Doubts about the Calendar Bede and the Eclipse of 664 By Jennifer Moreton* ABSTRACT The thesis of this article is that Bede’s great work on time reckoning, the De temporum ratione (A.D. 725), contains the seeds of later calendar reform. The year 664 was distin guished not only by the Synod of Whitby, after which the Northumbrian Church conformed to the Roman method of calculating Easter, but by an event of computistical significance— the solar eclipse on I May. Since this date showed the Roman reckoning to be inaccurate, it was altered to 3 May. Bede knew of this alteration and was uneasy about it. He at first attempted to justify the ecclesiastical dating, although eyewitness accounts showed it to be wrong, and later, by referring to the Acta synodi, a document used by the Irish to justify their Easter reckoning, implied how a solution to the problem might be found. In the eleventh century, Gerland spelled out the heterodox ideas at which Bede had only hinted. HE SYNOD OF WHITBY, after which the church in Northumbria conformed to the Roman practice in the Easter reckoning, took place, it is generally agreed, in the year 664." Daniel McCarthy and Aidan Breen have argued that the juxtaposition of this event with a solar eclipse that could provide important computistical data was not coincidental. After the acceptance of the Roman reckoning, the date of the eclipse seems to have been adjusted to bring it into line with the Dionysian 19-year cycle. The eclipse, which was reported accurately as occurring at the ninth hour on 1 May in the Annals of Ulster and other Irish annals, is assigned to 3 May in Bede’s writings and in other related annals. Ussher was probably the first to point out the adjustment of the date to the Dionysian reckoning, which from the eighth century onward became the basis of the standard Western ecclesiastical calendar, assigning the alteration to Bede himself. ® Dublin Institute of Technology, Kevin Street, Dublin 8, Ireland. “FM, Stenton’s date of 663, advanced in Anglo-Saxon England, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1973), p- 123, was corrected in Paul Grosjean, “La date du Colloque de Whitby,” Analecta Bollandiana, 1960, 78:233- 274, on p. 248. In this essay I have retained the name “synod,” although it is called variously a “colloquium” ‘or a “councit” in secondary sources. 2 See Daniel McCarthy and Aidan Breen, “An Evaluation of Astronomical Observations in the Irish Annals,” Vistas in Astronomy, 1997, 41:117-138, on p. 130: “The eclipse preceded the synod and the latter was in fact precipitated by the former.” The eclipse is recorded on 1 May in The Annals of Ulster, ed. Séan Mac Airt and Gearéid Mac Nicaill (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1983), p. 34: “Te{ne]brae in kalendis maii in nona hora (i.e, 3:00 pxt].” McCarthy and Breen vouch for the accuracy of the Irish data, Usher's comment is recorded in Britannicarum ecclesiarum antiquitates: Works, Vol. 6, ed. C. R. Elrington (1864), p. 516; but Daniel McCarthy, whose interest and encouragement I gratefully acknowledge, has pointed out to me that Ussher was relying on Petavius. Isis, 1998, 89:50-65 (© 1998 by The History of Science Society. All rights reserved, (0021-1753/98/8901-000302,00JENNIFER MORETON Si Ina recent article in isis I suggested that in his major calendar work, the De temporum ratione, Bede chose not to spell out the difficulties with the Dionysian dating of the Incarnation because he had already been accused of heresy for promulgating an unorthodox calculation of the annus mundi, It was left to a later computist to do this.’ Yet Bede’s uneasiness with the Dionysian data is manifest. It is the thesis of this essay that Bede knew the correct date of the 664 eclipse and that, while he was not responsible for the adjustment, his knowledge of the true date contributed to his unease, particularly since if the eclipse fell on 1 rather than 3 May it would be in line with the date of the Resurrection proposed in the Acta synodi, a document that was well known to the Irish. Bede's treatment of this, problem had, as I shall show, important implications for later calendar reform. Bede's Ecclesiastical History is the sole source for the Synod of Whitby, apart from Eddius’s Life of Wilfrid. Bede assigns the synod to the year 664 but gives no more exact date. The synod took place at the behest of Oswy, king of the Northumbrians, whose celebration of Easter differed from that of his Kentish-bor wife. But controversy had rumbled on for some time before: it had stayed underground during Aidan’s time because of the bishop of Lindisfarne’ s saintliness but was exacerbated after his death in 651 because of the quarrel between Wilfrid and the former adherents of the Irish customs at Ripon, whom he had ousted.’ Although it is impossible to date the synod precisely, it must have happened either shortly before, during, or soon after the eclipse, which, as has been said, Irish annals date correctly to 1 May. (See Figure 1.) Whenever in 664 the eclipse happened, it is difficult to understand why neither Bede nor Eddius mentions it in the context of the synod. Bede ‘was not born until 673, but his teacher Ceolfrid, who was ordained priest by Wilfrid at Ripon, was in a position to know what was happening at Whitby. Charles W. Jones says that nobody remembers dates, but this one was notable, especially for anyone with North- umbrian connections. And it occurred on a day that was in itself memorable, being the kalends of the month and the feast of Saints Philip and James.° Paul Grosjean, who con- Bede's De temporum ratione was edited by Charles W. Jones in Bedae Opera de temporibus, ed. Jones (Cambridge, Mass.: Medieval Academy of America, 1943). (Hereafter it will be cited as Bede, De femporum ‘ratione, ed. Jones; this citation will also be used for Jones's introduction and notes.) For the suggestion about Bede's difficulties with the Dionysian dating and the “later computist” see Jennifer Moreton, “Before Grosseteste: Roger of Hereford and Calendar Reform in Eleventh- and Twelfth-Century England,” Isis, 1995, 86:562~586. “Bruno Krusch, “Der 84jahrige Ostercyclus und seine Quellen,” in Studien zur christlich-mittelalterlichen Chronologie (Leipzig, 1880), pp. 306-309, prints the recension of the Acta synodi transcribed by Bucheriu from Oxford, Bodleian Library MS 309. According to Jones, this was “the computus used by Bede and his foreru ners”: Charles W. Jones, “The ‘Lost’ Sirmond Manuscript of Bede's ‘Computus,’ ” English Historical Review, 1937, 52:204-219, on p. 208, 5 Bede's Ecclesiastical History ofthe English People, ed, Bertram Colgrave and R. A. B. Mynors (pt., Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1991) (hereafter cited as Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, ed. Colgrave and Mynors), 3.25, pp. 294-308; and The Life of Bishop Wilfrid by Eddius Stephanus, ed. and trans. Colgrave (Cambridge: Cam- bridge Univ. Press, 1927), give accounts of the synod, which Bede assigns to 664 at 3.26, Jones states, “The variations of Bede and Eddius show that neither was working from an exact transcript of proceedings, and it is doubtful whether any transcript ever existed, for the synod was not formal”: Bede, De temporum ratione, ed Jones, p. 103. Grosjean says that Ennius was Bede's “only documentary source” but that he probably also asked Wilfrid directly about the synod: Grosjean, “Date du Colloque de Whitby” (cit. n. 1), pp. 247 n4, 233 n 5. For the replacement of those who followed Irish customs at Whitby see Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, ed. Colgrave ‘and Mynors, 3.25, p. 296. ©The Anonymous Life of Ceolfrth, Abbot of Jarrow,” in English Historical Documents, Vol. 1, ed. Dorothy Whitelock (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1955), pp. 758-770, on p. 759, details his ordination. Charles W. Jones, Saints” Lives and Chronicles in Earty England (Hamden, Conn.: Archon, 1947), p. 38, suggests that “dates carried in the mind are easily confused and forgotten,” but the date of this event was surely likely to be remem- bered. Fist of all, it was dramatic: F. R. Stephenson, in personal communication to Daniel McCarthy, computed the track of the 664 eclipse and showed that it was fully total at Whitby and clearly evident at monasteries52 DOUBTS ABOUT THE CALENDAR e D Dunadd St. Andrews Tona te Edinburgh Dumbarton e Lindisfame a 3 5 % p | Jarrow Wearmouth NHartlepool Whitby: Anglesea (Z Mercia | Lichfield @ Figure 1. A schematic view of the path of totality of the eclipse of 1 May 664 over Northumbria, from calculations by F. R. Stephenson, showing contemporary ecclesiastical and political sites, Note that the monasteries of Whitby, Hartlepoo!, and Gilling allie close to the center of the path and hence the darkest part of totality. From Danie! McCarthy and Aiden Breen, “An Evaluation of Astronomical Observations in the Irish Annals,” Vistas in Astronomy, 1997, 41:117-198; reprinted by the kind permission of Elsevier Science. cludes that the most probable date for the synod was “the first half of 664,” argues ten- tatively that the synod might have happened before the eclipse: if it had happened after, the Celts might have noticed that the Dionysian cycle was wrong. The Irish reckoning, in fact, was wrong as well. Grosjean says that the Irish “almost certainly” did not possess the competence to assess computistical data, ignoring the evidence of Cummian’s Letter. But it is probable that they did not know the Dionysian reckoning.’ “associated with individuals who figure prominently in Bede's account of the Synod and subsequent events”; see MeCarthy and Breen, “Evaluation of Astronomical Observations” (cit. n. 2), pp. 128-129 (note 1 of their article mentions “personal communications to D. McCarthy, 17 Dec. 1993 and 18 Jan. 1994"). Moreover, 1 May hhad pagan associations, apart from its significance in the Christian calendar. "For the Irish reckoning see Daniel McCarthy, “Easter Principles and a Fifth-Century Lunar Cycle Used in the British Isles,” Journal for the History of Astronomy, 1993, 24:204-224. Cummian’s Letter is edited in MauraJENNIFER MORETON 53 Bede’s narrative, taken at face value, supports Grosjean’s hypothesis that the synod occurred before the eclipse. He describes first the synod, and then Colman’s return to Tona and his replacement by Bishop Tuda, before detailing the eclipse and the ensuing plague that caused the latter’s death. My own guess is that the synod happened after 21 April but before 1 May: it would surely have been difficult to cater for such a large number of important guests while any of them were still keeping the Lenten fast. It is possible that in writing his history Bede preferred not to relate the two events, especially if, as Jones says, he took the account of the synod and the date of the eclipse from different sources. The eclipse, whether it occurred before or after the synod, would certainly have caused consternation to anybody with computistical expertise. Pliny had pointed out long before that a solar eclipse occurs only at the time of the new moon;? but in none of the possible cycles that were used for paschal reckoning is the new moon shown as occurring on 1 May. To deal first with the 84-year cycle used by the Celtic Church: until the discovery made in 1985 of a table in a Padua manuscript, “no example of a table of Insular Easters was known to exist.” It is impossible to quantify how many such tables might have existed, because they must have been destroyed, either for political reasons or because once the Roman dating of Easter was accepted they were no longer of any use. According to the reckoning of the 84-year cycle, Easter Day in 664 was on 14 April." Bede does not mention by name the 84-year cycle, about which he appears to have known little, in connection with the synod. But its observance must have been one of the main subjects of the conference, which was about bringing the Northumbrian Church into line with Rome, Jones suggested that it seemed “more than a coincidence” that the next year would reveal fresh shortcomings in the Victorian cycle; but it is worth pausing to ask how many of the participants would have been skilled enough in the science of calendar reckoning to appreciate the problem. Wilfrid, certainly: he had leaned “the correct method of calculating Easter” from Archdeacon Boniface in Rome." But what about the other participants? Information about eclipses was generally available—for instance, presum- ‘Walsh and Daibhi © Crdinin, eds, Cummian's Letter De controversia paschali and the De rationi conputandi (Studies and Texts, 86) (Toronto: Pontifical Institute for Mediaeval Studies, 1988), pp. 56-97. Grosjean’s remark about the Irish lack of computistical competence isin “Date du Colloque de Whitby” (cit. 1), p. 248. For Irish ignorance of the Dionysian data see note 14, below. " Bede's Ecclesiastical History, ed. Colgrave and Mynors, 325-27. According to Grosjean, “Tuda mourut done vraisemblement sur la fin de I'ét ou a la début de Pautomne”: Grosjean, “Date du Colloque de Whitby.” p. 243. McCarthy and Breen, basing their argument on Ecclesiastical History 4.1 and on Bede's silence about ‘what “precipitated” the synod, dispute this hypothesis; see McCarthy and Breen, “Evaluation of Astronomical Observations” (ct. . 2), pp. 130, 128. The evidence is at best ambiguous. See also Jones, Saints” Lives and Chronicles (it. n. 6), p. 31 fh * Pliny, Natural History 2, 13, $6-57; quoted in Bede, De temporum ratione, ed. Jones, Ch. 27, p. 230, Hines 17-19. ® McCarthy, “Easter Principles” (ct. n. 7), pp. 205, 219. The cycle shows the Easter celebration (pasche) on wif KI maii [14 April] lana xv. There were three important dates in the Roman solar month: the kalends, which ‘was the first day of the month, the nones, and the ides (fifth and thirteenth days, respectively, in every month except March, May, July, and October; seventh and fifteenth days in the months listed). Individual dates were aurived at by counting backward (and inclusively) from these dates. Thus xii kI maii = 14 April, iii non mar = 5 March, and so on. "Bede refers to the 84-year cycle in Bede's Ecclesiastical History, ed. Colgrave and Mynors, 2.2, pp. 135- 136, 5.21, p. 552. According (0 Jones, “Bede ... knew very litle indeed about Irish chronography”: Jones, Saints’ Lives and Chronicles (cit. n, 6), p. 36. On the subjects ofthe synod see Charles W. Jones, “The Victorian and Dionysiae Paschal Tables in the West,” Speculum, 1934, 9:408-421, esp. p. 413: “Although the Council of Whitby was ostensibly called for other reasons, it seems more than a coincidence that it met just the year before ‘anew error would appear in the Victorian tables.” On Wilfrid's competence in calculating Faster see Bede's Eeclesiastical History, ed. Colgrave and Mynors, 5.19, p. 520.54 DOUBTS ABOUT THE CALENDAR ably, to Hilda, who according to Eddius was present at the debate and was well educated, Hilda was more than a spectator; but did she and the other people involved in the debate have access to the tables with which to verify the computistical data? There was, indeed, an impending clash in the next year between the Victorian and Dionysian cycles. But it is unlikely that many of the participants in the synod could have distinguished between them. Both were 19-year cycles; both indicated that in 664 Easter would fall on 21 April—a week later than is shown on the 84-year cycle. They thus both bear out Bede’s statement that in Northumbria Easter was sometimes observed twice in one year, so that when the king (who adhered to Irish customs) had ended Lent and was keeping Easter, the queen (who observed the “true and Catholic Easter”) was still fasting and keeping Palm Sunday. "* Wilfrid talks of the 19-year cycle, by which he presumably means the Dionysian reck- oning; but for Cummian, who in 631 (as is generally accepted) wrote a document setting out the problems of the paschal controversy, and probably for Ronan, an Irishman who later espoused the Roman reckoning, the 19-year cycle was that of Victorius.'* Only those with access to the respective tables, and the skills necessary to scrutinize them, would have realized that the Easter date in each was based on different criteria: the Victorian cycle showed 21 April as luna 19, whereas in the Dionysian cycle it was luna 18; and so the new moon, which is shown as falling on 3 May in the Dionysian cycle, falls on 2 May in the Victorian cycle." Although Bede puts computistical arguments about the issues at stake into the mouths of the participants, the controversy was really about conformity to the practice of the majority. This is encoded in a reference to the Apostles John and Peter. The Irish had adopted John the Evangelist, “John of the Breast,” as their own; Peter, of course, represents Rome." Colman and Wilfrid both argue about the lunar dates on which Easter can be kept, and Wilfrid says that the correct rule is to observe a cycle of 19 years. But according to Bede, Wilfrid also said (echoing Cummian): “The only people who stupidly contend against the whole world are those Irishmen and their partners in obstinacy the Picts and the Britons, who inhabit only a portion of these the two uttermost islands of the ocean.” "See Bede, De temporum ratione, ed. Jones, p. 361: “Knowledge of the general mechanics of eclipses was ‘current, preserved through the circulation of the works of Capella, Macrobius, Hyginus and Isidore.” Bede tells us that the synod was held at Hilda's monastery and records that atthe beginning of the debate she supported Bishop Cedd and the Irish: Bede's Ecclesiastical History, ed. Colgrave and Mynors, 3.25, p. 298, Eddius adds, thatthe debate took place in her presence: Life of Bishop Wilfid by Eddius Stephanus, ed, and trans. Colgrave (Git. n. 5), p. 21. Bede bears witness to the abbess’s learning; see Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, ed. Colgrave and Mynors, 4.23, p. 408. According to Barbara Mitchell, “Anglo-Saxon Double Monasteries,” History Today, 1995, 37:33-39, on p. 37, the discovery of many styluses atthe site of Hilda's abbey implies that there was @ scriptorium there. Bede's Ecclesiastical History, ed, Colgrave and Mynors, 3.25, p. 296. Walsh and © Créinin, eds., Cunmian’s Letter De controversia paschali (cit. n. 7), p. 18: “The only known cycle of $32 years fi.e., 19 X 28] in circulation at this time was that of Vietorius of Aquitaine.” For Ronan's, Use of the Victorian cycle see Bede, De temporum ratione, ed. Jones, pp. 103-104. "= Bruno Krusch, “Die Entstehung unserer heutigen Zeitrechnung,” in Studien zur christlich mittelalterlichen, 1: Victorius Ersatz der fehlehaften Ausgabe Mommsen in den M.G-; II: Dionysius Exiguus, der Begriinde der christlichen Ave (Berlin: Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1938), p. 32 (the cycles of Victorius are ‘on pp. 27-52). The discrepancy arises because of the saltus lune, which is inserted in the sixteenth year ofthe Victorian cycle (year 6 of the Dionysian cycle): see Bede, De temporum ratione, ed. Jones, Ch. 42, p.257, lines 53-55, ' Walsh and 6 Créinin, eds., Cummian's Letter De controversia paschali (cit. n. 7), p. 69 n 89: “Itis interesting to note that in Irish tradition John is known as Edin Bruinne (John of the Breast) [ef. John 13:23)... Peter and John seem to have represented two distinct traditions in the eyes of the Irish and the English in the seventh century.”JENNIFER MORETON 55 In any case, the argument was cut short by Oswy, with what appears to have been a prearranged formula.'? If Bede’s account of the proceedings of the synod is correct, the decision to adopt what ‘was to become the standard ecclesiastical reckoning was not taken on computistical grounds; but, nevertheless, somebody at some stage knew enough about the Dionysian reckoning to change the date of the eclipse that happened in the same year from 1 to 3 ‘May to bring it into line with the data accepted by the Roman Church, Jones suggested that Wilfrid might have effected the change. Wilfrid has had a bad press from nearly everybody; but it is perhaps worth noticing that Hilda seems to have disliked him.'* Whatever the motives behind the decision made at the synod, I would argue that for Bede, writing in 725, the changed date of the eclipse presented a computistical problem. To understand what the problem was, some knowledge of the way calendar reckoning works is necessary. For those who are unfamiliar with the Dionysian reckoning, I will present a brief summary. To establish the date of Easter, it is necessary to collate solar and lunar movements, since the date of the festival is identified in the Gospels by reference to both: that is, the Resurrection is stated to have happened on the first day of the week—Sunday in the Roman solar calendar—after the feast of Passover, which is the fourteenth day of the Jewish first Iunar month in the year (Exodus 12:2, 6). The lengthy dispute that has become known as the paschal controversy involved, first, the question of how this collation could be achieved and, second, the development of a cyclical Easter table that could, in theory, be used in perpetuity, so that Christian communities often isolated by violence and natural disaster could celebrate the feast at the same time as those in Rome. The difficulty is that solar and lunar movements are incommensurable in practical terms, They are, however, effectively collated in a cycle that brings together 19 solar years and 235 lunar months."® The Dionysian cycle, which was adopted after the Synod of Whitby, is of this kind, But there was a further difficulty with it, in that ecclesiastical, or “vulgar,” reckoning is unable to deal with fractions. Thus the solar year was reckoned to be 365.25 days; but since it would be insupportable for successive years to begin at different times of the day, 3 years of 365 days are reckoned, followed by 1 year of 366 days. In the same way, since a lunar month, or lunation, was reckoned to be 29.5 days long, a year made up of 12 lunar months (lunations) alternates lunations of 30 and 29 days. But a solar year of 365 days is 11 days longer than one made up of 12 lunar months, and so seven extra 30- day Iunations, or embolisms, are added to keep the lunar and solar data as far as possible in alignment. With this addition, there is still a difference of 1 day between the solar and lunar reckoning.” This is dealt with by means of the saltus lunae, which is a subtraction of 1 day toward the end of the lunar cycle. " Wilfrid’s remark is reported in Bede’s Beclesiastical History, ed. Colgrave and Mynors, 3.25, p. 300. On the truncation of the argument see Richard Abels, “The Council of Whitby: A Study in Early Anglo-Saxon Politics,” Journal of British Studies, 1985, 23:1-25, on p. 10: “Oswiu’s verdict did not rest upon any of the technical arguments adduced by Wilfrid. Instead he rendered his decision as if it were a foregone conclusion.” Edius adds that the king was smiling, a detail omitted by Bede. '® Jones mentions James the Deacon as another possible culprit: Yones, Saints’ Lives and Chronicles (cit. n. 6), p. 38. Eddius records that Hilda tried to prevent Wilfrid from regaining his see after his first expulsion in 618: Life of Bishop Wilfrid by Eddius Stephanus, ed. and trans. Colgrave (cit. n. 5), p. 117 °° See Bede, De temporum ratione, ed. Jones, p. 11; pp. 1-111 of the same work give a succinct explanation of the theory of Easter eycles, ® Disregard the leap days, which are included in both solar and lunar eycles as they occur. Solar reckoning: 19 x 365 = 6,935 days in 19 solar years. The lunation, or lunar month, was reckoned to consist of 29.5 days. Lunar reckoning: 12 common years, each containing twelve alternating 30- and 29-day lunations = 354 x 12 .248 days; + 7 embolismic years that each have an extra 30-day lunation = 384 X 7 = 2,688 days. Then, 4.248 + 2,688 = 6,936 days.56 DOUBTS ABOUT THE CALENDAR Fa OC Tes [ie [ar is | ipa [spas yo fit fae 9 [20 23 [4 fis [a6] 7 fae fs ts |7 [ots [ets [mti [2 ts 6 fri fae Ta Ts a fs [a [3 pet 2 [3 [slo [7 ~2[e tats 6 [wie ts [4 tel7 |i [2 Te 3 t6 [7] [3s ts [m]1 [213 [ste 1711 [ela fs fe wm l2}s-fs te t7 [i [2 [ets te [7 pets [as [ett [a SN CS A 2-3 [4s _|e}7[1 (2 ]ets ts |7 |o]s j«]s |mii fz 3 | sets? [1 tele ]s fe pelo [x [a tet? [1 2 pets fo Ss 5 TAL CN A 760) mista ts [et l2[s pets i7 [1 pels [s fo [els 3 79. EN 798 71 [eta ps ts pet. [sts te [7 yi [2 ets fe [7 [ae a7 spats Peas pe fe pt Pe fas fs ie ta a 336 Fs 35 FO #74 aps pm p—fats [sete [71 fe ya fs fe feta fs fa [oe 333 7a espe 7 pe ts pas ee ts se Pe S12 5 33H eS 930 FN 369. Tse epost Pe fs ae ts fe 7 ae fas a8 5 1007, 2-[etsts [7 [13 _[s[s [mli fo ts [ete 7 [i pele 1026, sté_[wt2 [sts |e ]7 |i iz [ets fe [7 [ets fa Ts |e 1045, FO sass pa papier par as aaa eta [Pe a7 Ao | | ap | ap | m | ap | w | ap | to | M | ap | ap | | ap | ap | at | ap |v | a s yi ye 2 ts ts fey4+ 17 137) f4y7 ts fi ye |? ps Figure 2. The paschal cycle. Dionysius had taken over an existing cycle and extended it for 95 years. A (19 X 28) 532-year cycle—which was not his work, although it generally goes under his name—is needed to comprehend all the possible permutations of weekdays, leap years, and embo- lisms. What was this cycle? For such writers as Gerland in the eleventh century and Roger of Hereford in the twelfth century, it was undoubtedly the diagram they knew as the paschal cycle. It is this which Bede calls the great paschal cycle, and which he appears to be describing in chapter 65 of the De temporum ratione. (See Figure 2.) But what he details in Chapters 47-62 are the eight columns of the fabulae Jones prints in his later (1980) edition of Bede's works on time. Although Bede writes with contempt of those who are too lazy or slow-witted to calculate, and explains how to use Dionysian argumenta to find the year of the cycle, the epact, and the concurrent, muddled transcription in Chapter 47 suggests that unless the mistake is the copyist’s, Bede is himself looking at the tables.*! 2 Note that in this article the “Dionysian reckoning” refers to the 532-year cycle known to Bede. Bede, De temporum ratione, ed. Jones, Ch. 23, p. 224, produces tables giving the age of the moon for every day in the 19-year cycle for those who are deses vel hebes, but in Ch. 47, p. 266, lines 39-43, the Dionysian argumentum for finding the epact is given inaccurately (the correct version is to be found in Parrologia cursus completus. Series Latina {hereafter PL}, ed. J.P. Migne, Vol. 67 [1848], cols. 499-500). The material in Chs. 47-62 corresponds with the eight columns of the “Magnus circulus seu tabula paschalis annis Domini DXXXI ad MLXII,” printed in Bedae Opera didascalica 3, in Corpus Christianorum Series Latina (heteafter CCSL), Vol. 123C: Bedae venerabilis opere, Pt. 6: Opera didascalica, ed. Charles W. Jones (Tumhout, 1980), pp. 551-562;JENNIFER MORETON 357 Wilfrid, as I have already noted, was sufficiently skilled in calendar reckoning to have tampered with the recorded date of the eclipse. Establishing according to Dionysian reck- oning the age of the new moon at the beginning of May, and therefore when the solar eclipse of 664 should have occurred, did not require the intolerably complicated method suggested by Jones.® The usual method was to combine the epact for the year (which showed the age of the moon at the beginning of the lunar year) with the lunar regular for the month: the sum of the two indicated (usually) the age of the moon on the first day of the month, Bede lists the lunar regulars, although they are not so named, in Chapter 20 of the De temporum ratione. Jones’s suggestion that Bede invented the lunar regulars himself seems unlikely, since it was essential to know what the usual age of the moon was on the first day of the month so that the exceptions to the rule (caused by the addition of the embolism in certain years) could be learned, Bede lists these in the same chapter." As can be ascertained by reference to the Dionysian argumenta, the year 664 was year 19 of the Dionysian cycle, with epact 18.2" Then 18 + 11 (the lunar regular for May) = 29; but, as Bede explains, the insertion of the embolism from 5 March to 3 April in this year of the cycle throws the calculation out by a day, so that it is necessary to calculate 1 May as luna 28. The solar eclipse, which according to Pliny coincided with the new moon (Juna 1), occurred on 1 May and would thus have shown Wilfrid and others with the necessary skills that the Dionysian reckoning was wrong. And, as has been noted, the Victorian reckoning was little better.”* Bede’s computistical knowledge was at least comparable with Wilfrid’s, and if he knew the real date of the solar eclipse in 664 he had good grounds for being uneasy with the itis this that Bede himself is looking at. Yet Ch. 65 describes the “great paschal cycle” of 532 years. Is it this which Ceolfrid said many people in Britain could compose? See Bede's Ecclesiastical History, ed. Colgrave and ‘Mynors, 5.21, p. 546. (tis notin fact very difficult to do; see Moreton, “Before Grosseteste”[cit.n. 3], p. 567.) ‘The paschal cycle updated for the years 1064-1595 appears in the manuscripts containing the treatises of Gerland, Roger of Hereford, and “Constabularius,” and from their context itis evident that iti this cycle that these writers, are studying. The tables are easier to use than the paschal cycle, but those “recreated” by Jones take up a little over twelve pages in Bedae Opera didascalica, CSL, Vol. 123C. In the form of the paschal cycle, all the appropriate data could be recorded on half a folio. That this cycle is aesthetically pleasing should not be over- Jooked. Bede and his contemporaries were familiar with the statement in the Wisdom of Solomon 11:30: “Thou hast ordered all things in measure and number and weight.” ‘To use the paschal cycle, it is necessary to calculate by epact and lunar regular and to know when the epacts “fail”; and to collate this information with the feria, which can be located by means of the concurrents, set out for 532 years, plus the solar regular. It was easier to use if the paschal terms and regulars were appended, as they often were. Even so, to use the cycle meant employing advanced computistical skills. ones, as has been said, “recreated” the tables that are to be found in Bedae Opera didascalica, CCSL, Vol. 123C. Dionysius had produced tables for 95 years from 532. An anonymous continuator produced five more cycles to A.D. 721. The tables printed by Jones cover 532-1063. Unfortunately, they were not included in his earlier edition of the De temporum ratione (1943), although itis essential to study them if Bede’s arguments are to be understood. A similar “recreation” of the great paschal cycle, with an explanation of how t0 use i, i to be found in Moreton, “Before Grosseteste,” pp. 567-569. ® See Bede, De temporum ratione, ed. Jones, p. 385. ® For the lunar regulars see W. E. van Wijk, Le nombre d'or: Etude de chronologie technique (The Hague, 1936), p. 119. Of course, despite van Wijk, Bede’s regulars are Dionysian. He chooses to start them in January; the epacts change on 1 September, so that Bede’s regulars for September to December have 11 mote days than the mnemonics cited by van Wijk, because they belong to the next (lunar) year. For Jones’s suggestion see Bede, De temporum ratione, ed. Jones, p. 354. Bede could not have invented the lunar regulars, in fact, because he says that others start them from September: ibid., Ch. 20, p. 222, lines 46-49. % PL, Vol. 67, col. 501: Argumentum V De cyclo decemnovenali; cols. 499-500: Argumentum III De epactis. 2% Bede, De temporum ratione, ed. Jones, Ch. 20, p. 221, lines 32-35 (for year 19): “Item anno xviii, quia luna embolismi tertio die nonarum martiarum [5 March] incipit, cogit lunam in kl. maias vicesimam octavam ‘computari, cum vigesima nona secundum argumenti calculationem canatur.” 2* The Victorian cycle shows the new moon on 2 May. See note 15, above.58 DOUBTS ABOUT THE CALENDAR Dionysian reckoning, despite the authority of the Council of Nicaea and its angelic vali- dation, He is unlikely, as has been said, to have known much about the Irish reckoning, which was no more accurate in relation to the eclipse: since the Irish Easter of 664, computed according to the 84-year cycle, fell on 14 April, a new moon would have been postulated on 28 April.” If we accept that Bede himself was not responsible for the eclipse being recorded on 3 May, agreeing with Grosjean that Bede, while not infallible, was always scrupulously honest, what evidence is there that he knew that the date had been changed? The eclipse is mentioned three times in the Ecclesiastical History, in each case in connection with the plague that carried off many notable people, including Bishop ‘Tuda, who had replaced Colman as bishop of the Northumbrians after the latter had returned to Ireland.”* The date is given only once, in Book 3, Chapter 27, where the eclipse is said to have happened on 3 May. This date is mentioned twice more in the chronica that accompany Bede's two works on the calendar. The later entry elaborates the earlier one by adding the phrase “which our age remembers.” It has been suggested that in the second entry Bede is dis- tancing himself from the Dionysian dating” He might well have had second thoughts between the De temporibus and the De temporum ratione: the second, far more advanced, work entailed, as we shall see, a detailed investigation of some of the Dionysian dating. Further evidence of Bede’s uneasiness with the Dionysian reckoning might be evinced by his treatment of the topic of eclipses in Chapter 27 of the De temporum ratione, which is not much more than a paraphrase of what Pliny has to say on the subject. Jones suggested that Bede avoided saying anything in his own words because of the superstitious nature of his fellow-countrymen;* but he showed no such discretion in the Ecclesiastical History, where, as has already been pointed out, the eclipse is mentioned in the context of the plague that followed it. Perhaps a more plausible reason for his reticence on the subject ‘was his uneasy suspicion that the Dionysian dating was inaccurate. ‘According to Jones, “Bede shows no knowledge of the actual observed moon.” It is certainly difficult to believe that Bede—who, on the evidence of Alcuin, never neglected the hours of prayer, and who even on his deathbed was still translating works into English for the benefit of his pupils—could have had much time for stargazing.*' And it might be argued that in his works on the calendar, Bede was not concerned with the incompatibility of the Dionysian dating and observed astronomical facts: for if he were, he could scarcely have stated that not only the authority of the Church Fathers, but also “horological con- 7 The mnenomic verses beginning “None aprilis,” which enable Easter Day to be calculated for each of the 19 years of the Dionysian cycle, were thought to have an angelic origin. See Charles W. Jones, “A Legend of St Pachomius,” Speculum, 1943, 18:198-210; and Daibhi © Créi Jo-Sinnu Moccu Min and the Computus of Bangor,” Peritia, 1982, 1:281-295. On the problems with the Irish reckoning sec McCarthy, “Easter Princi- ples” (cit n. 7), p. 219: the cycle shows the Easter celebration (pasche) on xviii kl maii (14 April], luna xvi; the April lunation is 29 days long (p. 211), and thus the next new moon falls on 28 April. % Bede's Ecclesiastical History, ed. Colgrave and Mynors, 3.27, p. 310; 4.1, p. 328; 5.24, p. 564. On Bede's honesty see Grosjean, “Date du Colloque de Whitby” (cit. n. 1), p. 238, » Bede, Chronica minora, ed. Theodor Mommsen, in Monumenta Germaniae Historica Auctores antiquissimi, Vol. 13 (Berlin, 1898), p. 313: “Eclipsis solis facta est ind. VIL, V nonas Maias”; and Bede, Chronica maiora, ed. Mommsen, ibid.: “Sequento anno facta est eclypsis, quam nostra aetas meminit, quasi decimam hora diei, V rnonas Maias.” For the observation that “there may have been something sensitive about this eclipse” see M- Carthy and Breen, “Evaluation of Astronomical Records” (cit. n. 2), p. 128. ® Bede, De remporum ratione, ed. Jones, p. 361 For Jones's comment see ibid., p. 378; Alcuin’s testimony is to be found in Epistolae, ed. Emest Dummler, in Monumenta Germaniae Historica Epistolae Karolini aevi, Vol. 2 (Berlin, 1895), p. 443. Cuthbert wrote of Bede's death; see Epistola de obitu Bedae, appended to Bede's Ecclesiastical History, ed. Colgrave and Mynors, pp. 581-586.JENNIFER MORETON 59 sideration,” teaches that the spring equinox occurs on 21 March, a doctrine he appears to have learned from his teacher Ceolfrid. In Bede’s time, because the inaccurate measure- ment of the solar year was gradually causing the solstitial and equinoctial points to drift backward in the calendar, the date would have been more accurately given as 17 or 18 March.? This fact was of limited concern to most people. But for travelers living in these islands in the seventh century, information about tidal movements was vital; and there is striking evidence that Bede collated what he knew from Pliny about tides with the work of Irish scholars of the seventh century and also with the evidence of eyewitnesses." If he could not make firsthand observations, he had access to the reports of obviously reliable wit- nesses. Such reports, I suggest, made him uneasily aware of the inadequacies of the Dio- nysian reckoning. Bede’s attention, then, appears to have been focused on the disparity between actual and ecclesiastical data by the solar eclipse, which he had not himself seen but which had been observed by reliable witnesses on a date that his reading of Pliny would confirm must have been a new moon. He attempts, first, to find an answer to the problem within the parameters of the Dio- nysian reckoning. Since, as has been said, the calendar could deal only in whole numbers, ecclesiastical calculation could only be approximate. Later, probably in the eleventh cen- tury, in what was known as the “natural computus,” attempts were made to improve the accuracy of this calculation by dividing 940 lunations as equally as possible into 76 years. This was an alternative to calculating in whole days only and making up the shortfall by intercalating extra days and lunations over 19 years, a method that disregarded the fact that 4 x 19 years contains not 4, but 5, leap days.* In Chapter 42 of the De temporum ratione, Bede explains that the saltus lunae—the difference between the solar and lunar cycles that has to be accounted for by the subtraction of I day—sometimes causes the new moon to appear earlier than it is commonly thought to do. He explains the gradual accumulation of the disparity between the lunar and solar reckonings over the 19-year cycle, assessing the yearly increase to be 1 hour, | 1/19 points. There are 4 points in an hour; and in the year before the saltus is inserted, therefore, a disparity of nearly 22.75 hours will have accumulated between the actual and the “eccle- siastical” moons.** © Bede, De temporum ratione, ed. Jones, p. 237: “Sicut non solum auctoritate paterna sed et horologica cconsideratione docemur.” Bede appears to be echoing Ceolfrid; see Bede's Ecclesiastical History, ed. Colgrave and Mynors, 5.21, p. 542. A description of what “horological consideration” entailed can be found in Helperic, Liber de computo, PL, Vol. 137, cols. 40D-41A. Since Helperic, who appears to have been writing at the end of the tenth century, still, like Bede, dates the spring equinox to 21 March, we must assume that (again, like Bede) he had not himself performed the operation he describes or that he preferred to ignore the evidence in deference to authority. Wesley M. Stevens, “Bede's Scientific Achievement,” in Bede and His World: The Jastrow Lectures, 1958-1993 (Aldershot; Variorum, 1994), pp. 645-688, esp. p. 660, sets out a not entirely convincing defense of Bede’s data, ® Stevens, “Bede's Scientific Achievement,” pp. 661-662. It was—or, rather, it attempted to be—accurate, because it used fractions. But clumsy numerical notation led to difficulties that were easier to solve after the introduction into time reckoning of the minutes and seconds wwe still use today. For the natural computus see Moreton, “Before Grossteste” (cit. n. 3), pp. 573-57. For the introduction of minutes and seconds see Jennifer Moreton, “John of Sacrobosco and the Calendar,” Viator, 1994, 25:229-244, on p. 239. ° For the “ecclesiastical moon” see R. R. Steele's edition of the Compotus of Roger Bacon, Opera hactenus inedita fratris Rogeri, Vol. 6 (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1926), p. vii. An alternative calculation, using ‘moments and atoms, isto be found in diverse texts, of which the De cursu et saltu lunae ac bissexto of pseudo Alcuin (PL, Vol. 129, cols. 979-1002) is an accessible example. Bede gives no value to the smallest unit of time; its odd value in this treatise of 1/564 of a moment is of course specific to the calculation.60 DOUBTS ABOUT THE CALENDAR It should be emphasized again that Bede is dealing not with observed astronomical ‘measurements but with a calculated disparity. He was evidently not satisfied with the point he made, because he returns to it in the next chapter, which is entitled “Why the Moon Sometimes Appears Larger than It Is Reckoned to Be [i.e., in advance of ecclesiastical reckoning].” The discrepancy between actual and ecclesiastical reckoning, he says, is greater as the nineteenth year of the cycle, in which the correction is made, approaches. It will of course be remembered that 664 was year 19 in the cycle. What is more, he stresses, the age of the moon is calculated not, as some people imagine, at midday or later, but from the previous evening (18:00 hours). The result is that in the last year of the cycle, taking into account the accumulated discrepancy between the lunar and solar cycles, the moon that appears in the Dionysian reckoning as luna 30 may actually look more like tuna 1.6 What is bothering Bede? Jones, who was puzzled by this chapter, suggested that he was referring to a quarrel of the year 550, when there was a conflict between the Victorian and Alexandrian tables. Like 664, 550 was the nineteenth year of the cycle; and the Alexandrian (ie., Dionysian) tables that Jones prints show Easter Day on 23 April (viii kal. maii) with Juna 21. According to Jones, Victorius gave Juna 22 for the same date. This is a discrepancy similar, of course, to that which occurred in 664.%” A tract written by Victor of Capua (4. 554) survives only in fragments but contains material similar to that which Bede gives here. In the year 550, astronomical observation agreed with the Victorian, not the Alex- andrian, reckoning. Victor of Capua solved the problem by showing that “if the moon comes out of conjunction with the sun just before even, the number of the day before is given, and if it is a ‘hollow’ month [i.e., 29-day lunation] that number will be xxix.” Itis indeed possible that Bede, faced with a lunar discrepancy, should have appealed to Victor of Capua, although he does not mention the year 550 specifically and it is discon- certing that he did not here cite Victor by name, as he did in Chapter 51 of the De temporum ratione and three times in the Epistle to Wicthede. The chapter is difficult: following uncited possible sources is a less than elegant way of throwing light on its contents. It might be argued that the solar eclipse is not mentioned either. But an event that happened ‘more than a hundred years later than 550 and that was seen by eyewitnesses, one of whom at least Bede knew personally, would appear to be a more likely explanation of Bede's manifest agitation when he writes: But if anyone wants to pursue this question further, he should be told that the new moon has been seen by many witnesses 2 days earlier than where it is indicated [in Dionysian reckoning] as luna 1 in that year in which the salzus is inserted, that is in the last year of the 19-year eycle, on 2 April [iv non.ap.], when in the same year the paschal luna 14 is recorded as occurring on the 17 April [xv kal.maii] in the previously mentioned cycle. It follows from this that the new ‘moon can only occur on 4 April [prid non}, and this is why this reckoning is enjoined on us.” % Bede, De temporum ratione, ed, Jones, Ch. 42 (pp. 257-260): Quare luna maior quam computatur pareat. Ibid., p. 258: “Sin autem post occubitum solis accendatur, non tamen prima priusquam vesperam vidert, sed tricesimam potius oportet aestimati.” ¥ See Bedae Opera didascalica, CSL, Vol. 123C (cit. n. 21), p. 551, for the Alexandrian dating, “Bede, De temporum ratione, ed. Jones, p. 378. The passage Jones refers to in J. B. Pitra, Spicilegium solesmense, Vol. 1 (Patis, 1852), p. 300, contains no date. ® Bede, De femporum ratione, ed. Jones, Ch. 43, pp. 258-259, lines 44-50 (my translation). For the specific mentions of Victor see ibid., p. 272; and Bede, Epistle to Wicthede, in Bedae Opera de temporibus, ed. Jones (it. n, 3), pp. 322, 323 (twice)JENNIFER MORETON 61 As has already been pointed out, 664 was the last year of the 19-year cycle. And the solar eclipse that occurred on 1 May should, according to Pliny, have coincided with a new moon, which was thus 2 days earlier than the new moon as indicated in the Dionysian cycle. Bede gives the data for the first lunation of the year rather than for the second, as Victor of Capua apparently does. Is this to disguise the fact that he has 664 in mind? Attacking the Dionysian data was not something that a wise cleric could contemplate, even in the twelfth century.*? Or is it because he is referring to a discrepancy that was obvious in each month to anyone who knew the Dionysian reckoning? Bede can only appeal for help to the Fathers of the Church, who, he says, had established the paschal [una 14 at the Council of Nicaea so that their 19-year cycle could never vary, never fail. Indeed, no calculator doubts that in the year with which we are concerned luna 1 falls on 4 April. And it is therefore not permissible for any of the faithful to say otherwise. What then? Is it to be believed that the new moon which we see on 2 April was seen by none of the 318 bishops who took part in the Council of Nicaea? . .. It is not rather to be understood that when they set luna 1 on that year on 4 April they were avoiding another greater danger—the destrue~ tion of the indissoluble order of the common and embolismic years that they knew should be inviolably observed since they had been handed down from the Old Testament? He goes on to give the standard “proofs” that the Dionysian reckoning is the one to be observed. The correct method of calculating Easter was dictated to the cenobite Pachomius by an angel; the snowy glow of the miraculous moonstone waxes and wanes in company with the moon; in a remote and poverty-stricken church the font filled with water each Easter eve, except when the worshipers observed the wrong day." Bede rounds off his argument with an account of historical events. It is clear, he writes, that the controversy is of long standing. It was investigated by Pope Leo (440-461), who was supported by Prosper in accepting the Alexandrian rules. It was this controversy that persuaded Pope Hilary (461-468), long after the Nicene Council, to look for a new cycle and Victorius to construct one. For Bede, therefore, the best course is to follow the au- thority of the Fathers. The idea that his contemporaries could understand the lunar contro- versy better than the ancients is not to be entertained. There a lesser man would have left it. But there was in fact a serious problem with the ecclesiastical reckoning, which before it was rectified would lead to the whole of Chris- tendom being held in derision.** This was the overestimation of the length of the lunation in the standard reckoning that had led to the 2-day discrepancy between the actual and the “ecclesiastical” moon and that had had to be disguised by repositioning the date of the solar eclipse on the Dionysian calendar. That Bede came back to the problem in Chapter 47, which is concerned with the year of the Incarnation, is not at first obvious. As has been said already, Dionysius had not invented the cycle that was named after him, What he did was to take the last 19 years of © Thus Roger of Hereford (oriting in 1176), Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Dighy 40, fol. 48: “nihil in Junationibus vulgaris compoti mutare audemus.” “Bede, De temporum ratione, Ch. 43, p.259, lines 54-65 (my translation). For Pachomius see note 27, above, Bede quotes the story about the moonstone in De temporum ratione, Ch. 43, having already mentioned it in Ch 28; for the miraculous font see Jones's explanation ibid. p. 55. * See ibid., Ch. 43, p. 260, which I have freely paraphrased and abbreviated in this account. For Leo, Prosper, and Hilary see ibid., pp. 55-62. * Thus Roger Bacon in the thirteenth century, in Operis majoris pars quarta, ed. J. H. Bridges (Oxford, 1900), p. 283: “Atque philosophi infideles, Arabes, Hebraci, et Graeci ... abhorrent stultitiam quam conspiciunt in ordinatione temporum quibus utuntur Christian in suis solemnitatibus.”62 DOUBTS ABOUT THE CALENDAR the Cyrillan table, in which the years were numbered by reference to the emperor Diocle- tian, and extend them for another (5 x 19) 95 years. His claim to fame was that since, he says, he did not wish to link his cycles with the memory of an impious persecutor, he dated them instead from the Incarnation of Christ. The first year of his cycle is a.p. 532, but Bede (and every writer after him) pointed out that 532 is really the last year of the first 532-year cycle, so that the year equivalent to the Incarnation was 533. Bede goes on to make some deductions that we can assume Dionysius himself never envisaged." Having established the year of the Incarnation, Bede gives scriptural and historical proofs that the length of Christ’s earthly life was 33 years and a little more, so that the year of his Passion was equivalent in the cycle to the year 566. He continues: And therefore, now that the cycles of the blessed Dionysius have been demonstrated, if when you reach 566 A.p. you find /una 14 in that year on Thursday, 24 March (ix kal.ap.], and Easter Day Sunday luna 17 on 27 March [vi kal.ap.], thank God because he has granted you to find, as he has promised, what you seek, For that Our Lord ascended the cross on Friday luna 15, and on the first day of the week, i.e., Sunday, rose from the dead, no Catholic is allowed to doubt, lest he seem unbelieving of the Old Testament, which teaches that the paschal lamb was, sacrificed at even on the fourteenth day of the first month; and equally of the Gospel, which asserts that Our Lord was tried by the Jews on the same evening, crucified and buried on the ‘moning of Friday, and rose from the dead on the first day of the week.** Bede gives the Dionysian argumenta with which these data can be checked, The infor- mation appears in a slightly garbled form in Jones’s text, and I have suggested that Bede may in fact be looking at the tables of the circulus paschalis. If we consult these ourselves, we find that in the year 566 luna 14 falls on 21 March (xii kal.ap.) and Easter on 28 March (v kal.ap.).** Bede's wish that the reader will find what he seeks is obviously ironic. Bede has taken for granted here that the Crucifixion took place on 25 March and the Resurrection on 27 March. This, he tells us, is “the widespread opinion of many doctors of the Church.” On the other hand, he continues, Theophilus of Caesarea, “in the synodic letter which he wrote with the other bishops of Palestine against those who celebrated Easter with the Jews on luna 14,” wrote that Christ rose from the dead on 25 March. And he was an “ancient doctor, and closer to apostolic times.” And earlier in the same book, Theophilus said: “For the Gauls always celebrated Easter on 25 March, whatever day of the week it was, when their tradition was that Christ rose from the dead.”*? What was this synodic letter? In his ecclesiastical history, Eusebius tells us that “there is extant to this day a letter from those who attended a conference in Palestine presided over by Bishop Theophilus of Caesarea and Narcissus of Jerusalem.” The purpose of the conference was to condemn the practice of the Quartodecimans. Together the participants composed a “lengthy review” of the Easter tradition, adding an appeal that a copy should be sent to every diocese. Eusebius’s history was available to Bede and his contemporaries in the translation of Rufinus, The Acta synodi, which purported to be this synodic letter, was, as has been said, well “ For Dionysius see PL, Vol. 67, col. 487. See also Bede, De temporum ratione, ed. Jones, p. 70: “Dionysius did not use or understand the 532-year cycle.” 5 Bede, De temporum ratione, éd. Jones, Ch. 47, p. 267, lines 71-81 (my translation), * Bedae Opera didascalica, CSL, Vol. 123C (cit. n. 21), p. 551. © Bede, De temporum ratione, ed. Jones, pp. 267-268, lines 84-94,JENNIFER MORETON 6 known to Bede.** The text was cited by Cummian and adopts the question-and-answer form that was to be preserved in the later schools of the Carolingian Empire. In identifying the Resurrection with Sunday, familiar material that explains multiple reasons for vener- ating the day is used.” Referring to this text was a rather risky thing to do, since it advocated the outmoded vernal equinox of 25 March and the Patrician lunar limits 14~ 21® (as opposed to the Dionysian 21 March equinox and lunar limits 15-22); luna 14 was particularly suspect because “Quartodeciman.” But the importance of the work in this context has to do with the solar dating. Christ's Passion, we are told, began on 22 March, on the night of which he was betrayed by the Jews, and he rose again on 25 March." We have already been told that 25 March is the date of the spring equinox, on which the earth was created. The celebration appears, in fact, to have originated in a Christian pasche (the word means “Passover”) that did not differentiate between the Crucifixion and the Res- urrection, The Gauls had kept this sort of celebration, and it is to this text that Bede, quoting what are supposed to be the words of Theophilus, referred earlier. Bede does not elaborate here on what effect changing the day of the Resurrection has on the date of the Incarnation, which is the ostensible subject of the chapter. Instead, he ‘warns his readers that they must blame the carelessness of the chronographers—or, rather, their own stupidity—if they cannot find the year they are looking for in the place they expect it to be. In Chapter 61, in which he deals specifically with the Easter reckoning, Bede reiterates the problem: There are different opinions about the first Easter Day. Indeed, as we have mentioned above, some state that it was on 25th March [viii kal.ap.] others 27th [vi kal.], not a few 28th. Note that if, as the ancients write, the Resurrection is commemorated on 25 March, it is then surely year 5 of the 19-year cycle, concurrent 7 and luna 14 thus always 22 March [xi kal.ap.|; if on 27 March, it is the 13th year of the above cycle, concurrent 5 and luna 14 as always on 24 March [viii kal.ap.). Moreover if the Resurrection is celebrated on 28 March [v kal.) it is year 2 of cycle, concurrent 4 and luna 14 on 25 March [viii kal.ap]_* The three dates—25, 27, and 28 March—are the dates of the Resurrection postulated (in that order) by “Theophilus,” most computists, and Victorius. If we refer to the paschal tables, we shall find that the years 574, 544, and 724 provide the data for which Bede is looking. He has already shown us in Chapter 47 that the event should have occurred in “© Busebius, The History of the Church from Christ to Constantine, trans. G. A. Williamson (spt, London: Penguin, 1989), 5.22, 23, 25; and Rufinus, Eusebii Pamphili ecclesiasticae historiae (Basle, 1523), 5.23: De Passione quaestione; 5.24: De dubitatione quae orta est apud Asiam. The Acta synodi is cited by Cummian in his letter De controversia paschali: see Walsh and © Créin‘n, eds., Cummian’s Letter De controversia paschali (cit. n. 7), pp. 56-97, on p. 86, For Bede’s familiarity with the Acta synodi see note 4, above. “© See Charles W. Jones, “An Early Medieval Licensing Examination,” History of Education Quarterly, 1963, 3:19-29; and Clare E, Lees, “The ‘Sunday Letter” and the ‘Sunday Lists,” " Anglo-Saxon England, 1985, 14:129— 151 © Bede, De temporum ratione, ed. Jones, p. 86: “Patrick therefore introduced into Ireland in the fist part of the fifth century the Paschal usage of Milan.” % Ibid, Ch. 43, p. 276, lines 88-89. © Krusch, “Enfstehung unserer heutigen Zeitrechnung” (ct. n. 15), p. 27: “Annus passionis 566 AD: Pascha V kal ap (28 March.” Thus the tables in Bedae Opera didascalica, CCSL, Vol. 123C (cit. n. 21). Jones has “xi Kal. ap.” in his text, Either all Jones's manuscripts are wrong here (which seems unlikely) or he has misread “ix” as “xi.” ® Bede, De femporum ratione, ed. Jones, p. 283.64, DOUBTS ABOUT THE CALENDAR the year that is equivalent to 566 in the first 532-year Dionysian cycle: that is, year 16 in the second 19-year cycle.** Victorius had put himself out of court by placing the annus passionis at A.D. 28, “when the Gospels manifestly show that John the Baptist began to preach in the fifteenth year of Tiberius, and that he soon amongst others baptized Jesus, who at that point was beginning to be about thirty years old.”** But we are still left with the problem of “Theophilus.” Why is he mentioned at all, when, as Bede points out in Chapter 61, his data give the wrong year for the Resurrection? Bede’s preoccupation with the “Theophilan” data seems to be due to the fact that, while preserving the /una 17 of the Resurrection, it assigns Easter Day to 25 rather than 27 March. This means that the date of the Resurrection is shown as falling 2 days earlier in the lunar calendar than in the Dionysian reckoning, and thus the age of the moon is moved upward by the same amount of time. It is this disparity that eyewitnesses have seen substantiated by the solar eclipse of 664, Bede is not prepared to adjudicate between the different dates he gives in Chapter 61 His determination that the Dionysian reckoning should be followed, to preserve the au- thority of the universal Church, has already been made amply clear in Chapter 43. Yet there is evidence that the disparity between ecclesiastical and observed reckoning was widely known from Bede’s time onward. At the beginning of the ninth century, for in- stance, almost a century after Bede wrote the De femporum ratione, the Irish monk Dungal was asked by the emperor Charles the Great why there were two solar eclipses in the year 810. His answer was perhaps intentionally obscure. Dungal had been told that there were two eclipses in that year, on 7 June and 30 November. But there was no solar eclipse on 7 June. Dungal seems prepared to agree with the emperor that there was such an occurrence then because the Dionysian dating shows 7 June as /una 1 in year 13 of the 19-year cycle. There was an eclipse on 30 November. According to the Dionysian dating, the second se (which presumably had been observed) should have occurred on 2 December. This is similar, of course, to the discrepancy in 664.5” Bede’s account of the problems with the Dionysian reckoning led to important and exciting developments, into the thirteenth century and beyond. In the eleventh century the Lotharingian computist Gerland spelled out what is implicit in Bede. Having studied Bede’s work exhaustively, he used the “Theophilan” data to calculate that the A.D. 532 of the Dionysian reckoning was really 525. Some calendar tables, which were thought to have been produced by Gerland himself and which were based on the actual astronomical event of a solar eclipse in 1093, tied in (almost) with this data. The Dionysian reckoning, as has been said earlier, was thought to have been authorized by the Council of Nicaea. In the twelfth century Roger of Hereford, making use of the tables, proposed an adjustment to the ecclesiastical calendar that would still be in accordance with the official ecclesiastical % Bedae Opera didascalica, CCSL, Vol. 123C (ct. n. 21), pp. 551, 555. What Bede appears to have done here is to work out the appropriate data in each ease by using concurrents and solar regulars and then looking for them in his paschal tables. For the calculation see Bede, De temporum ratione, ed. Jones, Ch. 21, pp. 222- 223: If Easter Day is Sunday, 25 March, luna 14 must be the previous Thursday, 22 March, And so 1 March ‘must also be Thursday (feria 5). Since the solar regular for March is 5, Thursday, 1 March must occur in @ year with concurrent 7 (7++5= 12; 12=7=5). Similarly, if Easter Day is 27 March, 1 March is Tuesday (feria 3) ‘and must occur in a year with concurrent 5 (5+5= 10; 10~5=5); and if itis 28 March, 1 March is Monday (feria 2) and must occur in a year with concurrent 4 (4+5=9; 9-7=2) 8 Bede, De temporum ratione, ed. Jones, Ch. 47, p. 268, lines 100-102. Lowe this reference to Daniel McCarthy. Dungal's letter was printed by Migne in PL, Vol. 105, cols. 447— 458. See Robert R. Newton, Medieval Chronicles and the Rotation of the Earth (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1972), p. 596; and Bruce S. Eastwood, “The Astronomy of Macrobius in Carolingian Europe: Dungal's, Letter of 811 to Charles the Great.” Early Medieval Europe, 1994, 3:117-134.JENNIFER MORETON 65 reckoning. The tables were long thought to have been the work of Robert Grosseteste and, aided by this illustrious name, were disseminated widely, thus influencing later writers.** Ihave suggested earlier that the discrepancy between actual and ecclesiastical reckoning was obvious to anyone who knew the latter. There is evidence, too, that the solar eclipse of 664 was not forgotten and was associated with the “Theophilan” reckoning. Why, for instance, did Gerland choose to make use of “Theophilus”? He could have corrected the Dionysian reckoning. But it is worth noting that if the “Theophilan” reckoning is used, 1 May 664 is shown as luna 1, thus supporting the eyewitness account to which Bede seems to have had access.” That the solar eclipse of 664 was remembered as of computistical significance is evi- denced by some rather garbled calendar notes that appear in two twelfth-century manu- scripts in connection with the paschal cycle. They both refer to the solar eclipses of 664 and 1093, and each gives the “Gerlandan” or “Theophilan” dates—657 and 1086—as well, although only the “official” date, 3 May, of the 664 eclipse is given. For 1093, the (ac- curate) date is that shown by the calendar tables associated with Gerland. ‘We have come a long way from 725, when the De temporum ratione was written. It is fitting that the work that effectively ensured the triumph of the Alexandrian reckoning throughout Europe should also contain within it the seeds of its reform—and ironic that this reform should be based on a text that was used to support the alternative reckoning that was abandoned at the Synod of Whitby. See Moreton, “Before Grosseteste” (cit. n. 3). © According to Gerland, the Dionysian year 664 was really 657. But Gerland understood, as Bede probably did not, that the year of epacts began from 1 September. Allowing for this, 1 May is in year 11 of the cycle. Year 11 of the eyele has epact 20, lunar regular 11 (see Bede, De femporum ratione, ed. Jones, Ch. 20, p. 220, line 4); in year 11 of the cycle, there is a new moon on 1 May (20+ 11 =31; 31~30=D). © Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Digby 56, fol. 163r; and Bodleian Library MS Rawlinson C749, fol. 11y.