ars seems difficult to explain in connection
with this eclipse, and therefore he suggests that the annalist has made
a mistake of four years and meant to refer to the eclipse of September
1, 536 A.D., but this does not seem a satisfactory theory.

The year after Pope Martin held a Synod to condemn the Monothelite
heresy, an eclipse of the Sun took place. It is mentioned by Tycho Brahe
in his catalogue of eclipses as having been seen in England. Johnson
gives the date as February 6, 650 A.D., and finds that the Sun was
three-fourths obscured at London at 3.30 p.m.

The _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_ tells us under the year A.D. 664 that, "In
this year the Sun was eclipsed on the 5th of the Nones of May; and
Earcenbryht, King of the Kentish people died and Ecgbryht his son
succeeded to the Kingdom." Kepler thought this eclipse had been total in
England, and Johnson calculating for London found that on May 1, at 5
p.m., there would only have been a very thin crescent of the Sun left
uncovered on the southern limb, so that the line of totality would have
passed across the country some distance to the N. of London.

The eclipse of Dec. 7, A.D. 671, seems to be associated with a comic
tragedy. The Caliph Moawiyah had a fancy to remove Mahomet's pulpit from
Medina to his own residence at Damascus. "He said that the walking-stick
and pulpit of the Apostle of God should not remain in the hands of the
murderers of Othman. Great search was made for the walking-stick, and at
last they found it. Then they went in obedience to his commands to
remove the pulpit, when immediately, to their great surprise and
astonishment, the Sun was eclipsed to that degree that the stars
appeared."[73] Once again the question of visible stars is in some sense
a source of difficulty. Hind found that the eclipse was annular on the
central line. At Medina the greatest phase occurred at 10h. 43m. a.m.
when 85/100ths of the Sun's diameter was obscured. Hind suggests that in
the clear skies of that part of the world such a degree of eclipse might
be sufficient to bring out the brighter planets or stars. At any rate no
larger eclipse visible at Medina occurred about this epoch. Prof. Ockley
seems to refer to this eclipse in making, on the authority of several
Arabian writers, the mention he does of an eclipse in the quotation just
given.

Perhaps this will be a convenient place to bring in some remarks on
certain Arabian observations of eclipses only made known