medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Greetings all!
I hope the combined knowledge of this list will be able to help
with a query I have. There is a group of Icelandic writings dated in
the first decades of the
thirteenth century that use a dating scheme that differs by seven years
from the
dionysian. This has traditionally been assumed to use the calculations
of one
Gerlandus whose appears to have lived in the 11th century. However, it
has
recently been pointed out by Ellen Zirkle ('Gerlandus as the Source for
the Icelandic
Medieval Computus (Rim I)' Opuscula IV B.A. 30 1970 pp. 339-346) that
while the table of Gerlandus may indeed be the basis of existing
Icelandic easter tables, it does not in fact address the chronological
problem. One argument for the derivation of the easter tables from that
of Gerlandus is that "A variation which no one has been able to trace is
the placing of the embolismic lunation in the eighth and nineteenth
lunar years in January rather than, as customary, in March." The current
argument appears to be that an Icelandic computist has created his own
table, and also a mis-dating of the incarnation.
My question: are there, perhaps, traditions elsewhere in Europe
(perhaps annals?) that share a seven year discrepancy? I'm really
interested in the chronology rather than the easter table - for
example, surviving annals that might share this mis-dating in full or in
part. Any suggestions or leads will be greatly appreciated. As you may
gather from the above, computus is not my strong point!
Happy New Year,
Meg
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