Radulphus Hobius (Ralph Hoby, fl. 1414-1453)

Radulphus Hobius (Ralph Hoby, fl. 1414-1453) OM. English friar. Holby was a friar minor at Hereford in 1414. In april of that year he was ordained an acolyte at Whitbourne church, and he was ordained subdeadon in Hereford cathedral on the vigil of Trinity 1415. According to notes made by the astronomer William Worcester, Holby was later active with astronomical matters at Oxford, where he also obtained a doctrate in theology. A papal letter from 1453 adressed to ‘Ralph Hony, Friar Minor/ grants him a dispensation at the petition of Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, to hold for life any benefice with cure, even if a parish church [ Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers, Papal Letters, 10, A.D. 1447-1455 (London, 1915), 137. Maybe Holby was at that moment in time confessor in Warwick’s household? He worked on a star catalogue, and he is the author of a previously unidentified 1437 treatise on medical astronomy and astrology: Tractatus phisice astronomice ad magnam securitatem exercitii artis medicine per solitudinem ffratris Radulphi Hoby .

Works

• Tractatus phisice astronomice ad magnam securitatem exercitii artis medicine per solitudinem fratris Radulphi Hoby : mss BL, Harley MS 3542 ff. 103-110 and Wolfenbüttel HAB Cod. Guelf.51.9. Aug.4o. See: L.E. Voigts, ‘Wolfenbüttel HAB Cod. Guelf.51.9. Aug.4o and BL, Harley MS. 3542: Complementary Witnesses to Ralph Hoby’s 1437 Treatise on Astronomical Medicine’, Electronic British Library Journal , Article 10 (2008) [www.bl.uk/eblj/2008articles/article10.html]. Both manuscripts go back to an older original. As we have it now, it amounts to a treatise in 16 questions or short chapters.

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Literature