Simon Bredon

Before Grosseteste: Roger of Hereford and Calendar Reform in Eleventh- and Twelfth-
Century England
Author(s): Jennifer Moreton
Source: Isis , Dec., 1995, Vol. 86, No. 4 (Dec., 1995), pp. 562-586
Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of The History of Science
Society
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Before Grosseteste
Roger of Hereford and Calendar Reform in

Eleventh- and Twelfth-Century England
By Jennifer Moreton*
HE EXISTENCE IN THE WEST COUNTRY-that area of England that is nearest to

the Welsh border-in the eleventh and twelfth centuries of a group of scholars with
scientific interests has long been recognized. The part that compotus played in the devel-
opment of these interests was noted by C. H. Haskins many years ago, but it has not been
studied in any detail.' Yet both the area and the topic are of the greatest importance for
the development of Western science in the Middle Ages: for it was here that a proposal
for a reform of the ecclesiastical calendar, based not only on the reckoning traditionally
attributed to Dionysius Exiguus but relating also to observed phenomena, was arrived at,
then verified with the use of newly available scientific ideas from Arabic sources.
One reason for the neglect of this topic is that three very important computistical trea-
tises-the eleventh-century Compotus of Gerland and those of Roger of Hereford and the
writer who has been identified with a certain "Constabularius," both from the twelfth
century-have not been printed.2
* Dublin Institute of Technology, Kevin Street, Dublin 8, Ireland.

I am grateful to Wolfson College, Oxford, for a Visiting Fellowship in 1993-1994 that allowed me to work
on this article; to Daniel McCarthy for much helpful discussion; and to Peter Moreton for technical assistance.
1 For the West Country and science see Charles Burnett, "The Introduction of Arabic Learning into British
Schools," in The Introduction of Arabic Philosophy into Europe, ed. C. E. Butterworth and B. A. Kessell (Leiden:
Brill, 1994), pp. 40-57; for compotus see C. H. Haskins, Studies in the History of Medieval Science (1924; rpt.,
New York, Unger, 1960), Chs. 5, 6.
2 Dionysius Exiguus: A Scythian monk who lived in Rome ca. 500-ca. 550. He called himself "the little" out
of humility. His computistical writings appear in Patrologia cursus completus: Series Latina (hereafter PL), ed.
J. P. Migne, Vol. 67 (1848), cols. 453-520.
Gerland: His compotus was possibly written in 1081. L. M. de Rijk, Gerlandus computista (Assen, 1959),
established the computist's identity, but much confusion surrounds him. The forthcoming edition of Gerland's
Compotus, by Faith Wallis of McGill University, is eagerly awaited. To Rijk's list of manuscripts (p. xxii) may
be added Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Auctarium F. 1.9, s.xii, fols. 12v-26v; and Oxford, Bodleian Library MS
Digby 56, s.xii, fols. 170r-195v, both of which have West Country provenance. There is much variation between
manuscripts. Quotations in this essay are from Digby 56.
Roger of Hereford: Roger dedicated his treatise on the compotus to Gilbert Foliot, bishop of Hereford from
1146 to 1163. By 1176, Roger tells us, he had "sweated" in the cathedral school of Hereford for many years.
He appears to have been a member of the bishop's household; see Haskins, Studies in History of Medieval
Science, pp. 124-125. Roger's manuscripts: Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Digby 40, s.xii-xiii, fols. 21-50v
(headed "Prefatio magistri Rogeri infantis in compotum"); Cambridge, University Library Kk.l.1, s.xiii, fols.
Isis, 1995, 86: 562-586

?1995 by The History of Science Society. All rights reserved.
0021-1753/95/8401-0001$01.00
562

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JENNIFER MORETON 563
The aim of this article is to explain why the study of compotus flourished in th
Country and then to examine its development in these and related treatises. A se
devoted to the Kalendarium of Robert Grosseteste, whose contribution to science i
known than that of the previously mentioned figures. It is a truism that well-known
attract attributions. It is not surprising that a set of calendar tables that bear a clo
tionship to Gerland's treatise, and that form the centerpiece of the Compotus of R
Hereford, should have been attributed to Grosseteste from an early period; but it i
in view of their importance, that they should have been printed only in this version
was copied when the principles governing their construction had been forgotten.3
First of all, what was compotus? Its exponents have been called "the first spec
scientists of the Middle Ages." Astronomy was concerned with all the planets; co
studied only lunar and solar movements. It evolved because of the exigencies of th
tian calendar. Christmas and saints' days are dates in the solar calendar, the Rom
calendar, which (with modification) we still use today. Problems arose with solar re
because of inaccurate astronomical measurement, but they were fairly easily solved
measurement, too, was inaccurate; but there were more immediate problems invol
dating of Easter. To establish this most important day in the Christian year it was nec
to collate lunar and solar movements.
Easter is associated with the Jewish Passover, which is the fourteenth day (luna 14) of
the lunar month Nisan (Exodus 12:2, 6). The Last Supper is traditionally (on the authority
of the Synoptic Gospels) held to have been the Passover meal; the Resurrection, occurring
three days later, was thus on the seventeenth day of the lunar month (luna 17). But the
day of the Resurrection was also the first day of the week-Sunday-in the solar calendar.
Controversy arose early between adherents of the new faith who observed a Christian
Pasch on luna 14, whatever day of the week it fell on, and those who observed the feast
on the following Sunday. The former were anathematized as Quartodecimans. A further
constraint was the belief, arbitrarily arrived at, that Nisan, luna 14, could not fall before
the spring equinox.
How could it be ensured that Easter was kept on the same date throughout the Church?
The difficulties that might ensue if the date varied are chronicled, as is well known, by
Bede.5 Even where astronomical expertise existed, it was no good waiting to observe the
appropriate moon, since the faithful had to know when the preceding fast began. What
222v-239r (unascribed); a third manuscript-Oxford, Corpus Christi College 233-appears to have contained
the treatise: it is cited in a list of contents, but the treatise itself is missing. Quotations in this essay are from
Digby 40.
"Constabularius": Floruit 1175, known only for this treatise. London, British Library MS Cotton Vitellius A
XII, fols. 87v-97v. P. J. Willets, "A Reconstructed Astronomical MS from Christ Church Library, Canterbury,"
British Museum Quarterly, 1965-1966, 30:22-30, identified the treatise as the work of a certain "Magister
Cunestabilis"; he is referred to in this article as Constabularius.
3 Arvid Lindhagen, ed., "Die Neumondtafel des Lincolniensis," Archiv for Matematik, Astronomi och Fysik,
1916, 11-12:15-41. The tables and the accompanying material are also discussed in Ferdinand Kaltenbrunner,
Die Vorgeschichte der Gregorianischen Kalenderreform (Vienna, 1876), pp. 305-307; and W. E. van Wijk, Le
nombre d'or: Etude de chronologie technique (The Hague, 1936), pp. 39-41.
4 Olaf Pedersen, "The Corpus astronomicum and the Traditions of Medieval Latin Astronomy," Studia Co-
pernicana, 1973, 3:57-96, on p. 64. For a definition of compotus see Digby 40, fol. 22v: "compotus est scientia
distinctionis temporum secundum motum duorum principalium planetarum, solis videlicet et lune." On problems
caused by inaccurate measurement and their solution see Jennifer Moreton, "Sacrobosco and the Calendar,"
Viator, 1994, 25:229-244.
5 Bede, Historia ecclesiastica, 3.25. In 651 Queen Eanfleda was still fasting while her husband Oswy, king of
Northumbria, was celebrating Easter.

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564 BEFORE GROSSETESTE
was necessary was an Easter table that would lay down the dates in advance;
was cyclical, it could, in theory, be used in perpetuity.
Paschal uniformity was a source of discord in the Church for many centurie
eventually achieved (at least until the Gregorian reform of 1582) by the accep
the end of the seventh century, of the Dionysian reckoning for establishin
Easter. The 19-year cycle used in the Dionysian reckoning equates 19 solar yea
lunations, or lunar months.6 The lunation is reckoned to be 29 1/2 days long,
calendar can reckon only in whole days, lunations of 30 and 29 days-"vulgar
are alternated. A year composed of twelve of these lunations contains 354 d
less than the year of 12 solar months. To keep the lunar year as far as possible
with the solar, an extra lunation of 30 days is added to the former whenever t
between it and the solar year exceeds thirty. Seven of these extra lunations, o
are added at appropriate points in the cycle. The lunar reckoning then exce
by 1 day. This extra day is omitted, or "leapt over," in the last year of the
the name saltus lune.
Bearing in mind that ecclesiastical reckoning can deal only in whole days, the 19-year
cycle is the least unsatisfactory way of collating motions that are, in fact, incommensurable
in practical terms; but it has intrinsic defects. The intercalation of the embolisms spoils
the alternation of 30- and 29-day lunations and makes for inaccuracies in the age of the
moon at certain points of the cycle, which can be 1 or sometimes 2 days out. Moreover,
it is not a true cycle: to comprehend all the possible calendrical permutations of weekdays,
leap years, and embolisms, it is necessary to construct a table of 532 years.
The Dionysian paschal cycle is the product of the 28-year solar cycle and the 19-year
lunar cycle. Dionysius did not, in fact, create the cycle that bears his name. What he did
was to take an existing table and extend it for 95 years from A.D. 532. Bede's inclusion
of the cycle, which was to become the basis of all future ecclesiastical reckoning, in his
definitive work on the calendar ensured its wide dissemination, although it is probable that
cycles of this kind were circulating in Britain before his De temporum ratione (A.D. 725).
Bede's cycle, which he calls the great paschal cycle, covers the years 532-1063 inclusive,
starting where Dionysius began his (noncyclical) table.7
The Celtic church was slow to accept the Dionysian dating. It differed in observing a
later equinox (25 March, not 21 March) and in allowing the Easter celebration on Sunday,
luna 14, which resulted in its adherents being branded (unfairly) as Quartodecimans. Their
submission at the Synod of Whitby in 664 is chronicled by Bede. But Celtic scholarship
lies behind the latter's De temporum ratione; and the texts on which the Celtic arguments
were based continued to be copied.8
The continuing influence of the Celtic church is the first factor that has to be taken into
account when we turn to consider why the study of compotus flourished in the West
Country. It was an influence that seems to have persisted into the eleventh century and
6 Bedae Opera de temporibus, ed. Charles W. Jones (Cambridge, Mass.: Medieval Academy of America,
1943), pp. 3-104, chronicles the process of the acceptance of the Dionysian reckoning. Throughout this article,
the "19-year cycle" denotes the ciclus decennovenalis of the standard ecclesiastical reckoning. The "paschal
cycle" refers to the cycle of 532 years, Bede's "great paschal cycle" (see Table 1).
7 According to Bede (Historia ecclesiastica, 5.21), Ceolfrid, abbot of Wearmouth and Yarrow (ca. 710), said
that numerous scholars could compose a 532-year cycle. Bede's description of the cycle is to be found in Bedae
Opera de temporibus, ed. Jones, p. 290.
8 Bede, Historia ecclesiastica, 3.25. On the subject of the Irish and the Quartodeciman heresy see Daibhf
O'Cr6inin, "New Heresy for Old: Pelagianism in Ireland and the Papal Letter of 440," Speculum, 1985, 60:505-
516; on the Irish dating of Easter see Daniel McCarthy, "Easter Principles and a Fifth-Century Lunar Cycle
Used in the British Isles," Journal for the History of Astronomy, 1993, 24:204-224.

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beyond. The twelfth-century Compotus of Constabularius appears in a collection

dices, one of which contains Cummian's letter, the only surviving copy of an im
document that was written circa 633 to the abbot of Iona to explain why the southe
had decided to bring their paschal observance into line with the dictates of the Pap
In the early thirteenth century the canons of Salisbury Cathedral added Cummian'
to a compendium of computistical texts. Perhaps the letter had been to the Contin
back again, preserved in this way from destruction during Viking invasions of Brit
Celtic influence is evident also in a prayer book that may have originated at Leom
in the early eleventh century. The prayer book contains a calendar with separate en
June for the solstice according to Greek and Roman use. It should be emphasized
table for computing the date of Easter in the same volume accords with the stan
practice of the Western Church; but adherence to the official ecclesiastical calenda
not preclude an interest in the problems associated with it.9
Turning to the texts to be examined in this article, we shall discover that Gerlan
others before him, disagreed with Dionysius about the year in which Christ was bo
emendation of the Dionysian era depended on the Acta synodi, one of the documen
by the Celtic church in defense of its dating of Easter; and it should be noted th
Compotus of Constabularius contains a detailed examination of another of these d
ments, the De ratione paschali attributed to Anatolius of Laodicea.10
In addition to the surviving influence of the Celtic church, contacts between the
Country and Lotharingia, with its early interest in Arabic science, began before the No
Conquest and reinforced interest in compotus. Lotharingian science was dissemin
England by Abbo of Fleury, who taught astronomy and compotus to the monks of
from 986 to 988. Ramsey was the mother house of both Worcester and Winchcomb
what C. W. Jones calls "Abbonian material" was transmitted from Ramsey to the
Country. Robert Losinga, who was bishop of Hereford from 1079 to 1085, contin
computistical tradition."1 Another Lotharingian, Walcher, prior of Malvem, who
England between 1091 and 1135, produced some lunar tables that will be discussed
Gerland was a native of Lotharingia. It has been suggested that, like Robert and W
he spent some of his life in England. Two manuscripts containing his Compotus w
originally at Worcester and (probably) Hereford.12 Gerland seems to have been part
influential in what may be called the English computistical tradition. He figures in
9 On the role of Cummian's letter see Maura Walsh and Daibhf O' Cr6inin, eds., Cummian's Lette
controversia paschali and the De rationi computandi (Studies and Texts, 86) (Toronto: Pontifical Inst.
Studies, 1988). The surviving copy is now London, British Library MS Cotton Vitellius XII, fols. 79r
Teresa Webber, Scribes and Scholars at Salisbury Cathedral, c. 1075-c. 1125 (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Pr
1992), p. 63. For the prayer book see B. J. Muir, ed., A Pre-Conquest English Prayer-Book (Henry B
Society, 103) (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell, 1988). Muir agrees with Edmund Bishop and Neil Ker th
written in Winchester; the Leominster provenance is suggested by Joe Hillaby, "Early Christian and Pre
Leominster," Transactions of the Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club, 1987, 45:557-685, on p. 630. The
computing the date of Easter is reproduced by Muir on p. 15. If this is intended, as Muir says, to be a
cycle, 1 year is missing.
10 A new edition of this important text is forthcoming: Anatolius, De ratione paschali, ed. Aidan Bree
McCarthy, and Jennifer Moreton (Medieval Studies) (Queenston, Ontario: Edwin Mellen).
n See J. W. Thomson, "The Introduction of Arabic Science into Lorraine in the Tenth Century," Is
12:184-193; and Alfred Cordoliani, "L'activit6 computistique de Robert, 6veque de Hereford," in M
offerts ta Rend Crozet, Vol. 1, ed. P. Gallais and Y.-J. Rious (Poitiers: Societe de Etudes Medievales, 1
333-340. The "Abbonian material" includes Oxford, Bodleian MS Digby 56, of which Gerland's Com
a part; see Charles W. Jones, Bedae pseudepigrapha: Scientific Writings Falsely Attributed to Bede (Itha
London: Cornell Univ. Press, 1939), p. 13.
12 Bedae Opera de temporibus, ed. Jones (cit. n. 6), p. 154; and Burnett, "Introduction of Arabic L
(cit. n. 1), p. 44.

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widely disseminated material that appears to have been part of the stock-in
later commentators on the Compotus in the schools, although his name is
tioned with unqualified approval.
In the West Country in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, then, were to
interest in compotus that was part of the legacy of the Celtic church and the w
scholarly Lotharingians with similar interests. To this may be added a kno
Jewish calendar, available in that part of England since the previous centu
ysagogarum alchorismi, which is attributed in one manuscript to a certain
contains a Jewish calendar.'3
Roger of Hereford, whose links with the West Country are sufficiently well attested,
wrote not only on the calendar but on astrological subjects.14 He had access to information
from Jewish sources, as we shall see. His Compotus, which will be discussed in detail,
was written in 1176.
In addition, the West Country was an area where the Arabic learning newly available
to Western Europe was eagerly received. This was often transmitted through Jewish
sources. Particularly interesting in this respect, and requiring further investigation, is the
Compotus of Constabularius. Like his contemporary Roger of Hereford, Constabularius
was preoccupied with the problems of the ecclesiastical calendar. As we shall see, he was
perhaps not in sympathy with Roger's proposal for reform. There are very few clues in
the treatise to the identity of its writer. It appears to have been written in 1175, in En-
gland-to which there is one reference in the text. The writer's use of Anatolius's De
ratione paschali-that important text for those who supported the Celtic Easter-has al-
ready been noted. Another reason for linking its writer with the West Country is his
knowledge of Gerland, who is the most cited writer in a treatise full of citation. But much
of his subject matter is more scientifically advanced than Gerland's, and some of his
information could have come only from personal contact with Jewish scholars.15
GERLAND AND THE PASCHAL CYCLE
There is no trace of the "new science" in Gerland's Compotus, which is instead n

for the skill it displays using the traditional methods of reckoning. It is not i
this connection that Gerland was an abacist.16
An understanding of how the paschal cycle works was (and is) fundamental to the study
of compotus. This is best explained in connection with Gerland and his proposed emen-
dation of the year of the Incarnation, since the argument hinges on his discussion of
Dionysius's mistaken interpretation of the data the cycle contains.
13 Charles Burnett, "The Writings of Adelard of Bath and Closely Associated Works, Together with the
Manuscripts in Which They Occur," in Adelard of Bath, ed. Burnett (London: Warburg Institute, 1987), pp.
163-196, on pp. 173-174, describes the Liber ysagogarum alchorismi, attributed in one manuscript to "magister
A." This manuscript contains a Jewish calendar tlat is evidently not included in Muhammad Ibn Musa al-
Khwarizmi, Le calcul indien (Algorismus), ed. and trans. Andre Allard (Paris: Blanchard, 1992), pp. xlv-lii, 23-
61.
14 See Haskins, Studies in History of Medieval Science (cit. n. 1), pp. 124-126, for a list of writings attributed
to Roger. Nicholas Whyte edited one of his astrological works in "Roger of Hereford, Liber de arte astronomica
iudicandi: a Twelfth-Century Astrologer's Manual" (M.Phil. thesis, Cambridge Univ., 1991).
15 The reference to England is in Cotton Vitellius A XII, fol. 96ra: "quandoque luna distans a sole paulominus
quam xxix gradibus in Anglia non apparebit." For the writer's knowledge of Jewish sources see the section
"Roger of Hereford and the Astronomical Compotus." On enthusiasm in the West Country for the new Arabic
learning see the sources cited in note 1.
16 His treatise, De abaco, was edited by B. Treutlein (Bolletino di Bibliographia e di Storia della Scienze
Matematiche et Fisiche Publicato da B. Boncompagni, 10) (1877), pp. 595-607.

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Table 1. The Paschal Cycle

Cycle year 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19
Epact - 11 22 3 14 25 6 17 28 9 20 1 12 23 4 15 26 7 18
532 4b 5 6 7 2b 8 4 5 7b 1 2 3 5b 6 7 1 3b 4 5
551 6 lb 2 3 4 6b 7 1 2 4b 5 6 7 2b 3 4 5 7b 1
570 2 3 5b 6 7 12 3b 4 5 6 lb 2 3 4 6b 7 1 2 4b
589 5 6 7 2b 3 4 5 7b 1 2 3 5b 6 7 1 3b 4 5 6
608 lb 2 3 4 6b 7 1 2 4b 5 6 7 2b 3 4 5 7b 1 2
627 3 5b 6 7 1 3b 4 5 6 lb 2 3 4 6b 7 1 2 4b 5
646 6 7 2b 3 4 5 7b 1 2 3 5b 6 7 1 3b 4 5 6 lb
665 2 3 4 6b 7 1 2 4b 5 6 7 2b 3 4 5 7b 1 2 3
684 5b 6 7 1 3b 4 5 6 lb 2 3 4 6b 7 1 2 4b 5 6
703 7 2b 3 4 5 7b 1 2 3 5b 6 7 1 3b 4 5 6 lb 2
722 3 4 6b 7 1 2 4b 5 6 7 2b 3 4 5 7b 1 2 3 5b
741 6 7 1 3b 4 5 6 lb 2 3 4 6b 7 1 2 4b 5 6 7
760 2b 3 4 5 7b 1 2 3 Sb 6 7 1 3b 4 5 6 lb 2 3
779 4 6b 7 1 2 4b 5 6 7 2b 3 4 5 7b 1 2 3 5b 6
798 7 1 3b 4 5 6 lb 2 3 4 6b 7 1 2 4b 5 6 7 2b
817 3 4 5 7b 1 2 3 5b 6 7 1 3b 4 5 6 lb 2 3 4
836 6b 7 1 2 4b 5 6 7 2b 3 4 5 7b 1 2 3 5b 6 7
855 1 3b 4 5 6 lb 2 3 4 6b 7 1 2 4b 5 6 7 2b 3
874 4 5 7b 1 2 3 5b 6 7 1 3b 4 5 6 lb 2 3 4 6b
893 7 1 2 4b 5 6 7 2b 3 4 5 7b 1 2 3 5b 6 7 1
912 3b 4 5 6 lb 2 3 4 6b 7 1 2 4b 5 6 7 2b 3 4
931 5 7b 1 2 3 5b 6 7 1 3b 4 5 6 lb 2 3 4 6b 7
950 1 2 4b 5 6 7 2b 3 4 5 7b 1 2 3 5b 6 7 1 3b
969 4 5 6 lb 2 3 4 6b 7 1 2 4b 5 6 7 2b 3 4 5
988 7b 1 2 3 Sb 6 7 1 3b 4 5 6 lb 2 3 4 6b 7 1
1007 2 4b 5 6 7 2b 3 4 5 7b 1 2 3 5b 6 7 1 3b 4
1026 5 6 lb 2 3 4 6b 7 1 2 4b 5 6 7 2b 3 4 5 7b
1045 1 2 3 5b 6 7 1 3b 4 5 6 lb 2 3 4 6b 7 1 2
Paschal 5 25 13 2 22 10 30 19 7 27 15 4 24 12 1 21 9 29 17
term Ap M Ap Ap M Ap M Ap Ap Ap Ap Ap M Ap Ap M Ap M A
Paschal
regular: 5 1 6 2 5 3 6 4 7 3 1 4 7 5 1 4 2 5 3
Dionysius's main contribution to calendar

Incarnation, the method of dating from
today. But it was well known even in Be
Dionysian data. Bede chose not to spell th
accused of heresy for his promulgation of
Gerland is less reticent. Referring to th
the epacts and concurrents for 532 year
17 See Bedae Opera de temporibus, ed. Jones (cit

the accuracy of Dionysius "with so noticeable a circu
in his day" (p. 70). What Bede says is that if you can
the right data), you must put it down to the careles

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number that represents the difference in days between the lunar and the sola
oning year by year. The epacts for the 19 years of the lunar cycle are shown
at the top of the table. The age of the moon on the first day of a particular m
established by adding the lunar regular, which is a fixed number assigned to
of the lunar year, to the epact.
The concurrent shows the feria (the day of the week) of the first day of th
concurrent is shown for every year of the paschal cycle in the twenty-eight
the epacts. The letter b indicates that the year is bissextile, that is, a leap yea
of the first day of the month can be established by means of the solar regula
fixed number assigned to each month of the solar year. For example: March
regular 9, solar regular 5. Epact + lunar regular = age of moon on 1 March;
+ solar regular 5 = feria on 1 March (Sunday = feria 1, Monday = feria 2
Gerland bases his criticism of the Dionysian reckoning on a close examina
paschal cycle, which stands (or should stand) at the beginning of his treatis
information he relies heavily on Bede.
He argues as follows. Dionysius starts his cycle in 532, but it is the second y
table, not the first, which corresponds to the year of the Incarnation (532 is
of the first cycle-not, as Dionysius makes it, the first year of the second).
of Christ was 33 and a little more years later, that is (according to Dionysiu
that corresponds with A.D. 566 in the paschal cycle. But "Dionysius and cert
assigned the first Easter Day to 27 March.19 The Last Supper (luna 14) was th
Thursday, 24 March. Counting back to the beginning of March, we find that
luna 21 of the previous (30-day) lunation, feria 3 (Tuesday) in the solar reckon
this corresponds to epact 12, concurrent 5.20
If we consult the paschal cycle we find that the chronological elements-epact 12,
concurrent 5-that relate to this date occur in the thirteenth year of the cycle and 247 years
later. Either Christ's earthly life was shorter or longer than is recorded, or the Last Supper
could not have taken place on luna 14, the full moon of Passover.
Gerland has an alternative solution. We can avoid misrepresentation, he says, if we
follow Theophilus in dating the Crucifixion to 23 March. The Passover full moon (the all-
important luna 14) will then fall on 22 March; and Easter Day (luna 17) on 25 March.
This dating yields epact 14, concurrent 7, which occurs in the forty-third year of the 19-
year cycle. Christ lived on earth, Gerland has already established, for 33 years and a little
more. Counting back 34 years, we reach year 9 of the table; and it is to this year that the
Incarnation should really be assigned. Dionysius has started his table 7 years too early:
the year he calls 532 is really only 525.21
It is not irrelevant to Gerland' s proposed redating of the Christian Era that although the
18 Digby 56, fol. 178r: "que operis huius caput est et principium." In this manuscript an (inaccurate) cycle
occupies fol. 177v, but this is not the beginning of the treatise. There is a more accurate cycle on fols. 163v-
164r, but it is not part of the Compotus of Gerland as it is copied in this codex.
19 Digby 56, fol. 176v. This is not what Bede says; see Bedae Opera de temporibus, ed. Jones (cit. n. 6), p.
267: "Quod autem viii kal. apr. crucifixus, vi kal. earundem die resurrexit, multorum late doctorum ecclesiasti-
corum constat sententia vulgatum." These, according to Jones, included Augustine himself (p. 382).
20 Epact + lunar regular 9 = luna 21: 21 - 9 = 12; concurrent + solar regular 5 = feria 3: 3 - 5 + 7
= 5. As has been said, 29- and 30-day lunations alternate. "Unequal months" (months 1, 3, 5, etc.) have "equal"
(i.e., 30-day) lunations. The lunation belongs to the month in which it terminates. If luna 14 falls on 24 March,
luna 1 is on 11 March, so 1 March is luna 21 of the previous lunation.
21 The relevant passages were printed in Alfred Cordoliani, "Abbon de Fleury, Heriger de Lobbes et Gerland
de Besan9on sur l'ere de l'Incarnation de Denys le Petit," Revue d'Histoire Ecclesiastique, 1949, 44:463-487,
on pp. 484-487.

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Council did not, as was thought, promulgate a specific method of calculating Easte
proscribe the Quartodeciman heresy. It has been noted that Gerland was not regarde
unalloyed approval: thus Constabularius, who calls him "my Gerland," says that h
be imitated in everything except where he goes against the usage of the Church.
pealing to Theophilus for his dating of the events of the Passion Gerland was, as h
said, citing the Acta synodi, which was attributed to the second-century bishop of C
The writer of this document envisaged the possibility of Easter being celebrated o
14. Although this document may not have been an "Irish forgery," it was part o
material that was used to support the Celtic dating of Easter.22
Computistical calculation has always been regarded as tiresome.23 The tediousne
somewhat mitigated by the invention of the paschal regular, which, with the pasch
(the full moon from which Easter Day is reckoned), was a shortcut to establishing t
of Easter in any particular year of the paschal cycle. The paschal regular (which
located at the bottom of Table 1), combined with the concurrent, gives the feria (d
the week) on which the paschal full moon falls. For example, let us take a year at r
say, A.D. 690. Referring to the paschal cycle, we find that it is year 7 of the 19-yea
The paschal term for year 7 of the cycle is 30 March; the paschal regular is 6. Ref
again to the cycle, we find that the concurrent for 690 is 5. In that year, theref
March fell on feria 4, Wednesday (6 + 5 = 11; 11 - 7= 4). Easter Day was 4 days
later, that is, on 3 April.
A chart of the paschal cycle and the paschal regulars is included with the Compotus of
Constabularius, but there the latter are called the "angelic regulars." The paschal terms
and regulars were incorporated in some ancient and widely disseminated verses, beginning
"None Aprilis," which were thought to have an angelic provenance.24 Roger includes the
verses in his treatise and refers to the legend; he adds cautiously that the paschal terms
were confirmed by the Council of Nicaea.25
ROGER OF HEREFORD AND THE GOLDEN NUMBER
What Gerland had proposed in his Compotus was merely an alternative date
carnation; it did nothing to correct the underlying weaknesses of the ecclesias
oning. Bede's De temporum ratione had established the ecclesiastical calendar in
that it was to maintain until the Gregorian reform of 1582. The shortcomings
endar were recognized, but it was thought to have the authority of the Counc
22 For Constabularius's caution see Cotton Vitellius A XII, fol. 87ra: "Noveris etiam preter ce
Geralandum quoque imitatum, et etiam imitandum in omnibus exceptis his in quibus obviat us
adds: "Nam ubi bene dicat, nemo melius." The Acta synodi is accessible under the title De ordinati
paschalium, in PL, Vol. 90 (1862), cols. 607-610A. Jones (Bedae Opera de temporibus, ed. Jone
p. 88) and Walsh and O'Cr6infn (Cummian's Letter [cit. n. 9], p. 36) differ about its provenance
23 Hence Michael Scot's definition of the subject in his Liber particularis (1256), Oxford Bod
MS Canonici, Miscellaneous 555, fol. 10v: "Vel dicitur compotus a compotando, ... quia compo
cessarie sunt ad doctrinam eorum qui in compoto edocentur."
24 Cotton Vitellius A XII, fol. 98r. The verses were known to Isidore (col. 560-636); he refers to
Etymologies. See C. W. Jones, "A Legend of St. Pachomius," Speculum, 1943, 18:198-210. Dfibh
"Mo-Sinnu Moccu Min and the Computus of Bangor," Peritia, 1982, 1:287, prints the verses in
25 Digby 40, fols. 33v-34r: "Contingit enim in primativa ecclesia ut esset circa Paschalem c
variatio, ita quod quidam ut lerosolunite Pascha celebrarent more ludeorum luna xiiii, quacunqu
alii autem ut Galli vito kal. Aprilis, qua die secundum solis cursum resurrexit Dominus. Set quonia
esset diversitas inter quos erat catholice fidei unitas, Pacomius abba quidam, cum esset vir sum
rogatu multorum in dicto ieiunio Domin orasse legitur ut sibi placitum suum circa Paschalem s
manifestare dignaretur. Cui angelo revelante hos versus misisse dictus est. Set et eodem modo a N
terminos confirmatos habemus."

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behind it. As Roger of Hereford says, "We dare not change anything relat
nations of the ecclesiastical compotus."26
As a shortcut to reckoning, the paschal regular appears to have been rep
golden number. Roger's treatise seems to have been the last to include the
Aprilis" and the first to include a discussion of the golden number. The ep
concurrent and the calculations connected with them relate to the paschal
reflects Alexandrian reckoning. The golden number was related to the Roma
acquired its name, it was commonly believed, because it was such a marvel
finding the age of the moon that the Romans inscribed it in their calendars
gold.27
The golden number was a device for marking on the calendar all the new moons (pri-
mations) in the 19-year cycle. It first appeared in the tenth century, and it probably orig-
inated in Celtic tradition. The golden number is usually found on the standard Church
calendar in a column to the right of the date. Table 2 shows how the golden number is
plotted throughout the 19-year cycle. All the dates on which the new moon occurs in the
first year of the cycle are indicated by the number 1, in the second year by 2, and so on.
The numbers are sometimes replaced by the first nineteen letters of the alphabet. If you
had a calendar, it was a simple matter to find any new moon in the year and thus to locate
Easter. Of course, you would have to know the year of the 19-year cycle: but that is easily
established by a well-known Dionysian argumentum, which Bede included in his treatise:
Add one to the Year of Our Lord and divide by nineteen. Any remainder will indicate the
year of the cycle. If there is no remainder, it is the last year of the cycle.28
But the golden number had another much more important advantage: it solved the
problem that was known as the "failure of the epacts." In several places in the eighth,
eleventh, and nineteenth years of the cycle, adding the epact and lunar regular yielded the
wrong dates. For example, 1 May is shown as luna 28. But in the eighth year of the cycle
the addition of an extra 30-day embolismic lunation from 6 March to 4 April throws the
reckoning out by 1 day, so that 1 May in this year is luna 27. Again, calculating by epact
and lunar regular, 1 August should be luna 2; in the nineteenth year of the cycle, however,
the omission of 1 day, the saltus lune, from the July lunation makes 1 August luna 3. This
is something that Bede knew and that every calendar treatise after him drew attention to.29
The intrinsic deficiencies of the 19-year cycle-its inaccuracy and the fact that at the
end of the 19 years the chronological data do not, as it was thought, repeat themselves-
were amenable to examination and improvement when it was set out on the calendar. In
the calendar tables that Roger of Hereford connected with Gerland-and that in the next
century were attributed to Robert Grosseteste-the golden number is adapted to make a
more accurate table, which in theory could be used in perpetuity. It is to Roger's credit
that he realized that it could not, at least as it stood; and it is on that realization that his
proposal for calendar reform was based. As has already been noted, there was a further,
26 Digby 40, fol. 48r: "nihil in lunationibus vulgaris compoti mutare audemus."
27 Roger repeats the story about the origin of the term; see Digby 40, fol. 24v: "Aureus numerus eo quod
aureis inscribebatur literis dicitur, quia per hanc [sic] etas lune miro artificio dinoscitur." See Andr6 van de
Vijver, "Hucbald de Saint-Amand, 6colatre, et l'invention du nombre d'or," in Melanges August Pelzer (Louvain:
Univ. Louvain, 1947), pp. 71-79.
28 Dionysius Argumentum paschalia, in PL, Vol. 67 (1848), col. 501; and Bedae Opera de temporibus, ed.
Jones (cit. n. 6), p. 266. The calendars printed in Christopher Wordsworth, The Ancient Kalendar of the University
of Oxford (Oxford Historical Society, 45) (Oxford: Clarendon, 1904), exemplify the placement of the golden
number in a column to the right of the date.
29 Bedae Opera de temporibus, ed. Jones, p. 221: "Sunt autem anni tres circuli decemnovenalis in quibus idem
argumentum stabilitatem sui tenoris conservare nequeat."

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Table 2. The Golden Number

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
1 3 3 11 19 8 16 16
2 11 11 19 8 16* 5* 5 13* 13,2*

3 11* 19 11 19 8 5 13 2
4 8 19 8 16 16 13 2 10
5 19 19* 8 5 5 13 2 10
6 8 16 8* 16 16 2 10 18
7 5 5 5 13 13 10 18 7
8 16 16 2 2 10 18 7
9 5 13 5 13 13 18 7 15
10 2 2 2 10 10 18 7 15 4
11 13 13 7 15 4
12 2 10 2 10 10 18 18 15 4 12
13 7 7 15 4 12 1
14 10 18 10 18 18 4 12 1
15 7 7 7 15 15 12 1 9
16 18 18 4 4 12 1 9
17 7 15 7 15 15 1 9 17
18 4 4 4 12 12 9 17 6
19 15 15 1 1 9 17 6
20 4 12 4 12 12 17 6 14
21 1 1 1 9 9 17 6 14 3
22 12 12 6 14 3
23 1 9 1 9 9 17 17 14 3 11
24 6 6 14 3 11 19
25 9 17 9 17 17 3 11 19
26 6 6 6 14 14 11 19 8
27 17 17 3 3 11 19 8
28 6 14 6 14 14 19 8 16
29 3 3 11 11 8 16 5
30 14 14 19 8 16 5
31 3 3 11 5 13
*Denotes embolism.
more fundamental, problem with the cycle in that the lunar measurement was itself inac-
curate. An overestimation of the length of the lunation resulted in the date where the golden
number was marked on the calendar gradually becoming later and later than the actual
new moon. This was a serious matter, because it could be easily recognized-in the next
century, according to a later compotist, by "any peasant."30 Roger's proposed reform was
intended to put things right without disobeying what was thought to be the edict of the
Council of Nicaea.
Roger of Hereford did not invent the tables that form the centerpiece of his treatise. He
thought Gerland did: and we must treat his opinion with respect, although there are prob-
lems with the attribution. The tables were certainly in existence before 1176, the year when
30 Roger Bacon, Opus majus, Vol. 1, ed. J. H. Bridges (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1897), p. 276: "Etiam
quilibet computista novit, quod fallit primatio per tres dies vel quatuor his temporibus, et quilibet rusticus potest
in coelo hunc errorem contemplari."

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Table 3. Calendar from 25 August to 24 September (Adapted from Digby 40,
Vulgar Natural Cycles

Cycle First Second Third Fourth Day of Month
3 t8 t2 t 14 25 August
h 21 h 15 h 9 26
11 h3 q 22 27
19 q 16 q 10 q4 28
c 12 c 24 c 18 29
8 e6 n 13 n7 30
n 1 n 19 31
16 *c 20t *c 14 1 September
5 *c 8 *c 2 2
*1 10 *14 *122 *1 16 3
13 *t 23 *t 17 4
2 *t 11 *t 5 5
*h18 *h12 *h61 ] *h24 6

10 *q 19 7
*q 7 *q 1 *q 13 8
18 *e21 *e 15 *e9 9
7 *e3 *n22 10
*n16 *n 10 *n4 11
15 b 11 b 23 b 17 12
4 b5 13
k 1 k 19 k 13 k7 14
12 s 14 s 20 15
1 s8 s2 16
g9 g3 g21 g 15 17
9 p 23 p 17 18
pll p5 19
17 d18 d 12 d6 d24 20
6 m 19 21
m7 ml m13 22
14 a 21 a 152 a9 23
3 a 3 i22 24
*Denotes embolism.
tHere the letters denoting the primations of the natural compotus change from a to b, from b to c, then d an
so on.
'Primation, 1176.
2Solar eclipse, 1093.
Roger wrote his treatise, since they appear, in what we shall see must have bee
original form, in a manuscript that includes the Compotus of Gerland and can be
dated to 1131.31 I have chosen to study the tables in the form in which they a
31 London, British Library MS Cotton Vespasian A IX, fols. 62v-68r. See A. G. Watson, Catalogu
and Datable Manuscripts, c. 700-1600, in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Library, 2 vol
British Library, 1979), Vol. 1, p. 108.

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Roger's Compotus because he explains how they work and how the principle on w
they were based was arrived at.
How are the tables different from those using the traditional golden number? T
be explained with reference to Table 3. If some additional complications are ignor
the moment, it can be seen that, in contrast to the standard Church calendar, each
has not one but five columns for the lunar data. The first column, which is headed
Cycle," contains the conventional golden number; the following four are bracket
gether under the heading "Natural Cycles." But the golden number in these colum
represented by a letter followed by a number and appears to bear no relationship
number in the first column.
Before examining the calendar tables in detail, it is worth recording that they seem to
have had a profound effect on those who encountered them, at least in the West Country.
Roger's treatise seems to have been written in an atmosphere of violent controversy. In
the preface to his Compotus, the only part of it so far to have been printed, Roger refers
to a conflict that has broken out among students of the topic. They are, he tells us, locked
in battle among themselves. The proponents of the natural compotus reject the vulgar
compotus because of its lack of subtlety and because it follows the senses rather than
reason. The proponents of the vulgar compotus reject the natural compotus because it is
remote from what can be perceived through the senses and is clear only to reason, a vain
and empty science not visible to the eyes or audible to the ears. There are also, he notes,
treatises that do not distinguish between the two and introduce much that is irrelevant; and
others that-designed only to satisfy the needs of the vulgar compotus-are found to have
rejected essentials.32
There is further evidence of the controversy in the writings of Alexander Nequam. This
prolific writer on scientific subjects was an Augustinian who was elected abbot of Cir-
encester in 1213. In a supplemental work he refers to the "manifest errors in the vulgar
compotus."33
The function of the calendar tables, which form the centerpiece of the Compotus of
Roger of Hereford, is to correct these errors by substituting "natural" for "vulgar" reck-
oning. Roger's treatise is a comprehensive and densely argued account of calendar reck-
oning in all its aspects. It is very carefully constructed, and despite numerous digressions,
particularly in the first part of the work, Roger never loses sight of his main aim, which
is nothing less than the reform of the 19-year cycle.
The treatise is divided into five books, the first three of which are given over to the
compotus vulgaris, or the ecclesiastical compotus. Roger, as has already been said, did not
envisage reform outside this context: his conclusion, after an exhaustive examination of
all the available evidence, is that all that is needed for the reform of the cycle is the (literal)
updating of the golden number whenever occasion demands.
In the preface to his treatise Roger tells us that he has "sweated" (desudavi) for many
years in the schools. His training is evident in the way in which he deals with his material.
Each aspect of it is carefully defined and differentiated. Thus compotus is distinguished
from astronomy, that other science that studies the motions of the planets, and the vulgar
32 Digby 40, fol. 21r. Roger's account is in the preface, which appears only in the Digby manuscript. An
extract from this was printed by J. C. Russell in "Hereford and Arabic Science in England about 1175-1200,"
Isis, 1932, 18:14-25, on pp. 20-21.
33 Alexander Nequam, Suppletio defectuum, Paris Bibliotheque National MS Lat. 11867, fol. 227 va-vb: "Et
iam vulgaris manifeste compotus errat" (my translation). Quoted in R. W. Hunt, The Schools and the Cloister:
The Life and Writings of Alexander Nequam, 1157-1217, ed. and rev. Margaret Gibson (Oxford: Clarendon,
1984), p. 82.

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or artificial compotus from the natural; the two ways of expounding the subject, in
and by means of tables, are described.34
Book 1 is an exposition, first, of the paschal cycle, which is none other than B
great paschal cycle, updated for the next 532 years, 1064-1595 inclusive; and, sec
the ecclesiastical calendar, which is represented in the treatise by the calendar table
selves. As well as the golden number, they incorporate the material-Sunday letters
days, astronomical material, and the like-that Roger describes in his text. Roger'
gressions are easier to bear with if both cycle and tables are kept in mind. Books 2
explain and amplify the material in the first book.
It should be emphasized that these three books deal not with actual astronomic
surements, however accurate or inaccurate, but with their adaptation to the exigen
the ecclesiastical calendar, the compotus vulgaris. As has been pointed out, the ec
astical calculation of the primations is often as much as 2 days out. Book 4 of Ro
treatise, which contains the calendar tables, describes the compotus naturalis.
The compotus naturalis presents an improved version of the ecclesiastical reckon
that it distributes the time encompassed by 19 solar years equally among the 235 lu
with which they are collated; for while the vulgar compotus, Roger tells us, deals
integral days, years, and months, the natural compotus, using fractions, divides th
amount of time into equal parts. He eventually arrives at a value for the "natura
tion"-based not on astronomical measurements but on the vulgar compotus-of 29
12 hours, 29 moments, 348 atoms (approximately 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes).
nately for the reader-to avoid tedium, Roger tells us-the fractions are rounded u
whole hours.35
What are these fractions? Roger tells us that there are 40 moments in an hour, 56
in a moment. The odd value of the atom, which, unlike that of the moment, does not
in Bede, is specific to the 19-year cycle: it results from an attempt to account for the
lune, the 1 day at the end of the 19-year cycle by which 235 lunations exceed 19
years. The true length of the lunation, it was asserted, was less than was traditio
reckoned. The 24 hours (960 moments) of the saltus lune were divided into the 235
lunations of the lunar cycle, and thus it was possible to show that the real length of the
lunation was 4 moments, 48 atoms, less than the traditional reckoning (each atom being
calculated as 1/564 moment).36
In book 5 of his treatise it becomes clear that Roger was familiar with sexagesimal
fractions. We may well ask why he did not use them in book 4 as well, substituting them
for the cumbersome values just noted. The answer is that the calculation in book 4 is based
on that of Gerland, who was writing at a period when such fractions were not generally
available.37
Roger has, in fact, improved on his original. Gerland used Roman fractions. In case his
readers are unfamiliar with them, Roger includes a chart that details them. Duodecimal
34 Digby 40, fol. 22v: "In scripto vero singula diffusa ac dilucide pertractantur; in tabula vero singula breviter
et per figuras coartantur et continentur."
35 Digby 40, fol. 22v: "vulgaris vero per quasdam temporum integritates, ne ex subtilitate vulgares deficiant;
quicquid naturalis subtilissime per portiunculas temporum enquirit, in quadam grossitudine inequaliter compre-
hendit." Fol. 37v: "Sciendum autem quod licet hec tabula ad naturalem pertineat compotum, non tamen minutias
distinguere potuit set tantum horas, ne prolixitate magnitudinis eius teduo afficeremus. Omnis tamen sub inte-
gritate horarum colligit ut vulgaris sub integritate dierum, ut in tribus vel iiii lunationibus additione unius hore
vel plurium omnes minutie comprehendatur."
36 The calculation, which was probably of Celtic origin, is to be found in the De cursu et saltu lune of Ps.-
Alcuin, in PL, Vol. 129 (1853), cols. 986-988.
37 Digby 56, fols. 173r-174r.

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fractions were the only ones known to the Romans, who thought in terms of a
number being broken down in twelfths.38 The Romans were a practical people, a
practical purposes their system was perfectly adequate; but for the sort of calculati
Gerland was essaying it was extraordinarily clumsy and, indeed, inaccurate. He eve
allots to each natural lunation of 29.5 days an extra 2/3 (bisse) of an hour, 2 mom
11/12 (deunx) of a moment, 1 sicilicus, 7 atoms, and 1/4 atom. Roger records Ge
calculation and then points out that the same fractions can be expressed in different
Fortunately, he uses only moments and atoms for his own calculations.
Having explained how to calculate the natural lunation, Roger goes on to show
is plotted on the calendar. The text of book 4 is discursive, but it is possible to extr
following information from it.
Because the 19-year cycle does not take account of the leap day, Roger has substi
for the conventional calendar alternative tables for 19 X 4 years, which will allow
date and hour of the primation to be given as accurately as possible within the cons
imposed by calculating in lunations of equal length and whole hours.39 The year
primation is represented by a letter of the alphabet, so that all the primations of t
year are represented by a, those of the second by b, and so on, followed by a numb
represents the hour at which the primation occurs.
There follow several apparently conflicting statements about the year of the p
cycle and, consequently, the year A.D. in which the tables begin. These are set out
follows (although not in Roger's order). They are best explained with reference to
paschal cycle (see Table 1).
The tables started from 1056 in Dionysian reckoning, because this was the beginning
of the 76-year cycle. Year 1 corresponds to year 12 of the 19-year cycle, which has
concurrent 1 in a leap year and epact 1. The solar year begins on 22 March, which is where
the astronomical year starts with the entry of the sun into the sign of Aries and which is
also the earliest paschal term.
"The cycle" is, of course, the paschal cycle. Year 12 has epact 1. It should be noted
that Roger is looking not at the beginning of the cycle but at the end. In the last line of
the cycle, which contains the data for 1045-1063, the twelfth year (1056) has concurrent
lb. But Gerland, Roger says, began "that table" in the very last year of the cycle with
concurrent 6, before March when the cycle of concurrents begins, in the fourth year after
the bissextile where the cycle of concurrents starts.40 According to the paschal cycle, this
is the eleventh year of the same 19-year cycle (1055).
How can these two statements be reconciled? Roger emphasizes the explanation by
giving it twice. Although the solar year begins on 22 March, in honor of the paschal feast
and the entry of the sun into Aries, the lunar year, with its mutation, begins on 1 September.
Later he repeats the statement: the lunar year begins from September in the first cycle of
epacts, year 12 (of the 19-year cycle), epact 1.41
38 For Roger's chart see Digby 56, fol. 34v. On Roman fractions see Karl Menninger, Number Words and
Number Symbols: A Cultural History of Numbers, trans. Paul Broneer (Cambridge, Mass./London: MIT Press,
1969), pp. 158-161.
39 Digby 40, fol. 36r: "Unde et aliam subposuimus kalendarii tabulam, in qua quater xix anni continentur ut
horas primationum quantum vicinius propter minutias fieri potest, necnon et naturales primationes quantum
similiter vicinius fieri potest, secundum equalitatem lunationum et horarum integritatum patefaciamus."
40 Digby 40, fol. 36v.
41 Digby 40, fol. 36v: "Inceptionem autem facientes ab i cum bissexto et i epacta, id est a xiio cicli xix"is propter
solis motum et Paschalis sollempnitatis dignitatem ab xi kalendis Aprilis ubi et sol Arietem ingreditur et primus
dies Pasche celebratur solarem annum incipimus, lunarem vero cum omni mutatione sua a kalendis Septembris.
... Incipientes a Septembri annum lunarem primi cicli anno epactarum ..."

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Table 4. Parallel Years for the Natural Compotus and the 19-Year Cycle (Digb
48v)
This Calendar Epact Letter 19-Year Cycle
1 1 a 12
2 12 b 13
3 23 c 14
4 4 d 15
5 15 e 16
6 26 f 17
7 7 g 18
8 18 h 19
9 none i 1
10 11 k 2
11 22 1 3
12 3 m 4
13 14 n 5
14 25 o 6
15 6 p 7
16 17 q 8
17 28 r 9
18 9 s 10
19 20 t 11
In their or
manuscrip
starting hi
J. D. Nort
two differ
tional gold
starts fro
are still in
of the epa
How this
hinges on
18 in the 1
of the tra
natural com
sixth hour.
How is this date arrived at? Table 4 shows that according to the natural compotus the
equivalent of year 18 is year 7 (represented by the letter g). The natural compotus comprises
four 19-year cycles. Because 1176 is a leap year, it is located in the third year of the cycle,
as Roger explains. Years 1, 5, etc., of the first cycle, years 2, 6, etc., of the second cycle,
and years 3, 7, etc., of the third cycle are leap years.43 But the primation on 6 September
42 J. D. North, "Thomas Harriot's Papers on the Calendar," in The Light of Nature, ed. North and J. J. Roche
(Dordrecht: Nijhoff, 1985), pp. 145-174, on pp. 147-148.
43 Digby 40, fol. 37v: "set et sic ordinati sunt cicli quoniam primus primum habet bissextilem, secundus iium,
tertius iiium, quartus iiiiu", per quod facile dinosci potest ciclus presens."

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is represented not by g but by h, because with regard to epacts the year chang
September.
Once these dates are located, it is clear that there is a difference of 2 days, 6
between the traditional reckoning and that of the natural compotus. Not only are
nations more accurately distributed throughout the 76 years of the revised cycle;
of the primations are located earlier in the calendar.
Roger tells us in book 5 of his treatise that the revised dating originated with an o
astronomical event, which he relates to Gerland. "Our natural compotus," Roger o
began at the time of compotists like Gerland from a solar eclipse, which happens
the new moon.44 Later in the same book he identifies the eclipse. In the time of
Roger says, there was a solar eclipse: in 1086 according to his own reckoning (al
he began the table earlier), in 1093 according to Dionysian-that is, ecclesiastical-
oning, on 23 September at 15:00 hours, taking the beginning of the day from th
the previous night (highlighted in Table 3). Roger eventually explicitly attributes
endar tables to Gerland.45
What does 15:00 hours mean in Greenwich Mean Time (GMT)? The method of starting
the day from the evening before (i.e., from 18:00 hours) was sanctioned, according to
Bede, by "divine authority." The eclipse Roger describes thus happened at 09:00 hours
GMT. Astronomical data appear to support this time.46
The tables thus relate not to the paschal cycle but to the well-testified solar eclipse of
1093.47 This explains something that evidently puzzled Roger. In book 4 Roger makes it
clear that he attributes the calendar tables, which start in 1055, to Gerland. It is not im-
mediately clear why, if the latter composed them, he should have started them in that year,
since even allowing for the fact that in terms of the epact 1055 becomes 1056 from 1
September, according to his calculations, this is still, as Roger says, "the very last line" of
the Dionysian cycle.47 Gerland calculated that A.D. 532 was really A.D. 525. The year that
corresponds to 532 in the next paschal cycle is A.D. 1064, which, according to Gerland,
should have been 1057. When we allow for the "mutation of the epacts" the tables should
start in 1056 if they are to collate fully with Gerland's reckoning. But the tables start where
they do because year 1 of the third cycle is 1093: the corresponding year of the first cycle
is therefore 1055 (1093 becomes 1094 in terms of the epact, of course, in September).
Did Gerland compose the tables, as Roger thought? Firm evidence is lacking; but the
tables seem at any rate to have been associated with Gerland's Compotus. In the 1131
manuscript the treatise follows the tables, which are unascribed and are separated from it
44 Digby 40, fol. 48v: "Noster naturalis [compotus] a proximo compotistarum ut Gerlandi tempore per eclipsim
solis quod non nisi in primilunio contingit inventus incepit."
45 Digby 40, fol. 49v: "Tempore autem Gerlandi facta est eclipsis solis anno domini secundum ipsum mlxxxvi
(licet tabulam superiorum prius inceperit), secundum Dionisium mxciii nono kal. octobris, horarum xv, sumpto
exordio die a principio precedentis noctis, et hoc xxix gradu virginis, a quo puncto ipse suum naturalem incepit
compotum ... [S]ecundum naturalem Gerlandi compotum, quem preposuimus."
46 Bedae Opera de temporibus, ed. Jones (cit. n. 6), p. 189: "Divina autem auctoritas, quae in Genesi dies a
mane usque ad mane computandos esse decrevit, eadem in Evangelio totius diei tempus a vespera inchoari et
consummare sanxit in vesperam." Bradley E. Schaefer, "Astronomy and the Limits of Vision," Vistas in As-
tronomy, 1993, 36, comments on the difficulty of using orthodox sources for establishing astronomical data
before 1800: "A more convenient resource might be any of the many commercial computer programs available
for personal computers, of which the Voyager program has a good reputation for accuracy" (p. 313). This program
shows a solar eclipse on 23 Sept. 1093, between 08:00 and 10:40 GMT, in the relevant area (approx. lat. 52?,
long. 3?). It would have reached its fullest extent at about 09:20. (Information kindly supplied by Daniel McCar-
thy.)
47 Digby 40, fol. 36v. See R. R. Newton, Medieval Chronicles and the Rotation of the Earth (Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins Univ. Press, 1972), pp. 145, 157 ff.

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by other calendrical material. The solar eclipse is marked in the equivalent y

the paschal cycle, which stands (as Gerland intended it to) at the head of th
at least two other manuscripts, the eclipse is clearly associated with him, si
scribed as eclipsis Gerlandi.48
Alfred Cordoliani seems to have seen a manuscript in which the tables are
into Gerland's treatise. In chapter 17 of book 2, he tells us, the year 1086 is m
connection with a solar eclipse. The third 19-year cycle of "his table" begins
tember 1086. The epact and concurrent assigned to this year indicate that it
terms of the Dionysian cycle.49
The difficulty with using the appearance of the tables in book 2 of Gerland
as evidence that he invented them is that the book is a collection of tables and calculations
that may or may not have been composed by Gerland. Cordoliani confessed that most of
the manuscripts he saw lacked the second book. The Compotus, which he described as of
"primordial importance for anyone who was concerned with the history of the ecclesiastical
Compotus," has not yet found an editor. How much, if any, of the material of book 2
(which differs in different manuscripts) is the work of Gerland can therefore be a matter
only of conjecture; the presence of the calendar tables there certainly cannot be firm
evidence that Gerland wrote them, nor, indeed, of the date of his treatise.50
A further difficulty if the tables are regarded as an integral part of Gerland's Compotus
is that they are constructed on the principle of the golden number. The function of the
material in book 2 in the manuscripts that I have seen appears to be to illustrate the ideas
that have been elucidated in book 1. The golden number is not mentioned there.51
How, if at all, do the tables relate to Gerland's correction of the Dionysian era? He
corrected the traditional date of the Incarnation by 7 years, so that the year of the solar
eclipse, A.D. 1093, is 1086 in his reckoning, as Roger says. But we have already noted
that, in terms of the epact, 1093 becomes 1094 in September.
This is how Gerland himself reckoned. The rule to find the year of the epact, he tells
us, is to add nine to the year of the Incarnation and divide by nineteen. The usual rule, as
has been said, is to add one. In one manuscript the copyist makes it clear that this differs
from the Dionysian calculation by adding "s[ecundum] G[erlandum]" over the text.52 Thus
the Dionysian year 532 is corrected to 524, which becomes 525 only from 1 September.
It is a reasonable assumption that whoever composed the tables thought they corre-
sponded exactly with Gerland's reckoning. After all, 1056 is 532 years later than 524 and
is thus the apparent beginning of the third paschal cycle. Disappointingly, he was a year
out. In terms of the year of epacts, 524 becomes 525. The corresponding year in the next
cycle, as has been said, is 1057.
48 For the attributions to Gerland see Digby 56, fol. 163v; Bodleian Rawlinson C.749, fol. 1 lr; and Cotton
Vespasian A IX (fol. 33r has "eclypsis solis ix kal. oct.").
49 Alfred Cordoliani, "Le comput de Gerland de Besanqon," Revue du Moyen Age Latin, 1946, 2:313. Cor-
doliani unfortunately does not identify the manuscript. Was it Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale MS Lat. 15118,
which Haskins, Studies in History of Medieval Science (cit. n. 1), says contains tables that "mention the eclipse
of 1093" (p. 85 n.)?
50 Cordoliani, "Comput de Gerland," p. 309 (on the absence of the second book). See W. M. Stevens, "Sidereal
Time in Anglo-Saxon England," in Voyage to the Other World, ed. C. B. Kendall and P. S. Wells (Minneapolis:
Univ. Minnesota Press, 1992), pp. 125-152: "Cataloguers have sometimes mentioned Tabulae Gerlandi without
determining whether the accompanying text or various texts are by the same author" (p. 151 n. 70).
51 As I noted earlier, I have found no description of it in a treatise earlier than Roger's, despite its very early
occurrence in calendar tables.
52 Digby 56, fol. 173r: "Si vis scire quotus sit annus epactarum sume [above text: s.g.] annus Dominice
incamationis quotquot fuerint completi in Pascha unde vis scire epactam et eis adde ix. Postea divide equaliter
per xix Quotquot remanserint: totus est annus epactarum."

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The discrepancy between the tables and Gerland's corrected date of the Incarna
probably implies that the latter predates the former. Gerland had made a lengthy s
the De temporum ratione of Bede before formulating his theory about the date
Incarnation.53 Even if the slight discrepancy were recognized, the solar eclipse o
must have seemed startling evidence of the truth of his findings.
There is an intriguing parallel to the calendar tables. On 18 October 1092, as is
well known, Gerland's fellow Lotharingian, Walcher the prior of Malvern, saw a
eclipse. He was able to record the exact time at which it happened by using an as
and this, as is also well known, is the earliest recorded appearance of such an instr
in England. Walcher's account is to be found in a manuscript written between 11
1140 at Worcester, which also contains a copy of Gerland's Compotus.54 It immed
precedes not a calendar, but a set of lunar tables that list the primations year by y
76 years from 1036 to 1111 inclusive. These primations are not the ones that are
sented in the calendar tables by the traditional golden number. A collation with our ca
tables shows a similar, but not identical, updating of the primation.
Material accompanying Walcher's tables explains the principles on which they are
structed. If the phases of the moon affect both human actions and the practice of med
we are told, they need to be plotted accurately. With due respect to the Fathers
Church, the traditional 19-year cycle is inadequate for this purpose. A passage from
43 of Bede's De temporum ratione is quoted in support of this contention. The prim
can, however, be accurately plotted if you note the hour and point of a solar eclip
using an astrolabe or other perfectum horologium. That will give you the new moon
that point you can calculate the lunations, giving each a mean value of 29 days, 12
3 points (there are 4 points in an hour).55
In the material that immediately precedes the lunar tables, which is headed "De e
ientia scriptoris," Walcher claims to have composed the tables himself. In his exper
he says, solar and lunar eclipses are the best way to establish the natural beginning
lunation. He then describes two lunar eclipses that he has seen and shows how the
of these, on 18 October 1092, can be collated with the new moon indicated in the lunar
table on 4 October. He has extended his reckoning backward, he continues, to compose a
cycle of 76 years, beginning in the eleventh year of the 19-year cycle, so that the years
might correspond at the beginning. According to the golden number the primation occurs
on 3 January in that year; he has discovered it to be on 1 January.56
53 Digby 56, fol. 170r: "Sepe volumina domini Bede de scientia computandi replicans."
54 Oxford, Bodleian MS Auctarium F.1.9, fol. 90r-91r. Part of Walcher's account is printed in Haskins, Studies
in History of Medieval Science (cit. n. 1), pp. 114-115.
55 Bedae Opera de temporibus, ed. Jones (cit. n. 6), p. 258. Auctarium F.1.9, fol. 86v: "Si in humanis actibus
velut in exercitationibus medicine aliquos habet effectus lunaris incrementi sive decrementi varietas, sicut sap-
ientes experti senserunt, necesse est ut accensionis lune dies et hora semper ac deinde totius discursus eius
dimensio ad purum dinoscitur. Vulgaris quippe supputatio qua constat cyclus decennovenalis sanctorum patrum
rationaliter et utiliter paschalibus terminis et ceteris inveniendis est prefixa, set naturali discursui coequari non
potes per omnia. [Quotation from Bede.] Hec iccirco descriptio [sic] beati Beda interserimus ne quisquam miretur
cum naturalem supputationem cui dilucidande servimus biduo vel fortasse plus interdum vulgati supputationi
antecedere deprehendit. Sic autem comprehendi poterit si quando defectus solis apparueret tibi, nota diligenter
horam diei et punctum ipsius hore si potes, quod leviter facere per astrolabium vel per aliud perfectum horologium
potes. ... In ipsa vera hora et puncto hore in quo solis eclipsis deprehenderis, accensionem lune non dubites
fieri cuiuscunque etatis usitatus compotus ipsa die lunam pronuntiet tunc incipit prima fieri. Quod si sequentis
lunationis accensionem invenire vis, ... computa .xxviiii. dies et .xii. horas equinoctiales et .iii. punctos, in quo
ultimo sive sit dies sive sit nox, sequentis lunationis fiet accensio." Haskins is mistaken in calling these Roman
fractions.
56 Auctarium F. 1.9, fol. 90rab: "cyclumque lxxvi annos composui, cuius initium ut anni sociaretur ingressu in
xi anno cycli decennovenalis instituendum putavi, quia illo tantum anno lunam quam iii non. ianuarii prima

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This is indeed what his tables show. The primation on 1 January could n
established, however, without data derived from the 1092 lunar eclipse. Alth
uses a different notation for his calculation of the mean lunation, his data a
(although not identical with) those in the calendar tables, as has already been
In 1093 both tables record the primation on 23 September. It is possibly a
that two tables exist giving data for a period of 76 years that are similar bu
derived from different astronomical events.
THE KALENDARIUM OF ROBERT GROSSETESTE
A version of the calendar tables, which survives in "many ascribed thirteen

copies," has been attributed to Robert Grosseteste (1168?-1253).57 It differs
version that Roger of Hereford knew in that it starts from 1 January rather th
But it is otherwise identical with the tables that were in existence long befor
was born.
As noted earlier, it is only in this version that the tables have been printed. Their editor,
Arvid Lindhagen, correctly inferred that they aimed at "increased precision within the
framework of the Julian Calendar" (or, as Roger of Hereford would put it, of the vulgar
compotus)58 Lindhagen attempted to find the astronomical basis for the shift in the golden
number, which, with the benefit of Roger's text, we know to have been the solar eclipse
of 1093.
The tables themselves could not have been constructed by the learned bishop, but the
early ascription is evidence that they were associated with him. Was he responsible for
the canons-instructions for use-that accompany them? These are of varying length.
Additional material that occurs in some manuscripts consists of disconnected "calendar
notes" containing conjectures about the construction of the tables. Their disjointed nature
is indicated in one manuscript, where some of the material appears under the heading "The
Items Which Follow Should Be Added to the Calendar Canons."59
In some of the copies ascribed to Grosseteste it is suggested that the tables are based
on the Paris meridian. The suggestion is followed by "ut credo"-"as I believe"-a phrase
that Grosseteste uses in his Compotus correctorius more than once. But apropos of this
there is a pertinent marginal comment in one manuscript: we should note, it is pointed
out, that "Lincolniensis," the author of the calendar, did not write this canon; he knew
what meridian he made his calendar for, and therefore he would not have said "I believe."60
Certainly, Grosseteste could not have been responsible for both canon and tables, as the
commentator says: but it is the tables, as we have seen, rather thanr the canon, that could
pronuntiatur kalendis eiusdem mensis accendi repperi hora videlicet iii punctoque ii." Haskins, Studies in History
of Medieval Science (cit. n. 1), pp. 114-115, prints the first part of this passage.
57 S. H. Thomson, The Writings of Robert Grosseteste (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1940), p. 106.
Thomson was wrong in stating that the Kalendarium is referred to in the Compotus correctorius and the so
called Compotus minor of the same writer; see Jennifer Moreton, "Robert Grosseteste and the Calendar," in
Robert Grosseteste: New Perspectives on His Thought and Scholarship, ed. James McEvoy (Instrumenta Patris-
tica) (Dordrecht: Kluwer, forthcoming).
58 Lindhagen, ed., "Neumondtafel des Lincolniensis" (cit. n. 3), p. 9.
59 London, British Library MS Harleian 3735, fol. 5v: "Ista que sequuntur addantur ad canonem calendarii."
This material precedes the Kalendarium and the Canones, which are headed "Ars istius kalendarii Lincolniensis"
and occupy fols. 6r-12r.
60 Harleian 3735, fol. 6rb: "Nota quod Lincolniensis a[u]ctor kalendarii non fecit hunc canonem: scivit enim
ad quem meridiem suum kalendarium fecit, et ideo non dixisset credo."

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not have originated with him. It is possible that Grosseteste was responsible
ment about the meridian, which might provide evidence that he spent some t
If we accept Grosseteste's authorship of some or all of the material that is
in different manuscripts containing the Kalendarium, we must also accept th
commentators he assumed, incorrectly, that the tables were constructed on a
principles. The reference to the Paris meridian has already been mentioned. A
servation in this material is that lunations of this length, with the differing num
accounting for the "precise fractions," accord with both Arab and Jewish rec
unreasonable assumption, as examination of the last book of Roger's treatis
Yet another suggestion is that the time of the primation is "according to Alfr
The further history of the calendar tables is beyond the scope of this artic
worth noting that their association with the version ascribed to Robert Gros
to have aided their dissemination. The calendar of Peter of Dacia contains a set of tables
that appear to have been modeled on the Kalendarium; but it is the format that seems to
have attracted him, since his data are different. According to W. E. van Wijk, John of
Gamundia, Regiomontanus, and Joannes Stoeffler produced similar tables. We may add
Nicholas of Lynn, who produced a table for the years 1387-1462 for the Oxford meridian.62
ROGER OF HEREFORD AND THE ASTRONOMICAL COMPOTUS
I have attempted to show that the tables that were attributed to Robert Grosset
thirteenth century and that were central to the Compotus of Roger of Hereford in
had their beginnings in the West Country in the eleventh, where astronomical
is interchangeable with astrological) and computistical interests were beginnin
verge; for, as Walcher observes, accurate dating is essential if the phases of t
affect man's health and practical affairs.
In the last book of his treatise Roger examines what he calls the "astronomi
potus." He uses the tables to show that the golden number of the ecclesiastical r
is in the wrong position and explains how this can be rectified without causing
intend to discuss Roger's astronomical expertise in another essay, in the more a
context of a detailed comparison of his treatise with the Compotus of Constab
propose to conclude this article with a brief outline of his proposal for reform.
the text of book 5 will therefore be touched on, rather than examined in detail.
In marked contrast to Constabularius, Roger is silent about his sources. In the
61 Harleian 3735, fol. 5va (Stockholm, Royal Library MS Stevens A XII, and Vienna, National
2367, printed by Lindhagen, are similar): "Nam tempus lunationis equalis seu medie, videlicet tempu
ab una coniunctione solis et lune usque ad aliam mediam eorum coniunctione est 29 dies 12 ho
hore secundum aliquos Arabes. Et hoc convenit cum positione Hebreorum secundum doctrinam
aliorum antiquorum Hebreorum, secundum quos mensis lunaris ... est 29 dies 12 hore et due partes
et 73 minuta hore." Lindhagen, ed. "Neumondtafel des Lincolniensis" (cit. n. 3), p. 18: "In tanto e
post conjunctionem luna interdum potest videre secundum Alfraganum differentia 29a."
62 It should be noted that R. R. Steele, in his Opera hactenus inedita fratris Rogeri, Vol. 6 (Oxfor
Univ. Press, 1926), prints an (inaccurate) version of the calendar tables that immediately follow th
of Roger Bacon in London, British Library MS Egerton 2261. These, since they start, like the table
Vespasian A IX, in September, have a different origin. For Peter of Dacia's tables see Petri Ph
Dacia et Petri de S. Audomaro, ed. F. Saaby Pedersen (Corpus Philosophorum Danicorum Med
penhagen, 1983), pp. 336-360; see also Olaf Pedersen, "Petrus Philomena de Dacia: A Problem o
Cahiers de l'Institute du Moyen Age Grec et Latin, 1976, 19:1-54, on p. 21. On the similar table
Gamundia, Regiomontanus, and Stoeffler see van Wijk, Nombre d'or (cit. n. 3), p. 41. For Nicholas o
The Kalendarium of Nicholas of Lynn, ed. Sigmund Eisner (London: Scolar, 1980).

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his treatise he cites only one Arab author, Albumazar, by name.63 Book 5 of R
begins with a discussion of lunar and solar movements that is not strictly part
It is the sort of material covered in the treatises on the sphere that were lat
Robert Grosseteste and John of Sacrobosco. Roger's sources may be more a
investigated, as has been indicated, in connection with Constabularius. The
Ptolemy (whom he probably knew through the Liber xxx differentiarum of
Albategni, whose De scientia stellarum was translated by Robert of Cheste
whose lost Arabic treatise was the original of the Toledan Tables; and Theb
the theory of trepidation was attributed.64 We may assume that some or all
were available to his contemporary. Roger's statement that there are 360 d
astronomical zodiac, as compared with the 365 of the computists, finds a par
Petrus Alfonsi, the Jewish convert to Christianity, told Walcher.65
The most original part of the book is devoted to a comparison of astronom
and vulgar (i.e., ecclesiastical) reckoning. Roger points out that the natural co
to coincide with mean astronomical motion. It is certain, he says, that the La
are wrong about lunar motion. It should be possible to collate vulgar and nat
ings, since the former incorporate the latter: the discrepancy between them i
in the position of the primations, which the vulgar compotus inserts 3 or 4
actual new moon. This has caused the sort of controversy that Roger has des
beginning of his treatise. Different reasons have been put forward for the d
of which Roger dismisses. There are many who will accept none of these reasons; and
Roger, we may assume, is one of the dissenting voices.
Roger illustrates the discrepancy by referring to the primation discussed earlier, which
occurred, according to ecclesiastical reckoning, on 9 September 1176. It is characteristic
of Roger's exhaustive style that he gives most of his information twice. But data about
the time according to "the astronomers" and according to "certum" (the latter is perhaps
Roger himself), which are not used in his discussion of the inaccuracy of the vulgar
reckoning, are not repeated.66
From the repeated information we can elicit the following: The times are calculated
from the beginning of the night, that is, from 18:00 hours, according to modem reckoning.
If we convert his data to GMT we find that, according to Roger, the new moon that
ecclesiastical reckoning placed at 18:00 hours on Thursday, 9 September, was said by the
63 Digby 40, fol. 36r (Roger disagrees with Albumazar about the cause of the tides): "Et quamvis Abumaisar
huius inundacionis causam assignetur quod ubi fuerit initium oportet maximam esse aquarum profunditatem et
locum scopulosum ... nobis tamen aliter videtur."
64 Robert Grosseteste, "De spera," in Die philosophischen Werke des Robert Grosseteste, ed. L. Baur (Beitrage
zur Geschichte der Philosphie des Mittelalters) (Munich: Aschendorff, 1912), pp. 10-32; and John of Sacrobosco,
"De spera," in The Sphere of Sacrobosco and Its Commentators, ed. Lynn Thomdike (Chicago/London: Univ.
Chicago Press, 1949). Verbal parallels between Roger's treatise and the later works require investigation. See
Olaf Pedersen, Early Physics and Astronomy, rev. ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1993), p. 160. He
describes the work as "a systematic, but very introductory sketch of Ptolemiac astronomy with a few Oriental
additions" and adds, "In a Latin translation by John of Spain ... it spread through the universities of Europe."
See also pp. 315, 403, 394.
65 Sententia Petri Ebrei, cognomento Anphus, de Dracone, quam dominus Walcerus prior Malvernensis ec-
clesie in latinam transtulit linguam, ed. J. M. Millas Vallicrosa, in "La aportaci6n astron6mica de Pedro Alfonso,"
Sefarad, 1943, 3:63-105, on p. 87: "illa que unumquodque signum in 30 gradus equaliter dividit et totum
zodiacum 360 gradibus claudit, secundum sol in die unum gradum non perficit."
66 Digby 40, fol. 48r: "secundum astrologos quantum ad medium motum secundum inceptionem a media
nocte, cum alii incipiant a prima noctis, et est a prima xxii, secundum autem certum hora ante ortum solis
eiusdem dominice."

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"Chaldeans" to occur on Sunday at 15:21 hours. Later this time is given as 17:00 hour
but Roger's calculations show that the former is what he intended.67 The "Hebrews" pl
it at 18:30 hours, the "natural compotus" at midnight on the same day.
Roger prefers the Chaldean reckoning, because this alone approximates to the mea
synodic period.68 He uses it as a yardstick to measure the divergence of ecclesiastical f
astronomical reckoning. In 1093, the year of the eclipse, the Chaldean and Latin nat
primations must have been similarly placed on the calendar. It is now 1176: 83 years
therefore, have elapsed since the eclipse; thus the difference of approximately 7 ho
13.5 minutes, between the Chaldean and Latin natural primations (by the latter Rog
means the value given in the calendar tables) is the extent of the divergence of the ec
siastical reckoning from the actual mean synodic motion since the solar eclipse of 109
Astute readers will have noticed that the difference according to the text is actuall
hours, 39 minutes. The discrepancy is due to the fact that Roger has taken his data fr
a chart that collates Chaldean, Hebrew, and Latin lunations, years, and cycles.69 But
has not allowed for the embolisms: the years are lunar years of 354 days; the cycles
of solar years of 365.25 days.
Roger goes on to consider the difference between the Chaldean and the vulgar prima
of the ecclesiastical reckoning. The discrepancy of 4 days, 2 hours, is evidence for Ro
that since the Latin cycle must have been constructed from "some eclipse," it has its r
in antiquity, in the time of the early Church: that is, as Roger calculates, 1,124 years
The result is that the vulgar compotus (allowing for its intrinsic defects) can sometim
now be as much as 6 or 7 days out. How incongruous it is, Roger exclaims, foreshadow
a better-known critic of the ecclesiastical calendar, that Latin men of the greatest disc
ination should be so obviously wrong in such an important matter!70
Roger's suggested emendation has the virtue of simplicity: since the ecclesiastical
moon now diverges from the true new moon by about 4 days, he says, all that is neces
for reform is to move the golden number up by the same amount and to repeat the pr
when necessary. Roger is at pains to placate the traditionalists: what he is proposing
only a slight adjustment to the golden number, which can be easily performed. He is,
insists, filled with admiration whenever he considers the workings of the ecclesiast
calendar.7'
Although the starting point for Roger's investigations is an observed astronomical po
he bases his data for 1176 not on observation but on calculation. Roger has arrived at t
67 Digby 40, fol. 49v: "sumpto ubique principio diei a noctis initio." Ibid.: "post xxi horas et xiiii moment
fol. 48r: "hora xvii eiusdem dominice."
68 Digby 40, fol. 48v: "sola caldeorum ratio remanere posse videtur, quia inter inequalitatem astronomicam
medium locum optinet."
69 Digby 40, fol. 48v.
70 Digby 40, fol. 49v: "palam est quod cum et ipse ab aliquo eclipsi inceperit, a remotis temporibus ordinatus
fuerit, et circa primativam ecclesiam." Fol. 48v: "Set tam incongruum est latinos viros summe discretionis in re
tam celebri adeo manifeste errare." Cf. Bacon, Opera majus, Vol. 1, ed. Bridges (cit. n. 30), p. 285: "Atque
philosophi infideles ... abhorent stultitiam quam conspiciunt in ordinatione temporum quibus utuntur Christiani
in suis solemnitatibus."
71 Digby 40, fol. 50v: "Non enim oportet cum iam fere per quatuor dies primatio a veritate discesserit nisi
eodem ordine quo omnia in kalendario scripta sunt ordinare ita tamen ut omnis primatio quarta die ante scribatur
quam nunc scribatur.... Et sic kalendarium per multa secula durare poterit; set et quotiens post spatia multa
anno discesserit, secundum quod discesserit eodem ordine poterit reperari." Fol. 49v: "Et ideo oportet sepe a
sapientibus aureum numerum in kalendario mutari ... quod et facile fieri posse videtur.... Ego vero, quotiens
hec considerando, inestimabili afficior admiratione."

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times by collating the Chaldean, Hebrew, and Latin natural lunations for the 8
19-year cycles plus 7 years) since 1093.
The Latin natural lunation presents no difficulty: it is Gerland's lunation,
from the collation of the years and lunations of the 19-year cycle. But how
come by his information about the Hebrew and Chaldean values? A particul
is that he expresses them in moments and atoms. In Hebrew reckoning the hou
into 1,080 parts. Roger's value is a reasonably accurate equivalent. It is inter
contemporary but apparently unrelated treatise, Reiner of Paderborn's Com
datus, uses Jewish reckoning to correct the errors of the Dionysian cycle.72
no source for his Hebrew value, which, as has been noted, appears to have b
in the West Country since the previous century.
Roger's "Chaldeans" are, of course, the Babylonians. The "very accurate va
Babylonian mean synodic month was known to Ptolemy, and Roger knows t
expressing it in sexagesimal terms. In his calculations, however, he expresse
of the lunation in moments and atoms. Two years later (1178) he adapted th
Tables for the meridian of Hereford. He did not use Arab years and months i
tation, he says, because they are difficult and unfamiliar.73 The moments and
Chaldean lunation equate reasonably accurately with the sexagesimal version
lation into more familiar terms does not involve fractions. Roger could have a
same value by using a method similar to that used by Gerland to establish h
lunation.74
How was Roger's treatise received? It does not seem to have been widely known. As
we have seen, even if Grosseteste knew the calendar tables, he did not know Roger's
explanation of them, despite the fact that he had spent some years in Hereford at the
beginning of his career. A later widely disseminated work, the De anni ratione of John of
Sacrobosco, notes that the ecclesiastical golden number is in the wrong place but makes
no mention of Roger's proposal. There is evidence only for three copies of Roger's trea-
tise.75 Conrad of Strasbourg's Compotus (ca. 1200?) contains a table detailing the lengths
of Latin, Hebrew, and Chaldean lunations that might have originated in Roger's treatise,
but there are no direct verbal parallels. The text mentioned earlier with reference to Ger-
land's Lotharingian origins compares the benefit to be derived from compotus with that
of fire or water, in almost identical words; but defining the usefulness of a topic was a
technique frequently used in the schools, and this material did not necessarily originate
with Roger. On the other hand, the cataloguing of computistical material is notoriously
72 Le comput emendd de Reinherus de Paderborn (1171), ed. W. E. van Wijk (Verhandelingen der Koninklijke
Nederlandse Akademi van Wetenschappen, afd Letterkunde, 57) (1951).
73 Digby 40, fol. 49v: "set et quantitatem lunationum faciunt xxix dierum et xii horarum et xliiii ostentorum."
A. Pannekoek, A History of Astronomy (1961; rpt., New York: Dover, 1989), gives the value as 29 days, 12
hours, 44 minutes, 3 1/3 seconds (p. 95). For the 1178 manuscript see London, British Library MS Arundel 377,
fol. 86b: "Maluimus enim hic quam annos arabum et eorum menses propter difficultatem sequi eo quod inusitata
sint apud nostrates."
74 Digby 40, fol. 27r: "Caldei, qui tamen dies xi in xxx annis interponunt." If the 11 intercalary days are
divided into the 12 X 30 lunations of the Babylonian 30-year cycle, the result is 29 moments, 188 atoms (approx.
44 minutes). This is added on to each 29 1/2-day lunation.
75 The three copies of Roger's treatise are accounted for in note 2. On Grosseteste's time in Hereford see R. W.
Southern, Robert Grosseteste: The Growth of an English Mind in Medieval Europe (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press,
1986), pp. 65 ff. For Sacrobosco's treatise see John of Sacrobosco, De anni ratione, ed. Philip Melanchthon
(Wittenberg, 1538), [fol. 38r]: "Nunc igitur luna dicitur prima ubi deberet dici tertia, vel potius quarta, ut aureus
numerus totaliter per 3 dies anticipetur." There is no modem edition of this treatise.

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unsatisfactory. Roger's treatise is quoted in one collection of calendar notes; ther

very well be more references in other collections of this kind.76
An interesting passage in the Compotus of Constabularius might have some beari
how Roger's contemporaries regarded him. I have already referred to Constabular
ambivalent attitude toward Gerland. The opening words of his treatise are a gracef
of the earlier writer; but he then inveighs, in a familiar convention, against certain yo
writers (iuniores) with considerable skills in the art of calculating who have oppose
venerable tradition of the Church. Certain modem writers (moderni), he says, who
these younger writers, have lately dared to inscribe their own innovations in the p
charts.77 The former, who are skilled in calculating, would include Gerland. Perh
latter refers to Roger.
The Compotus of Constabularius is notable for the scope of its reference: the w
appeal that those with more skill and more access to books study the subject fur
surely ironic.78 Particularly interesting is his acquaintance with Jewish practices.
us that he obtained his information, which includes knowledge of the writings of I
and Mar-Samuel, "by asking the Jews themselves." Constabularius quotes, without
his sources, from an astronomical tract by Abraham ibn Ezra and cites Mar-Samu
165-254) on the mean length of the seasons. The former work was available in Lati
his information about the latter presumably came from Jewish scholars, although t
liest evidence of a Jewish community in Hereford is from 1178-1179. It is tempt
surmise that Constabularius, like Alexander Nequam and Richard of St. Victor, was
Augustinian. Richard records that he "consulted the Jews" before drawing up his c
nological tables.79
Roger of Hereford was concerned with the problems of the 19-year cycle. There
difficulties, as has been said, with the solar cycle too; and Constabularius makes use of
his sources in a lengthy examination of these, coming to the conclusion that the retrograde
movement of the equinoxes is caused by an overestimation of the length of the tropical
year.80
The Gregorian reform of 1582 sought to correct the inaccuracies of both lunar and solar
76 Bruges, Bibliotheque Municipale MS 528, fol. 6r (Conrad's Compotus). See J. D. North, "The Western
Calendar-intolerabilis, horribilis, et derisibilis: Four Centuries of Discontent," in Gregorian Reform of the
Calendar, ed. G. V. Coyne, M. A. Hoskin, and Olaf Pedersen (Vatican: Pontifica Academia Scientiarum, 1983),
pp. 75-113, on p. 80. For the benefits to be derived from compotus see Digby 193, fols. 27va, 22v; for the
collection of calendar notes that quotes Roger's treatise see Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Ashmole 1796, fol.
172v.
77 Cotton Vitellius A XII, fol. 87ra: "Sepe autorum volumina qui de compoto vel principaliter vel incidentur
egerunt.... Inter quos invenio quosdam iuniores in arte calculatoria non mediocriter eruditos longo usui ecclesie
rationibus vehementur ut videtur acutis obviare. His quidam nostrorum modernorum applaudentes nuper ausi
sunt cartulis pascalibus suas novitates inscribere."
78 Cotton Vitellius A XII, fol. 87ra: "Esto utinam labor iste meus contempnatur et conculcetur, dum modo hi
quibus fuerint clariora ingenia et maiora librorum copia excitentur ad cogitandum circa hec."
79 Cotton Vitellius A XII, fol. 91va: "In omni enim ciclo lune, sive Romano teste Beda, sive Pascali teste
Dionisio, sive ludeorum ipsos interrogate ... secundum omnes .xvii. annus embolismalis est." For ibn Ezra's
treatise see J. M. Millas Vallicrosa, El libro de los fundamentos de las tablas astron6micas de R. Abraham Ibn
Ezra (Madrid/Barcelona: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, 1947); see also Raphael Loewe, "Al-
exander's Knowledge of Hebrew," Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 1988, 4:17-34. On the Jewish community
in Hereford see Joe Hillaby, "A Magnate among the Marchers: Hamo of Hereford, His Family and Clients,
1218-1253," Jewish Historical Studies, 1988-1990, 31:25; on Richard of St. Victor see Beryl Smailey, The
Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1984), p. 110.
80 Cotton Vitellius A XII, fol. 95rb: "Hoc autem ideo fit quod reversio solis ad equinoctia fit in minore tempore
quam ccclxv diebus et iiiia; et retrograderetur equinoctium in perpetuum."

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cycles by the application of the new astronom

still tied to planetary motion. According to the
had been placed in the heavens to be "for sig
years" (Genesis 1:14). Roger's studies, 400 yea
him to conclude that lunar and solar motions
81 Digby 40, fol. 50r: "non potest sine dubio horum mo

spatio reperire."

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Before Grosseteste: Roger of Hereford and Calendar Reform in Eleventh- and Twelfth-

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/235377

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Roger of Hereford and Calendar Reform in

HE EXISTENCE IN THE WEST COUNTRY-that area of England that is nearest to

* Dublin Institute of Technology, Kevin Street, Dublin 8, Ireland.

Isis, 1995, 86: 562-586

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beyond. The twelfth-century Compotus of Constabularius appears in a collection

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GERLAND AND THE PASCHAL CYCLE

There is no trace of the "new science" in Gerland's Compotus, which is instead n

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Table 1. The Paschal Cycle

Dionysius's main contribution to calendar

17 See Bedae Opera de temporibus, ed. Jones (cit

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ROGER OF HEREFORD AND THE GOLDEN NUMBER

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Table 2. The Golden Number

2 11 11 19 8 16* 5* 5 13* 13,2*

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Table 3. Calendar from 25 August to 24 September (Adapted from Digby 40,

Vulgar Natural Cycles

*h18 *h12 *h61 ] *h24 6

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by other calendrical material. The solar eclipse is marked in the equivalent y

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THE KALENDARIUM OF ROBERT GROSSETESTE

A version of the calendar tables, which survives in "many ascribed thirteen

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ROGER OF HEREFORD AND THE ASTRONOMICAL COMPOTUS

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unsatisfactory. Roger's treatise is quoted in one collection of calendar notes; ther

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cycles by the application of the new astronom

81 Digby 40, fol. 50r: "non potest sine dubio horum mo

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h18 h12 h61 ] h24 6