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Robert of Chester, fl. between 1140 and 1150 Robert, sometimes also known as Robert of Ketton or Robertus Rettinensis, was active between 1140 and 1150. We know of him first because, together with Hermann of Carinthia, he was engaged by Peter the Venerable, abbot of Cluny, to translate the Qurʾān completed in 1143. He was archdeacon of Pamplona from sometime around 1143. He is also known to have spent time in Barcelona and Tuleda and was evidently in London between 1147 and 1150. His translation of al-Khwārizmī's Algebra completed at Segovia in 1145 introduced not only the word but the techniques of algebra to the Latin West. He was responsible for the revision of several astronomical tables for the meridian of London based upon tables of al-Khwārizmī, al-Zarqāllu and al-Battānī. Hermann of Carinthia identifies him as the translator of the Opus astronomicum of al-Battānī, a work which does not survive. Two treatises, one on the construction of the universal astrolabe and the other on the use of the planispheric astrolabe, also circulated under his name. He was probably also responsible for a redaction of Adelard of Bath's translation of Euclid's Elements. Rober…

Magic I: Introduction When contemporary academics discuss “magic”, in most cases the assumptions which guide their understanding of it are variations on a few influential theories. First, there is the “intellectualist” understanding of magic linked to the names of E.B. Tylor and J.G. Frazer. Tylor, in his foundational Primitive Culture of 1871, defined magic as based upon ‘the error of mistaking ideal analogy for real connexion’ (Tylor 1771, I, 116). Tylor's assumption was that primitive man, ‘having come to associate in thought those things w…