Liber de computo
Liber de computo is an instructive and scientific document about the calendar and the date of Easter , which the Benedictine monk Helperic von Auxerre wrote in the middle Latin language at the end of the 9th century (before 900) .
Goal setting
As Helperic states in the prologus , the intention of the work is to instruct the adolescent monks:
... annuaque Compoti argumenta vulgatiora, ... ne dum clericus impune ignoraverit ... congessi ... rusticano sermone ... edisserens
... the simpler arguments about calendar and computus that every clergyman should know, collected and published in inelegant language
It is thus in the tradition of Charlemagne's teaching program , through which the computus had become an official subject in monastery and cathedral schools . The school character is also shown in some places by a certain clumsiness when, for example, in Chapter XXVIII the not so theory-heavy determination of the leap year (remainder when dividing by 4) is laboriously calculated.
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In the 9th century several texts on these topics were available, which were largely based on Beda Venerabilis ' De temporum ratione . These, as well as excerpts from the Naturalis historia of Pliny the Elder and the writings of late Latin authors, were also received in the monastery school of the Abbey of Saint-Germain d'Auxerre , where Helperic worked. He himself mentions Beda Venerabilis and Macrobius Ambrosius Theodosius several times .
Outline and main topics
In 38 chapters, explanations on the topic of time are given, starting with the year up to the date of Easter . Neither is there such a complete, downright encyclopedic presentation of the whole complex of time, as in the example of Beda Venerabilis, nor are the explanations well ordered. Up to Chapter XXIV, the topics solar year, concurrentes (marking the day of the week of March 24th), feriae , regulares (represents the moon age on the 1st day of the month at epacts 0), epacten , embolism , moon course, time since the birth of Christ and indictio presented. From Chapter XXV onwards, some of these topics will be dealt with again with particular reference to Easter, and especially the aequinoctium / solsticium . Several aspects of determining the date of Easter are examined.
Special topics
The zodiac
While the path of the sun through the zodiac is dealt with relatively briefly in De temporum ratione , Helperic devotes a lot of space to this topic in Chapter II. Here he also leaves the argumenta vulgatiora and copies ancient myths ( mittholoicus ). He refers to the Commentum de Somno Cipionis ( Commentarii in Somnium Scipionis ) of Macrobius; however, there is no mythological / poetic interpretation of the signs of the zodiac . The newly awakened interest in astronomical processes and constellations since the Carolingian Empire becomes clear here, which is also evident in the illustrated editions of Germanicus' Aratea .
The equinoxes
The equinoxes and equinoxes (Middle Latin: aequinoctium / solstitium) and the solstices are dealt with in detail in Chapter XXXI. The path of the solar circle from the winter solstice in 182 days to the summer solstice and back is portrayed almost poetically. The signs of the zodiac already mentioned in Chapter II are listed again. Helperic terminates the summer and winter solstice correctly on the XII cal. Julii (June 21st) and XII cal. Januarii (December 21st) and thus discards the values of Beda Venerabilis (VIII cal.). There is also a request for practical observation:
Sin vero hoc etiam oculis deprehender gestis ... Designatis ... in oriente sole ...
If you want to see this with your own eyes ... mark the point of the sun rising ...
Easter date
Chapters XXXII - XXXVII deal with determining the date of Easter. Helperic does not deal with this systematically, but rather makes its students familiar with selected partial aspects. The explanations reveal the intention:
Si ergo scire vis quo Kalendarum die quilibet terminus occurrat, lectionem istam memoriter tenere debes
If you want to know which calendar day is any Easter date, you need to keep this in mind
He offers his students (Chapter XXXIII) one of the few applications of finger arithmetic ( computus articularis ) handed down from the Middle Ages . While this is shown knowledgeably in his role model Beda Venerabilis ( De temporum ratione , 55), Helperic only urges his students to go through the calendar days starting with the thumb on the 19 (defined) limbs of the left hand and thus assign the Easter date of a year to come to that of the next. Furthermore, this is true, at least if no further regulations are used, only for less than a third of the years.
Tradition and survival
The text was initially very sought after. It has been used several times as a basis for similar work (e.g. Gerland von Besancon ); Abbo von Fleury edited the work; Hermann the Lame seems to have known the book - the explanations of various astronomical phenomena are similar and there are also linguistic similarities; Over 20 manuscripts from 900 to 1150 have been preserved, mainly in German and French libraries. Later interest waned. The work was only published by Bernhard Pez ( Thesaurus anecdotorum 2,2,182, 1721–1729) and in the context of the Patrologia Latina (CXXXVII, 17–48). A translation into the German language is not available.
literature
- Arno Borst : The Carolingian Calendar Reform , Hanover 1998
- Nadja Germann: De temporum ratione , Leiden / Boston 2006
- Max Manitius : History of Latin Literature in the Middle Ages. 1st volume, Munich 1989.
- Ludwig Traube : Computus Helperici in lectures and treatises by Ludwig Traube , Ed. Franz Boll, Volume 3, Munich 1920, pp. 128–156
- Faith Wallis: Bede: The Reckoning of Time , Liverpool 1999
Individual evidence
- ↑ Grape: Computus Helperici , p. 140
- ↑ Nadja Germann: De temporum ratione , p. 47
- ^ Arno Borst: The Carolingian calendar reform , p. 184
- ↑ Nadja Germann: De temporum ratione , p. 74
- ^ Hermann Grotefend: Taschenbuch der Zeitrechnung des Deutschen Mittelalter und der Neuzeit, p. 7
- ^ Faith Wallis: Bede: The Reckoning of Time , p. 295
- ↑ Nadja Germann: De temporum ratione , pp. 74f
- ↑ Nadja Germann: De temporum ratione , p. 13
- ^ Charles W. Jones : Bedae Opera de Temporibus , Notes, p. 388
- ↑ Max Manitius: History of Latin Literature in the Middle Ages , p. 449
- ^ Arno Borst: The Carolingian calendar reform , p. 324
- ↑ Nadja Germann: De temporum ratione , p. 306
- ↑ Ludwig Taube: Computus Helperici , p. 139f
- ↑ Max Manitius: History of Latin Literature in the Middle Ages , p. 449