Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 2.djvu/38

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NOTES AND QUERIES.

[9 th S. I-I. JULY 9, '

the Incarnation,* and by inattentively attri- buting to me an unreasonable assumption, to

wit, the " apparently obvious conclusion

that the use of the Dionysian Easter tables implies and is identical with the use of the Dionysian era for the dating of legal and historical documents." But I think he only succeeds in confusing the issue that Kemble, your correspondent of May, 1897, and myself (9 th S. i. 92) have stated with sufficient clearness. The grounds that ME. STEVEN- SON indicates in order to prove that I have entertained the alleged assumption are imaginary.

I have referred to:

(8 th S. xii. 421) "The fact that Gregory's let ters are not dated with the year of our Lord."

(Ibid., p. 422) "The error made by Kemble respecting the dating of Gregory's letters."

(9 th S. i. 93) " Kemble certainly was in error in

referring to believe that t. Gregory's letters are dated in the era of the Incarnation."

MR. STEVENSON says (9 th S. i. 232):-

"MR. ANSCOMBE as- sumes that because the Roman Church used the Dionysian Easter tables in the time of St. Gre- gory, therefore that Pope must have used the Didnysian era for dating purposes. Now as a matter of fact we know that the Papal chancery did not use this era and that Gre- gory dated his letters by the imperial and con- sular years and by indic- tions.

1 assume legitimately that Gregory, in order to compute the date of Easter, ex- tracted the golden number, the epact, and the concurrent day from the era-year devised by Dionysius for computistical purposes, and I have asked MR. STEVENSON, who appeared to think otherwise, to inform me what era-year Gregory used if it was not the Dionysian. He evaded the question, and the mistake he made in doing so, and my correction of it, are recorded in these columns.

MR. STEVENSON has said that my conclusion that the era of the Incarnation was intro- duced by St. Augustine in A.D. 597, and has been used ever since by the Church of Canter- bury in computing the date of Easter is an inconsequent one. Now I gather from a foot-note that MR. STEVENSON has followed my subsequent suggestion and has re- examined his position. Dr. Bruno Krusch, in his article on the introduction of Alex- andrine Paschal methods of computation into Western Europe, lias afforded a great deal of

But compare this note of MR. STEVENSON'S, 'Crawford Charters,' p. 46: "There is an early example [of the use of the era of the Incarnation], not mentioned by Prof. Earle, in Baldred of Mercia's charter of 681 (' C. S.,' i. 96), which is preserved in a very early if not contemporary copy.

light. MR. STEVENSON appeals to Krusch, and this is what Krusch says :

" In Rome, the Paschal computation of Dionysius was the ruling one at the end of the sixth century, under the pontificate of Gregory I. This also, to be sure, does not appear from Roman documents, but it undoubtedly follows from the history of the conversion of England by Augustine."*

I am pleased to find that MR. STEVENSON accepts the opinion of Krusch, for now he will permit me to say that it is, at least, "likely" that Augustine would introduce the Dionysian era when he introduced the Dionysian Paschal method. MR. STEVENSON will not give way all at once, though ; he still has two arguments and a suggestion to urge why we should deny the simultaneous intro- duction of the era and the method.

His first argument is conveyed by the state- ment that Dionysius " dates the first year of his cycle by the indiction and by the con- sular year." This is in direct opposition to my statement that the years of this cycle are dated in the era of the Incarnation. MR. STEVENSON'S authority is not the Dionysian Paschal cycle itself, but Jan, who wrote in 1715. The text of Dionysius's Paschal cycle in Migne's ' Fathers ' (vol. Ixvii. col. 495) was derived from (among others) the Digby MS. 63 (Bodl.) and the Colbert MS. MXX., and a specimen of the latter is given at col. 479. In Migne's text all the numerals of the years from the first (pxxxn.) to the last (DCXXVI.) as I have said of them already, upon the highest authority, viz., that of Bede are placed in the first column of the table under the heading "Anni Domini Nostri Jesu Christi." Wherever these lists went there would be seen and known the order of the years named as the years of our Lord and dated from His Incarnation. MR. STEVENSON suggests that where I say " Paschal computa- tion by the use of the Dionysian era in Eng- land in the seventh century " he may read " by the use of the Dionysian tables." The Dionysian era cannot be dismissed in this way. MR. STEVENSON should know that we " inspect " tables, and that we cannot compute without an era. In early times it was the bounden duty of ecclesiastics to acquire the art of computation, and it is now the duty of diplomatists to do so, seeing that it is their

Pontificat Gregors I. die Osterberechnung des Dionysius die herrschende. Freilich lasst sich auch dies nicht aus den romischen Denkmalern erkennen ; es geht aber zweifellos aus der Geschichte der Bekeh- rung Britanniens durch Augustinushervor." I think that Krusch would have said vorherrschende if he had meant " predominant," and had intended to suggest that there was a second method in use.
 * "In Rom war am Ende des 6 Jahrh. unter clem