It argues that these themes are particularly useful... Read More about Bernard of Clairvaux, Material and Spiritual Order, and the Economy of Salvation.

Bow-shaped Caustics from Conical Prisms: a 13th Century Account of Rainbow Formation from Robert Grosseteste’s De iride (2017)
Journal Article
Harvey, J., Smithson, H., Siviour, C., Gasper, G. E., Sonnesyn, S. O., Tanner, B. K., & McLeish, T. (2017). Bow-shaped Caustics from Conical Prisms: a 13th Century Account of Rainbow Formation from Robert Grosseteste’s De iride. Applied Optics, 56(19), G197-G204. https://doi.org/10.1364/ao.56.00g197

The rainbow has been the subject of discussion across a variety of historical periods and cultures, and numerous optical explanations have been suggested. Here, we further explore the scientific treatise De iride [On the Rainbow] written by Robert Gr... Read More about Bow-shaped Caustics from Conical Prisms: a 13th Century Account of Rainbow Formation from Robert Grosseteste’s De iride.

Salsamenta pictavensium: Gastronomy and Medicine in Twelfth-Century England (2016)
Journal Article
Gasper, G. E., & Wallis, F. (2016). Salsamenta pictavensium: Gastronomy and Medicine in Twelfth-Century England. The English Historical Review, 131(553), 1353-1385. https://doi.org/10.1093/ehr/cex013

This article presents a collection of culinary recipes from a manuscript produced in England from the later twelfth century. The suite of ten recipes for ‘Poitou sauces’ or ‘Poitou relishes’ (salsamenta pictavensium—literally ‘of the Poitevins’) to g... Read More about Salsamenta pictavensium: Gastronomy and Medicine in Twelfth-Century England.

Listening Between the Lines: Medieval and Modern Science (2016)
Journal Article
Gasper, G., McLeish, T. C., & Smithson, H. E. (2016). Listening Between the Lines: Medieval and Modern Science. Palgrave communications, 2, Article 16062. https://doi.org/10.1057/palcomms.2016.62

In this article the investigators of the Ordered Universe project will reflect on how a diverse range of disciplinary perspectives essential for effective research into medieval science have been identified, acknowledged and absorbed into a genuinely... Read More about Listening Between the Lines: Medieval and Modern Science.

All the colours of the rainbow (2014)
Journal Article
Smithson, H. E., Gasper, G. E., & McLeish, T. C. (2014). All the colours of the rainbow. Nature Physics, 10(8), 540-542. https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys3052

Our perception of colour has always been a source of fascination, so it's little wonder that studies of the phenomenon date back hundreds of years. What, though, can modern scientists learn from medieval literature — and how do we go about it?

A medieval multiverse?: Mathematical modelling of the thirteenth century universe of Robert Grosseteste (2014)
Journal Article
Bower, R., McLeish, T., Tanner, B., Smithson, H., Panti, C., Lewis, N., & Gasper, G. (2014). A medieval multiverse?: Mathematical modelling of the thirteenth century universe of Robert Grosseteste. Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, 470(2167), Article 40025. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspa.2014.0025

In his treatise on light, written about 1225, Robert Grosseteste describes a cosmological model in which the universe is created in a big-bang-like explosion and subsequent condensation. He postulates that the fundamental coupling of light and matter... Read More about A medieval multiverse?: Mathematical modelling of the thirteenth century universe of Robert Grosseteste.

Color-coordinate system from a 13th-century account of rainbows (2014)
Journal Article
Smithson, H., Anderson, P., Dinkova-Bruun, G., Gasper, G., Laven, P., McLeish, T., …Tanner, B. (2014). Color-coordinate system from a 13th-century account of rainbows. Journal of the Optical Society of America A, 31(4), A341-A349. https://doi.org/10.1364/josaa.31.00a341

We present a new analysis of Robert Grosseteste’s account of color in his treatise De iride (On the Rainbow), dating from the early 13th century. The work explores color within the 3D framework set out in Grosseteste’s De colore [see J. Opt. Soc. Am.... Read More about Color-coordinate system from a 13th-century account of rainbows.

Money and its use in the thought and experience of Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury (1093–1109) (2012)
Journal Article
Gasper, G., & Gullbekk, S. (2012). Money and its use in the thought and experience of Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury (1093–1109). Journal of Medieval History, 38(2), 155-182. https://doi.org/10.1080/03044181.2012.676435

This article explores aspects of a broader question: what money meant to the inhabitants of north-western Europe in the late eleventh and early twelfth century, evidence for its use, and how it was conceptualised and discussed. The existence of money... Read More about Money and its use in the thought and experience of Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury (1093–1109).