HOLYBUSH, JOHN,
the principal mathematician of his time, better known as Johannes de
Sacrobosco, or Sacrobusto, called also Holywood and Hallifax,
flourished in the thirteenth or fourteenth century. The place of his
birth is a subject of dispute. Leland, Bale, and Camden, contend
that he was a native of Halifax in Yorkshire, while Stainhurst
asserts that his native place was Holywood, near Dublin. On the
other hand, Dempster maintains that he was born in Scotland, and
derived his name from the monastery of Holywood in Nithsdale.
Mackenzie states that after residing a few years in that monastery,
as a canon regular of the order of St. Augustin, he went to Paris,
and was admitted a member of the university there, June 5, 1221
under the syndics of the Scottish nation. According to Sibbald, he
was for some time a fellow-student of the monks of Dryburgh, and
afterwards studied philosophy and mathematics in the university of
Oxford. He was appointed the first professor of mathematics in the
university of Paris. Mackenzie affirms that he died in 1256, but
Bulaeus fixes the date of his death in 1340. – His works are:
De Anni
Rationi, seu de Computo Ecclesiastice; and De Algorismo. Paris,
1498.
The Newe
Testament, both in Latyne and Englyshe, eche correspondente to the
other, after the vulgare Texte, communely called S. Jeromes.
Faythfullye translated by J. H. Southwark, 1538, 4to. Printed by
James Nicholson.
An
Exposicion upon the Songs of the Blessed Virgine Mary, called
Magnificeat. Whereunto are added, The Songes of Salue Regina,
Benedictus, and Nunc Dimittis. Translated out of Latine into Englysh.
South. 1538, fol. Another edition, same year and place, in 8vo.
A most
Excellent and Perfecte Homish Apothecarye; or, Homely Physick Booke,
for all the grefes and diseases of the bodye. Translated out of the
Almaine Speche, into English. Collen, by Arn. Birckman, 1561, fol.
He left
also in manuscript a treatise De Sphara Mundi, first published at
Padua in 1475, and repeatedly reprinted with the illustrations of
various mathematicians of that period. An edition was published at
Paris in 1550, with a preface by Melanethon.
