Eilmer of Malmesbury was an 11th-century English Benedictine monk best known for his early attempt at a gliding flight using wings.
Life
Eilmer was a monk of Malmesbury Abbey who wrote on astrology. All that is known of him is from the Gesta regum Anglorum, written by the eminent medieval historian William of Malmesbury in about 1125. Being a fellow monk of the same abbey, William almost certainly obtained his account directly from people who knew Eilmer when he was an old man. Later scholars, such as the Americanhistorian of technologyLynn White, have attempted to estimate Eilmer's date of birth based on a quotation in William's Deeds about Halley's Comet, which appeared in 1066. However, William recorded Eilmer's quotation not to establish his age, but to show that a prophecy was fulfilled when the Normansinvaded England. If Eilmer had seen Halley's Comet 76 years earlier in 989, he could have been born about 984, making him about five or six years old when he first saw the comet, and therefore old enough to remember it. However the periodicity of comets was probably unknown in Eilmer's time, and so his remark "It is long since I saw you" could have referred to a different, later comet. Since it is known that Eilmer was an "old man" in 1066, and that he had made the flight attempt "in his youth", the event is placed some time during the early 11th century, perhaps in its first decade.
The flight
William records that, in Eilmer's youth, he had read and believed the Greek myth of Daedalus. Thus, Eilmer fixed wings to his hands and feet and launched himself from the top of a tower at Malmesbury Abbey: Given the geography of the abbey, his landing site, and the account of his flight, to travel for "more than a furlong" he would have had to have been airborne for about 15 seconds. His exact flightpath is not known, nor how long he was in the air, because today's abbey is not the abbey of the 11th century, when it was probably smaller, although the tower was probably close to the present height. "Olivers Lane", off the present-day High Street and about from the abbey, is reputed locally to be the site where Eilmer landed. That would have taken him over many buildings. Maxwell Woosnam's study concluded that he is more likely to have descended the steep hill off to the southwest of the abbey, rather than the town centre to the south. Eilmer used a bird-like apparatus to glide downwards against the breeze. However, being unable to balance himself forward and backwards, as does a bird by slight movements of its wings, head and legs, he would have needed a large tail to maintain equilibrium. Eilmer could not have achieved true soaring flight, but he might have glided down safely with a tail. Eilmer said he had "forgotten to provide himself with a tail."
Historical traditions and influence
Other than William's account of the flight, nothing has survived of Eilmer's lifetime work as a monk, although his astrological treatises apparently still circulated as late as the 16th century. Based on William's account, the story of Eilmer's flight has been retold many times through the centuries by scholars, encyclopaedists, and proponents of man-powered flight, keeping the idea of human flight alive. These include over the years: Helinand of Froidmont, Alberic of Trois-Fontaines, Vincent of Beauvais, Roger Bacon, Ranulf Higden and the English translators of his work: Henry Knighton, John Nauclerus of Tübingen, John Wilkins, John Milton, and John Wise. More recently, Maxwell Woosnam in 1986 examined in more detail the technical aspects such as materials, glider angles, and wind effects. Contemporaries had developed small drawstring toy helicopters, windmills, and sails for boats while church artists increasingly showed angels with more accurate bird-like wings, detailing the camber that would help develop lift for heavier-than-air flight. Air was accepted as something that could be "worked", and some people believed that humans could fly with physical effort and the right equipment.
