Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 2.djvu/39

 9 th S. II. JtrLY9,'98.J

31

business to explain the complex methods o' chronography anciently employed in dating legal and historical documents.

The learned Jan is cited again by MR. STEVEN- SON in order that he may assure us that there is no instance of the use of the Dionysian era in public documents before 742, when the Englishman Boniface (i. e., Winfrid, a native of Creditpn, who went on the Continent in 715) presided over a council in Germany. This is curious, because the first of the 'Craw- ford Charters ' is the public document, dated A.D. 739, from which we learn that land was granted by King ^Ethelhard to Forth- here, Bishop of Sherborne, for the foundation of Crediton monastery.

By MR. STEVENSON'S second argument I am to understand that it is a fallacy to suppose, as I do, that the fathers of the sixth and seventh centuries used the era of the Incar- nation for computing the indiction, the reason given being that there is a canon for com- puting the year of the Incarnation itself from the indiction. One would suppose that two canons made proof doubly sure. The discovery of the date of a year in the era of the Incarnation, by the method referred to, depends upon the knowledge of the date of an earlier indiction in the same era. The canon of Cassiodorus, for instance, required the ^computist (a) to know how many in- dictions had elapsed since the consulship of Basil Junior, and (b) to bear in mind that that consulship fell in a certain year of our Lord which is given in the canon. The fact that the Computus Paschalis of Cassiodorus was, as MR. STEVENSON admits, brought up to date, proves a great deal more than the use of the "writings" of Dionysius it proves the use of the era he invented.

What I have said with respect to the argu- ments that MR. STEVENSON has advanced will, I think, show that Kemble had good reason for saying (' C. D.,' i. p. Ixxii) that " those who argue that the era of the Incarnation was not introduced into England until the

time of Beda appear to have no sound

grounds for their belief." I regret that MR. STEVENSON did not support his theory that Bede was the "restorer" of the use of the Dionysian era by giving reasons from Prof. Riihl s recently publishea work (which I have not yet seen), instead of by quoting the learned Jan, who wrote in 1715.

A. ANSCOMBE.

P.S. I have omitted to correct MR. STEVEN- SON'S supposition (9 th S. i. 232) that Bede did not use the era of the Incarnation in works written before 725. In the ' De Temporibus ' (c. xiv.) Bede dates the year in which he was

writing as "quinto Tiberii" "Indictione prima," and " ap Incarnatione Domini DCCIII." ('Opp.,' ed. Giles, vi. p. 130; and cp. Mr. Plummer's ' Bede,' i. p. cxlvi).

BOOKS PUBLISHED AT THE BEGINNING OF

THE CENTURY (9 th S. i. 487). 'The New London Catalogue of Books, with their Sizes and Prices, containing the Books which have been Published and such as have been Altered in Size and Price since the "London Cata- logue of Books to the End of the Year 1800," ' 8vo. pp. 120, was printed for W. Bent, Paternoster Row, in 1807. The next issue of Bent's 'London Catalogue' which I have includes all books from 1800 to 1822. The year of the publication of each book is not, however, given in either catalogue.

WM. H. PEET.

In the Gentleman's Magazine for 1804, vol. Ixxiv. p. 1173, there is a quotation from the 'New Catalogue of Living Authors.' This refers to "A New Catalogue of Living English Authors ; with Complete Lists of their Pub- lications and Biographical and Critical Memoirs. Scribimus indocti doctique. Lond.,

grin ted for C. Clarke, No. 6, Northumberland ourt, Strand, 1799." A copy of this is in the British Museum. One volume only was published, which embraces a part of the letter C.

Mr. Robert Bent, of Paternoster Row, ublished in 1799 the ' London Catalogue of iooks,' to September in that year, and an appendix during the year following. The 'Modern Catalogue of Books' appeared in 1803, and the 'New London Catalogue' in 1807, 1811, and 1812. In 1802 Mr. William Bent began the ' Monthly Catalogue of New Publications.' From the ' Modern Catalogue ' it appeared that from 1792 to the end of 1802 (eleven years), 4,096 new books were published, exclusive of reprints not altered
 * n price, and also exclusive of pamphlets;

deducting one-fifth for the reprints, there is an average of 372 new books per year. See Timperley's 'Dictionary of Printers and Printing/ EVERARD HOME COLEMAN.

71, Brecknock Road.

ST. THOMAS 1 BECKET (9 th S. i. 407). In answer to your correspondent who desires nformation about the dedication of Clapham Dhurch, Bedfordshire, I would refer him to of St. Thomas a Becket at 7 July. This, then, s the particular event in his life which is lonoured in the dedication of Clapham. The uses of York and Hereford agree with this date. Clapham, since the tower is of Saxon
 * he Sarum use, which marks the translation