Footnote 77
Supp. Prop., §44. This article and the next may possibly
be Chaucer's. It is well known that he speaks of `collect' and `expans
yeres' and `rotes' in the Frankeleines Tale; Cant. Ta., F 1275, 6, the
note upon which in the glossary to Urry's Chaucer may be found also in
Tyrwhitt's Glossary, s. v. Expans; but it is worth while to repeat
it here. `In this and the following verses, the Poet describes the
Alphonsine Astronomical Tables by the several parts of them, wherein some
technical terms occur, which were used by the old astronomers, and continued
by the compilers of those tables. Collect years are certain
sums of years, with the motions of the heavenly bodies corresponding to
them, as of 20, 40, 60, &c., disposed into tables; and Expans
years are the single years, with the motions of the heavenly bodies answering
to them, beginning at 1, and continued on to the smallest Collect
sum, as 20. A Root, or Radix, is any certain time taken
at pleasure, from which, as an era, the celestial motions are to be computed.
By `proporcionels convenientes' [C.T., F 1078] are meant the Tables of
Proportional parts.' To which Moxon adds, from Chamber's Encyclopædia,
with reference to C.T., F 1277, that `Argument in astronomy is an
arc whereby we seek another unknown arc proportional to [or rather, dependent
upon] the first.'
Tables of mean motions of the Sun are given in Ptolemy's Almagest, lib.
iii. c. 2; of the Moon, lib. iv. c. 3; of the Planets, lib. viii. c. 3;
also in MS. Ii. 3. 3, fol. 88b, &c.