james t.

palmer

Computus After the Paschal

Controversy of AD 740

Abstract
This paper offers a study of the computistical material in London, British Library, Cotton Caligula A XV, and St Gall, Stiftsbibliothek, 225. Both collections contain material dated to AD 743 a date significant for being the last
of three years in quick succession in which problems were posed by clashes between the tables of Victorius of Aquitaine and those extended from Dionysius
Exiguus work, as well as the first year of the reign of Childerich III. It is argued
that the material and that which supports it some earlier, some later reveals
the vitality of computistical learning in Frankia in the eighth century, and how
it may have developed in response to a meeting at Les stinnes in AD 743. It is
also argued that the paradigm shift from Victorian to Dionysiac was supported
by the union of Anglo-Irish learning and Pippinid authority developed at Echternach, with little obvious influence coming from the circle of St Boniface.
Keywords
Boniface, Charles Martel, church councils, Cologne, Dionysius Exiguus, Echternach, Historia vel gesta Francorum, Isidore of Seville, Lent, Pippin III, St Gall,
Sirmond, Victorius of Aquitaine, Willibrord.

Introduction
Among the signs which heralded the death of Charles Martel in AD 741
was, according to the Historia vel gesta Francorum (c.AD 751), a dispute
over the ordo sanctissimus paschalis.1 Although it remained unspecified by
Historia vel gesta Francorum 24 (ed. by Krusch in MGH SS rer. Merov. 2,
179). In calling this text the Historia vel gesta Francorum rather than the traditional
1

The Easter Controversy of Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, ed. by Immo Warntjes
and Dibh Crinn, Studia Traditionis Theologiae, 10 (Turnhout, 2011), pp. 213241.
BREPOLSHPUBLISHERS10.1484/M.STT-EB.1.100735

james t. palmer

the Burgundian author, the dispute may be related to confusions stemming from the spread of Dionysiac Easter tables challenging the accepted
authority of those composed by Victorius of Aquitaine. For AD 740,
Victorius tables had proposed either a Latin Easter date of 24 April,
luna 22, or a Greek date of 17 April, luna 15, but the widespread simplified Victorian tables only accepted the earlier date, which anyone using a
Dionysiac table would have considered to have fallen on the heretical lunar date of luna 14.2 Indeed, in some Victorian tables, it is only from AD
740 that Greek dates were added, with one computist suggesting that
this year marked the first disagreement for a generation.3 This came, however, shortly after a separate potential confusion in AD 736, for which
Victorius had offered either a Latin date of 8 April or a Greek date of 1
April, when in fact Greek Dionysiac tables also favoured the later date;
and it may be no coincidence that the first Frankish condemnation of
Victorius followed within a year.4 A third year with double-dates, and
the last until AD 760, would also fall in AD 743. Further evidence which
indicates debate about the matter is buried in a list of topics for discussion at the Council of Les stinnes in AD 743, although no canon was
promulgated which clearly indicated any preferred solution to the problem.5 The Easter dispute is nevertheless significant because it coincided
with a number of key changes in Frankish history, with the extension of
Continuationes Chronicarum Fredegarii, I follow Collins (2007), 829, who has convincingly shown that the version of Fredegar with the continuations should be considered a distinct text in its own right.
2
Victorius, Cyclus (Krusch (1938), 35) and Dionysiac Cyclus s.a. 740 (cf. CCSL
123C, 555). A simplified Victorian table of AD 727 is in Dial. Burg. 16 (Borst (2006),
i 371). A second from AD 696 is in Bern, Burgerbibliothek, 645, here f 67v (date given
as xiiii kalendas maias to correspond with luna 16). As both give luna 16 instead of
15, there may be a common source. On the dispute see Krusch (1884), 138 and Englisch (2002), 88. On the Victorian tables and their double dates, see Warntjes (2010),
LXXXIVLXXXV n 228.
3
Paris, Bibliothque Nationale, Lat. 4860, 147v148r, with Greek dates and the
note on f 148r: Usque hic Greci et Latini insimul faciunt pascha. Hoc sunt anni l (Up to here,
the Greeks and Latins observed Easter together. These years were fifty); printed in Krusch
(1938), 35. For discussion of the table see Warntjes (2010), LXXXIV n 228. There is another copy in Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica, Reg. Lat. 586, 9r10v I have not examined.
4
The condemnation of Victorius: Dial. Neustr. 1013 (Borst (2006), i 3914);
Borst (2004), 86. Again the simplified tables accepted only the Latin date: Dial. Burg.
16 (Borst (2006), i 370) and Paris, Bibliothque Nationale, Lat. 4860, 147v. Bern,
Burgerbibliothek, 645, 67r, however gives the date idus apriles, luna 16, the lunar date
suggesting a miscopying of the Greek date.
5
Sententiae Bonifatianae Wirceburgenses 16 (ed. Glatthaar (2004), 117); cf. Borst
(2004), 867.

the Paschal Controversy of AD 740

Pippinid authority paving the way for the usurpation of the throne in AD
751, and the activities of holy men such as Boniface, Pirmin, and Virgil
of Salzburg expanding and redefining the boundaries of Latin Christendom.6 The implications of the Easter dispute within these contexts has
not been fully explored, not least because Borsts magisterial 2006 study
of eighth-century Frankish computus overlooked two sets of evidence
of relevance to this period: two computistical fragments from AD 743,
copied within two manuscripts whose contents pre-date the influence of
Bede and the later Frankish encyclopaedic tradition.7 This present study
seeks to examine those two fragments and their contexts to shed new
light on the impact of the debate of the AD 740s.
Easter tables caused problems in Frankia, as elsewhere, because the decision of which to use was affected by balancing tradition against technical
accuracy. In Gaul and Burgundy the situation was complicated because of
commitment to the tables of Victorius in some quarters at a time when
Dionysiac tables were gaining in popularity.8 Use of the tables had been
considered canonical since the Council of Orlans in AD 541, led by the
energetic reformer Bishop Leontius of Bordeaux.9 Canon law in the West
had put particular emphasis on maintaining a universal Easter throughout
the whole world since the Council of Arles in AD 314, before the matter
was addressed by the great ecumenical councils.10 The decision in AD 541
reflected the perceived importance of the pope in preserving this universality because, although the tables of Victorius were never officially sanctioned
by the papacy, Archdeacon Hilarius who commissioned them did become
pope before they were published in AD 457, and this is reflected in some
manuscripts calling Hilarius episcopus urbis Romae or papa rather than archidiaconus.11 Frankish bishops were forced to defend the tables in the early
seventh century from the challenges of St Columbanus, who mocked the
6
Fouracre (2000), 12137, 15574; Schieffer (1954), e.g. 2568; von Padberg
(2003), 5385.
7
For a summary of Borsts view of the period see his (1993), 557.
8
Krusch (1884), 13740; Jones (1934), 40821; Declercq (2000), 160.
9
Concilium Aurelianense (541) 1, ed. by de Clercq in CCSL 148A, 132.
10
Concilium Arelatense (314) praefatio and 1 (ed. by Munier in CCSL 148, 5 and
9); Mordek (1975), 163. See also Concilium Antiocenum (341) 1 (http://www.pseudoisidor.mgh.de/html/077.htm).
11
Epistula Hilari ad Victorium (Krusch (1938), 16 n 1) and Prologus Victorii Aquitani ad Hilarum (Krusch (1938), 17 n 1 and n 2). See also the comment in the Disputatio
Morini to this effect (Graff (2010), Appendix III on p 142, line 67). On the status of the
tables, see Jones (1934), 4101.

james t. palmer

inaccuracies of Victorius work.12 By this point, use of the tables had become
a cultural issue rather than a matter of science and learning, and Columbanus criticisms only irritated local bishops. Subsequently, the shift away
from Victorian tables across the Frankish kingdoms as a whole was gradual.
Dionysiac tables were used in at least one church in Aquitaine during the
seventh century, and further north in Austrasia they were likely in use by at
least the AD 690s; but the latest treatise expressing a preference for Victorius work possibly also from Austrasia dates to AD 764, so there was
a long period in which use of the two tables overlapped across the Frankish world as a whole.13 Improvements in computistical competence which
could have motivated the adoption of Dionysiac tables may hold some of
the answer, but only partially so, as confusion about the technicalities of
computus persisted into the ninth century and the infamous inquisition of
AD 809.14 The fragments from AD 743 and the material copied with them
may help to determine more clearly what kinds of learning and which networks of people were behind the move towards an Alexandrian paradigm.
Interpretation of AD 740 is complicated, however, by the kinds of
narratives modern historians have attempted to construct about Frankish computus. Bruno Krusch, who laid many foundations for the study
of the computus of this period, was concerned to understand how unified, proto-modern Easter reckonings and chronological systems had
become established in the West.15 More recently some scholars, notably
Richard Landes, have seen the development of chronology in this period
as a response to apocalyptic traditions, with evidence of a long and anxious
countdown towards the last year 6,000, which in Hieronymian tradition
would fall in AD 800/1.16 For a while, the accepted conclusion regardless
was that change was driven by the importing of Bedes works, particularly
his Historia ecclesiastica, and likely through the activities of Anglo-Saxon
missionaries led by Willibrord, Boniface, and later especially Alcuin.17 The
12
Columbanus, Epistolae 1 23 and 2 6 (ed. by Walker (1957), 47 and 189).
See most recently Stancliffe (2006), esp. 2058 and 212.
13
Earliest evidence for the use of Dionysiac tables in Frankia: Krusch (1884), 129
31; Cordoliani (1964), 60. Defence of Victorius in AD 764 in Quaest. Austr. (Borst
(2006), i 466508). The most recent comment is Warntjes (2010), XL-XLI.
14
Cap. comp. (Borst (2006), iii 104053).
15
Krusch (1884); (1910), 233; and the suggestive sub-title of Krusch (1938) the
origin of our modern time-reckoning.
16
Landes (1988).
17
Krusch (1884), 1389; Whitelock (1960), 78; Landes (1988), 17881; Declercq (2000), 17981. On Alcuins influence see Borst (1993), 5975 and Springsfeld
(2002). See also now Englisch (2010), 23941, 2578.

the Paschal Controversy of AD 740

emphasis on the Anglo-Saxons, however, neglects other contributions,

particularly the impact of Irish learning,18 while Rosamond McKitterick
has shown that Bedes work was only in circulation late in the eighth century when the Franks had already been using Dionysiac tables for some
time.19 What both sets of arguments expose is the diversity of computistical learning in the Frankish kingdoms, which Arno Borst characterized as
a confusion (Wirrwarr) which needed the intervention of Charlemagne
and his court in AD 789 and 809 to dispel.20 But the evidence for seeing
Charlemagnes direct hand is absent, as Eastwood and Stevens have both
insisted, leaving the notion of a centralized directing power behind computistical change in that period open to question.21 Meyvaert, Bullough,
and Englisch, meanwhile, believed with some reason that Borst had undersold the earlier strata of Carolingian calendars to maintain his thesis,
although Borst largely remained unmoved in his conclusions in his replies.22 Regardless of the merits of the various arguments, the implications
of Borsts voluminous output certainly requires further investigation, with
implications for the ways in which scholars interested in computus and
chronology approach the eighth century. In particular, it may be necessary to balance Borsts construction of texts with analysis of the ways in
which computi were compiled in individual manuscripts. In that context,
we turn to the two manuscripts overlooked by Borst which contain the
fragments of 743: London, British Library, Cotton Caligula A XV (= C)
and St Gall, Stiftsbibliothek, 225 (= S).

London, British Library, Cotton Caligula A XV

Our first evidence for computistical activity in the wake of the AD 740
dispute comes from a late eighth-century compendium from Northern
France, now London, British Library, Cotton Caligula A XV. The latest
datable element in C is an incipit to a Dionysiac table alas without the
table itself dated to AD 743, which provides an anchor for associating
Warntjes (2010), esp. XLVIILI; Borst (2006), i 73. Even Bedes work was disseminated via Ireland, although the oldest line of transmission was directly from Northumbria: Wallis (2004), lxxxvilxxxvii.
19
McKitterick (2004), 926.
20
Borst (1990), 3854; Borst (1998), 23244.
21
Stevens (2003), 145; Eastwood (1996), 692.
22
Meyvaert (2002), 59; Bullough (2003), 334; Englisch (2002), 910. Borst replied to each in (2004), 2954, 5669, and 7289.
18

james t. palmer

the collection of the material with the time between AD 743 and the
later circulation of Bedes work and the encyclopaedias. The incipit
forms part of a computistical collection which incorporates the Dionysiac Computus Cottonianus (AD 688/9), material from the seventhcentury Sirmond Collection, and a collection of notes and tables of uncertain authorship.23 The manuscript itself is written in a pre-Caroline
minuscule of a sort typical of the second half of the eighth century, but
also sufficiently distinctive in detail to set it apart; it is clearly not, for
example, from a better documented insular continental centre such
as Echternach, Corbie, Fulda, or Wrzburg. Alas the only clear parallel to the script is in a collection of patristic texts bound as part of the
same modern manuscript but which was originally a separate codex. The
script has insular features which include the use of the uncial R, and distinctive abbreviations and quiring; not that any of these features readily
narrows down the possible origins of the compilation.24 A brief study of
the contents, on the other hand, will begin to lay down some context for
the computistical activity in the AD 740s.
The incipit of AD 743 takes us to a political context, reading
(107r):25

Plate 1 London, British Library, Cotton Caligula A XV, 107r.

On the Computus Cottonianus, see Warntjes, this volume. Cordoliani (1942;

1959) argued that this text is Spanish on the grounds of parallels in later Spanish computi, but the relationship is complex as Gmez Pallars (1986), 145 has argued. On the
Sirmond collection see Jones (1937), and the important observations in Crinn
(1983); Springsfeld (2002), 6877; and Graff (2010).
24
See CLA 2, 10 (no. 183); McKitterick (1989), 408.
25
Published in Krusch (1884), 139 and, from that, Glatthaar (2004), 139.
23

the Paschal Controversy of AD 740

In christi nomine. Incipit cyclus per indictionem XImam et anno quota fuerit 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 suis
Carlemanno et Pipp\h/ino.
In the name of Christ. Here begins the cycle in the 11th indiction
and the year in which luna 1 occurs on 1 January, and the Sunday of the
Paschal feast on 14 April, luna 15. And the year is of what number from
the incarnation of our lord Jesus Christ? 743. And the year is 184 by the
Victorian recapitulation. And it is the first year of Childerich, king of
the Franks, with his consuls Carlomann and Pippin.

The reference to consuls betrays a mimicking of Dionysius own incipit

of AD 525, which was dated In praesenti namque tertia indictio est, consulatu Probi iunioris, xiii circulus decennovennalis, decimus lunaris est
(For in the present year it is the third indiction, by the consulate of the
younger Probus, the thirteenth year of the 19-year cycle, the tenth of the
lunar one).26 The effort to cross-reference the two different Easter tables, on the other hand, may suggest a more programmatic background
in which comparison between different reckonings was ongoing, and
still of interest when C was compiled a few years later.27 It may be no
coincidence that the incipit itself was composed in AD 743 not only
a problematic year in the Victorian table, but the first year of Childerich
IIIs reign and the first time any king had been on the Frankish throne
since the death of Theuderich IV in AD 737. The surprise elevation of
Childerich was likely the work of a party, led by Carlomann, who believed in the importance of having a legitimate king on the throne; and it
is widely assumed that the move contributed to fostering renewed political unity.28 Divisions between communities using different Easter tables
could have no place in such a new and potentially fragile political order,
and this is likely a key factor in the slating of computus to be discussed
at Les stinnes in that year. The Cottonian manuscript is, of course, not
a political document, but may hold clues as to the kinds of networks in
26
Dionysius, Epistola ad Petronium (Krusch (1938), 68). The reference to consuls
also echoes their use as a framing device in Victorius, Cyclus (Krusch (1938), 2648), but
omitted in the later Merovingian tables mentioned in n 2.
27
Compare here also the dating clause of the Aquitainian Easter table of AD 721:
Prol. Aquit. 3 (Borst (2006), i 342).
28
Becher (1989), 1489. Compare Wood (1994), 290.

james t. palmer

which computus was being discussed, and what kinds of material were
assembled in the wake of debate.
Insight into the horizons of the scriptorium which produced C can
be provided through a close study of the patristic section of the manuscript (1r64r). It contains Jeromes De viris illustribus and Vita Pauli,
followed by Isidore of Sevilles Etymologiae, I 2127 and book three of
Cyprian of Carthages Testimonia ad Quirinum, and each text points
intriguingly in a different direction. The Hieronymian material has its
closest parallels in sixth-century Italian manuscripts, one from Rome
and one from Verona,29 with De viris illustribus also betraying some relationship to a near-contemporary copy from Bobbio.30 The Isidorian
material, which has never been studied in relation to the transmission of
Isidores work, readily belongs to Lindsays (or Frankish) family of texts
but certainly not to Porzigs subset , which consisted of copies in St Gall
and Reichenau.31 Finally, the text of Cyprian belongs to a select group of
early medieval manuscripts to contain only sections from Book III, the
closest to C being a Fulda miscellany of the early ninth century.32 The
most important feature of the patristic section may be a garbled Greek
quotation from Psalm 30:2, transcribed badly from a majuscule copy of
the Septuagint.33 Few copies of Greek bibles are known from eighthcentury Gaul, and indeed knowledge of Greek at the time is thought to
have been virtually non-existent.34 But, tantalisingly given the origins of
the Hieronymian material, such a manuscript would have been available
in Verona.35 We are left, then, with hints of a reasonably well-connected
centre, able to draw on resources available in Roman and Lombard libraries, and with material in common with other Frankish centres but
not necessarily Alemannian ones. This may not be a substantial improvement on the designation Northern France, but it allows us to see the
Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek, B. IV. 21 (CLA 8, 4 (no. 1031)) and Verona, Biblioteca Capitulare, XXXVIII (36) (CLA 4, 26 (no. 493)). Cherf (1943), 1034.
30
Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale, lat. 2 (Vindobon. 16) (CLA 3, 36 (no. 391)). See
introduction to Jeromes De viris illustribus in Ceresa-Gastaldo (1988), 12, 47.
31
The principal witnesses of are listed in Lindsay (1911), i viiix. On see Porzig
(1937), 14454.
32
Basel, Universittsbibliothek, F III 15c (CLA 7, 3 (no. 846)). See Webers introduction to Cyprian, Testimonia ad Quirinum in CCSL 3, lvii.
33
My thanks to Professor Paul Magdalino for helping me to decipher the transcription.
34
Berschin (1988), 1026.
35
Verona, Biblioteca Capitolare, 1 (CLA 4, 20 (no. 472)); Berschin (1988), 39,
126.
29

the Paschal Controversy of AD 740

scriptorium as part of a series of specific networks rather than as an indistinct type of monastic centre.
The computistical material in C alongside the AD 743 computus
comes from another direction, principally Britain and Ireland and likely
via Echternach. None of it, significantly, suggests any debt to the work
of Bede, so it can be taken as a good indication of alternative sources for
knowledge of the Alexandrian Easter available before De temporum ratione circulated widely. Immo Warntjes has put forward a plausible case
for associating the Dionysiac Computus Cottonianus on fols. 73r80r
with the circle of St Willibrord, who was active in Echternach and Utrecht after an education in Ripon in Northumbria and Rath Melsigi in Ireland.36 The Sirmond material in C, meanwhile, represents a near-coherent block common to Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley 309 (Vendme,
s. xi4) (items 1321 and 2425 as listed by Crinn, the absent items
22 and 23 being the controversial material on Anatolius of Laodicea).37
An extract from Gaudentius of Brescias De pascha in C (fols. 96v97v)
came to belong to the same family of texts, despite its absence from the
canonical Sirmond collection, as it is also contained in a fragmentary
eighth-century Echternach copy of similar treatises.38 Such material first
came together in Southern Ireland in the early seventh century before
becoming available in Northumbria, as Crinn has demonstrated.39
The precise seventh-century form of the Sirmond collection as usually
conceived based on the Oxford manuscript has recently been called into
question because of the Carolingian material evident in the earlier section.40 We might also question the standing of Victorius of Aquitaines
work in the canonical collection as, like many of the Sirmond group, C
does not actually include it; and the eleventh-century prologue in the
Sirmond manuscript itself suggests that it was included in that instance
by the scribe in response to debates about the dating of the Passion rather
36
Warntjes, this volume. The text is partially edited in Gmez Pallars (1994), 23
31. On Willibrord see Levison (1946), 5369 and Palmer (2009), esp. 813, 10711,
1835.
37
Crinn (2003a), 2023, developing Jones (1937), 2139. The order in C is
1315 (in revised form), 25, 24, 18, 19, 16, 20, 17, 21. On Anatolius work see Mc Carthy and Breen (2003), and Mosshammer (2008), 42237.
38
For the manuscript see Crinn (1989), 13543. The Latin text in both manuscripts share errors and reversal of pairs of words compared to the full sermon compare
Gaudentius of Brescia, De Pascha 110 (ed. by Glck in CSEL 68, 1820).
39
See n 37.
40
Springsfeld (2002), 6877; Warntjes (2010), XXIXXII and n 37.

james t. palmer

than as a relic of paschal reckonings past.41 But perhaps if C is to be associated in some sense with the circle of Willibrord which, lest we forget,
included in his teacher Ecgberht, the man who converted the community of Iona to the Alexandrian Easter then the Dionysiac emphasis is
only to be expected at a time when the authority of Victorius tables was
open to debate. The oldest extant manuscript copy of a Dionysiac table
(for the years AD 684702) travelled from Rath Melsigi to Willibrords
Echternach, where it was subsequently extended on two or three occasions to cover the years AD 703797.42 It might be considered that C
represents a version of the Sirmond material current in the Anglo-Irish
circles which were active at Echternach in the eighth century.
One apparent anomaly alongside the Sirmond treatises is the text of
pseudo-Cyprians De pascha computus (fols. 97v105v), here misleadingly labelled Expositio bissexti in anticipation of a text on folio 106rv.
The treatise was ostensibly a third-century composition written to support the extension of the Roman tables of Hippolytus.43 The significance of the treatise within the early history of computus lies in its argument that the moon was virtually inaugurated on March 16 in the
year of Creation.44 This was an argument known in some form to the
author of the Irish Acta synodi and to Bede, so it is not inconceivable
that pseudo-Cyprian was included in a version of the Sirmond material in circulation in the eighth century.45 It was certainly not the only
Roman computus which found a home alongside the Sirmond material
in Carolingian manuscripts, although all had limited circulations.46 The
importance of these Latin texts in computistical learning in Frankia
was far from negligible, as they earned discussion alongside the Victo41
Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley 309, 108r. The earliest manuscript of the Sirmond group to contain a Victorian table is a partial version in the Computus Bobbienses
of AD 827 (Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, H 150 inf., 130r132r).
42
Paris, Bibliothque Nationale, lat. 10837. See Crinn (1984), 1556 and
Warntjes (2010), XCXCI (n 242), who also note the relationship with another table in
Paris, Bibliothque Nationale, lat. 9528, 210rv, which is a fragment covering the years
AD 706778 only.
43
On the two treatises see Jones (1943), 1213. See also Wallis (2004), xxxvi
xxxvii.
44
Ps-Cyprian, De pascha computus 56 (ed. by Hartel in CSEL 3,3, 2503). A new
edition is being prepared by Alden Mosshammer.
45
Acta synodi Caesareae 2 (B: PL 90, 6078; C: Krusch (1880), 308) and Bede, De
temporum ratione 6 (ed. by Jones in CCSL 123B, 2901).
46
The most notable example is the Cologne Prologue, ed. by Krusch (1880),
22735.

the Paschal Controversy of AD 740

rian computus in both the computus of AD 737 which launched the

first extant Frankish attack on non-Dionysiac reckonings, as well as the
related text, the later Comp. Col. all despite presumably having long
fallen from use.47 In the context of C, then, the pseudo-Cyprian computus reveals the kind of material the critics had available on their envisaged opponents as they promoted the use of Dionysius. It is possible that
Victorius own computus was deliberately omitted from C in the course
of opposition to his Easter calculations, but there remained other Latin
texts to which one could refer.
The relevance of Latin traditions becomes apparent in a note on the
beginning of Lent on folio 108v. This was not a topic covered by computists outside Irish tradition, and it may be telling that this note is the
only content after the pseudo-Cyprian computus which does not readily
support a Dionysiac Easter.48 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<d> V idus Martias. Hi sunt XXX sanctificati a luna III usque a<d>
decima, in has septem lunas invenieris dominicum diem et fit initium quadragisimi nec ante nec retro.
If you wish to know easily or plainly how you can find the beginning of Lent, I say to you briefly without any doubt: it is from 10 February up to 11 March. These thirty [days] are sanctified from luna 3 up to
luna 10, [and] in these seven moons you will find the Sunday and Lent
may start neither before nor afterwards.

Despite the confident tone, the note gives a window for the beginning of
Lent which is too tight, resulting in an unlikely Easter range of 24 March
to 22 April only, perhaps drawing on the Latin tradition which sanctified thirty days for Easter.49 The upper lunar date is also a day too late,

47
Dial. Neustr. 10, 12 (Borst (2006), i 3913); Comp. Col. V 38 (Borst (2006),
ii 92738). For the relation between these two texts see Warntjes (2010), CIV and
CLXXIICLXXIII.
48
On computistical interest in the initio quadragesimae see Warntjes (2010),
XLVIII n 111 and commentary 2303.
49
Compare the Cologne Prologue 6, 9 (ed. Krusch (1880), 232 and 233), but perhaps more pressingly here the Acta synodi Caesareae 3 (B: PL 90, 608; C: Krusch (1880),
309).

james t. palmer

perhaps in an effort to incorporate the bissextile day.50 It seems counterintuitive, however, that Lent was actually being miscalculated relative
to Easter, making this appear to be a matter of an old text being copied
that just did not fit in practice. But the compiler of C was not alone in
facing such problems. The late-seventh-century Victorian computus in
Bern, Burgerbibliothek, 645 also presents a calculation of Lent which
is out of sync with its own professed paschal reckonings, giving a window of 10 February to 14 March (and luna 4 to luna 10) which would
result in Easters between 24 March and 25 April rather than the Victorian 22 March to 24 April reaffirmed in the computists own statements
(fols. 50v51r). Again, it is unlikely that would have caused confusion
in the liturgical year, as the Easter dates were already set by the table
and the computist by his own statements would have been able to count
backwards 42 days to the Sunday on which the Lenten fast began.51 This
was a technical issue muddied by tradition. It may not have helped that
Easter tables did not usually circulate with dates for Lent but, perhaps
following the example of the 84 (14) table which did, dates for Lent were
added to the Victorian tables of AD 700, 720 and 727, the Dionysiac tables of C and S discussed below, and the table in another Sirmond manuscript, Cologne, Dombibliothek, 832, 76v79r (c.AD 798).52 There is
perhaps another dynamic at work here, as there were also reforms of the
liturgy in the late Merovingian world.53 For now, however, it is sufficient
to note the difficulties of making established tradition fit within emerging paradigms.
The computist in C provided a range of fragments in which his methods of accommodation can be detected. The incipit and the note on Lent
fall between folios 106r to 117r as part of a collection of tables and notes,
most of which suggest an attempt to adapt material in an active manner.
50
Cf. the Munich Computus 68 (ed. Warntjes (2010), 2305), where it is explained that the effect of the saltus lunae in fact negates the bissextile day.
51
Counting Lent back to the Sunday 42 days before Easter was widespread in the
eighth century: Lect. comp. VI 1 (Borst (2006), ii 61415); Lib. ann. 30 (Borst (2006),
ii 7201); Comp. Col. VI 8 (Borst (2006), ii 948); Lib. comp. I 9 (Borst (2006), iii
11301).
52
On the table of AD 700 see Warntjes (2010), LXXXIV n 228. Table of AD 720
ed. by Krusch (1885), 934; for AD 727 see Dial. Burg. 16 (Borst (2006), i 36872). For
facsimile and discussion of the Dionysiac table in S see Springsfeld (2010), 20612. For
a facsimile of the 84 (14) table see Warntjes (2007), 802. The Cologne manuscript is
available online at http://www.ceec.uni-koeln.de. For the argument and further examples see Warntjes (2010) LXXXIV n 228, XCIIXCIII n 248, 33940.
53
On the diversity of the liturgy in the late Merovingian world and Pippins reforms, see Hen (2001), 2833 and 4257.

the Paschal Controversy of AD 740

It includes a text on leap years (f 106rv), a table of hours of moonlight (f 106v)54, then the incipit at the head of 107r under which stands
a breakdown of the structure of the solar and lunar months, followed
by a distinctive non-Bedan pagina epactarum (fols. 107v108r),55 and
three different representations of the 19-year cycle as rotae (108v109v)
with a number of fragments on various topics. After the note on Lent,
for example, the computist states that nunc xv [luna] pascale usque in xxi
ubi dies dominicus evenerit, ibi legitimum iussum est celebrare diem sanctum paschae (f 109r) (now where the Sunday falls on the 15th [moon] of
Easter up to the 21st, there it is commanded legitimate to celebrate the
holy day of Easter) the sense of being commanded possibly referring
to the closing statement of the spurious Acta synodi Caesareae from the
earlier Sirmond material (f 82v).56 There is also an interpolated extract
from Isidore of Sevilles Etymologiae on bissexti (107v, novel elements
underlined):57
Bissextus est per annos IIII unus dies adiectus. Crescit enim per singulos
annos quarta pars assis. At ubi quarto anno assem conpleverit, bissextum
unum facit, id est dierum CCCLXVI. Dictus autem bissextus quia bis se Transcribed by Warntjes (2010a), 104.
Like many Irish-influenced and pre-Bedan tables, the pagina has the January
epactal sequence 8, 20, 1, 12, 23, 4, 15, 26, 7, 18, 29, 10, 21, 2, 13, 24, 5, 16, and 27 for
the 19 years. Combined with the alternating sequence of lunations, it is perhaps closest
in structure to De ratione conputandi 73 ( Crinn (1988), 1804, reconstructed in
Holford-Strevens (2008), 1989) but with significant differences. The placing of the saltus lunae is unusual, falling at the end of December of the first year rather than on the 22
March of that year favoured in Irish computistics or the 24 November in the nineteenth
year proposed by Bede. Embolisms are also inserted differently, preserving the artificially
rigid sequence of epacts for each year generated by the standard differences between
solar and lunar months. For the contrast with Bedan tradition see the edition of the pagina in Jones, CCSL 123C, 552 and the discussion by Springsfeld (2010), 22633 of S,
pp. 1334 (http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/en/csg/0225). The different early traditions,
omitting C, are discussed in the commentary in Warntjes (2010), 18093.
56
Note that the version in C most closely belongs to recension B of the Acta synodi
(ed. in PL 90, 60710; cf. Lapidge and Sharpe (1985), 90), except for this key phrase
(et luna ex illis viii sanctificata, Pascha nobis iussum est celebrare, not as PL 90, 610 has
it following Cologne, Dombibliothek, 103, 192r and other witnesses et luna ex illis
octava sanctificata, Pascha nobis visum est celebrare). The reading is shared with the copy
in St Gall, Stiftsbibliothek, 902, p 169 and its copy St Gall, Stiftsbibliothek, 251, p 16,
the second of which Cordoliani (1943), 57, mistakenly listed as a copy of recension A, a
view he corrected in (1955), 178, 290; cf. also CCSL, Clavis patristica pseudepigraphorum medii aevi 3A, 267. The St Gall MSS are available online at http://www.e-codices.
unifr.ch/de/csg/0902 and http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/de/csg/0251 respectively.
57
Compare Isidore of Seville, Etymologiae VI 17 2528 (Lindsay (1911), i).
54
55

james t. palmer

xies assem facit, quod est unus dies; sicut et quadrantem propter quater
ductum. Ita et bissextus quem super dierum cursum per quattuor annis XII
horis adcrescunt, id est assis bis sexies ductus, unde bissextus dicitur. Calare
enim ponere dicitur, intercalare interponere. A VI autem nonas Martias
usque pridie Kalendarum Ianuariarum, in lunae cursum bissextus adponitur atque inde trahitur intercalaris.
The bissextus is the one day added every four years, for in each year
it grows a quarter of a whole unit, but when the whole unit is complete
in the fourth year, it makes one bissextile day, that is [the year] consists
of 366 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 four times.
And so the bissextus, which over the course of the days for four years
increases by 12 hours, that is one unit is completed by two sixes, from
this it is called bissextus. Calare, in fact, means to pose, intercalare to
interpose. And, from 2 March up to the day before 1 January, the bissextus is added to the course of the moon and afterwards the intercalary
day is removed.

The added comment that only twelve hours, and not twenty-four, are
accrued over four years can be found widely in pre-Bedan computi, from
the pseudo-Dionyiac Argumentum XVI to the Victorian computus in
Bern, Burgerbibliothek, 645, 50rv; and they drew sharp criticism from
Bede.58 Here, however, it shows the computist adapting Isidore to the
accepted wisdom at the time. The three rotae, meanwhile, show more
imagination, as the computist tabulated key details from the Dionysiac
computus for easy reference. The first defines the years of a 19-year cycle, with columns for the regulars needed in the Dionysiac Argumentum
XIV,59 then the epact and the year of the 19-year cycle, then the calendar
date of the Easter full moon (e.g. nones of April), then the date as a day
of the month (e.g. nones of April = fifth day of April), then the number
of days in the lunar year. A second rota opposite consists of three rows of
58
pseudo-Dionysius, Argumentum XVI (Krusch (1938), 80); Computus Bobbienses 3842 (PL 129, 12967). See also the Dial. Neustr. 27 (Borst (2006), 4101) and the
Computus of AD 757, 14 (Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, Phillipps 1831, 90v). The definition
stems from Isidores definition of the dies legitimus and dies abusive, and was popular in
Irish computi: Warntjes (2010), 22 and 1203 (commentary). It is therefore unlikely the
altfrnkischer Theorie suggested by Krusch (1910), 235. For Bedes condemnation see
especially De temporum ratione 39 (CCSL 123B, 402).
59
In year 1 it reads Ap[rilis], xxxv, vii, so you can subtract the current epact from
35 to calculate how many days after 1 April the moon falls, then add the 7 plus the concurrent and divide the total by seven with the remainder indicating the day of paschal
moon, e.g. 2 = Monday.

the Paschal Controversy of AD 740

28 (the solar cycle) around three rows of 19 (the lunar cycle), providing
information for identifying concurrents, epacts, the age of the moon on
1 January, and common or embolismic years. Finally, the scribe transformed the 19-year cycle (cyclus decemnovenalis) from Dionysius Epistola ad Bonifacium et Bonum into a rota of the cyclus lunaris for ease of
reference.60 The scribe was not content to repeat his sources, but to find
new ways to arrange them to make them fit and to be useful.
The importance of adapted material carries over into a unique Easter
table on folios 110r117v. The table runs from AD 703 to 987 in three
cycles of 95 years, uniquely arranged in parallel blocks so, for example,
the first one contains the years AD 703, 798, and 893 (894 in the MS).
Jones believed that this showed that the table was cyclical, following
Isidorian influence, but Warntjes has more recently shown that its concentration on the fluctuation in solar data is actually a proof that the
95-year cycle was not cyclical.61 Each block is prefaced with a version of
the pseudo-Dionysiac Argumentum XIV, which allowed the computist
to calculate the calendar date of Easter Sunday and the age of the paschal
moon readily, particularly if cross-referenced with the data in the rotae.62
Perhaps as a result of this, there is no lunar data given in the body of
the table itself, only the year, indiction, concurrent, beginning of Lent,
and the date of Easter itself. Lent, as mentioned above, was an unusual
consideration, but here reflects both its status as something determined
by the solar calendar, and the growing interest in it evident from the
Victorian tables of the AD 720s and from Irish textbooks.63 The table is,
alas, not easy to date precisely in relation to any ongoing debate. Charles
Jones thought that the table must have been composed sometime between AD 703 and 721, on the standard assumption that a Dionysiac
table would only be composed to replace the extension of Felix which
ran to AD 721.64 It is unclear, however, what Felix table has to do with
this composition as a point of reference, given that other tables nota Dionysius, Epistola ad Bonifacium et Bonum (Krusch (1938), 856).
Isidore, Etymologiae VI 17 9 (Lindsay (1911), i). Jones (1938), 2045 and
Warntjes (2010), 311 (commentary) and 3378.
62
Here the changes to the detail of the argumentum are accurately made to reflect
each year, so the first one (f 110r) states it is the first year of 19, the epact is 0, the concurrent 7, and the moon on Easter Sunday is luna 17 all in keeping with the start date of
AD 703.
63
See n 52. The Victorian table of AD 696 does not have this feature: Bern,
Burgerbibliothek, 645, 41r48v (for AD 245532) and 59r67v (for AD 533742).
64
Jones (1938), 205.
60
61

james t. palmer

bly that at Willibrords Echternach developed independently from it

and from AD 703. If the table is really an argument about 95-year cycles,
moreover, it is not certain that the usual expectations about extending
Easter tables apply. It is likely that the composition is early, but I would
hesitate to accept Joness logic in this instance. Regardless of the precise
date of composition, the table was considered useful enough in the wake
of the debates of the AD 740s to be copied instead of the lost table of
AD 743 or a standard Dionysiac table.

St Gall, Stiftsbibliothek, 225

A second manuscript was compiled in St Gall around AD 760/73 which
contains further traces of activity in AD 743.65 There is no other clear
connection between S and C, so it is activity which might testify to
a common trigger that year, just as the AD 809 inquisition led to the
production of more than one computus. St Gall offers a contrast to the
centre which produced C because it stood at some distance from the
mayoral and royal centres to the North West, and did not figure as prominently as a leading institution in the eighth century as it would in the
ninth. In terms of attitudes towards the Pippinids, moreover, the monks
could remember them with fondness as great benefactors but with criticism for their behaviour in invading Alemannia.66 This was a centre at
once involved in shaping Frankish intellectual life, while also slightly removed from it. With S, the computus is but one part of a wide-ranging
compendium of material including such diverse texts as Isidores Differentiae, the Inventio sancti crucis, Eucherius Instructio ad Salonis, and
pseudo-Methodius Revelationes. The compilation as a whole was clearly
rigorously planned, judging by the lengthy contents page, although it
does not quite reflect the actual contents of the manuscript.67 It also reflects how St Gall dealt with texts: while the version of Differentiae relied
on earlier versions already available in the St Gall library, the text of Eu65
St Gall, Stiftsbibliothek, 225, 114137 (see http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/de/
list/one/csg/0225). See Cordoliani (1955), 1648 and Springsfeld (2010).
66
Compare Wetti, Vita Galli 37 (ed. by Krusch in MGH SS rer. Merov. 4, 278)
and Ratpert, Casus sancti Galli 1 (4), 2 (5) (ed. by Steiner in MGH SS rer. Germ. 75,
1502).
67
In the contents page, on p 2, the computus is listed as item V following a De
quattuor evangeliis as IV; in execution, the computus begins as VI and there are no IV or
V, and De quattuor evangeliis is omitted.

the Paschal Controversy of AD 740

cherius Instructio was evidently sought from elsewhere.68 In both cases,

S is symptomatic of the monks efforts to develop a library with multiple
copies of texts. The presence of the pseudo-Methodian material is part
of a remarkable history of a text only written in Syrian in c.AD 692 and
already here en route to a new recension, illustrating the popularity of
new eschatological histories in some corners of eighth-century Europe.69
It begs comparison with another early witness, Bern, Burgerbibliothek,
611 (Luxeuil or Corbie, s. viii2/3), because that also contained pseudoMethodius alongside a computistical treatise, the Victorian Dial. Burg.
of AD 727.70 It may be indicative of one line of influence on St Gall from
the north-west, as well as a reminder of the eschatological contexts of
some investigations into chronology. As a whole, the collection shows
computus taking up a part in the wide-ranging educational arsenal of St
Gall in the mid-to-late eighth century, rather than being treated on its
own. Moreover, it contains further clues as to what kinds of computistical products came out of the debate of the AD 740s.
The computistical section of S runs across pp. 11437. It begins
with an Easter table for the two 19-year cycles AD 760778 and 779
797, which is usually dated to AD 773 because of a cross by that year,
although such memorial notes are far from transparent in meaning and
its date is far from certain. Nevertheless, like C, its contents seem to
have been formed without the influence of Bedes texts on computus,
this time with the latest text apart from the table dating to AD 751,
the memorable year of Pippin IIIs coronation just as AD 743 was
Childerich IIIs. S might not be unconnected to the liturgical concerns
hinted at in C, as the scribe similarly added a column for the beginning
of Lent to his Easter table, as well as a further column for the age of the
moon on that day.71 Occasional slips in detail, such as misidentifying
the indiction in AD 779 as 1 instead of 2, show a certain uneasiness in
extending the table, but it is otherwise a well made product to which
the monks felt inclined to add decoration. There follows a wide-range
of tables and short texts which indicate a variety of influences, for example with an Irish note on daylight hours (p 122, again suggesting
that the bissextus is formed from three, not six, hours per year), one
68
On the Differentiae and S see CCSL 111A, 2489. On Eucherius and S see
CCSL 66, xi.
69
Aerts and Kortekaas (1998), i 545. On pseudo-Methodius see Reinink (1992).
70
Aerts and Kortekaas (1998), i 51.
71
Springsfeld (2010), 209, 211.

james t. palmer

on chronology drawing on Victorius, adaptations of various Dionysiac

Argumenta, excerpts from Isidore on the moon and the instability of
time, and a table for the epacts of a 19-year cycle similar to the one in C
but with errors.72 Two of the reworked Dionysiac Argumenta II and
IV follow the wording of the originals less closely than some adaptations such as Willibrords Computus Cottonianus, and it is these that
contain the annus praesens AD 751. Again, like the material in C, the
argumenta show that centres were interested in shaping the computistical material they had available to them, and were not content merely
to copy. St Gall was well resourced to engage with the complexities of
computus.
In the miscellany of computistical argumenta, there are two which
contain the annus praesens 743. The first is a formula for calculating concurrents (p 124):73

Plate 2 St Gall, Stiftsbibliothek, 225, p 124.

For discussion, Springsfeld (2010), 21234.

Springsfeld (2010), 223. Compare Dionysius, Argumentum IV (Krusch (1938),
76); Bede, De temporum ratione 54 (CCSL 123B, 443); Canones lunarium (PL 90, 879);
Lect. comp. IIII 4 (Borst (2006), ii 5967); Lib. ann. 15 (Borst (2006), ii 698); Hrabanus
Maurus, De computo 72 (CCCM 44, 288).
72
73

the Paschal Controversy of AD 740

Si nosse cupis qualiter incurrentes [recte concurrentes] septimane dies invenire 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.
If you desire to know how the concurrents of the days of the week
can be found, take the years of the incarnation of Christ, which would
have been, e.g., 743; these you will divide into four parts and you will
add the fourth part of these to them, to which you will also add the
regular 4; part by 7, and you will find that the concurrents are how much
is left over; and if nothing remains, these are 7.

The mathematical structure is identical to the Dionysiac Argumentum

IV and its derivatives. The wording of the argumentum, on the other
hand, is novel while remaining broadly generic. Immediately we have a
contrast with the Computus Cottonianus of C and its derivatives, which
remained more faithful to the textual construction of such argumenta.74
As in the later section of C, then, we can see hints of adaptation having
a stronger influence than textual authority in the computus at this time.
The second argumentum of AD 743 is a doublet concerned with
chronology. The first part is a formula for calculating the annus passionis
(p 125):
Si vis invenire quotus annus sit a passione domini, sume annos incarnationis ipsius, a quibus subtrahe XXVII; quod remanet totus annus est a
passione Christi.
If you want to find what year it is from the passion of the Lord, take
the years of the incarnation itself, from which subtract 27; what remains
is the total of years from the passion of Christ.

Significantly, subtracting 27 from the year ab incarnatione in this manner

generates the Victorian annus passionis rather than the Dionysiac one,
which would involve subtracting 33 or 34.75 The two linear chronological traditions still needed to be compared. Tradition was slow to change
here, with the Victorian dating preferred in the Computus of AD 757
74
Dionysius, Argumentum IV (Krusch (1938), 76); Computus Cottonianus 4
(Gmez Pallars (1994), 24).
75
See Bede, De temporum ratione 47 (CCSL 123B, 431).

james t. palmer

Plate 3 St Gall, Stiftsbibliothek, 225, pp. 1256.

too but less evidently thereafter.76 An interest in chronology also underpins the second argumentum of AD 743 in S (pp. 1256):77
Si scire vis quotus annus sit ab initio mundi, multiplica XV
CCCCLXXX<X>V, fiunt V mille DCCCCXXV; quibus semper adde regulares VI, fiunt VDCCCCXXXI; addes etiam indictionem anni cuius volueris, ut puta XI, qui est anno praesenti ab incarnacione Christi DCCXLIII,
fitque summa numerorum VDCCCCXLII; isti sunt anni ab initio mundi.
If you want to know what year it is from the beginning of the world,
multiply 15 by 395, which makes 5,925, to which always add the regulars 6, which makes 5,931. Now you will also add the indication of the
year you want, e.g. 11, as it is for the present year 743 from the incarnation of Christ, and the sum of the numbers happens to be 5,942 these
are the years from the beginning of the world.
76
Computus of AD 757 3 (Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, Phillipps 1831, 90r). This
text was described briefly by Rose, (1893) 2812 and identified by Borst as eine fehlerhafte Vorform of Lect. comp. of AD 760 (Borst (2006), ii 527) an analysis which fails
to appreciate it as a coherent composition in its own right. I hope to return to a fuller
study of the computus in future.
77
For the correction in the first line see Springsfeld (2010), 224 n 51.

the Paschal Controversy of AD 740

These should perhaps be read in conjunction with an earlier chapter

from the same computus, in which the author copied a typical note
based on the authority of Victorius Prologus ad Hilarum for the shape
of Christian history.78 The second argumentum is notable as only the
second extant formula for calculating the annus mundi, as distinct from
the more usual chronological computationes which sought to establish
the moment in time between the beginning and the end.79 Unlike the
earlier argumentum from AD 703 the one in S is notable as an attempt to adapt Dionysius Argumentum I for calculating the year AD.80
The introduction of the annus mundi had no particular bearing on the
calculation of the Dionysiac Easter, except that it broadened the range of
chronological references in which the Easter tables could be set. Indeed,
from this argumentum onwards, Frankish computus embraced annus
mundi as a major tool in the calculations of computus, building on previous concerns for chronology.81 What S reveals in particular, however,
is how chronological traditions from Victorius remained useful after the
tables themselves had ceased to dictate the liturgical year.
78
St Gall, Stiftsbibliothek, 225, p 122: A mundi principio usque nocte, quo filii
Israhel agno occiso exierunt de Aeqypto, iuxta epistola cicli Victorii sunt anni III mille
DC<L>XXXVIIII [corrected by Springsfeld (2010), 222], feria VI, VIII kalendas Apriles
luna XIIII e<s>t. A mundi inicio usque in passione domini sunt anni V mille CCXXVIII,
VI feria, VIII kalendas Apriles, luna XIIII est. A passione domini peracto iam ciclo Victorio
DXXXII anni recapitulato ipso ciclo. (From the beginning of the world up to the night,
in which the sons of Israel having killed the lamb escaped from Egypt, according to
the letter of the cycle of Victorius, there are 3,689 years, which is the 6th ferial, 8th kalends
of April, luna 14. And from the beginning of the world up to the passion of the Lord
there are 5,228 years, which is the 6th ferial, 8th kalends of April, luna 14. From the passion of the Lord there are 532 years, as the cycle of Victorius has already been completed
[once], with the same cycle [now] repeating.) Compare Victorius, Prologus ad Hilarum
9 (Krusch (1938), 245). For one way in which this information was used by computists
see the Munich Computus 44 (Warntjes (2010), 14253 and commentary 146).
79
For a broad range of examples see Landes (1988), esp. 16871 on later Merovingian examples.
80
Computus Bobbienses 83 (PL 129, 1314). One may wonder if this, alongside
Bedes DT of 703, represent a computistical cluster designed to support the extension
of Easter tables which ended in 702 such as the Echternach table and the table in C. See
also the Fragmentum Nanciacense discussed in Warntjes (2010a), 6972, which includes
an argumentum for calculating luna 2 of the March lunation to help with calculating the
beginning of the Lenten fast which might imply a date of composition in AD 703.
81
See for example the use of annus mundi dating in the Computus of AD 757
(Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, Phillipps 1831, 90r) and its AD 760 revision Lect. comp. III
(Borst (2006), 58490). See also the Easter table in Cologne, Dombibliothek, 83, 76r
79r for the years AD 798911, which is unusual for containing parallel AM and AD
columns.

james t. palmer

Why 743?
The importance of C and S needs to be assessed in relation to the church
councils of the AD 740s, if their material common to AD 743 indicates
a common trigger. These councils were the first for a generation, and a
capitula adhuc conferenda included de diversis pasce temporibus et contrariis on the agenda for discussion.82 The list in question clearly pertains
to the church councils of this period because it also includes, among
other subjects discussed by Boniface at various times, the condemnation
of the heretic Aldebert, who was formally denounced at Soissons in AD
744 and in Rome the following year.83 Glatthaar has made the case that
the Easter question was most likely discussed at the Council of Les stinnes on 1 March 743, on account of the double-dating in Victorius for
that year and the need to address the problems in advance.84 This would
provide an active context for debate comparable to the productive discussion in AD 809 which could have provoked the AD 743 incipit as
Glatthaar suggests, as well as the St Gall argumenta.85 Nevertheless, any
discussion at Les stinnes or elsewhere clearly failed to result in the issuing of any order comparable to that made at Orlans in AD 541.86 In
AD 743 Dionysiac tables agreed with Victorius Greek date of 14 April
this time over the later Latin date of 21 April, luna 22, which the table
of AD 727 preferred; but at least from the perspective of someone using
a Dionysiac table, the Latin date was only unacceptable rather than on
82
Sententiae Bonifatianae Wirceburgenses 16 (ed. in Glatthaar (2004), 117). On
the decrees of the councils see Hartmann (1989), 4763, and context in von Padberg
(2003), 5370. Only the study of Glatthaar (2004), 11746 has seriously considered the
place of the Easter debate at the councils.
83
Concilium Suessionense (744) 2 (ed. by Werminghoff in MGH Conc. 2,1, 34);
Glatthaar (2004), esp. 14863. Concilium Romanum (745) (ed. by Werminghoff in
MGH Conc. 2,1, 3744).
84
Epistola Bonifatii 56 (ed. by Tangl in MGH Epp. sel. 1, 1012); Glatthaar
(2004), 138.
85
Glatthaar (2004), 139. On AD 809 see Borst (1993), 6873; Borst (2006), iii
105465.
86
One of few clear signs of computistical change in collections of canon law is
the erasure of the words sextae decimae in the phrase Pascha, id est dominicae resurrectionis sollemnitas, ante transgressum vernalis aequinoctii et sextae decimae lunae initium
non potest celebrari (Easter, that is the sollemnity of the dominical resurrection, cannot
be celebrated before the passage of the Vernal Equinox and the beginning of the sixteenth moon) in the Definitio dogmatum ecclesiasticorum from a seventh-century collection from Lyons, now Cologne, Dombibliothek, 212 (f 69v) (see http://www.ceec.
uni-koeln.de). Text in Krusch (1884), 124.

the Paschal Controversy of AD 740

the outright heretical luna 22.87 Moreover, the lack of immediate resolution is apparent in the continuing use of Victorius computus in some areas, as indicated by Quaest. Austr. of AD 764.88 Perhaps the most striking
feature of the Easter debate, however, is that there is not one single word
said about it in the Bonifatian correspondence, even given the litany of
sins and failings he complained about in the Frankish Church. What
this suggests is that the debate did not represent a widespread or frontline concern, and again it is perhaps worth remembering that the only
historiographical echo of the Easter problem was from a Burgundian
source, with a different perspective on events in the Frankish kingdoms.
Bonifaces silence has nevertheless rarely been interpreted as indifference. Indeed, scholars have argued that he was a key figure in the promotion of Bedan ideas on time and, with that, the use of Dionysiac tables,
because he was the principal representative of the Roman party.89 For
sure, Boniface sought information on AD-dating, requested books from
England written by Bede, and oversaw the Concilium Germanicum in
AD 742, the record of which is the oldest extant Frankish public document to employ AD-dating.90 It has been argued on this basis that the
Dionysiac computus of AD 737 must have been produced in Bonifaces
circle.91 But to say that Boniface was leading a Romanist party in the
matter seems overly to simplify the situation. The Frankish Church comprised a complex series of cultural and political clusters in which there
were long-standing seams of interest in Roman religious culture which
developed independently and before Bonifaces time.92 There were also
many figures such as Milo of Trier who Boniface found objectionable but
who others associated with Boniface did not.93 With this background it
is difficult to see why the computus of AD 737 was necessarily composed
in Bonifaces circle rather than in any other pro-Roman environment.
Note that the table of AD 696 in Bern, Burgerbibliothek, 645, stops inexplicably
in AD 742 (f 67v).
88
Quaest. Austr. II 311 (Borst (2006), i 481507).
89
Krusch (1884), 1389.
90
Epistolae Bonifatii 33, 56 (= Concilium Germanicum), 756, 91 (ed. by Tangl in
MGH Epp. sel. 1, 58, 989, 1589, 207).
91
Krusch (1884), 138; Borst (2004), 86 (where he also notes the possible influence
of Aldhelms letter to King Geruntius on Easter, ed. by Ehwald in MGH Auct. ant. 15,
4806); Borst (2006), i 375.
92
Hallinger (1954), 3248; Reuter (1980), 856.
93
On Milo as an example of the aristocracys relationship with the Church see
Ewig (1954), 41220; Schieffer (1972), 1303; von Padberg (2003), 86101; Airlie
(2007), 25962; Palmer (2009), 91100.
87

james t. palmer

Indeed, Warntjes has recently made the case for this computus being
composed in Cologne on the basis of its relationship to other texts from
that centre.94 Boniface had desired to be bishop of Cologne, which was
both an important royal centre in the East and well-placed to develop
missionary work in the Rhineland; but Frankish bishops opposed his
appointment, electing Herigar of whom Boniface was critical in his
place.95 The example shows that centres such as Cologne could adopt
and promote the Dionysiac reckoning without embracing the influence
of Boniface.
Willibrord may have posed a different kind of figure here, with his
circle often popular with both the friends and enemies of Boniface. We
have already seen that Echternach was possibly important in the spread
of the Dionysiac computus because it had access to an early copy of the
Sirmond material and more, as is evident in C. The political context of
the monastery is no less important here: Echternach was richly endowed
by Pippin II (714) and his wife Plectrudis, on whose family lands the
monastery was built; and in c.AD 706 the two exchanged rights for free
abbatial elections and the promise of protection for oaths that the abbot
remain faithful to his benefactors.96 In such an unusual situation, it is
almost inconceivable that Pippin and Plectrudis would have been following a different Easter reckoning to that observed in their favourite
monastery, so it seems likely that the Dionysiac reckoning would have
spread in conjunction with the spread of Pippinid authority if it had not
already. Moreover, Echternach was closely bound to the social world of
nearby Trier, which Willibrord as abbot clearly embraced to judge from
witness lists in charters and memorial notes on the Echternach calendar.97 This makes it even less likely that an opponent of Boniface around
there such as Milo a relative of Willibrords friends would have followed anything other than the Dionysiac table either. The use of Easter
tables, in short, was unlikely to be divided along the obvious political
lines of the time. The social and political networks of Echternach, meanwhile, gave it particular clout as a centre. In AD 716, for example, when
Charles Martel fought his rival Ragemfred for control of the office of
Warntjes (2010), CIIICIV and CLXXIICLXXIV.
Epistolae Bonifatii 80, 109 (ed. by Tangl in MGH Epp. sel. 1, 1798, 2346).
96
Echternach charters 1415 (ed. by Wampach (192930), ii 3943); Angenendt
(1973), 6871.
97
Most prominently Basinus of Trier: Calendar, 3 March (ed. by Wilson (1918),
55, f 35v), and charters 3, 4, and 6 (ed. by Wampach (192930), ii 20, 23, 26); Ewig
(1954), 415.
94
95

the Paschal Controversy of AD 740

mayor, it was Willibrords decision to support Charles which ultimately

won over much of the Frankish nobility to the same cause.98 From this
perspective, the support for the Dionysiac reckoning implied by the ab
incarnatione dating at the Bonifatian councils and at Soissons seems less
like a sudden novelty, and more like the expression of a long-standing alliance of Anglo-Irish learning and Pippinid authority dating back to the
first quarter of the century.
It is important not to underestimate the independence of learning
in the circles of Pippin III either. Les stinnes was, after all, Pippins
church council to complement that held by his brother and Boniface in
AD 742. Pippin was himself an educated and pious individual, capable
of direct action in the affairs of the church, as most famously exemplified in his early career by his request to Pope Zacharias for clarification
about points of canon law in c.AD 747.99 Scholars have seriously doubted whether Boniface was an important influence on the mayor, even if
the reforming interests of the two figures largely coincided and the Annales regni Francorum claimed that Boniface had anointed Pippin king
in AD 751, a claim which is widely doubted.100 With this independence
in mind, it is notable that interest in a computistical level of detail can
be found in the dating clause for Pippins second council, at Soissons in
AD 744 and apparently without Boniface, which in the printed edition
notes a full moon, luna 14, for March 2 alongside the year, calendar
date and regnal year.101 Brigitte Englisch has argued that, as it stood,
the lunar observation meant that the Paschal full moon would fall on
1 April, when both Victorian and Dionysiac tables predicted that it
would fall on 2 April.102 In Englischs reconstruction of events, this had
been a difficult issue since a solar eclipse on 1 April, AD 740, which
would have been a day early for Dionysiac lunar tables; and the same
situation would have occurred in AD 744. This, she argued, would have
Liber historiae Francorum 512 (ed. by Krusch in MGH SS rer. Merov. 2,
3256); Gerberding (1994), 20815. The relationship between Charles and Echternach
is evident from Echternach charter 27 (ed. by Wampach (192930), ii 658), and the
dry-mark notes in Willibrords calendar (Levison (1938), 3741).
99
Only the popes reply has survived: Epistola Zachariae papae ad Pippinum (c.747
Ian. 5) (ed. by Gundlach in MGH Epp. 3, 47987).
100
Annales regni Francorum s.a. 750 [recte 751], (ed. by Kurze in MGH SS rer.
Germ. 6, 910). Schieffer (1972), 25660; Jschke (1977), 2554; McKitterick (2000),
1516; Palmer (2009), 857. In defence of Bonifaces role in AD 751 see Jarnut (1982),
4557.
101
Concilium Suessionense (744) pref. (ed. by Werminghoff in MGH Conc. 2,1, 33).
102
Englisch (2002), 86.
98

james t. palmer

been the cause for dispute reported in Burgundy. The problem for this
view is that the eclipse in AD 740 would not have been observable in
Frankia, and, as Krusch observed in 1905, the full moon would actually
have fallen on 3 March in 744.103 Nevertheless, the reference to the age
of the moon at Soissons still betrays an attention to detail comparable
to the incipt of AD 743 but otherwise unusual in council records (indeed even the next extant record under Pippin, for Ver in AD 755, gave
only the date and regnal year).104 The dating clause of AD 744 alongside
the AD 743 incipit perhaps speak of a particular moment of heightened interest in the reckoning of time in the wake of the discussions on
Easter.
In Pippinid circles, such interest in chronology also helped to shape
the structures of political historiography. Victorian Easter tables had
long underpinned chronology in Gaul and Italy, as is evident from such
diverse sources as the summary of authorities on the world age in the
sixth-century Epitoma temporum et indiculum pascae from Vivarium,105
the work of Gregory of Tours and Fredegar,106 and the computationes
alongside the partial Victorian table in the Computus Bobbienses and the
table of AD 727.107 Chronological paradigms were overhauled, however,
in the wake of both the spread of AD dating and the approach of the
last year AM 6,000. In this context it is striking that one of the earliest
examples of Pippinid political historiography, the Burgundian Historia

103
On AD 740 see von Oppolzer (1887), table 94, and compare the NASA website at: http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEsearch/SEsearchmap.php?Ecl=07400401. On
AD 744 see Krusch (1905), 708 and the NASA website at http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/
phase/phases0701.html. Compare also Bedes anxieties over the age of the moon in De
temporum ratione 43 (ed. by C.W. Jones in CCSL 123B, 4128) and the commentary in
Wallis (2004), 328334.
104
Concilium Vernense (755) pref. (ed. by Boretius in MGH Capit. 1, 33): V Idus
Iulii, anno quarto regnante domno nostro Pippino gloriossimo rege (11 July, in the fourth
year in which our lord, the most glorious king Pippin, reigns).
105
Epitoma temporum et indiculum pascae (ed. by Mommsen in MGH Auct. ant. 9,
745).
106
Gregory of Tours, Libri historiarum decem, praefatio (ed. by Krusch in MGH SS
rer. Merov. 1,1, 5); Fredegar, Chronicon 1 (ed. by Krusch in MGH SS rer. Merov. 2, 34)
with comments in Krusch (1884), 129.
107
The Bobbio computatio is dated to AD 673 (AM 5874, 16th year of Clovis III)
and edited by Mommsen in MGH Auct. ant. 9, 674. See Warntjes (2010), LXXIII
LXXIV and n 209 on the 5201-year difference between AD and AM dates. For the
AD 727 computatio see Dial. Burg. 17 (Borst (2006), i 3734). Further examples are
discussed in Krusch (1884), 12936 and Landes (1988), 16871.

the Paschal Controversy of AD 740

vel gesta Francorum, represents a crossroads of tradition stemming from

this very period of computistical inquiry:108
Certe ab initio mundi usque ad passionem domini nostri Iesu Christi sunt
anni 5228 et a passione Domini usque isto anno praesente, qui est in cyclo
Victorii ann. 177, Kl. Ian. die dominica, ann. 735; et ut istum miliarium
impleatur, restant ann. 63.
Without doubt, from the beginning of the world up to the passion
of our Lord, Jesus Christ, there are 5228 years, and from the passion
of our Lord up to that present year, which is the 177th in the cycle of
Victorius, [in which] 1 January is a Sunday, 735 [recte 736] years [from
the Incarnation]; and so this millennium is incomplete, [and] 63 years
remain.

Although this falls within the middle of the text, such notes were a
common way to round off a chronicle, so it seems in this case to mark
the end of a first stage of continuing Fredegars seventh-century history.109 A puzzle is posed by the year AD being both a year out and
misidentified as the year a passione Domini, which led Krusch to argue
that this was a later interpolation.110 If so, it is likely that the interpolation must still have been made by AD 751, when the first version of the
Historia vel gesta Francorum was completed.111 Significantly, the Historia was composed in the circle of dux Childebrand, Pippin IIIs uncle,
and possibly as a deliberate legitimizing response to the coronation of
751.112 Clearly, as Krusch noted, the interpolator did not have access to
the kind of accurate Dionysiac reckoning evident in something like the
computus of AD 737.113 What the computatio hints at, then, is how between AD 736 and 751 people had begun to cross-reference Victorian
and Dionysiac reckonings in the context of political historiography as
Historia vel gesta Francorum 16 (ed. by Krusch in MGH SS rer. Merov. 2, 176).
Krusch (1882), 495515. For comparisons see Gregory of Tours, Libri historiarum decem X 18 (ed. by Krusch in MGH SS rer. Merov. 1,1, 537) and Isidore of Seville,
Chronica maiora 417 (ed. by Mommsen in MGH Auct. ant. 11, 480).
110
Krusch (1882), 497.
111
Collins (2007), 88. Collins suggests that the computatio is borrowed from another source, although Kruschs suggestion that it marks the end of a pre-AD 751 version
seems more compelling given the emphatic paragraph preceding it. There is also a clear
section break in London, British Library, Harley 3771, f 130r at this point in the text.
112
Collins (1994), 2434; Collins (2007), 90, 945.
113
Krusch (1910), 2401.
108
109

james t. palmer

well as in computistical settings perhaps even in advance of accurate

tables spreading here pointing towards the influence of the Pippinid
intellectual culture at the centre on historical production. The integration of Dionysiac reckonings into politicized historical tradition may
be one offshoot of the development of new chronological material in
AD 743.

Conclusion
A study of C and S reveals something about the nature of computistical
resources in the earlier eighth century, as well as the cultural and political networks in which they developed. The eighth century witnessed
a significant paradigm shift as the churches of the Frankish kingdoms
moved towards using Dionysiac tables as the cornerstone of their liturgical year and historical framework, but not always without abandoning
older traditions and tables. What C and S reveal is the creativity that this
process involved. Throughout the century, computistical texts were rewritten, new supplementary tables and rotae were constructed, and there
was experimentation with making Easter tables more practical by adding
columns for the date of Lent, perhaps addressing the confusion caused
by old traditions. The two compilations also provide clues as to the cultural and political dynamics which underpinned the paradigm change.
The importance of knowledge imported from Ireland and England has
always been broadly recognized, but in C one can see the importance
of Sirmond-style collections in the process before the circulation if
not composition of Bedes works. More importantly, it is the union
of Anglo-Irish learning and Pippinid authority at Echternach which
seems to have provided one crucial context for the dissemination of
such knowledge, establishing a way of doing things into which someone
like the Burgundian interpolator of AD 751 could buy. The evidence
of S maybe testifies to the influence of collections which were in some
sense more fragmented than the Sirmond collection, but no matter: at
distance from the court, St Gall was still able to engage actively with
the emerging system by drawing on the resources of wider monastic
networks. Finally, it is possible to identify a crisis and response which
intensified debate about Easter: a breakdown in agreements over Easter
in AD 740, culminating in a discussion of the problem at Les stinnes
and the composition of various new Dionysiac material in AD 743, at

the Paschal Controversy of AD 740

the same time that Childerich III was introduced to unify the political
scene. None of this necessarily resolved the issue completely, given that
Victorius legacy continued to be felt, as S shows. Nevertheless, the key
battles at the political centre seem to have been decided in favour of the
Dionysiac reckoning already.