The Reckoning of Time

The Reckoning of Time (Latin: De temporum ratione) is an Anglo-Saxon era treatise written in Latin by the Northumbrian monk Bede in 725. The treatise includes an introduction to the traditional ancient and medieval view of the cosmos, including an explanation of how the spherical earth influenced the changing length of daylight, of how the seasonal motion of the Sun and Moon influenced the changing appearance of the New moon at evening twilight, and a quantitative relation between the changes of the tides at a given place and the daily motion of the moon.

The Reckoning of Time describes a variety of ancient calendars, including the Anglo-Saxon calendar and the Julian calendar. The focus of De temporum ratione was calculation of the date of Easter, for which Bede described the method developed by Dionysius Exiguus. De temporum ratione also gave instructions for calculating the date of the Easter full moon, for calculating the motion of the Sun and Moon through the zodiac, and for many other calculations related to the calendar.

Sections

The work is divided into six sections:

1. Technical preparation (Chapters 1-4)

2. The Julian calendar (Chapters 5-41)

3. Anomalies of lunar reckoning (Chapters 42-43)

4. The Paschal table (Chapters 44-65)

5. The world-chronicale (Chapter 66)

6. Future time and the end of time (Chapters 67-71)

See also

• April
• Computus
• Easter controversy
• Eostre
• Germanic calendar

References

• Jones, Charles W., ed. De temporum ratione, in Bedae opera didascalia 2, Corpus Christianorum Series Latina, 123B, Turnhout: Brepols, 1997. ISBN 978-2-503-01235-3
• Jones, Charles W., ed. De temporum ratione, in Bedae opera de temporibus, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Mediaeval Academy of America, 1943.
• Wallis, Faith, trans. Bede: The Reckoning of Time, Liverpool: Liverpool Univ. Pr., 1999/2004. ISBN 0-85323-693-3.

External links

• De Temporum Ratione in Latin from Patrolgia Latina.