Contents

Data Source: Parker on the Web

• Résumé : CCCC MS 291 is a compilation of material concerning the reckoning of time, written at St Augustine's, Canterbury in the late eleventh or early twelfth century. The calculation of the date of Easter, known as computus, is both very complex and very important to the church year; this compilation explains the theoretical calculations as well as providing relevant tables. Bede's De temporum ratione, the main text in the book, was a very popular work in the Middle Ages, and remains a useful guide to computus; but there is an interesting disparity between Bede's insistence that one should be able to divide by nineteen in one's head, and the table on f. 137 which lays out addition, subtraction and multiplication starting with 1 + 1 is 2. At the end the manuscript contains a full Easter table for 1064 to 1595, a complete Dionysiac Great Paschal Cycle (532 years, the product of the 19-year lunar cycle and the 28-year cycle of days of the week). The book is written throughout in late Anglo-Caroline minuscule, although the decorated initials show Norman influence; this gives an interesting insight into the cultural influences at work at St Augustine's Abbey after the Norman Conquest.

  
  

  Contenu :

  
  

  Langue(s) des textes : latin

  
  

  Intervenants :

  Bede the Venerable - author

  1r-112r - Bede the Venerable, De temporum ratione || Beda de temporibus et temporum ratione

  Note : (1r) A very gaudy initial to the prologue

  rubric : (1r) Incipit Prefatio libri sequentis de natura rerum

  incipit : (1r) De natura rerum et ratione temporum duos quondam

  Note : (P. L. XC 293, 685)

  explicit : (2r) iura custodiat

  rubric : (2r) Explicit prefatio

  rubric : (2r) Incipiunt capitula (72)

  rubric : (3r) Incipit Liber Bedae de temporibus

  incipit : (3r) De temporum ratione domino iuuante dicturi

  Note : (3r) Very gay initial

  Note : Change of scribe at f. 33r (?) and 49r

  Note : Ends

  explicit : (112r) mereamur accipere palmam

  
  

  112v-131v - Computistical material || Dissertatio de anno, etc. || De Ratione anni, etc.

  incipit : (112v) Ianuarius Augustus et december iiii nonas habent

  Note : See the Cologne ed. 1612 I, p. 227

  rubric : (113r) Ad feriam inueniendam secundum Dionysium

  Note : Ends with

  rubric : (130r) De Ratione Bissexti

  incipit : (130r) Si nosse desideras

  rubric : (130r) De feria kal. Ian.

  incipit : (130r) Si uero feria

  incipit : (130r) Est etiam argumentum

  explicit : (130r) Sic fac de ceteris

  Note : (130v) Table of numbers

  
  

  Intervenants :

  Isidore of Seville - author

  132r-132v - Isidore of Seville, De natura rerum (excerpt on seven wandering stars from chapter 23) || Isidorus episcopus de positione septem stellarum errantium

  rubric : (132r) Ysidori Episcopi de positione vii stellarum errantium

  incipit : (132r) In ambitu quippe

  explicit : (132v) saturnus xxx

  Note : (132v) Names of winds

  incipit : (132v) Septentrio Circius

  explicit : (132v) Africus. Corus

  
  

  132v-136v - Bede the Venerable, Epistola ad Wicthedum de aequinoctio uel de paschae celebratione || Beda de aequinoctio

  Note : Later title (xv)

  rubric : (132v) Epistola uenerabili Bede presbiteri de equinoctio iuxta anatholium

  incipit : (132v) Reuerentissimo ... fratri uicthed

  explicit : (136v) equinoctium fuisse confirmet

  
  

  137r-138v - Texts and tables on calculation || Tabula et ratio numerandi

  Note : The last quire in a much smaller hand of the same school

  incipit : (137r) Sicut ratio numeri nimis difficilis

  explicit : (138v) uel nongentesimus uel nongesimus

  
  

  138v-145v - Computus tables || Tabulae paschales

  Note : (138v) Space for table

  Note : (138v) On the 19-year cycle

  incipit : (138v) Subscripta figura in decem et nouem partes

  explicit : (139r) aut eiusdem anni epactam siue terminum pascalem

  Note : (139r) Table of the 19-year cycle with Concurrents, Epacts, Easters, weeks from Christmas to Easter, from Pentecost to Midsummer, from Pentecost to Advent

  incipit : (140v) In subscripto paschali cyclo

  explicit : (140v) ultimus lunas diei pasche

  Note : (140v) Paschal table from 1064 to 1595

  Note : f. 145v blank