This is the third in a series of posts about the storied history of Halley’s Comet (officially designated 1P/Halley). If you missed the earlier posts, you can still read Part One here and Part Two here.

The first appearance of 1P/Halley subsequent to its momentous AD 1066 apparition occurred in 1145. Like its predecessor, this apparition may have been captured in an artistic rendering. A monk named Eadwine, working at Canterbury Cathedral, is credited with transcribing what has come to be called the Eadwine Psalter–a mid-12th-century copy of a 9th-century illuminated Carolingian Book of Psalms itself known as the Utrecht Psalter. On the bottom of one page of the Eadwine manuscript (see at left), just below the Fifth Psalm, a drawing of a comet appears, accompanied by the following note: “Concerning the star ‘comet’. The star ‘comet’ has a ray such as this, and in English it is called the long-haired star. It appears rarely during the course of many years, and then as a portent.”

As this unusual aside has nothing to do with either the adjacent psalm or the rest of the psalter, it has been assumed Eadwine simply inserted a record of something momentous he personally witnessed at or shortly before the time he was working on this part of the psalter. Given that we know when 1P/Halley appeared in the 12th century, its apparition has been used to date the Eadwine Psalter itself to 1145. This method of dating does require several major assumptions, to wit: that the comet drawing and note were added at the time of Eadwine’s transcription; that the illustration was inspired by the sudden appearance of a comet and was intended as an observation of that particular comet; and that among several other comets known to have been visible in 12th-century England, 1P/Halley is the most likely source of that inspiration. As such, there remain questions as to whether this drawing actually represents Halley’s Comet, and indeed the Eadwine Psalter has been alternatively dated to 1155-60. One possible additional argument in favor of this being an image of 1P/Halley is that a similar fan tail was observed on the most recent (i.e. 1986) apparition (to be covered in a later installment of this series of posts).

Moving on, then, to the 13th Century, it has been claimed that Genghis Khan was so inspired by the 1222 apparition of Halley’s Comet that he came to think of it as his own personal star and saw it as a sign that he should turn his Mongol hordes toward Europe. This might be anecdotal, but it makes for a nice story!

In 1301, the next time the comet made an appearance, it may have been seen by the Italian artist and architect Giotto di Bondone (better known simply as Giotto), who hailed from Florence and was the first in the line of artists whose work defined the Italian Renaissance.  He represented the Star of Bethlehem as a long-tailed, fiery comet in the Nativity section (see at left) of his fresco cycle within the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua. Considered one of the greatest masterpieces of Western art, the frescos were completed in 1305, when 1P/Halley would still have been quite fresh in the artist’s mind.

No historical record, written or artistic, survives of the 1376 apparition–actually rather unusual for 1P/Halley’s appearances over the last millennium.

In contrast, there’s a glut of history surrounding the 1456 apparition. That was the year in which the Ottoman Empire invaded the Balkans, eventually laying siege to Belgrade in July. Pope Calixtus III ordered that special prayers be said for the protection of the city. Writing in his Lives of the Popes 14 years later, the Italian Bartolomeo Platina (aka Sacchi) indicated that “A hairy and fiery star having then made its appearance for several days, the mathematicians declared that there would follow grievous pestilence, dearth and some great calamity. Calixtus, to avert the wrath of God, ordered supplications that if evils were impending for the human race He would turn all upon the Turks, the enemies of the Christian name.” The story received a further embellishment some three centuries later, when a Frenchman disgruntled at the Church claimed Calixtus III had in fact excommunicated Halley’s Comet. While this late-breaking twist almost certainly has no basis in fact, I like the idea of a giant ball of rock, dust, and frozen gases arriving at its appointed hour along with the other excommunicates in Dante’s Purgatory only to crash into Mount Purgatory itself, thus destroying it in a cataclysmic impact.

The 1456 apparition would also have been visible in Ethiopia, providing a compelling explanation for the miraculous light the Emperor Zara Yaqob was said to have seen in the sky and which inspired him to found the city of Debre Berhan (which translates to City of Light). It is claimed the Emperor saw the light as a sign that God approved of his having ordered a group of heretics stoned to death a short time before. A church, and later an extensive nearby palace, were built on the site of the stoning. It should be noted that the traditional date given for the Emperor’s vision of light is the 10th day of the month of Maggabit, which would correspond to March 6 or 7, whereas the comet would have been most visible June 13 through 17 in that year… but what are a few months more or less between comet enthusiasts!

Up next in this series: Part 4: 16th – 18th Centuries

Tagged as: 1P/Halley, Art