Did a medieval flying monk spot Halley’s comet, twice? It’s complicated

中世纪的“飞行僧侣”曾两次观测到哈雷彗星吗？情况很复杂

Early in the 11th century, a young Benedictine monk named Eilmer jumped from the 150-foot tower of his abbey in the small English town of Malmesbury, wearing a pair of crude wings he’d fashioned from willow wood and cloth. Eilmer managed to glide a good 600 feet, passing over the city wall before crash-landing in a small valley near the river Avon. The fall broke both his legs, crippling him. Malmesbury Abbey still boasts a stained-glass window in honor of Brother Eilmer.

11世纪初，一位名叫埃尔默（Eilmer）的年轻本笃会僧侣从英国马姆斯伯里小镇修道院150英尺高的塔楼上一跃而下，他戴着一副用柳木和布料制成的简陋翅膀。埃尔默成功滑翔了约600英尺，飞越了城墙，随后坠落在埃文河附近的一个小山谷里。这次坠落摔断了他的双腿，使他成了残疾。至今，马姆斯伯里修道院仍保留着一扇纪念埃尔默修士的彩色玻璃窗。

This legendary experiment in medieval aviation comes to us via 12th-century historian William of Malmesbury in an account written circa 1125, although William neglected to provide future historians with an exact date for the feat. But William does mention another key episode in Eilmer’s life when the monk was “advanced in years”: Eilmer witnessed Halley’s comet in 1066, commenting, “It is long since I saw you.”

这一中世纪航空史上的传奇实验，源于12世纪历史学家马姆斯伯里的威廉（William of Malmesbury）在公元1125年左右写下的记载，尽管威廉并未给后世历史学家留下这一壮举的确切日期。但威廉确实提到了埃尔默晚年生活中的另一个关键片段：埃尔默在1066年目睹了哈雷彗星，并评论道：“我见到你已是很久以前的事了。”

Some historians have interpreted this to mean that Eilmer saw Halley’s comet on an earlier fly-by in 989, when he would have been a young boy. Assuming Eilmer was at least five years old in 989, he would have been born no later than 984. This would make Eilmer in his 80s in 1066, with his attempt at flight—which occurred when he was “in his first youth”—likely falling between 1000 and 1010.

一些历史学家将其解读为：埃尔默在989年哈雷彗星上一次回归时曾见过它，当时他还是个小男孩。假设埃尔默在989年时至少五岁，那么他出生不晚于984年。这意味着埃尔默在1066年时已是80多岁的高龄，而他“在青春年少时”进行的飞行尝试，很可能发生在1000年至1010年之间。

However, it’s an estimate that is based on a lot of assumption, according to James Aitcheson of the University of Leicester, who argues in a paper published in the journal Notes and Queries that Eilmer may have seen a different comet altogether in his youth—the comet of 1018. If so, he would have been born much later and the date of his flight would have occurred between the 1020s and 1040s.

然而，莱斯特大学的詹姆斯·艾奇逊（James Aitcheson）认为，这一估算基于大量假设。他在《注释与查询》（Notes and Queries）期刊上发表论文指出，埃尔默年轻时看到的可能完全是另一颗彗星——1018年的彗星。如果是这样，他的出生日期会晚得多，而他飞行的时间则应在1020年代至1040年代之间。

The comet of 1018 would have been visible in the British isles for about two weeks in the fall, per Aitcheson, and Eilmer may have merely assumed that it was the same as his 1066 observation of Halley’s comet, which left him “crouching in terror at the gleaming star.” Aitcheson suggests Eilmer could have been born in the early 1010s, making him over 50 in 1066, technically still consistent with William of Malmesbury’s description of Eilmer as being advanced in years.

据艾奇逊称，1018年的彗星在秋季于不列颠群岛可见约两周，埃尔默可能只是误以为它与自己1066年观测到的哈雷彗星是同一颗，当时那颗彗星让他“对着闪耀的星辰惊恐地蜷缩起来”。艾奇逊推测埃尔默可能出生于1010年代初，这意味着他在1066年时已年过五十，从技术上讲，这仍然符合马姆斯伯里的威廉对埃尔默“年事已高”的描述。

This would also challenge recent speculation that Eilmer understood the periodicity of Halley’s comet centuries before the late 17th century astronomer Edmund Halley. So should it really be Eilmer’s Comet? Aitcheson thinks not. He acknowledges that Eilmer could have had access to historical records of comet sightings in Britain and Europe, and thus could have spotted the pattern of its cycle among all the other records of comet appearances.

这也挑战了近期的猜测，即埃尔默在17世纪末天文学家埃德蒙·哈雷（Edmund Halley）之前几个世纪就理解了哈雷彗星的周期性。那么，它真的应该被称为“埃尔默彗星”吗？艾奇逊认为不应该。他承认埃尔默可能接触过英国和欧洲关于彗星观测的历史记录，从而可能在所有其他彗星出现的记录中发现了其周期规律。

But the only record we have of Eilmer is through William of Malmesbury, who doesn’t say anything about whether Eilmer was an amateur astronomer. “Indeed, it is not clear that sky-watchers in the Early Middle Ages were able to tell one comet apart from another,” Aitcheson writes in his paper. A later date for Eilmer’s birth also makes it just possible that the monk lived long enough (to age 90) to meet William in person and “directly passed on the story of his pioneering feats of aviation.”

但我们关于埃尔默的唯一记录来自马姆斯伯里的威廉，而威廉并未提及埃尔默是否是一位业余天文学家。“事实上，中世纪早期的观星者是否能够区分不同的彗星，这一点并不明确，”艾奇逊在论文中写道。埃尔默较晚的出生日期也使得这位僧侣有可能活得足够长（到90岁），从而能够亲自见到威廉，并“直接传述了他那开创性的飞行壮举”。