Alternate Names
Jean de Meurs; Jehan de Murs; Johannes de Muris; John of Murs
Borndiocese of Lisieux, (Calvados), France, circa1290–1300
Died after 1357
John of Muris paved the way for the Gregorian calendar of 1582 and added basic new ideas to the Castilian Alfonsine Tables, if he was not the initiator of the (Latin) Alfonsine Tables.
Born in an aristocratic family, John studied at the Sorbonne in 1317–1321 and became a magister of the quadrivium. In 1326/1327, he was living at Fontevrault Abbey as a monk. Pope John XXII conferred the benefice of Le Bec Hellouin Abbey to John in 1329, and in 1332/1333 John called himself rector of the school in Evreux, living at the court of Philippe III of Navarre 1337–1342. John travelled continuously, never staying long at any one place, working steadily, and meeting scholars of various fields during his travels. Thus, he was at Mézières-en-Brenne (1342) at Avignon (1344) together with Firminus de Bellavale at the invitation of Pope Clemens VI to...
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Selected References
Besseler, Heinrich (1958). “Johannes de Muris.” In Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, edited by F. Blume. Vol. 7, pp. 105–115. Kassel.
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Gushee, Laurence (1969). “New Sources for the Biography of Johannes de Muris.” Journal of the American Musicological Society 22: 1–26.
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Johannes de Muris (1900). Figura inveniendi sinus kardagarum, edited by Maximilian Curtze. In “Urkunden zur Geschichte der Trigonometrie im christlichen Mittelalter.” Bibliotheca Mathematica, 3rd ser., 1: 321–416, (see pp. 414–416).
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— (1995). Epistola super reformatione antiqui kalendarii, edited by C. Gack-Scheiding. In Johannes de Muris Epistola super reformatione antiqui kalendarii: Ein Beitrag zur Kalenderreform im 14 Jahrhundert. Hannover: Hahnsche Buchhandlung.
— (1998). De arte mensurandi: A Geometrical Handbook of the Fourteenth Century, edited by H. L. L. Busard. Boethius Texts, Vol. 41. Stuttgart: F. Steiner.
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North, John D. (1989). “The Alphonsine Tables in England.” In Stars, Minds and Fate: Essays in Ancient and Medieval Cosmology. London: Hambledon, pp. 327–359.
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— (1988). “The Alfonsine Tables of Alfonso X of Castile.” Journal for the History of Astronomy 19: 97–113.
Schabel, Chris (ed. and comm.) (1996). “John of Murs and Firmin of Beauval’s Letter and Treatise on Calendar Reform for Clemens VI. Text and Introduction.” Cahiers de l’ Institut grec et latin 66: 187–215.
Zaminer, Frieder (ed.) (1990). Geschichte der Musiktheorie. Vol. 3, Rezeption des antiken Fachs im Mittelalter, by M Bernhard et al. Darmstadt: Staatliches Institut für Musikforschung Prenssischer Kulturbesitz Berlin.
Acknowledgment
The author is grateful to Karl W. Butzer (R. C. Dickson Centennial Professor, Austin, Texas) for his critical reading of the manuscript.
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Butzer, P.L. (2014). John of Muris. In: Hockey, T., et al. Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9917-7_727
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