medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Dear Phyllis,
Thank you for your incredibly informative answer and inclusion of
bibliography re the "Irish" question - the subject is not remotely connected
with my research (Savonarola and Florentine art) but, being Irish, I became
very curious when I read this point. I note that we were always a stubborn
bloody lot!
Best regards.
Marian
----- Original Message -----
From: "Phyllis Jestice" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, July 02, 2002 4:41 PM
Subject: Re: [M-R] Easter Celebration
medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
I THINK I've finally gotten the Roman-Irish Easter controversy down right.
At least the following, excerpted from the rather odd Encyclopedia of Irish
Spirituality I wrote a couple of years ago (when I was particularly broke)
was the best explanation I've been able to come up with.
. . . .The date of Easter is not reckoned according to the Roman solar
calendar, but rather by Jewish lunar reckoning, so the festival falls on a
different calendar date each year. This could be a heated issue, involving
as it does attitudes toward authority---who has the right to decide when
Easter should be celebrated? In 382 the Roman emperor even ordered the
death penalty for anyone found celebrating Easter on the wrong day. The
question of the proper date on which to celebrate Easter led to the first
major confrontation between the Irish Church and that of the Roman world.
The fight was waged over the level of uniformity necessary between
churches, and who had the authority to impose that uniformity. The early
churches had devised many ways to calculate Easter, a complex issue since
the feast must fall on a Sunday and is calibrated to celebration of the
Jewish Passover. As late as the sixth century, the practice of the
continental Church was not uniform. The most popular methods of
calculation were a 19-year cycle and an 84-year cycle, the latter used by
most Irish churches. By this method, Easter is the Sunday that falls
between the fourteenth and twentieth day after the first full moon after
the vernal equinox (reckoning the equinox as 25 March). The papacy adopted
the mathematically more accurate 19-year cycle of Dionysius Exiguus in the
early sixth century. By this reckoning, Easter falls on the first Sunday
after the first full moon following the vernal equinox (which is reckoned
as 21 March).
In the late sixth century there was a move toward uniformity with
Roman practice in most of the western Church, and the Irish came under
increasing criticism for nonconformity with the universal Church. At issue
was the role of the apostolic sees (the churches, including that of Rome,
founded by apostles) in determining ecclesiastical practice and doctrine,
as well as basically divergent views on the need for uniformity between the
Celtic churches and the much more hierarchical system that had developed in
the Roman world. Bede reports that Popes Honorius and John sent letters to
the Irish, correcting them over the date of Easter, especially arguing that
the Irish should not consider themselves wiser than the rest of the
churches on the earth, since they were, after all, on the extreme edge of
the world.
The dating of Easter caused the greatest theological dispute of the
seventh century, waged especially in Ireland and England where, most
notably in Northumbria, the two practices coexisted. This led to
confusion, as some people would still be in Lent while others, sometimes
even members of the same family, would be enjoying the Easter festival. By
the 630s most monasteries of southern Ireland had adopted the Roman Easter
thanks to the persuasiveness of St. Cuimmíne. At the synod of Whitby in
664 the heavily Irish-influenced Northumbria also chose the
papally-sponsored system, leading to a considerable exodus of Irish monks
from the region, led by St. Colmán of Lindisfarne. The last to accept the
Roman date was the Iona federation of monasteries in 716.
Bibliography:
Bede. The Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Edited by Judith
McClure and Roger Collins. Translated by Bertram Colgrave. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1994.
Cummian. "Letter on the Easter Question" (excerpt). In Saint Patrick's
World, edited by Liam De Paor, 151-3. Dublin; Four Courts Press, 1993.
Harrison, Kenneth. "Episodes in the History of Easter Cycles in Ireland."
In Ireland in Early Mediaeval Europe, edited by Dorothy Whitelock, et al.,
307-19. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982.
Hughes, Kathleen. The Church in Early Irish Society. Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 1966.
McNeill, John T. The Celtic Churches. A History AD 200 to 1200. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1974.
Walsh, Maura and Dáibhí Ó Cróinín, eds. Cummian's Letter De controversia
paschali, together with a related Irish computistical tract "De ratione
computandi. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1988.
Dr. Phyllis G. Jestice
[log in to unmask]
**********************************************************************
To join the list, send the message: join medieval-religion YOUR NAME
to: [log in to unmask]
To send a message to the list, address it to:
[log in to unmask]
To leave the list, send the message: leave medieval-religion
to: [log in to unmask]
In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to:
[log in to unmask]
For further information, visit our web site:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html
**********************************************************************
To join the list, send the message: join medieval-religion YOUR NAME
to: [log in to unmask]
To send a message to the list, address it to:
[log in to unmask]
To leave the list, send the message: leave medieval-religion
to: [log in to unmask]
In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to:
[log in to unmask]
For further information, visit our web site:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html
|
