Arabic Singing Girls, the Pope, and the Astrolabe: Arabic Science in Tenth-Century Latin Europe

Abstract

This article presents a new hypothesis related to the very earliest filtration of Arabic science to the Latin World during the tenth century. Contrary to the beliefs of current scholarship, it argues that the very earliest Latin astronomical texts derived from Arabic sources cannot be considered to be related to the written tradition of the mathematical school of Maslama al-Majrīṭī nor can they be regarded as translations from Arabic. It contends that these texts derive from a non-written Arabic tradition of practical astronomy that existed in al-Andalus before the time of Maslama. It offers new evidence supporting the thesis that such a tradition existed, and argues that traces of it can also be detected in the teaching of Gerbert of Aurillac, as described by Richer of Reims. It concludes with an alternative explanation of the very earliest filtration of Arabic science to the Latin World and a new reconstruction of the stages of composition for these earliest Latin astronomical texts.