I tired searching for “pommeau de ciel” and “pommeau des cieux”, which not surprisingly I did not recognize in either English or French. Pommel is Pommeau in French. I mostly got hits for shower heads and gear shift knobs… but did find a reference to the original French on Google Books:
https://books.google.com/books?id=BVtcAAAAMAAJ <https://books.google.com/books?id=BVtcAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA108&lpg=PA108&dq=pommeau+de+ciel&source=bl&ots=4NKJk6haHD&sig=ACfU3U0xr9oORL7S6zs-nKRg-NnTizDKfQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiD_trVyqr2AhVlkeAKHacJDbwQ6AF6BAghEAM#v=onepage&q=pommeau%20de%20ciel&f=false> &pg=PA108&lpg=PA108&dq=pommeau+de+ciel&source=bl&ots=4NKJk6haHD&sig=ACfU3U0xr9oORL7S6zs-nKRg-NnTizDKfQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiD_trVyqr2AhVlkeAKHacJDbwQ6AF6BAghEAM#v=onepage&q=pommeau%20de%20ciel&f=false But reading the text, it does appear that “pommel of the sky” could only refer to Polaris, as Steve surmises. That being said, I have to suspect that Guy Marchant came up with this method, that would be beyond the interest the vast majority of shepherds, on his own. A shepherd, who is probably illiterate, is supposed to identify a star and remember to adjust its time position throughout the year? Also, why would he care what time it is at night? Maybe they taught that in advanced shepherd class. Jack From: sundial <sundial-boun...@uni-koeln.de> On Behalf Of Steve Lelievre Sent: Thursday, March 3, 2022 2:17 PM To: sundial@uni-koeln.de Subject: Re: Telling time with a rope? Hi, I think the pommel of the sky refers to the celestial north pole, i.e. where we see the Pole Star or Polaris. Then, on the summer solstice hold a plumb line in front of you such that it obscures the Pole Star, and find another circumpolar that is also hidden by the plumbline. In the rest of the year, the angular displacement of this second star tells you how far from midnight you are, provided you make an adjustment of 1 hour per half month. For the method to work, you need to have established midnight on the summer solstice. This is done by fixing two plumb lines one behind the other, so that they are aligned to the solstice's midday sun, i.e. they show you the meridian. I think the text is saying that on the day of the summer solstice, as the shepherd faces north looking through the plumb lines, if Cancer is seen slightly to the east and Capricorn slightly to the west, then it is midnight (presumably that's only in the British Isles). I got this from a rather quick scan of the text, so I may have missed something. There's also discussion of the learning the rising positions of the signs of the zodiac but I don't quite follow how it relates to the rest. Steve On 2022-03-03 10:11 a.m., Dan-George Uza wrote: Hello, In the "Kalendar and Compost of Shepherds" by Guy Marchant, an illustrated work translated from French into English in the early 1500s, there is a chapter with the following title: "Shepherds practise their quadrant at night as you see by the figure hereafter". Could someone more versed in old English please explain how this technique actually worked? I attach the relevant pages from the 1931 edition. Thanks, -- Dan-George Uza <https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail> Virus-free. <https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail> www.avast.com --------------------------------------------------- https://lists.uni-koeln.de/mailman/listinfo/sundial ///workers.exist.lookout
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