A Treatise on the Astrolabe is a medieval instruction manual on the astrolabe by Geoffrey Chaucer. It describes both the form and the proper use of the instrument, and stands out as a prose technical work from a writer better known for poetry, written in English rather than the more typical Latin. Significance The Treatise is considered the "oldest work in English written upon an elaborate scientific instrument". It is admired for its clarity in explaining difficult concepts – although modern readers lacking an actual astrolabe may find the details of the astrolabe difficult to understand. Robinson believes that it indicates that had Chaucer written more freely composed prose it would have been superior to his translations of Boethius and Renaut de Louhans. Chaucer’s exact source is undetermined but most of his ‘conclusions’ go back, directly or indirectly, to Compositio et Operatio Astrolabii, a Latin translation of Messahala's Arabic treatise of the 8th century. His description of the instrument amplifies Messahala’s, and Chaucer’s indebtedness to Messahala was recognised by John Selden and established by Walter William Skeat. Mark Harvey Liddell held Chaucer drew on De Sphaera of John de Sacrobosco for the substance of his astronomical definitions and descriptions, but the non-correspondence in language suggests the probable use of an alternative compilation. A collotype facsimile of the second part of the Latin text of Messahala (the portion which is parallel to Chaucer's) is found in Skeat’s Treatise On The Astrolabe. and in Gunther's Chaucer and Messahalla on the Astrolabe. Paul Kunitzsch argued that the treatise on the astrolabe long attributed to Messahala was in fact written by Ibn al-Saffar. Language The work is written in free-flowing English of that time (1391), today commonly referred to as middle English. Chaucer explains this departure from the norm thus: "This treatis, ..., wol I shewe the ... in Englissh, for Latyn ne canst thou yit but small" Chaucer proceeds to labour the point somewhat: "Grekes ... in Grek; and to Arabiens in Arabik, and to Jewes in Ebrew, and to Latyn folk in Latyn; whiche Latyn folk had hem [conclusions] first out of othere dyverse languages, and writtem hem in her owne tunge, that is to seyn, in Latyn.". He continues to explain that it easier for a child to understand things in his own language than struggle with unfamiliar grammar, a commonplace idea today but radical in the fourteenth century. Finally, he