APPENDIX. 117 



The extracts from this calendar are wretchedly trans- 

 cribed, and evidently by one who was totally unacquainted 

 with MSS. 



The clock or albion of Richard de Walingford, of St. 

 Alban's, answered the purpose of a calendar. * This clock 

 made, says Bale, who appears to have seen it, magno 

 labore, majore sumptu, arte vero maxima, was considered 

 the greatest curiosity of its time. In his account of it, 

 which still remains in manuscript, we have the following 

 definitions : — Albion est geometricum instrumentum : al- 

 manac autem arismetricum. Peter Lightfoot's celebrated 

 astronomical clock at Glastonbury may have been something 

 of the same sort. 



Peter de Dacia, about 1300, published a calendar, of 

 which there is a very early MS. in the Savilian library 

 at Oxford : the condiciones planetarum are thus stated — 



Jupiter atque Venus boni, Saturnusque malignus ; 

 Sol et Mercurius cum Luna sunt mediocres. 



The homo signorum, so common in later calendars, 

 probably originated with him. 



The earliest almanac printed in England was the Sheape- 

 hearcFs Kalender, translated from the French, and printed 

 by Richard Pynson, in 1497. It contains a vast portion 

 of extraneous matter. The following verses on the planets 

 will, at the same time, give a good idea of the nature 



• In one almanac of the commencement of the 17th century (MS. Harl. 

 5937. Bagford Collect., s. 139) is a very singular method for finding the hour 

 of the day, if in the country and without any watch. I refer to it merely out 

 of charity to those right-hearted enthusiastic antiquaries who do not stick at 

 trifles in pursuing researches that can in any way illustrate the customs of 

 our ancestors in the good old times. To those who only value the researches 

 of antiquaries in proportion as they are likely to furnish some evident tan- 

 gible utility, I would willingly spare their time in recurring to a method 

 which, though it might excite their ridicule, could never, from its nature, be 

 brought into practice in the present age. 



