Simon Bredon ( 1300 – 1372) was an English

astronomer An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. Astronomers observe astronomical objects, such as stars, planets, natural satellite, moons, comets and galaxy, galax ...

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...

, and

physician A physician, medical practitioner (British English), medical doctor, or simply doctor is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through the Medical education, study, Med ...

and

priest A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deity, deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in parti ...

. He was a member of the

Merton School The Oxford Calculators were a group of 14th-century thinkers, almost all associated with Merton College, Oxford; for this reason they were dubbed "The Merton School". Their work incorporated a logical and mathematical approach to philosophical p ...

Oxford Oxford () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and non-metropolitan district in Oxfordshire, England, of which it is the county town. The city is home to the University of Oxford, the List of oldest universities in continuou ...

, elected a Fellow of Merton c. 1330, perhaps until the year 1342, having formerly been a member of Balliol. He was a

Doctor of Medicine A Doctor of Medicine (abbreviated MD, from the Latin language, Latin ) is a medical degree, the meaning of which varies between different jurisdictions. In the United States, and some other countries, the ''MD'' denotes a professional degree of ph ...

of the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

. He left manuscripts and scientific instruments to a number of Oxford colleges, perhaps including the bequest of the Oriel astrolabe (c. 1340), which is now in the

Museum of the History of Science The History of Science Museum in Broad Street, Oxford, England, holds a leading collection of scientific instruments from Middle Ages to the 19th century. The museum building is also known as the Old Ashmolean Building to distinguish it from th ...

. He was one of the earliest European mathematicians to work on

trigonometry Trigonometry () is a branch of mathematics concerned with relationships between angles and side lengths of triangles. In particular, the trigonometric functions relate the angles of a right triangle with ratios of its side lengths. The fiel ...

. Authorship of the treatise ''

The equatorie of the planetis ''The Equatorie of the Planetis'' is a 14th-century scientific work which describes the construction and use of an equatorium. It was first studied in the early 1950s by Derek J. Price, and was formerly attributed to Geoffrey Chaucer. However, in ...

'' has been attributed to Bredon, though also to

Geoffrey Chaucer Geoffrey Chaucer ( ; – 25 October 1400) was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for ''The Canterbury Tales''. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". He w ...

or another contemporary. The '' Theorica planetarum'' in the past attributed to him is now thought to be by

Walter Brit Walter Brit (alternatively Brit, Brytte, or Brithus) (fl. 1390), was a fellow of Merton College, Oxford, and the reputed author of several works on astronomy and mathematics, as well as a treatise on surgery. He has also been described as a foll ...

Bibliography

*Larry D. Benson, ''The Riverside Chaucer'' (3rd edn., Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987) *Robert T. Gunther, ''Historic Instruments for the Advancement of Science: A Handbook to the Oxford Collections Prepared for the Opening of the Lewis Evans Collection on May 5, 1925'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1925), pp. 19–20 *Derek J. Price, ed., ''The equatorie of the planetis'' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1955) *F. N. Robinson, ''The works of Geoffrey Chaucer'' (2nd edn., Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1957) *Keith Snedegar, 'Simon Bredon, a Fourteenth-Century Astronomer and Physician', in Lodi Nauta and Arjo Vanderjagt, eds., ''Between Demonstration and Imagination'' (Leiden: Brill, 1999), pp. 285–309 *C. H. Talbot, 'Simon Bredon (c. 1300–1372), Physician, Mathematician and Astronomer', ''British Journal for the History of Science'' 1 (1962), 19–30

References

External links

''Exhibition: The Astrolabe, East and West''
1300s births 1372 deaths 14th-century English mathematicians Alumni of the University of Oxford Fellows of Merton College, Oxford 14th-century English writers 14th-century English astronomers 14th-century English medical doctors {{UK-mathematician-stub