Palmer2011 Computus After the Paschal Controversy of AD 740

8/19/2019 Palmer2011 Computus After the Paschal Controversy of AD 740

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COMPUUS AFER HE PASCHALCONROVERSY OF AD 740

Abstract

Tis paper offers a study o the computistical material in London, British Li-brary, Cotton Caligula A XV, and St Gall, Stifsbibliothek, . Both collec-tions contain material dated to AD – a date significant or being the lasto three years in quick succession in which problems were posed by clashes be-tween the tables o Victorius o Aquitaine and those extended rom Dionysius

Exiguus’ work, as well as the first year o the reign o Childerich III. It is arguedthat the material and that which supports it – some earlier, some later – revealsthe vitality o computistical learning in Frankia in the eighth century, and howit may have developed in response to a meeting at Les Éstinnes in AD . It isalso argued that the paradigm shif rom Victorian to Dionysiac was supportedby the union o Anglo-Irish learning and Pippinid authority developed at Ech-ternach, with little obvious influence coming rom the circle o St Boniace.

Keywords

Boniace, Charles Martel, church councils, Cologne, Dionysius Exiguus, Ech-

ternach, Historia vel gesta Francorum, Isidore o Seville, Lent, Pippin III, St Gall,Sirmond, Victorius o Aquitaine, Willibrord.

Introduction

Among the signs which heralded the death o Charles Martel in AD was, according to the Historia vel gesta Francorum (c.AD ), a dispute

over the ordo sanctissimus paschalis.

Although it remained unspecified by

1 Historia vel gesta Francorum (ed. by Krusch in MGH SS rer. Merov. ,). In calling this text the Historia vel gesta Francorum rather than the traditional

Te Easter Controversy of Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, ed. by Immo Warntjesand Dáibhí Ó Cróinín, Studia raditionis Teologiae, (urnhout, ), pp. –.

© BREPOLSHPUBLISHERS ./M.S-EB..


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JAMES . PALMER

the Burgundian author, the dispute may be related to conusions stem-ming rom the spread o Dionysiac Easter tables challenging the acceptedauthority o those composed by Victorius o Aquitaine. For AD ,Victorius’ tables had proposed either a ‘Latin’ Easter date o April,luna , or a ‘Greek’ date o April, luna , but the widespread simpli-fied Victorian tables only accepted the earlier date, which anyone using aDionysiac table would have considered to have allen on the heretical lu-nar date o luna . Indeed, in some Victorian tables, it is only rom AD that ‘Greek’ dates were added, with one computist suggesting thatthis year marked the first disagreement or a generation. Tis came, how-ever, shortly afer a separate potential conusion in AD , or which

Victorius had offered either a ‘Latin’ date o April or a ‘Greek’ date o April, when in act ‘Greek’ Dionysiac tables also avoured the later date;and it may be no coincidence that the first Frankish condemnation oVictorius ollowed within a year. A third year with double-dates, andthe last until AD , would also all in AD . Further evidence whichindicates debate about the matter is buried in a list o topics or discus-sion at the Council o Les Éstinnes in AD , although no canon was promulgated which clearly indicated any preerred solution to the prob-lem. Te Easter dispute is nevertheless significant because it coincided with a number o key changes in Frankish history, with the extension o

Continuationes Chronicarum Fredegarii, I ollow Collins (), –, who has con- vincingly shown that the version o Fredegar with the continuations should be consid-ered a distinct text in its own right.

2 Victorius, Cyclus (Krusch (), ) and Dionysiac Cyclus s.a. (c. CCSLC, ). A simplified Victorian table o AD is in Dial. Burg. (Borst (),i ). A second rom AD is in Bern, Burgerbibliothek, , here v (date givenas xiiii kalendas maias to correspond with luna ). As both give luna instead o

, there may be a common source. On the dispute see Krusch (), and Eng-lisch (), . On the Victorian tables and their double dates, see Warntjes (),LXXXIV–LXXXV n .

3 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Lat. , v–r, with Greek dates and thenote on r: Usque hic Greci et Latini insimul faciunt pascha. Hoc sunt anni l (‘Up to here,the Greeks and Latins observed Easter together. Tese years were fify’); printed in Krusch(), . For discussion o the table see Warntjes (), LXXXIV n . Tere is an-other copy in Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica, Reg. Lat. , r–v I have not examined.

4 Te condemnation o Victorius: Dial. Neustr. – (Borst (), i –);Borst (), . Again the simplified tables accepted only the ‘Latin’ date: Dial. Burg. (Borst (), i ) and Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Lat. , v. Bern,Burgerbibliothek, , r, however gives the date idus apriles, luna , the lunar datesuggesting a miscopying o the Greek date.

5 Sententiae Bonifatianae Wirceburgenses (ed. Glatthaar (), ); c. Borst(), –.


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Pippinid authority paving the way or the usurpation o the throne in AD, and the activities o holy men such as Boniace, Pirmin, and Virgilo Salzburg expanding and redefining the boundaries o Latin Christen-dom. Te implications o the Easter dispute within these contexts hasnot been ully explored, not least because Borst’s magisterial studyo eighth-century Frankish computus overlooked two sets o evidenceo relevance to this period: two computistical ragments rom AD ,copied within two manuscripts whose contents pre-date the influence oBede and the later Frankish encyclopaedic tradition. Tis present studyseeks to examine those two ragments and their contexts to shed newlight on the impact o the debate o the AD s.

Easter tables caused problems in Frankia, as elsewhere, because the deci-sion o which to use was affected by balancing tradition against technicalaccuracy. In Gaul and Burgundy the situation was complicated because ocommitment to the tables o Victorius in some quarters at a time whenDionysiac tables were gaining in popularity. Use o the tables had beenconsidered canonical since the Council o Orléans in AD , led by theenergetic reormer Bishop Leontius o Bordeaux. Canon law in the Westhad put particular emphasis on maintaining a universal Easter throughoutthe whole world since the Council o Arles in AD , beore the matter was addressed by the great ecumenical councils. Te decision in AD reflected the perceived importance o the pope in preserving this universal-ity because, although the tables o Victorius were never officially sanctionedby the papacy, Archdeacon Hilarius who commissioned them did become pope beore they were published in AD , and this is reflected in somemanuscripts calling Hilarius episcopus urbis Romae or papa rather than ar-chidiaconus. Frankish bishops were orced to deend the tables in the earlyseventh century rom the challenges o St Columbanus, who mocked the

6 Fouracre (), –, –; Schieffer (), e.g. –; von Padberg(), –.

7 For a summary o Borst’s view o the period see his (), –.8 Krusch (), –; Jones (), –; Declercq (), .9 Concilium Aurelianense () §, ed. by de Clercq in CCSL A, .10 Concilium Arelatense () praefatio and § (ed. by Munier in CCSL , and

); Mordek (), . See also Concilium Antiocenum () § (http://www.pseu-doisidor.mgh.de/html/.htm).

11 Epistula Hilari ad Victorium (Krusch (), n ) and Prologus Victorii Aqui-tani ad Hilarum (Krusch (), n and n ). See also the comment in the Disputatio Morini to this effect (Graff (), Appendix III on p , line ). On the status o thetables, see Jones (), –.


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inaccuracies o Victorius’ work. By this point, use o the tables had becomea cultural issue rather than a matter o science and learning, and Colum-banus’ criticisms only irritated local bishops. Subsequently, the shif awayrom Victorian tables across the Frankish kingdoms as a whole was gradual.Dionysiac tables were used in at least one church in Aquitaine during theseventh century, and urther north in Austrasia they were likely in use by atleast the AD s; but the latest treatise expressing a preerence or Victo-rius’ work – possibly also rom Austrasia – dates to AD , so there wasa long period in which use o the two tables overlapped across the Frank-ish world as a whole. Improvements in computistical competence whichcould have motivated the adoption o Dionysiac tables may hold some o

the answer, but only partially so, as conusion about the technicalities ocomputus persisted into the ninth century and the inamous inquisition oAD . Te ragments rom AD and the material copied with themmay help to determine more clearly what kinds o learning and which networks o people were behind the move towards an Alexandrian paradigm.

Interpretation o AD is complicated, however, by the kinds onarratives modern historians have attempted to construct about Frank-ish computus. Bruno Krusch, who laid many oundations or the studyo the computus o this period, was concerned to understand how uni-fied, proto-modern Easter reckonings and chronological systems hadbecome established in the West. More recently some scholars, notablyRichard Landes, have seen the development o chronology in this periodas a response to apocalyptic traditions, with evidence o a long and anxiouscountdown towards the ‘last’ year ,, which in Hieronymian tradition would all in AD /. For a while, the accepted conclusion regardless was that change was driven by the importing o Bede’s works, particularlyhis Historia ecclesiastica, and likely through the activities o Anglo-Saxon

missionaries led by Willibrord, Boniace, and later especially Alcuin.

Te12 Columbanus, Epistolae §§– and § (ed. by Walker (), – and –).

See most recently Stancliffe (), esp. – and .13 Earliest evidence or the use o Dionysiac tables in Frankia: Krusch (), –

; Cordoliani (), . Deence o Victorius in AD in uaest. Austr . (Borst(), i –). Te most recent comment is Warntjes (), XL-XLI.

14 Cap. comp. (Borst (), iii –).15 Krusch (); (), ; and the suggestive sub-title o Krusch () ‘the

origin o our modern time-reckoning’.16 Landes ().17 Krusch (), –; Whitelock (), –; Landes (), –; De-

clercq (), –. On Alcuin’s influence see Borst (), – and Springseld(). See also now Englisch (), –, –.


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emphasis on the Anglo-Saxons, however, neglects other contributions, particularly the impact o Irish learning, while Rosamond McKitterickhas shown that Bede’s work was only in circulation late in the eighth cen-tury when the Franks had already been using Dionysiac tables or sometime. What both sets o arguments expose is the diversity o computisti-cal learning in the Frankish kingdoms, which Arno Borst characterized asa ‘conusion’ (Wirrwarr ) which needed the intervention o Charlemagneand his court in AD and to dispel. But the evidence or seeingCharlemagne’s direct hand is absent, as Eastwood and Stevens have bothinsisted, leaving the notion o a centralized directing power behind computistical change in that period open to question. Meyvaert, Bullough,

and Englisch, meanwhile, believed with some reason that Borst had un-dersold the earlier strata o Carolingian calendars to maintain his thesis,although Borst largely remained unmoved in his conclusions in his re- plies. Regardless o the merits o the various arguments, the implicationso Borst’s voluminous output certainly requires urther investigation, withimplications or the ways in which scholars interested in computus andchronology approach the eighth century. In particular, it may be neces-sary to balance Borst’s construction o texts with analysis o the ways in which computi were compiled in individual manuscripts. In that context, we turn to the two manuscripts overlooked by Borst which contain theragments o : London, British Library, Cotton Caligula A XV (= C)and St Gall, Stifsbibliothek, (= S).

London, British Library, Cotton Caligula A XV

Our first evidence or computistical activity in the wake o the AD

dispute comes rom a late eighth-century compendium rom NorthernFrance, now London, British Library, Cotton Caligula A XV. Te latestdatable element in C is an incipit to a Dionysiac table – alas without thetable itsel – dated to AD , which provides an anchor or associating

18 Warntjes (), esp. XLVII–LI; Borst (), i . Even Bede’s work was dis-seminated via Ireland, although the oldest line o transmission was directly rom North-umbria: Wallis (), lxxxvi–lxxxvii.

19 McKitterick (), –.

20 Borst (), –; Borst (), –.21 Stevens (), ; Eastwood (), .22 Meyvaert (), –; Bullough (), ; Englisch (), –. Borst re-

plied to each in (), –, –, and –.


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the collection o the material with the time between AD and thelater circulation o Bede’s work and the ‘encyclopaedias’. Te incipitorms part o a computistical collection which incorporates the Dio-nysiac Computus Cottonianus (AD /), material rom the seventh-century ‘Sirmond Collection’, and a collection o notes and tables o un-certain authorship. Te manuscript itsel is written in a pre-Carolineminuscule o a sort typical o the second hal o the eighth century, butalso sufficiently distinctive in detail to set it apart; it is clearly not, orexample, rom a better documented ‘insular’ continental centre suchas Echternach, Corbie, Fulda, or Würzburg. Alas the only clear paral-lel to the script is in a collection o patristic texts bound as part o the

same modern manuscript but which was originally a separate codex. Tescript has insular eatures which include the use o the uncial R, and dis-tinctive abbreviations and quiring; not that any o these eatures readilynarrows down the possible origins o the compilation. A brie study othe contents, on the other hand, will begin to lay down some context orthe computistical activity in the AD s.

Te incipit o AD takes us to a political context, reading(r):

Plate 1 London, British Library, Cotton Caligula A XV, r.

23 On the Computus Cottonianus, see Warntjes, this volume. Cordoliani (;) argued that this text is Spanish on the grounds o parallels in later Spanish computi, but the relationship is complex as Gómez Pallarès (), has argued. On the

Sirmond collection see Jones (), and the important observations in Ó Cróinín(); Springseld (), –; and Graff ().

24 See CLA , (no. ); McKitterick (), .25 Published in Krusch (), and, rom that, Glatthaar (), .


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In christi nomine. Incipit cyclus per indictionem XI mam et anno quota fue-rit luna kalendis Januariis prima et dies dominicus festi paschalis XVIII kalendas Maias, luna XV. Et quotus annnus est ab incarnatione domini

nostri ihesu christi? DCCXLIII. Et recapitulatio victurino CLXXXIIII annus est. Et primus annus Childerici regis Francorum cum consulibus suisCarlemanno et Pipp\h/ino.

‘In the name o Christ. Here begins the cycle in the th indictionand the year in which luna occurs on January, and the Sunday o thePaschal east on April, luna . And the year is o what number romthe incarnation o our lord Jesus Christ? . And the year is by theVictorian recapitulation. And it is the first year o Childerich, king o

the Franks, with his consuls Carlomann and Pippin.’

Te reerence to ‘consuls’ betrays a mimicking o Dionysius’ own incipito AD , which was dated In praesenti namque tertia indictio est, con- sulatu Probi iunioris, xiii circulus decennovennalis, decimus lunaris est (‘For in the present year it is the third indiction, by the consulate o the younger Probus, the thirteenth year o the -year cycle, the tenth o thelunar one’). Te effort to cross-reerence the two different Easter ta-bles, on the other hand, may suggest a more programmatic backgroundin which comparison between different reckonings was ongoing, andstill o interest when C was compiled a ew years later. It may be nocoincidence that the incipit itsel was composed in AD – not onlya problematic year in the Victorian table, but the first year o ChilderichIII’s reign and the first time any king had been on the Frankish thronesince the death o Teuderich IV in AD . Te surprise elevation oChilderich was likely the work o a party, led by Carlomann, who be-lieved in the importance o having a legitimate king on the throne; and it

is widely assumed that the move contributed to ostering renewed politi-cal unity. Divisions between communities using different Easter tablescould have no place in such a new and potentially ragile political order,and this is likely a key actor in the slating o computus to be discussedat Les Éstinnes in that year. Te Cottonian manuscript is, o course, nota political document, but may hold clues as to the kinds o networks in

26 Dionysius, Epistola ad Petronium (Krusch (), ). Te reerence to consulsalso echoes their use as a raming device in Victorius, Cyclus (Krusch (), –), but

omitted in the later Merovingian tables mentioned in n .27 Compare here also the dating clause o the Aquitainian Easter table o AD :

Prol. Aquit . (Borst (), i ).28 Becher (), –. Compare Wood (), .


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which computus was being discussed, and what kinds o material wereassembled in the wake o debate.

Insight into the horizons o the scriptorium which produced C canbe provided through a close study o the patristic section o the manu-script (r–r). It contains Jerome’s De viris illustribus and Vita Pauli,ollowed by Isidore o Seville’s Etymologiae, I – and book three oCyprian o Carthage’s estimonia ad Quirinum, and each text pointsintriguingly in a different direction. Te Hieronymian material has itsclosest parallels in sixth-century Italian manuscripts, one rom Romeand one rom Verona, with De viris illustribus also betraying some re-lationship to a near-contemporary copy rom Bobbio. Te Isidorian

material, which has never been studied in relation to the transmission oIsidore’s work, readily belongs to Lindsay’s α (or Frankish) amily o textsbut certainly not to Porzig’s subset ξ, which consisted o copies in St Galland Reichenau. Finally, the text o Cyprian belongs to a select group oearly medieval manuscripts to contain only sections rom Book III, theclosest to C being a Fulda miscellany o the early ninth century. Temost important eature o the patristic section may be a garbled Greekquotation rom Psalm :, transcribed badly rom a majuscule copy othe Septuagint. Few copies o Greek bibles are known rom eighth-century Gaul, and indeed knowledge o Greek at the time is thought tohave been virtually non-existent. But, tantalisingly given the origins othe Hieronymian material, such a manuscript would have been availablein Verona. We are lef, then, with hints o a reasonably well-connectedcentre, able to draw on resources available in Roman and Lombard li-braries, and with material in common with other Frankish centres butnot necessarily Alemannian ones. Tis may not be a substantial improve-ment on the designation ‘Northern France’, but it allows us to see the

29 Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek, B. IV. (CLA , (no. )) and Verona, Biblio-teca Capitulare, XXXVIII () (CLA , (no. )). Cher (), –.

30 Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale, lat. (Vindobon. ) (CLA , (no. )). Seeintroduction to Jerome’s De viris illustribus in Ceresa-Gastaldo (), , .

31 Te principal witnesses o α are listed in Lindsay (), i vii–ix. On ξ see Porzig(), –.

32 Basel, Universitätsbibliothek, F III c (CLA , (no. )). See Weber’s intro-duction to Cyprian, estimonia ad Quirinum in CCSL , lvii.

33 My thanks to Proessor Paul Magdalino or helping me to decipher the tran-

scription.34 Berschin (), –.35 Verona, Biblioteca Capitolare, (CLA , (no. )); Berschin (), ,

.


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scriptorium as part o a series o specific networks rather than as an in-distinct ‘type’ o monastic centre.

Te computistical material in C alongside the AD computuscomes rom another direction, principally Britain and Ireland and likely via Echternach. None o it, significantly, suggests any debt to the worko Bede, so it can be taken as a good indication o alternative sources orknowledge o the Alexandrian Easter available beore De temporum ra-tione circulated widely. Immo Warntjes has put orward a plausible caseor associating the Dionysiac Computus Cottonianus on ols. r–r with the circle o St Willibrord, who was active in Echternach and Utre-cht afer an education in Ripon in Northumbria and Rath Melsigi in Ire-

land.

Te Sirmond material in C, meanwhile, represents a near-coher-ent block common to Oxord, Bodleian Library, Bodley (Vendôme,s. xi) (items – and – as listed by Ó Cróinín, the absent items and being the controversial material on Anatolius o Laodicea). An extract rom Gaudentius o Brescia’s De pascha in C (ols. v–v)came to belong to the same amily o texts, despite its absence rom thecanonical Sirmond collection, as it is also contained in a ragmentaryeighth-century Echternach copy o similar treatises. Such material firstcame together in Southern Ireland in the early seventh century beorebecoming available in Northumbria, as Ó Cróinín has demonstrated. Te precise seventh-century orm o the Sirmond collection as usuallyconceived based on the Oxord manuscript has recently been called intoquestion because o the Carolingian material evident in the earlier sec-tion. We might also question the standing o Victorius o Aquitaine’s work in the canonical collection as, like many o the Sirmond group, C does not actually include it; and the eleventh-century prologue in theSirmond manuscript itsel suggests that it was included in that instance

by the scribe in response to debates about the dating o the Passion rather

36 Warntjes, this volume. Te text is partially edited in Gómez Pallarès (), –. On Willibrord see Levison (), – and Palmer (), esp. –, –,–.

37 Ó Cróinín (a), –, developing Jones (), –. Te order in C is– (in revised orm), , , , , , , , . On Anatolius’ work see Mc Car-thy and Breen (), and Mosshammer (), –.

38 For the manuscript see Ó Cróinín (), –. Te Latin text in both manu-

scripts share errors and reversal o pairs o words compared to the ull sermon – compareGaudentius o Brescia, De Pascha – (ed. by Glück in CSEL , –).

39 See n .40 Springseld (), –; Warntjes (), XXI–XXII and n .


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than as a relic o paschal reckonings past. But perhaps i C is to be asso-ciated in some sense with the circle o Willibrord – which, lest we orget,included in his teacher Ecgberht, the man who converted the commu-nity o Iona to the Alexandrian Easter – then the Dionysiac emphasis isonly to be expected at a time when the authority o Victorius’ tables wasopen to debate. Te oldest extant manuscript copy o a Dionysiac table(or the years AD –) travelled rom Rath Melsigi to Willibrord’sEchternach, where it was subsequently extended on two or three occa-sions to cover the years AD –. It might be considered that C represents a version o the Sirmond material current in the Anglo-Irishcircles which were active at Echternach in the eighth century.

One apparent anomaly alongside the Sirmond treatises is the text o pseudo-Cyprian’s De pascha computus (ols. v–v), here mislead-ingly labelled Expositio bissexti in anticipation o a text on olio r–v.Te treatise was ostensibly a third-century composition written to support the extension o the ‘Roman’ tables o Hippolytus. Te signifi-cance o the treatise within the early history o computus lies in its ar-gument that the moon was ‘virtually inaugurated’ on March in the year o Creation. Tis was an argument known in some orm to theauthor o the Irish Acta synodi and to Bede, so it is not inconceivablethat pseudo-Cyprian was included in a version o the Sirmond mate-rial in circulation in the eighth century. It was certainly not the only‘Roman’ computus which ound a home alongside the Sirmond materialin Carolingian manuscripts, although all had limited circulations. Teimportance o these ‘Latin’ texts in computistical learning in Frankia was ar rom negligible, as they earned discussion alongside the Victo-

41 Oxord, Bodleian Library, Bodley , r. Te earliest manuscript o the Sir-mond group to contain a Victorian table is a partial version in the Computus Bobbienses o AD (Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, H in., r–r).

42 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, lat. . See Ó Cróinín (), – and Warntjes (), XC–XCI (n ), who also note the relationship with another table inParis, Bibliothèque Nationale, lat. , r–v, which is a ragment covering the yearsAD – only.

43 On the two treatises see Jones (), –. See also Wallis (), xxxvi– xxxvii.

44 Ps-Cyprian, De pascha computus – (ed. by Hartel in CSEL ,, –). A newedition is being prepared by Alden Mosshammer.

45 Acta synodi Caesareae (B: PL , –; C: Krusch (), ) and Bede, Detemporum ratione (ed. by Jones in CCSL B, –).

46 Te most notable example is the Cologne Prologue, ed. by Krusch (),–.


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rian computus in both the computus o AD which launched thefirst extant Frankish attack on non-Dionysiac reckonings, as well as therelated text, the later Comp. Col. – all despite presumably having longallen rom use. In the context o C, then, the pseudo-Cyprian computus reveals the kind o material the critics had available on their envis-aged opponents as they promoted the use o Dionysius. It is possible thatVictorius’ own computus was deliberately omitted rom C in the courseo opposition to his Easter calculations, but there remained other ‘Latin’texts to which one could reer.

Te relevance o ‘Latin’ traditions becomes apparent in a note on thebeginning o Lent on olio v. Tis was not a topic covered by com-

putists outside Irish tradition, and it may be telling that this note is theonly content afer the pseudo-Cyprian computus which does not readilysupport a Dionysiac Easter. It reads:

Si vis facile scire aut plane quomodo initium quadragesimi invenire potes,breviter tibi dico sine ulla dubitatione: a IIII idus est Februarias usque a V idus Martias. Hi sunt XXX sanctificati a luna III usque adecima, in has septem lunas invenieris dominicum diem et fit initium qua-dragisimi nec ante nec retro.

‘I you wish to know easily or plainly how you can find the begin-ning o Lent, I say to you briefly without any doubt: it is rom Febru-ary up to March. Tese thirty [days] are sanctified rom luna up toluna , [and] in these seven moons you will find the Sunday and Lentmay start neither beore nor aferwards.’

Despite the confident tone, the note gives a window or the beginning oLent which is too tight, resulting in an unlikely Easter range o March

to April only, perhaps drawing on the Latin tradition which sancti-fied thirty days or Easter. Te upper lunar date is also a day too late,

47 Dial. Neustr. , (Borst (), i –); Comp. Col. V – (Borst (),ii –). For the relation between these two texts see Warntjes (), CIV andCLXXII–CLXXIII.

48 On computistical interest in theinitio quadragesimae

see Warntjes (), XLVIII n and commentary –.

49 Compare the Cologne Prologue , (ed. Krusch (), and ), but per-haps more pressingly here the Acta synodi Caesareae (B: PL , ; C: Krusch (),).


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perhaps in an effort to incorporate the bissextile day. It seems counter-intuitive, however, that Lent was actually being miscalculated relativeto Easter, making this appear to be a matter o an old text being copiedthat just did not fit in practice. But the compiler o C was not alone inacing such problems. Te late-seventh-century Victorian computus inBern, Burgerbibliothek, also presents a calculation o Lent whichis out o sync with its own proessed paschal reckonings, giving a win-dow o February to March (and luna to luna ) which wouldresult in Easters between March and April rather than the Victo-rian March to April reaffirmed in the computist’s own statements(ols. v–r). Again, it is unlikely that would have caused conusion

in the liturgical year, as the Easter dates were already set by the tableand the computist by his own statements would have been able to countbackwards days to the Sunday on which the Lenten ast began. Tis was a technical issue muddied by tradition. It may not have helped thatEaster tables did not usually circulate with dates or Lent but, perhapsollowing the example o the () table which did, dates or Lent wereadded to the Victorian tables o AD , and , the Dionysiac ta-bles o C and S discussed below, and the table in another Sirmond man-uscript, Cologne, Dombibliothek, , v–r (c.AD ). Tere is perhaps another dynamic at work here, as there were also reorms o theliturgy in the late Merovingian world. For now, however, it is sufficientto note the difficulties o making established tradition fit within emerg-ing paradigms.

Te computist in C provided a range o ragments in which his meth-ods o accommodation can be detected. Te incipit and the note on Lentall between olios r to r as part o a collection o tables and notes,most o which suggest an attempt to adapt material in an active manner.

50 C. the Munich Computus (ed. Warntjes (), –), where it is ex- plained that the effect o the saltus lunae in act negates the bissextile day.

51 Counting Lent back to the Sunday days beore Easter was widespread in theeighth century: Lect. comp. VI (Borst (), ii –); Lib. ann. (Borst (),ii –); Comp. Col. VI (Borst (), ii ); Lib. comp. I (Borst (), iii–).

52 On the table o AD see Warntjes (), LXXXIV n . able o AD ed. by Krusch (), –; or AD see Dial. Burg. (Borst (), i –). Foracsimile and discussion o the Dionysiac table in S see Springseld (), –. Fora acsimile o the () table see Warntjes (), –. Te Cologne manuscript isavailable online at http://www.ceec.uni-koeln.de. For the argument and urther examples see Warntjes () LXXXIV n , XCII–XCIII n , –.

53 On the diversity o the liturgy in the late Merovingian world and Pippin’s re-orms, see Hen (), – and –.


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It includes a text on leap years ( r–v), a table o hours o moon-light ( v), then the incipit at the head o r under which standsa breakdown o the structure o the solar and lunar months, ollowedby a distinctive non-Bedan pagina epactarum (ols. v–r), andthree different representations o the -year cycle as rotae (v–v) with a number o ragments on various topics. Afer the note on Lent,or example, the computist states that nunc xv [luna] pascale usque in xxiubi dies dominicus evenerit, ibi legitimum iussum est celebrare diem sanc-tum paschae ( r) (‘now where the Sunday alls on the th [moon] oEaster up to the st, there it is commanded legitimate to celebrate theholy day o Easter’) – the sense o being ‘commanded’ possibly reerring

to the closing statement o the spurious Acta synodi Caesareae rom theearlier Sirmond material ( v). Tere is also an interpolated extractrom Isidore o Seville’s Etymologiae on bissexti (v, novel elementsunderlined):

Bissextus est per annos IIII unus dies adiectus. Crescit enim per singulos annos quarta pars assis. At ubi quarto anno assem conpleverit, bissextumunum facit, id est dierum CCCLXVI . Dictus autem bissextus quia bis se-

54 ranscribed by Warntjes (a), .55 Like many Irish-influenced and pre-Bedan tables, the pagina has the January

epactal sequence , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , and orthe years. Combined with the alternating sequence o lunations, it is perhaps closestin structure to De ratione conputandi (Ó Cróinín (), –, reconstructed inHolord-Strevens (), –) but with significant differences. Te placing o the sal-tus lunae is unusual, alling at the end o December o the first year rather than on the March o that year avoured in Irish computistics or the November in the nineteenth year proposed by Bede. Embolisms are also inserted differently, preserving the artificiallyrigid sequence o epacts or each year generated by the standard differences between

solar and lunar months. For the contrast with Bedan tradition see the edition o the pagina in Jones, CCSL C, and the discussion by Springseld (), – o S, pp. – (http://www.e-codices.unir.ch/en/csg/). Te different early traditions,omitting C, are discussed in the commentary in Warntjes (), –.

56 Note that the version in C most closely belongs to recension B o the Acta synodi (ed. in PL , –; c. Lapidge and Sharpe (), ), except or this key phrase(et luna ex illis viii sanctificata, Pascha nobis iussum est celebrare, not as PL , hasit – ollowing Cologne, Dombibliothek, , r and other witnesses – et luna ex illisoctava sanctificata, Pascha nobis visum est celebrare). Te reading is shared with the copyin St Gall, Stifsbibliothek, , p and its copy St Gall, Stifsbibliothek, , p ,the second o which Cordoliani (), , mistakenly listed as a copy o recension A, a view he corrected in (), , ; c. also CCSL, Clavis patristica pseudepigrapho-rum medii aevi A, . Te St Gall MSS are available online at http://www.e-codices.unir.ch/de/csg/ and http://www.e-codices.unir.ch/de/csg/ respectively.

57 Compare Isidore o Seville, Etymologiae VI §§– (Lindsay (), i).


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JAMES . PALMER

xies assem facit, quod est unus dies; sicut et quadrantem propter quaterductum. Ita et bissextus quem super dierum cursum per quattuor annis XIIhoris adcrescunt, id est assis bis sexies ductus, unde bissextus dicitur. Calare

enim ponere dicitur, intercalare interponere. A VI autem nonas Martiasusque pridie Kalendarum Ianuariarum, in lunae cursum bissextus adpo-nitur atque inde trahitur intercalaris.

‘Te bissextus is the one day added every our years, or in each yearit grows a quarter o a whole unit, but when the whole unit is completein the ourth year, it makes one bissextile day, that is [the year] consistso days. It is called bissextus because twice six makes a whole unit,that is, one day – just as a quarter-unit is reckoned up by our times.

And so the bissextus, which over the course o the days or our yearsincreases by hours, that is one unit is completed by two sixes, romthis it is called bissextus. Calare, in act, means ‘to pose’, intercalare ‘tointerpose’. And, rom March up to the day beore January, the bissextus is added to the course o the moon and aferwards the intercalaryday is removed.’

Te added comment that only twelve hours, and not twenty-our, areaccrued over our years can be ound widely in pre-Bedan computi, rom

the pseudo-Dionyiac Argumentum XVI to the Victorian computus inBern, Burgerbibliothek, , r–v; and they drew sharp criticism romBede. Here, however, it shows the computist adapting Isidore to theaccepted wisdom at the time. Te three rotae, meanwhile, show moreimagination, as the computist tabulated key details rom the Dionysiaccomputus or easy reerence. Te first defines the years o a -year cy-cle, with columns or the regulars needed in the Dionysiac Argumentum XIV , then the epact and the year o the -year cycle, then the calendar

date o the Easter ull moon (e.g. nones o April), then the date as a dayo the month (e.g. nones o April = fifh day o April), then the numbero days in the lunar year. A second rota opposite consists o three rows o

58 pseudo-Dionysius, Argumentum XVI (Krusch (), ); Computus Bobbiens-es – (PL , –). See also the Dial. Neustr. (Borst (), –) and theComputus o AD , (Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, Phillipps , v). Te definitionstems rom Isidore’s definition o the dies legitimus and dies abusive, and was popular inIrish computi: Warntjes (), and – (commentary). It is thereore unlikely the‘altränkischer Teorie’ suggested by Krusch (), . For Bede’s condemnation seeespecially

De temporum ratione (CCSL B, ).

59 In year it reads Ap[rilis], xxxv, vii, so you can subtract the current epact rom to calculate how many days afer April the moon alls, then add the plus the con-current and divide the total by seven with the remainder indicating the day o paschalmoon, e.g. = Monday.


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JAMES . PALMER

bly that at Willibrord’s Echternach – developed independently rom itand rom AD . I the table is really an argument about -year cycles,moreover, it is not certain that the usual expectations about extendingEaster tables apply. It is likely that the composition is early, but I wouldhesitate to accept Jones’s logic in this instance. Regardless o the precisedate o composition, the table was considered useul enough in the wakeo the debates o the AD s to be copied instead o the lost table oAD or a standard Dionysiac table.

St Gall, Stifsbibliothek, 225A second manuscript was compiled in St Gall around AD / whichcontains urther traces o activity in AD . Tere is no other clearconnection between S and C, so it is activity which might testiy toa common trigger that year, just as the AD inquisition led to the production o more than one computus. St Gall offers a contrast to thecentre which produced C because it stood at some distance rom themayoral and royal centres to the North West, and did not figure as prom-

inently as a leading institution in the eighth century as it would in theninth. In terms o attitudes towards the Pippinids, moreover, the monkscould remember them with ondness as great beneactors but with criti-cism or their behaviour in invading Alemannia. Tis was a centre atonce involved in shaping Frankish intellectual lie, while also slightly re-moved rom it. With S, the computus is but one part o a wide-rangingcompendium o material including such diverse texts as Isidore’s Dif-

ferentiae, the Inentio sancti crucis, Eucherius’ Instructio ad Salonis, and pseudo-Methodius’ Revelationes. Te compilation as a whole was clearly

rigorously planned, judging by the lengthy contents page, although itdoes not quite reflect the actual contents o the manuscript. It also re-flects how St Gall dealt with texts: while the version o Differentiae reliedon earlier versions already available in the St Gall library, the text o Eu-

65 St Gall, Stifsbibliothek, , – (see http://www.e-codices.unir.ch/de/list/one/csg/). See Cordoliani (), – and Springseld ().

66 Compare Wetti, Vita Galli (ed. by Krusch in MGH SS rer. Merov. , )and Ratpert,

Casus sancti Galli (), () (ed. by Steiner in MGH SS rer. Germ. ,

–).67 In the contents page, on p , the computus is listed as item V ollowing a De

quattuor evangeliis as IV; in execution, the computus begins as VI and there are no IV orV, and De quattuor evangeliis is omitted.


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cherius’ Instructio was evidently sought rom elsewhere. In both cases,S is symptomatic o the monks’ efforts to develop a library with multiplecopies o texts. Te presence o the pseudo-Methodian material is parto a remarkable history o a text only written in Syrian in c .AD andalready here en route to a new recension, illustrating the popularity onew eschatological histories in some corners o eighth-century Europe. It begs comparison with another early witness, Bern, Burgerbibliothek, (Luxeuil or Corbie, s. viii/), because that also contained pseudo-Methodius alongside a computistical treatise, the Victorian Dial. Burg. o AD . It may be indicative o one line o influence on St Gall romthe north-west, as well as a reminder o the eschatological contexts o

some investigations into chronology. As a whole, the collection showscomputus taking up a part in the wide-ranging educational arsenal o StGall in the mid-to-late eighth century, rather than being treated on itsown. Moreover, it contains urther clues as to what kinds o computisti-cal products came out o the debate o the AD s.

Te computistical section o S runs across pp. –. It begins with an Easter table or the two -year cycles AD – and –, which is usually dated to AD because o a cross by that year,although such memorial notes are ar rom transparent in meaning andits date is ar rom certain. Nevertheless, like C, its contents seem tohave been ormed without the influence o Bede’s texts on computus,this time with the latest text apart rom the table dating to AD ,the ‘memorable year’ o Pippin III’s coronation just as AD wasChilderich III’s. S might not be unconnected to the liturgical concernshinted at in C, as the scribe similarly added a column or the beginningo Lent to his Easter table, as well as a urther column or the age o themoon on that day. Occasional slips in detail, such as misidentiying

the indiction in AD as instead o , show a certain uneasiness inextending the table, but it is otherwise a well made product to whichthe monks elt inclined to add decoration. Tere ollows a wide-rangeo tables and short texts which indicate a variety o influences, or ex-ample with an Irish note on daylight hours (p , again suggestingthat the bissextus is ormed rom three, not six, hours per year), one

68 On the Differentiae and S see CCSL A, –. On Eucherius and S see

CCSL , xi.69 Aerts and Kortekaas (), i –. On pseudo-Methodius see Reinink ().70 Aerts and Kortekaas (), i .71 Springseld (), , .


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on chronology drawing on Victorius, adaptations o various Dionysiac Argumenta, excerpts rom Isidore on the moon and the instability otime, and a table or the epacts o a -year cycle similar to the one in C but with errors. wo o the reworked Dionysiac Argumenta – II and IV – ollow the wording o the originals less closely than some adapta-tions such as Willibrord’s Computus Cottonianus, and it is these thatcontain the annus praesens AD . Again, like the material in C, the argumenta show that centres were interested in shaping the computis-tical material they had available to them, and were not content merelyto copy. St Gall was well resourced to engage with the complexities ocomputus.

In the miscellany o computistical argumenta, there are two whichcontain the annus praesens . Te first is a ormula or calculating con-currents (p ):

Plate 2 St Gall, Stifsbibliothek, , p .

72 For discussion, Springseld (), –.73 Springseld (), . Compare Dionysius, Argumentum IV (Krusch (),

); Bede, De temporum ratione (CCSL B, ); Canones lunarium (PL , ); Lect. comp. IIII (Borst (), ii –); Lib. ann. (Borst (), ii ); HrabanusMaurus, De computo (CCCM , ).


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Si nosse cupis qualiter incurrentes [recte concurrentes] septimane dies in-venire possint, pone annos incarnaciones Christi, quod fueri\n/t ut puta DCCXLIII; hos divides in quattuor partes et ipsorum quartam partem

eisdem adicito, quibus etiam regulares adicies IIII; partire per VII, quod superfuerint tot concurrentes invenies; si vero nihil remanet, VII sunt.

‘I you desire to know how the concurrents o the days o the weekcan be ound, take the years o the incarnation o Christ, which wouldhave been, e.g., ; these you will divide into our parts and you willadd the ourth part o these to them, to which you will also add theregular ; part by , and you will find that the concurrents are how muchis lef over; and i nothing remains, these are .’

Te mathematical structure is identical to the Dionysiac Argumentum IV and its derivatives. Te wording o the argumentum, on the otherhand, is novel while remaining broadly generic. Immediately we have acontrast with the Computus Cottonianus o C and its derivatives, whichremained more aithul to the textual construction o such argumenta. As in the later section o C, then, we can see hints o adaptation havinga stronger influence than textual authority in the computus at this time.

Te second argumentum o AD is a doublet concerned withchronology. Te first part is a ormula or calculating the annus passionis (p ):

Si vis invenire quotus annus sit a passione domini, sume annos incarna-tionis ipsius, a quibus subtrahe XXVII; quod remanet totus annus est a passione Christi.

‘I you want to find what year it is rom the passion o the Lord, take

the years o the incarnation itsel, rom which subtract ; what remainsis the total o years rom the passion o Christ.’

Significantly, subtracting rom the year ab incarnatione in this mannergenerates the Victorian annus passionis rather than the Dionysiac one, which would involve subtracting or . Te two linear chronologi-cal traditions still needed to be compared. radition was slow to changehere, with the Victorian dating preerred in the Computus o AD

74 Dionysius, Argumentum IV (Krusch (), ); Computus Cottonianus (Gómez Pallarès (), ).

75 See Bede, De temporum ratione (CCSL B, ).


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JAMES . PALMER

Plate 3 St Gall, Stifsbibliothek, , pp. –.

too but less evidently thereafer. An interest in chronology also under- pins the second argumentum o AD in S (pp. –):

Si scire vis quotus annus sit ab initio mundi, multiplica XVCCCCLXXXV, fiunt V mille DCCCCXXV; quibus semper adde regu-lares VI, fiunt V DCCCCXXXI; addes etiam indictionem anni cuius olue-ris, ut puta XI, qui est anno praesenti ab incarnacione Christi DCCXLIII,

fitque summa numerorum V DCCCCXLII; isti sunt anni ab initio mundi.

‘I you want to know what year it is rom the beginning o the world,multiply by , which makes ,, to which always add the regu-lars , which makes ,. Now you will also add the indication o the year you want, e.g. , as it is or the present year rom the incarna-tion o Christ, and the sum o the numbers happens to be , – theseare the years rom the beginning o the world.’

76 Computus o AD § (Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, Phillipps , r). Tistext was described briefly by Rose, () – and identified by Borst as ‘eine ehler-hafe Vororm’ o Lect. comp. o AD (Borst (), ii ) – an analysis which ailsto appreciate it as a coherent composition in its own right. I hope to return to a ullerstudy o the computus in uture.

77 For the correction in the first line see Springseld (), n .


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the outright heretical luna . Moreover, the lack o immediate resolu-tion is apparent in the continuing use o Victorius’ computus in some ar-eas, as indicated by uaest. Austr. o AD . Perhaps the most strikingeature o the Easter debate, however, is that there is not one single wordsaid about it in the Boniatian correspondence, even given the litany osins and ailings he complained about in the Frankish Church. Whatthis suggests is that the debate did not represent a widespread or ront-line concern, and again it is perhaps worth remembering that the onlyhistoriographical echo o the Easter problem was rom a Burgundiansource, with a different perspective on events in the Frankish kingdoms.

Boniace’s silence has nevertheless rarely been interpreted as indiffer-

ence. Indeed, scholars have argued that he was a key figure in the promo-tion o Bedan ideas on time and, with that, the use o Dionysiac tables,because he was the principal representative o the ‘Roman party’. Forsure, Boniace sought inormation on AD-dating, requested books romEngland written by Bede, and oversaw the Concilium Germanicum inAD , the record o which is the oldest extant Frankish public docu-ment to employ AD-dating. It has been argued on this basis that theDionysiac computus o AD must have been produced in Boniace’scircle. But to say that Boniace was leading a ‘Romanist party’ in thematter seems overly to simpliy the situation. Te Frankish Church com- prised a complex series o cultural and political clusters in which there were long-standing seams o interest in ‘Roman’ religious culture whichdeveloped independently and beore Boniace’s time. Tere were alsomany figures such as Milo o rier who Boniace ound objectionable but who others associated with Boniace did not. With this background itis difficult to see why the computus o AD was necessarily composedin Boniace’s circle rather than in any other ‘pro-Roman’ environment.

87 Note that the table o AD in Bern, Burgerbibliothek, , stops inexplicablyin AD ( v).

88 uaest. Austr. II – (Borst (), i –).89 Krusch (), –.90 Epistolae Bonifatii , (= Concilium Germanicum), –, (ed. by angl in

MGH Epp. sel. , , –, –, ).91 Krusch (), ; Borst (), (where he also notes the possible influence

o Aldhelm’s letter to King Geruntius on Easter, ed. by Ehwald in MGH Auct. ant. ,–); Borst (), i .

92 Hallinger (), –; Reuter (), –.93 On Milo as an example o the aristocracy’s relationship with the Church see

Ewig (), –; Schieffer (), –; von Padberg (), –; Airlie(), –; Palmer (), –.


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Indeed, Warntjes has recently made the case or this computus beingcomposed in Cologne on the basis o its relationship to other texts romthat centre. Boniace had desired to be bishop o Cologne, which wasboth an important royal centre in the East and well-placed to developmissionary work in the Rhineland; but Frankish bishops opposed hisappointment, electing Herigar – o whom Boniace was critical – in his place. Te example shows that centres such as Cologne could adoptand promote the Dionysiac reckoning without embracing the influenceo Boniace.

Willibrord may have posed a different kind o figure here, with hiscircle ofen popular with both the riends and enemies o Boniace. We

have already seen that Echternach was possibly important in the spreado the Dionysiac computus because it had access to an early copy o theSirmond material and more, as is evident in C. Te political context othe monastery is no less important here: Echternach was richly endowedby Pippin II (†) and his wie Plectrudis, on whose amily lands themonastery was built; and in c .AD the two exchanged rights or reeabbatial elections and the promise o protection or oaths that the abbotremain aithul to his beneactors. In such an unusual situation, it isalmost inconceivable that Pippin and Plectrudis would have been ol-lowing a different Easter reckoning to that observed in their avouritemonastery, so it seems likely that the Dionysiac reckoning would havespread in conjunction with the spread o Pippinid authority i it had notalready. Moreover, Echternach was closely bound to the social world onearby rier, which Willibrord as abbot clearly embraced to judge rom witness lists in charters and memorial notes on the Echternach calen-dar. Tis makes it even less likely that an opponent o Boniace aroundthere such as Milo – a relative o Willibrord’s riends – would have ol-

lowed anything other than the Dionysiac table either. Te use o Eastertables, in short, was unlikely to be divided along the obvious politicallines o the time. Te social and political networks o Echternach, meanwhile, gave it particular clout as a centre. In AD , or example, whenCharles Martel ought his rival Ragemred or control o the office o

94 Warntjes (), CIII–CIV and CLXXII–CLXXIV.95 Epistolae Bonifatii , (ed. by angl in MGH Epp. sel. , –, –).96 Echternach charters – (ed. by Wampach (–), ii –); Angenendt

(), –.97 Most prominently Basinus o rier: Calendar, March (ed. by Wilson (),

, v), and charters , , and (ed. by Wampach (–), ii , , ); Ewig(), .


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mayor, it was Willibrord’s decision to support Charles which ultimately won over much o the Frankish nobility to the same cause. From this perspective, the support or the Dionysiac reckoning implied by the abincarnatione dating at the Boniatian councils and at Soissons seems lesslike a sudden novelty, and more like the expression o a long-standing al-liance o Anglo-Irish learning and Pippinid authority dating back to thefirst quarter o the century.

It is important not to underestimate the independence o learningin the circles o Pippin III either. Les Éstinnes was, afer all, Pippin’schurch council to complement that held by his brother and Boniace inAD . Pippin was himsel an educated and pious individual, capable

o direct action in the affairs o the church, as most amously exempli-fied in his early career by his request to Pope Zacharias or clarificationabout points o canon law in c .AD . Scholars have seriously doubt-ed whether Boniace was an important influence on the mayor, even ithe reorming interests o the two figures largely coincided and the An-nales regni Francorum claimed that Boniace had anointed Pippin kingin AD , a claim which is widely doubted. With this independencein mind, it is notable that interest in a computistical level o detail canbe ound in the dating clause or Pippin’s second council, at Soissons inAD and apparently without Boniace, which in the printed editionnotes a ull moon, luna , or March alongside the year, calendardate and regnal year. Brigitte Englisch has argued that, as it stood,the lunar observation meant that the Paschal ull moon would all on April, when both Victorian and Dionysiac tables predicted that it would all on April. In Englisch’s reconstruction o events, this hadbeen a difficult issue since a solar eclipse on April, AD , which would have been a day early or Dionysiac lunar tables; and the same

situation would have occurred in AD . Tis, she argued, would have

98 Liber historiae Francorum – (ed. by Krusch in MGH SS rer. Merov. ,–); Gerberding (), –. Te relationship between Charles and Echternachis evident rom Echternach charter (ed. by Wampach (–), ii –), and thedry-mark notes in Willibrord’s calendar (Levison (), –).

99 Only the pope’s reply has survived: Epistola Zachariae papae ad Pippinum(c.Ian. ) (ed. by Gundlach in MGH Epp. , –).

100 Annales regni Francorum s.a. [recte ], (ed. by Kurze in MGH SS rer.Germ. , –). Schieffer (), –; Jäschke (), –; McKitterick (),

–; Palmer (), –. In deence o Boniace’s role in AD see Jarnut (),–.

101 Concilium Suessionense () pre. (ed. by Werminghoff in MGH Conc. ,, ).102 Englisch (), .


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been the cause or dispute reported in Burgundy. Te problem or this view is that the eclipse in AD would not have been observable inFrankia, and, as Krusch observed in , the ull moon would actuallyhave allen on March in . Nevertheless, the reerence to the ageo the moon at Soissons still betrays an attention to detail comparableto the incipt o AD but otherwise unusual in council records (in-deed even the next extant record under Pippin, or Ver in AD , gaveonly the date and regnal year). Te dating clause o AD alongsidethe AD incipit perhaps speak o a particular moment o height-ened interest in the reckoning o time in the wake o the discussions onEaster.

In Pippinid circles, such interest in chronology also helped to shapethe structures o political historiography. Victorian Easter tables hadlong underpinned chronology in Gaul and Italy, as is evident rom suchdiverse sources as the summary o authorities on the world age in thesixth-century Epitoma temporum et indiculum pascae rom Vivarium, the work o Gregory o ours and Fredegar, and the computationes alongside the partial Victorian table in the Computus Bobbienses and thetable o AD . Chronological paradigms were overhauled, however,in the wake o both the spread o AD dating and the approach o the‘last’ year AM ,. In this context it is striking that one o the earliestexamples o Pippinid political historiography, the Burgundian Historia

103 On AD see von Oppolzer (), table , and compare the NASA web-site at: http://eclipse.gsc.nasa.gov/SEsearch/SEsearchmap.php?Ecl=. OnAD see Krusch (), and the NASA website at http://eclipse.gsc.nasa.gov/ phase/phases.html. Compare also Bede’s anxieties over the age o the moon in De

temporum ratione (ed. by C.W. Jones in CCSL B, –) and the commentary in Wallis (), –.104 Concilium Vernense () pre. (ed. by Boretius in MGH Capit. , ): V Idus

Iulii, anno quarto regnante domno nostro Pippino gloriossimo rege (‘ July, in the ourth year in which our lord, the most glorious king Pippin, reigns’).

105 Epitoma temporum et indiculum pascae (ed. by Mommsen in MGH Auct. ant. ,).

106 Gregory o ours, Libri historiarum decem, praefatio (ed. by Krusch in MGH SSrer. Merov. ,, ); Fredegar, Chronicon (ed. by Krusch in MGH SS rer. Merov. , ) with comments in Krusch (), .

107

Te ‘Bobbio’ computatio is dated to AD (AM , th

year o Clovis III)and edited by Mommsen in MGH Auct. ant. , . See Warntjes (), LXXIII–LXXIV and n on the -year difference between AD and AM dates. For theAD computatio see Dial. Burg. (Borst (), i –). Further examples arediscussed in Krusch (), – and Landes (), –.


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vel gesta Francorum, represents a crossroads o tradition stemming romthis very period o computistical inquiry:

Certe ab initio mundi usque ad passionem domini nostri Iesu Christi sunt anni et a passione Domini usque isto anno praesente, qui est in cycloVictorii ann. , Kl. Ian. die dominica, ann. ; et ut istum miliariumimpleatur, restant ann. .

‘Without doubt, rom the beginning o the world up to the passiono our Lord, Jesus Christ, there are years, and rom the passiono our Lord up to that present year, which is the th in the cycle oVictorius, [in which] January is a Sunday, [recte ] years [rom

the Incarnation]; and so this millennium is incomplete, [and] yearsremain.’

Although this alls within the middle o the text, such notes were acommon way to round off a chronicle, so it seems in this case to markthe end o a first stage o continuing Fredegar’s seventh-century his-tory. A puzzle is posed by the year AD being both a year out andmisidentified as the year a passione Domini, which led Krusch to argue

that this was a later interpolation.

I so, it is likely that the interpola-tion must still have been made by AD , when the first version o the Historia vel gesta Francorum was completed. Significantly, the Histo-ria was composed in the circle o dux Childebrand, Pippin III’s uncle,and possibly as a deliberate legitimizing response to the coronation o. Clearly, as Krusch noted, the interpolator did not have access tothe kind o accurate Dionysiac reckoning evident in something like thecomputus o AD . What the computatio hints at, then, is how be-tween AD and people had begun to cross-reerence Victorian

and Dionysiac reckonings in the context o political historiography as

108 Historia vel gesta Francorum (ed. by Krusch in MGH SS rer. Merov. , ).109 Krusch (), –. For comparisons see Gregory o ours, Libri histori-

arum decem X (ed. by Krusch in MGH SS rer. Merov. ,, ) and Isidore o Seville,Chronica maiora § (ed. by Mommsen in MGH Auct. ant. , ).

110 Krusch (), .111 Collins (), . Collins suggests that the computatio is borrowed rom an-

other source, although Krusch’s suggestion that it marks the end o a pre-AD version

seems more compelling given the emphatic paragraph preceding it. Tere is also a clearsection break in London, British Library, Harley , r at this point in the text.

112 Collins (), –; Collins (), , –.113 Krusch (), –.


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well as in computistical settings – perhaps even in advance o accuratetables spreading – here pointing towards the influence o the Pippinidintellectual culture at the centre on historical production. Te integra-tion o Dionysiac reckonings into politicized historical tradition maybe one offshoot o the development o new chronological material inAD .

Conclusion

A study o C and S reveals something about the nature o computisticalresources in the earlier eighth century, as well as the cultural and po-litical networks in which they developed. Te eighth century witnesseda significant paradigm shif as the churches o the Frankish kingdomsmoved towards using Dionysiac tables as the cornerstone o their liturgi-cal year and historical ramework, but not always without abandoningolder traditions and tables. What C and S reveal is the creativity that this process involved. Troughout the century, computistical texts were re- written, new supplementary tables and rotae were constructed, and there

was experimentation with making Easter tables more practical by addingcolumns or the date o Lent, perhaps addressing the conusion causedby old traditions. Te two compilations also provide clues as to the cul-tural and political dynamics which underpinned the paradigm change.Te importance o knowledge imported rom Ireland and England hasalways been broadly recognized, but in C one can see the importanceo Sirmond-style collections in the process beore the circulation – inot composition – o Bede’s works. More importantly, it is the uniono Anglo-Irish learning and Pippinid authority at Echternach whichseems to have provided one crucial context or the dissemination osuch knowledge, establishing a way o doing things into which someonelike the Burgundian interpolator o AD could buy. Te evidenceo S maybe testifies to the influence o collections which were in somesense more ragmented than the Sirmond collection, but no matter: atdistance rom the court, St Gall was still able to engage actively withthe emerging system by drawing on the resources o wider monasticnetworks. Finally, it is possible to identiy a crisis and response which

intensified debate about Easter: a breakdown in agreements over Easterin AD , culminating in a discussion o the problem at Les Éstinnesand the composition o various new Dionysiac material in AD , at


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the same time that Childerich III was introduced to uniy the politicalscene. None o this necessarily resolved the issue completely, given thatVictorius’ legacy continued to be elt, as S shows. Nevertheless, the keybattles at the political centre seem to have been decided in avour o theDionysiac reckoning already.

Palmer2011 Computus After the Paschal Controversy of AD 740

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