Bede: articles and tips

A missing chunk of Pope Vitalian’s Letter to King Oswiu about Easter?

Posted on by Roger Pearse

In Bede’s Ecclesiastical History book 3 chapter 29, he quotes a letter from Pope Vitalian to the Anglo-Saxon King Oswiu, encouraging him to adopt the new simpler Roman calculation of the date of Easter instead of the Irish method using the 89-year cycle of Victorius.

“To the most excellent lord, our son Oswiu, king of the Saxons, Bishop Vitalian, servant of the servants of God.

“We have received your Highness’s welcome letter. …  Therefore your Highness must, as a member of Christ, always follow the holy rule of the chief of the apostles in all things, both in the celebration of Easter and in everything delivered by the holy apostles, Peter and Paul, who, like two heavenly lights, illuminate the world, while their teaching daily illuminates the hearts of believers.”

After some remarks about celebrating the true Easter uniformly throughout the whole world, he goes on:

“Finally, in view of the length of the journey, we are not at present able to find a man who is entirely suitable and fitted to be your bishop, as you request in your letter….

Bede says that he omits the “remarks about celebrating the true Easter uniformly throughout the whole world”, and the letter has not otherwise come down to us.

But, long ago Archbishop Ussher of Armagh drew attention to a manuscript from Whitby.  This contained a potentially interesting item which he printed in his Veterum epistolarum Hibernicarum sylloge (1632), p.126 (online here).  The book itself is a collection of papal and other letters directed to Ireland in the earliest times.

The entry begins (p.125), with Ussher’s own words in italics:

In the year of Christ 639, the Roman see being vacant through the death of Pope Severinus, these letters were written.  Concerning which, and others similar sent 50 years before to by Pope Honorius to the same Irishmen , Bede wrote thus in book 2 of his Ecclesiastical History, chapter 19.  Pope Honorius sent letters to the Scottish race, whom he had learned were in error in the observation of Holy Pascha. ….

Then:

Deinde epistolam hanc adjungit: sed quae “de ratione Paschalis observantiae” in ea sunt exposita praetermittit.  Quod & in superioribus Laurentii Cantuariensis ad Hibernos literis, & in aliis Vitaliani Romani Pontificis ad Oswium Nordanhumbrorum regem (quas penultimo 3. libri capiti inseruit) ab eo factum videmus, qui posteriorum illarum defectus ex antiquissimis fortasse Whitbiensis coenobii schedis aliquo modo suppleri poterit; in quibus, praefixo titulo “Vitalini” (“Vitaliani” haud dubie) Papae Urbis Romae, subjectum repperi.

Nunquam enim celebrare [debemus] sanctum Pascha, nisi secundum Apostolicam & Catholicam fidem, ut in toto orbe celebratur a Christiana plebe; id est, secundum Apostolicam regulam CCCXVIII sanctorum patrum, ac computum sancti Cyrilli & Dionysii.  Nam in toto terrarum orbe sic Christi una columbam hoc est, ecclesia immaculata, sanctum Paschae resurrectionis diem celebrat.  Nam Victoris sedes Apostolica non adprobavit regulam Paschae: ideo nec sequitur dispositionem eius pro Pascha.

I.e.

Then he appends this letter: but he omits what is set forth in it ‘concerning the manner of observing Easter.’ We see that he did the same both in the earlier letters of Laurence of Canterbury to the Irish, and in others of Vitalian, Roman Pontiff, to Oswiu, king of the Northumbrians (which he inserted in the penultimate chapter of Book 3). The deficiencies of the latter letters may perhaps in some way be supplied from very ancient documents of the monastery of Whitby; among these I found the following text, headed with the title ‘Vitalini’ (undoubtedly ‘Vitaliani’), ‘of Vitalian, Pope of the City of Rome.

For we ought never to celebrate the holy Easter except according to the Apostolic and Catholic faith, as it is celebrated throughout the whole world by the Christian people; that is, according to the apostolic rule of the 318 holy fathers, and according to the reckoning of St Cyril and Dionysius. For throughout the whole world the one dove of Christ—that is, the spotless Church—thus celebrates the holy day of the resurrection of Easter. For the Apostolic See did not approve Victor’s rule for Easter; therefore it does not follow his arrangement concerning Easter.

Ussher’s “Whitby manuscript” is not known today, but his text is almost the same as Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Digby 63, folio 59v, which may perhaps be the same manuscript.  It is likely enough that Ussher corrected his manuscript for publication.  The Digby manuscript was written between 867 and 892, somewhere in the North of England.  It does not seem to be online, but a recent publication tells us that it contains the following text:

VITA.LINI PAPE URBIS ROMAE

Numquam enim celebrare sanctum pascae nisi secundum apostolicam et chatholicam fidem ut in toto orbe caelebratur a christiane blebe; id est secundum apostolicam regulam CCCXVIII sanctorum patrum ac compototum sancti cirilli et dionisi. Nam in toto terrarum orbe sic Christi una columba, hoc est ecclesia inmaculata, sanctum pascae resurrectionis diem celebrat. Nam victoris sedis apostolica non adprobavit regulam pascae. Ideo nec sequitur dispositionem eius pro pascae.

Holy Easter must never be celebrated except according to the Catholic and apostolic faith, as it is celebrated in the whole world by the Christian people; to wit according to the apostolic rule of the 318 Holy Fathers and the computus of the venerable Cyril and Dionysius. For the one single dove of Christ, i.e. the immaculate Church, celebrates in this way throughout the whole world the day of Holy Easter of Resurrection. Indeed, the Apostolic See did not approve Victor’s Easter rule; thus, neither does it follow his dispositions for Easter.1

“Vitalinus” is apparently an ancient version of “Vitalianus”, and attested in one recension of the Liber Pontificalis, composed prior to 742 AD.  Ussher believed that this was the missing chunk from Vitalian’s letter.

It is not surprising that Bede would omit this material.  Despite what it says, the Easter reckoning of Victor was actually in full use in Rome only a few decades before Vitalian wrote his firm statement that it was not used in Rome.

So is this passage from Ussher/Digby actually from the letter of Vitalian?  Well a recent open-access article thinks so:

The passage is well-known to scholarship since J. Ussher, Veterum epistolarum Hibernicarum sylloge, quae partim ab Hibernis, partim ad Hibernos, partim de Hibernis vel rebus Hibernicis sunt conscriptae (Dublin, 1632), p. 126; its authenticity was doubted by Mac Carthy, Annals of Ulster, vol. 4: Introduction and Index (Dublin, 1901), pp. cxlv–cxlvii, but vindicated by Jones, Bedae opera, pp. 102–4; the passage has been readily accessible to Bedan scholars through Plummer’s edition: Baedae Historiam ecclesiasticam II, 201; the commentary to the recent edition by M. Lapidge with Italian translation by P. Chiesa, Beda, Stroria degli inglesi (Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum), 2 vols. (Rome, 2008) II, 568–9 reproduces Plummer’s account, except for his discussion of the Victorian dimension of this passage. See now also I. Warntjes, ‘Pope Vitalian’s Letter to King Oswiu of Northumbria and the Beginning of Armagh’s Claim to Primacy over the Irish Churches’, Revue Bénédictine 134 (2024), pagination tbc.2

Note the reference with “pagination tbc” – that should be “pp.5-43.”

But if this passage in Ussher/Digby is the missing portion of the letter of Vitalian, isn’t that really very convenient?  Too convenient?  How does this extract come to be made in the first place?

It is not easy to see why a scribe, who possessed a complete copy of the letter of Vitalian to Oswiu, one independent of Bede, would copy out of it only the few words which Bede does not reproduce?  Which fit so exactly in the gap, so luckily for modern readers?  It’s a bit too good to be true.  The identification relies on the heading, and these are notoriously unreliable.

Interesting, then, but we should be sceptical.

  1. Luciana Cuppo, “Felix of Squillace and the Dionysiac computus II: Rome, Gaul, and the insular world” in:  Late Antique Calendrical Thought and its Reception in the Early Middle Ages,(2017), pp 138-181; p.163.[↩]
  2. Tobit Loevenich and Immo Warntjes, “Theodore of Tarsus and the Study of Computus at the Canterbury School,” In: Anglo-Saxon England 50 (2023), 29-59, esp. pp.37-38.[↩]

Review: A translation of the “Life of Saint Bede” (BHL 1069) from Scriptorium Press

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Scriptorium Press have kindly sent me two of their volumes for review.  The first of these is the Life of Saint Bede the Venerable (72 pages, C$12).  ISBN 9798869903341.  I wrote some notes on this before my injury.  The other is Saints of Ethiopia (140 pages, C$16).  ISBN 9798300901172, and unfortunately a review of this will have to wait.

The Bede book is published using Amazon Createspace.  The title page gives the authors as Anthony Pavoni and Evangelos Nikitopoulos.

It is not clear to me who is the intended audience for the volumes of this series, which consists of translations of hagiographical texts.  This is not a series aimed at academics, like the Sources Chrétiennes.  I suspect that it is aimed at a devotional audience.  But it is very useful for everyone to have them, especially as here where the translation is the first.

The “Life of Bede” is a translation of BHL 1069, a hagiographic text of the late 11th century.  The editors do not make clear what Latin text they used, but they list an edition of the text of J. A. Giles in their appendix.  I would advise the editors to add a note at the end of their introduction – maybe a translator’s preface – specifying exactly which text they used.

John Allen Giles produced a complete edition of the works of Bede in twelve volumes during 1843 and 1844, and this is the edition reprinted in the Patrologia Latina.  The Vita Bedae appears in volume 1 (1843), pp. cxliii-clx.  The only footnote tells us that the text is almost entirely a reprint of the text printed by John Smith in his 1722 edition of the Historia Ecclestiastica, pp.815-822, because Giles says that he collated it against a British Museum manuscript.

This Dr Giles led a rather curious life.  Although an amiable person, his life included a jail sentence for falsifying a church register out of an unwise kindness to an unfortunate maidservant.  The DNB gives the story.  Much of his work was done in haste for cash, and critical opinion of it is low.   There is still a need to collate the eight manuscripts and produce a critical edition of the text.  At least one of these, Durham Cathedral Library B.II.35 is online, and the text begins on fol.119r.  But this is outside the scope of the series.

Durham Cathedral Library B.II.35, fol. 119r – excerpt, showing start of the Vita Bedae

The book begins with an introduction to Bede, useful to the general reader.  Indeed the book itself would fit well in a church bookstall, perhaps at Durham Cathedral.  The translation itself is pages 37-61.    The account by Symeon of Durham of the “Translation of the Relics of Bede” is pp.62-5, followed by a list of English titles of the works of Bede, and a short bibliography.

The translation itself is clear and readable.  But any reviewer of a new translation from anything but a major academic publisher will face a novel, and awkward question: is the translation genuine, or the product of AI?  This is an unwelcome new problem.

The only way to assess this was to translate a portion of the text myself, and also to see what AI and Google Translate made of Giles’ Latin.  This I did, for the first page of the text, and I found that the translation was generally accurate, and it displayed no traces of AI-generated language.  I had intended to do further sampling, but my injury has made this impossible at this time.

So… this is a useful item indeed.  The price is cheap, the translation is serviceable.  Well done them!

I attach a word file of the Latin text of the Giles edition, in case it is of use to others:  Vita Bedae BHL 1069 Giles 1843 (.docx)

J. A. Giles, “Complete works of Bede” – links to all the volumes

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Google books does not handle series of volumes very well.  It can require real determination and effort to locate the volumes of a series.  This afternoon I have had to do just this, in order to locate the 12 volumes of the 1843-4 edition of the works of the Venerable Bede.  These were edited by the Rev. John Allen Giles (“J. A. Giles”), whose Dictionary of National Biography entry is quite fun reading.  He was clearly rather an oddball, whose career was eccentric.  His works were written mainly for money, in great haste.

On 6 March 1855 Giles was tried at the Oxford spring assizes before Lord Campbell, on the charges of having entered in the marriage register book of Bampton parish church a marriage under date 3 Oct. 1854, which took place on the 5th, he having himself performed the ceremony out of canonical hours, soon after 6 a.m.; of having falsely entered that it was performed by license; and of having forged the mark of a witness who was not present.

He pleaded not guilty, but it was evident that he had committed the offence out of foolish good nature, in order to cover the frailty of one of his servants, whom he married to her lover, Richard Pratt, a shoemaker’s apprentice. Pratt’s master, one of Giles’s parishioners, instituted the proceedings.

Giles spoke on his own behalf, and declared that he had published 120 volumes. His bishop also spoke for him. He was found guilty, but strongly recommended to mercy. Lord Campbell sentenced him to a year’s imprisonment in Oxford Castle. His fate excited much commiseration in the university, and after three months’ imprisonment he was released by royal warrant on 4 June (Times, 7 March and 7 June 1855).

At that date the University of Oxford was primarily a training establishment for Anglican clergy.  No doubt the fellows of the university had a word, not out of any love for Mr Giles, but rather to ensure their own rights and liberties.  It does not seem that the episode was held against him, and he was appointed a couple of years later to a curacy.

In Gerald Bonner’s Church and Faith in the Patristic Tradition: Augustine, Pelagianism, and Early Christian Northumbria (1998), we read the following words about Mr G.’s editorial efforts.

I am going to discuss Bede’s commentary of the Apocalypse, and here I must warn you of a difficulty which at present confronts any student of Bede’s theological writings: the unsatisfactory character of our available texts. For most of these we have to rely upon the labours of the Rev. Dr. J. A. Giles, an indefatigable but undiscriminating editor, in whom energy was not tempered with discretion.

In a review of another of Giles’ ventures – his edition of the correspondence of Thomas Becket – the English historian E. A. Freeman observed, with the devastating candour of the Victorian reviewer: ‘We suppose we must allow the praises of zeal and research to a man who has edited, translated, and written more books than any other living English scholar. But really we can give him no other praise,’ and he went on to emphasise his point by remarking: ‘The Letters [of Becket] of course are invaluable; at least they will be when anyone shall be found to edit them decently.’1

It would be unkind to apply Freeman’s verdict to Giles’ edition of Bede without qualification. His edition – at least so far as the commentary on the Apocalypse is concerned – is sufficient for practical purposes. Unfortunately, for any detailed study of the text it is unsatisfactory, not only because it lacks any reference to original manuscripts, but also because no attempt is made to indicate the sources used by Bede, which would help us to estimate both the range of his reading and his personal contribution to the commentary. Giles’ edition appeared in 1844. It was reprinted by the Abbé Migne in 1850 in the Patrología Latina, and no one familiar with Migne’s editorial practice will suppose that Giles’ text underwent any particular improvement at his hands. The Migne edition, which is in effect Giles’, is the text most readily available today, and it is high time it was replaced.

Bonner indeed gives an example of Mr. G’s curious editing:

‘Bestiam sanctus Augustinus impiam civitatem, imaginem vero eius simulationem eius (avis [sic!] ed. Giles), fallaci imagine Christianos, characterem autem notam criminis interpretatur, quam adorari, et subiici ei, et consentiri, dicit’ PL xciii, 175 C.

While in Archaeologia Aeliana N.S. 16 (1894), p.82, we read a note on Bede’s Life of Cuthbert:

Patres Ecclesiae Anglicanae: Miscellaneous Works of Venerable Bede, ed. by Dr Giles (1843) VI, p. 357….

3. ibid IV, p. 202 No trust should be placed in the English translation added by Dr Giles.

But no doubt Mr. G. simply printed whatever some manuscript said, or seemed to say; and laboured nothing over the translation.  As you would, if you had to write for a living.

Here are the volumes of Giles’ The Complete Works of Venerable Bede, on Google Books:

The Giles volumes were reprinted in the Patrologia Latina volumes 90-95.  Thankfully most of this material has now been replaced by the Corpus Christianorum Series Latina volumes.

Volume 1 of Giles’ edition also contains the text of various medieval “Lives” of Bede, including BHL 1069, the “Vita Bedae” in the Scriptorium Press volume to which I referred a couple of days ago.  I don’t think that these have been edited since.  But more on that in my next post.

  1. n. 3: E. A. Freeman, ‘Saint Thomas of Canterbury and his Biographers,’ National Review, April 1860, reprinted in Historical Essays, London, 1871, pp. 86, 94.[↩]

Eostre in a manuscript of Bede’s De ratione temporum in Berlin

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Chapter 15 of Bede’s De ratione temporum, written in 723 AD, is headed “De mensibus Anglorum” – About the Months of the English – and contains fascinating details of the Old English months.  Most famous of these is April, known as Eosturmonath in Anglosaxon, and derived from an otherwise unknown goddess Eostre, which is the origin of our English-only word “Easter.”  Easter is called passover (pasch) in most languages, however, which seems to surprise many.  I have written about this passage before here.

Yesterday I learned via Twitter that a manuscript of this work has newly appeared online.  This one is in Berlin, in the Staats Bibliothek, and has the shelfmark “Ms. Phill. 1832.”  I think it must be 9th century. That shelfmark tells us that this is one of the vast and improbable collection amassed by the bibliomaniac Phillips at Cheltenham, some of which were bought at auction by the Germans.

I don’t tend to think of German manuscripts when I think of online manuscripts.  But this is really a very fine example of how to place a manuscript online.  Here’s the link to the page.  And you can download the whole thing as a PDF, at various resolutions.  Interestingly the online image zooms in to a higher resolution still, which is very helpful for marginal notes.  in fact the online browser is rather good.  You can maximise the image full-screen too.  It’s all fairly obvious and intuitive.

In fact I’m rather impressed by the “Digitalisierte Sammlungen der Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin.”  You go to the home page, and you can switch it into English very nicely.  The search box actually works.  I tried entering “Beda”, and got stuff; and then some very nice tabs on the right to restrict the results to manuscripts, and how many.  I tried again with “Vita Sanctorum” and likewise got good things.  I tried looking for the Life of St Nicholas that I knew was there, and found it.  I tried a partial shelfmark, and found it.  Really very good!  What I cannot see, tho, is any way to browse the collection.  It ought to have a list of collections (fonds), and a list by shelfmark of the mss within each.  In the way that the Wiglaf site does.  Another marvel – every page shows a yellow “feedback” tab on the right, so I’ve written and suggested it!

I’ve already downloaded a copy, and added a bookmark to the page that I want in case I need to come back to this later.  It’s folio 27r.  Here’s the start of the chapter:

Berlin MS Phill. 1832, fol. 27r: beginning of chapter 15 of Bede, de ratione temporum

On the next page we find the famous passage about Eostre:

Berlin MS Phill. 1832, fol. 27r: end of chapter 15 of Bede, de ratione temporum, with mention of Eosturmonath

Interestingly someone has written “April” over “Eusturmonath.”  As a reminder:

Eosturmonath, qui nunc paschalis mensis interpretatur, quondam a dea illorum quae Eostre vocabatur, et cui in illo festa celebrabant, nomen habuit, a cujus nomine nunc paschale tempus cognominant, consueto antiquae observationis voca­bulo gaudia novae solemnitalis vocantes.

Eosturmonath has a name which is now translated ‘‘Paschal month’’, and which was once called after a goddess of theirs named Eostre, in whose honour feasts were celebrated in that month. Now they designate that Paschal season by its name, calling the joys of the new rite by the time-honoured name of the old observance.  (Faith Wallis translation with correction as here).

Note also that the name of the goddess is “Eostre.”  It is curious how often and how pompously it is given as “Ēostre” online, when no source adds any such marker.

It’s still simply wonderful to see these things appear online!

“Where is Bede? Why is he not here?” – A saying of Bede recorded by Alcuin

Posted on by Roger Pearse

May 25 is the feast day of the Venerable Bede, the Anglosaxon scholar monk of the early 8th century, who lived and died at the double monastery of Monkwearmouth-Jarrow in Northumberland.  I happened to see a quotation in a tweet by Fr. Luke Childs here, taken from the new St. Bernard Breviary, although the original source was not given:

I know that angels visit the canonical hours and the congregations of the brethren.  What if they do not find me among the brethren?  May they not say, Where is Bede?

It’s obviously an attractive volume.  But where do these words come from?

It’s not hard to discover that the speaker is Alcuin, say from this page at the CCEL.  But this also gives no reference.  A somewhat longer quotation appears in the Liverpool University Press Bede: A Biblical Miscellany (1999), p.xix.

It is said that our master and your patron, the blessed Bede, said, “I know that angels visit the canonical hours and the meetings of the brethren. What if they should not find me there among them? Will they not say, “Where is Bede? Why does he not come to the devotions prescribed for the brethren?”

The source is listed as an Epistola sanctissimis in Sancti Petri ecclesia fratribus, which tells the novice nothing. Curiously this is referenced, not to an edition of the works of Alcuin, but instead to A.W. Haddan and W. Stubbs, Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents relating to Great Britain and Ireland, vol. 3, Oxford (1871), p.470-1 (online here).  This in turn gives the Latin text, and references it as:

[Alcuin, Epistt., ed. Froben, no. 219; MS. Harl. 208, fo. 30]

Which is a frankly terrifying reference, suggesting a 16th century edition and a manuscript.  The footnotes are more useful, suggesting that the letter was addressed to the church of St Peter at Wearmouth.  It also notes that the letter contains a reference to the sack of Lindisfarne in 793.  This probably dates the letter to that year, since Wearmouth was itself destroyed by the Vikings the following year.

I have given this useless and frustrating paper-chase in full, because it seems clear that neither editor knew how to locate the letters of Alcuin and give a proper reference.  Possibly a future researcher, googling, may find these useless “references” here, and find relief.

Abandoning this approach, instead I took these few words of the Latin, “Scio angelos visitare canonicas horas,” from the Latin text given by Haddan and Stubbs, and started google searching, and at  once found useful material.

It seems that the letters of Alcuin were actually given a critical edition long ago.  There is no need to locate whatever 16th century Froben edition is referred to. Indeed I was quite unable to do so myself.

The letters may be found in Migne, in the Patrologia Latina 100, “epistolae”, beginning on column 133.  Migne reprints Froben’s preface, in fact.  In Migne our letter is epistola 16, to be found in cols. 167-8.  A transcription of the text is online at Wikisource here.

Fertur enim magistrum nostrum et vestrum patronum beatum dixisse Bedam: «Scio angelos visitare canonicas horas et congregationes fraternas; quid si ibi me non inveniunt inter fratres? Nonne dicere habent, ubi est Beda? Quare non venit ad adorationes statutas cum fratribus?»

But the critical edition is that of E. L. Dümmler, Epistolae Karolini Aevi vol. ii, in: MGH Epp. 4, Berlin (1895). This may be found online here.  In this edition the letter is Epistola 284, which may be found on p.442-3.  The section we want is p.443 lines 7-10.

The varied numbers seem to be a feature of the editions.  Dümmler indeed gives a look-up table in his preface, indicating that his “284” was “274” in Jaffé’s edition (Monumenta Alcuiniana, 1873), and “219” in Froben’s.  I was unable to locate, in Dümmler’s less-than-organised preface, any date for the edition of Froben, without translating the lot!

The “Collectanea” of Pseudo-Bede

Posted on by Roger Pearse

There is a famous prophecy about the Colosseum, given in variable forms such as this:

As long as the Colosseum stands, Rome shall stand.
When the Colosseum falls, Rome will fall.
But when Rome falls, the world will fall.

The source for this is the “Collectanea” of pseudo-Bede.

This is not a text that many will be familiar with.  It is listed in the Clavis Patrum Latinorum as CPL 1129, “Collectanea (Excerptiones Patrum: Flores ex diversis)”, i.e. Miscellaneous (Excerpts from the Fathers, sayings from various).  The incipit is “Dic mihi, quaeso, quae est illa mulier”.  It’s a collection of excerpts of various sorts.

The Latin text is available in PL 94, cols. 539-560.  This, I learn, reprints the Basel edition of 1563, from the Opera Bedae Venerabilis presbyteri Anglosaxonis of Johann Herwagen, 8 vols in 4, vol 3, pp.647-74.  Apparently there is no manuscript, only that solitary edition. This is reprinted in the modern text and translation by Martha Bayless & Michael Lapidge, Collectanea Pseudo-Bedae, Dublin (1998), although this was not accessible to me.1

The start of the 1563 edition, our only source for the text.

It is often said that, in the 16th century, printing houses, who received grubby old manuscripts and created nice new clean printed editions, were in the habit of chopping up the now surplus manuscripts in order to use the parchment to bind books.  I don’t know on what that is based.  It was often supposed that this fate befell the sole manuscript of Velleius Paterculus at Basel, until an 18th letter recording the sale of the manuscript two centuries later came to light.  A paper in the Bayless edition apparently offers this as the likely fate of the manuscript.

The Latin text quoted online varies, but here is the 1563 text:

Quamdiu stat Colysaeus, stat & Roma;
Quando cadet Colysaeus, cadet & Roma;
Quando cadet Roma, cadet & mundus.

The CPL tells us that the text is apparently 8th century, because it does not include any source later than that date.  But opinions vary, it seems.

  1. First page of review accessible at https://www.brepolsonline.net/doi/abs/10.1484/J.Peri.3.449?journalCode=perit[↩]

Easter: A translation error in Bede, De Ratione Temporum

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The word “Easter” is used only in English for the Christian commemoration of the death and resurrection of Christ.  In most languages the word is passover (pasch), or some version of it.  This is indeed what Easter is, the Christian version of passover.  That’s why it moves: Jesus was Jewish, and lived in Judaea, and the events of his life are based around the Jewish lunar calendar, which gives passover as the full moon after the equinox.  Jesus died on passover and rose on the Sunday after, so Easter is in principle the Sunday after passover.  The Julian calendar was not in use in Judaea, unfortunately.  None of this is known to the general public, and in the anglophone world it is widely assumed that every language calls it Easter.

Where does the English word “Easter” come from?  Our information on this comes from a single source, Bede De ratione temporum, (CPL 2320) on the reckoning of time, dated 723 AD.  Chapter 15 of this contains a list of the Anglosaxon months, which is full of interest and reads as follows:

Antiqui autem Anglorum populi (neque enim mibi congruum videtur, aliarum gentium annalem obser­vantiam dicere, ct mese reticere) juxta cursum lunae suos menses computavere; unde et a luna Hebraeorum et Graecorum more nomen accipiunt. Si quidem apud eos luna mona, mensis monath appellatur. Primusque eorum mensis, quem Latini Januarium vocant, dici­tur Giuli. Deinde Februarius Solmonath, Martius Hredmonath, Aprilis Eosturmonath, Maius Thrimylchi, Junius Lida, Julius similiter Lida, Augustus Weodmonath, September Halegmonath, October Winterfylleth, November Blodmonath, December Giuli, eodem quo Januarius nomine, vocatur. Incip­iebant autem annum ab octavo Calendarum Janua­riarum die, ubi nunc natale Domini celebramus. Et ipsam noctem nunc nobis sacrosanctam, tunc gentili vocabulo Modranicht, id est, matrum noctem, ap­pellabant, ob causam; ut suspicamur, ceremoniarum quas in ea pervigiles agebant. Et quotiescunque communis esset annus, ternos menses lunares singulis anni temporibus dabant. Cum vero embolismus, hoc est, XIII mensium lunarium annus occurreret, superfluum mensem aestati apponebant, ita ut tunc tres menses simul Lida nomine vocarentur, et ob id annus ille Thrilidi cognominabatur, habens IV menses gestatis, ternos ut semper temporum caete­rorum. Item principaliter annum totum in duo tempora, hyemis, videlicet, et aestatis dispartiebant, sex illos menses quibus longiores noctibus dies sunt aestati tribuendo, sex reliquos hyemi. Unde et men­sem quo hyemalia tempora incipiebant Winterfylleth appellabant, composito nomine ab hyeme et plenilunio, quia videlicet a plenilunio ejusdem mensis hyems sortiretur initium. Nec ab re est si et caetera mensium eorum quid significent nomina interpretari curemus. Menses Giuli a conversione solis in auctum dici, quia unus eorum praecedit, alius subsequitur, nomina accipiunt. Solmonath dici potest mensis placentarum, quas in eo diis suis offerebant; Hredmonath a dea illorum Hreda, cui in illo sacrificabant, nominatur; Eosturmonath, qui nunc paschalis mensis interpretatur, quondam a dea illorum quae Eostre vocabatur, et cui in illo festa celebrabant, nomen habuit, a cujus nomine nunc paschale tempus cognominant, consueto antiquae observationis voca­bulo gaudia novae solemnitalis vocantes. Trimilchi dicebatur, quod tribus vicibus in eo per diem pecora mulgebantur. Talis enim erat quondam ubertas Bri­tanniae, vel Germaniae, de qua in Britanniam natio intravit Anglorum. Lida dicitur blandus, sive naviga­bilis, quod in utroque mense et blanda sit serenitas aurarum, et navigari soleant aequora. Weodmonath mensis zizaniorum , quod ea tempestate maxime abundent. Halegmonath mensis Sacrorum. Winterfylleth potest dici composito novo nomine hyeme-plenilunium. Blotmonath mensis immolationum, quia in ea pecora quae occisuri erant diis suis vove­rent. Gratias tibi, bone Jesu, qui hos, ab his vanis avertens, tibi sacrificia laudis offerre donasti.

We are fortunate to have an excellent English translation of this long volume (1988, p.53-4) by Faith Wallis in the Liverpool University Press series “Translated Texts for Historians.”  Here is the corresponding passage.

In olden time the English people – for it did not seem ¢tting to me that I should speak of other nations’ observance of the year and yet be silent about my own nation’s – calculated their months according to the course of the Moon. Hence, after the manner of the Greeks and the Romans, [the months] take their name from the Moon, for the Moon is called “mona” and the month “monath”.

The first month, which the Latins call January, is “Giuli”; February is called “Solmonath”; March “Hrethmonath”; April, “Eosturmonath”; May, “Thrimilchi”; June, “Litha”; July, also “Litha”; August, “Weodmonath”; September, “Halegmonath”; October, “Winterfilleth”; November, “Blodmonath”; December, “Giuli”, the same name by which January is called. They began the year on the 8th kalends of January [25 December], when we celebrate the birth of the Lord. That very night, which we hold so sacred, they used to call by the heathen word “Modranecht”, that is, ‘‘mother’s night’’, because (we suspect) of the ceremonies they enacted all that night.

Whenever it was a common year, they gave three lunar months to each season. When an embolismic year occurred (that is, one of 13 lunar months) they assigned the extra month to summer, so that three months together bore the name ‘‘Litha’’; hence they called [the embolismic] year ‘‘Thrilithi’’. It had four summer months, with the usual three for the other seasons. But originally, they divided the year as a whole into two seasons, summer and winter, assigning the six months in which the days are longer than the nights to summer, and the other six to winter. Hence they called the month in which the winter season began ‘‘Winterfilleth’’, a name made up from ‘‘winter’’ and ‘‘full Moon’’, because winter began on the full Moon of that month.

Nor is it irrelevant if we take the trouble to translate the names of the other months. The months of Giuli derive their name from the day when the Sun turns back [and begins] to increase, because one of [these months] precedes [this day] and the other follows. Solmonath can be called ‘‘month of cakes’’, which they offered to their gods in that month. Hrethmonath is named for their goddess Hretha, to whom they sacrificed at this time. Eosturmonath has a name which is now translated ‘‘Paschal month’’, and which was once called after a goddess of theirs named Eostre, in whose honour feasts were celebrated in that month. Now they designate that Paschal season by her name, calling the joys of the new rite by the time-honoured name of the old observance. Thrimilchi was so called because in that month the cattle were milked three times a day; such, at one time, was the fertility of Britain or Germany, from whence the English nation came to Britain. Litha means ‘‘gentle’’ or ‘‘navigable’’, because in both these months the calm breezes are gentle, and they were wont to sail upon the smooth sea. Weodmonath means ‘‘month of tares’’, for they are very plentiful then. Halegmonath means ‘‘month of sacred rites’’. Winterfilleth can be called by the invented composite name ‘‘winter-full’’. Blodmonath is ‘‘month of immolations’’, for then the cattle which were to be slaughtered were consecrated to their gods. Good Jesu, thanks be to thee, who hast turned us away from these vanities and given us [grace] to offer to thee the sacrifice of praise.

Interesting stuff, but clearly belonging to a time past even in Bede’s day.

All the same there appears to be an error in the Eosturmonath translation, where the translator has split the sentence in two and in the process introduced a confusion.

Eosturmonath, qui nunc paschalis mensis interpretatur, quondam a dea illorum quae Eostre vocabatur, et cui in illo festa celebrabant, nomen habuit, a cujus nomine nunc paschale tempus cognominant, consueto antiquae observationis voca­bulo gaudia novae solemnitalis vocantes.

Eosturmonath has a name which is now translated ‘‘Paschal month’’, and which was once called after a goddess of theirs named Eostre, in whose honour feasts were celebrated in that month. Now they designate that Paschal season by her name, calling the joys of the new rite by the time-honoured name of the old observance.

Parsing this word by word:

et cui in illo festa celebrabant – and for whom, in that (month), feasts they used to celebrate.

nomen habuit, a cujus nomine nunc paschale tempus cognominant – (Eosturmonath) has a name, by which name now the paschal season they designate

consueto antiquae observationis voca­bulo, gaudia novae solemnitalis vocantes –  of the accustomed ancient observance by the name, the joys of the new rite calling

The translator has treated “cuius”, “of whom/which” as referring back to “dea … Eostre”.  Well it could.  “cuius” could refer to either a feminine or a neuter noun.  But the curious position of the “nomen  habuit” – “it has a name”  – seems designed solely to avoid this.  The whole bit about Eostre is put between “Eosturmonath” and “nomen habuit”, precisely to keep it out of the way of the rest of the sentence.  So I suggest that “cuius” should be understood to refer to “nomen”, i.e. to the season, not the goddess.

This would mean that the TTH should read “now they designate the paschal season by its name”.

This means that – unsurprisingly – the word “Easter” comes from “Eosturmonath”, not directly from “Eostre”.  According to Bede, the name Eostre gave rise to the season Eosturmonth (April) which in turn was used by the Christian English to mean the Christian festival of pasch.

So “Easter” is merely a worn down form of “Eosturmonath”.

From my diary

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I have spent a few days, researching the Martyrologium Poeticum of pseudo-Bede.

This work would ordinarily be a bit late for us.  Bede himself appears in the Clavis Patrum Latinorum, but the editors declined to include his dubia and spuria, doubtless realising that this would take them centuries into the middle ages.

The text is the first witness to All Saints’ Days – All Hallows Day – being celebrated on 1st November.  So it gets quoted in the literature.  I’ve been trying to find out about it, with this in mind.

However I noticed a funny thing, when I was looking through the papers.  There was nothing at all under this name for more than 50 years.  There were a cluster of papers by John Hennig in the 1920s and 30s, and a couple of French papers of the same era, and then nothing.  This made me suspicious.  Generally texts do not cease to be worked on entirely, after attracting interest for centuries.

But I have seen this before.  This evening my suspicion was confirmed – that the text is today known under a different title.  No longer do we study the Martyrologium Poeticum; instead it is the Metrical Calendar of York, or even simply MCY!

The text with an English translation has been edited by Kazutomo Karasawa in The Old English Metrical Calendar (Menologium), Cambridge, 2015, in Appendix 2 (p.138), as one of a number of related texts that Dr. K. included in his edition.

It’s very bad practice to do something like this, without better reason than I have yet to see.  I nearly wrote an article, entirely based on the older literature.  I am not the only one to be misled.

I shall have to write something with a bibliography about all this, and I do need to read the articles by Michael Lapidge that list the manuscripts.  But that can wait to another time.

A fragment of Bede’s “De ratione temporum” from his own lifetime?

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Here’s a fun item!  Inside the binding of a book, somebody found a really early fragment of a manuscript of Bede’s De ratione temporum.  (This is the only work which mentions “Eostre”, and includes all his calculations of dates and events.)

Even more fun – it’s online in a nice high-resolution image at Darmstadt!  It can be found here, where it is manuscript 4262.  The piece originates at Wearmouth – i.e. in Bede’s own monastery – around 725, in his own lifetime.

It’s amazing to consider that Bede may have seen this being copied!

But there is more.  This is a chunk of chapter 27, De magnitudine, vel defectu solis et lunae, as you may verify from this old edition here.  In this passage, he quotes Pliny the Elder book 37.  You can see the red heading of Bede’s chapter in the left hand column; and the name of “Plinius” on the third line underneath.

Here’s one side of the folium:

And here’s the other (which plainly needs a bit of work with a graphics tool):

Here’s some of the Latin text:

CAPUT XXVII.　DE MAGNITUDINE, VEL DEFECTU SOLIS ET LUNAE.
De magnitudine, vel defectu solis, sive lunae, Plinius secundus in opere pulcherrimo naturalis historiae ita describit: Manifestum est solem interventu lunas occultari, lunamque terrae objectu, ac vices reddi, eosdem solis radios luna interpositu suo auferente terrae, terraeque lunae.

The “eosdem solis radios luna” is particularly clear in the right-hand column, two lines down.

Here’s the same bit in the Liverpool University translation by Faith Wallis, p.78-79:

27. ON THE SIZE,OR ECLIPSE,OF THE SUN AND MOON
Pliny relates the following information concerning the size or eclipse of the Sun and Moon in that most delightful book, the Natural History: “It is obvious that the Sun is obscured by the intervention of the Moon, and the Moon by the interposition of the Earth, and each affects the other. The Moon takes away by its interposition the very same rays of the Sun which the Earth takes away from the Moon.”

Isn’t it amazing that a page of a copy contemporary with the author, and from the same monastery, is still extant?  It does demonstrate the importance of looking in these 16th century bindings.

Well done Darmstadt, for making that accessible online!  (They ask that I mention their reference of urn:nbn:de:tuda-tudigit-51806)

Bede on Yule

Posted on by Roger Pearse

In De ratione temporum (On the reckoning of time), chapter 15, the Venerable Bede lists the English months:

In olden time the English people — for it did not seem fitting to me that I should speak of other nations’ observance of the year and yet be silent about my own nation’s — calculated their months according to the course of the moon.  Hence, after the manner of the Greeks and the Romans, [the months] take their name from the moon, for the moon is called mona and the month monath.

The first month, which the Latins call January, is Giuli; February is called Solmonath; March, Hrethmonath; April, Eosturmonath; May, Thrimilchi; June, Litha; July, also Litha; August, Weodmonath; September, Halegmonath; October, Winterfilleth; November, Blodmonath; December, Giuli, the same name by which January is called.  They began the year on the 8th kalends of January [25 Dec.], when we celebrate the birth of the Lord.  That very night, which we hold so sacred, they used to call by the heathen word Modranecht, that is, ‘mother’s night’, because (we suspect) of the ceremonies they enacted all that night.

…

The months of Giuli derive their name from the day when the sun turns back [and begins] to increase, because one of [these months] precedes [this day], and the other follows. … 1

‘Giuli’ is Yule, I believe.  Note how it is a two-month month.

 

  1. Bede, The reckoning of time, translated … by Faith Wallis.  Liverpool, 2004, p.53-4[↩]