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.