gems, Arabic mineralogy, Arabic science, astrolab, astronomy

Borst investigates how Arabic astronomical knowledge reached the Benedictine monastery of Reichenau around the turn of the first millennium. Focusing on the transmission of knowledge concerning the astrolabe, he traces the movement of Arabic astronomical terminology and techniques into Latin scholarly culture and their reception at Reichenau. Particular attention is given to the intellectual environment that later produced Hermann of Reichenau (Hermannus Contractus, 1013–1054) and his writings on the astrolabe. Borst uses surviving manuscript evidence to reconstruct the complicated route by which Arabic scientific learning entered the monastery, presenting Reichenau as an important early center for the assimilation of Islamic astronomy in medieval Europe. The study was subsequently developed much more fully in Borst’s Astrolab und Klosterreform an der Jahrtausendwende (1989).