Previously Unpublished Works, Fascicles VI-VII

page xviii

The confusion thus caused Referring to the multiple competing systems for calculating the year of Christ's birth used in the Middle Ages. may be judged from the record of the death of Wulstan, Bishop of Worcester, in 1095 A.D. Anno Domini: "In the year of our Lord.". It is noted by Florence of Worcester (ii. 36) as taking place

“in the 5299th year from the first day of the world according to the strict calculation of the divine scriptures; in the 76th year of the 4th cycle of the ninth ‘great year’ from the beginning of the world; in the 1084th year from the Passion of the Lord according to the Gospel, in the 1066th according to the Chronicle of Bede, and in the 1061st according to Dionysius original: "anno a primo seculi die arta ratione divinas scripturas 5299; noni magni anni ab initio seculi 4. 76; a passione Domini secundum Evangelium 1084, juxta Chronicam Bedae 1066, secundum Dionysium 1061"; . . . in the 32nd year of the eleventh great Paschal cycle; but in the 510th of the tenth from the beginning of the world; in the 4th year of the second solar cycle; in the 3rd year of the leap-year cycle; in the 13th year of the second nineteen-year cycle; in the 10th year of the second lunar cycle; in the 5th year of the eleven-year cycle; and in the 3rd year of the indictional cycle original: "undecimi magni Paschalis cycli 32; decimi vero a capite mundi 510; secundi solaris cycli 4; bissextilis cycli 3; secundi decennovenalis cycli 13; secundi lunaris cycli 10; hendecadis 5; indictionalis cycli 3".”

It is to be noted that the "year of grace" often refers at this time to the Dionysian reckoning, while the "year of the Incarnation" refers to the systems of Marianus or Gerland.

Gerland was perhaps the most striking of the critics of the Dionysian era. His Computus A manual for calculating calendar dates and movable feasts like Easter. has never been printed and the manuscripts vary greatly. That used here is British Museum MS. Vesp. A. ix, folio 33. A study of his life and works was made by Ulysses Robert in Analecta Iuris Pontifici (1872–3), liv. 106, series xiii. 596, which needs revision. Albericus writes under the date 1084 A.D.: “Master Gerland flourished in Burgundy, in the diocese of Besançon (Besançon), whose little work is called The Candle original: "Floruit in Burgundia, in diocesi Bisuntina magister Gerlandus cujus opusculum Candela vocatur",” and Haskins notes (Studies, p. 85) the date of 1081 A.D. (i.e. 1088) in a Paris manuscript of the work. On the Table on folio 33 of the British Museum manuscript, an eclipse is noted on the 9th day before the Kalends of October 1086 (September 23, 1093), which is also noted in Oppolzer’s Canon (Memoirs of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, Vienna, Mathematical-Natural Science Class, 52). The only other notes on this table are the 71st and 72nd indictions,¹ and notes of the various years to which the Incarnation was attributed. Gerland reproduces much of Bede and of “Helpericus, the most expert calculator original: "Ulpericus cauculator valentissimus",” as well as the forged Theophilus, and an account attributed to Probus of the divisions of time. The point of Gerland’s criticism of Dionysius is that, according to his tables, Christ must have died either in the 13th or 259th year of the 532-year cycle. His final conclusion is that there is an error of seven years in the starting-point of the Dionysian period; the year which Dionysius took for 532 A.D. being really 525 A.D. This view was more or less tacitly accepted whenever the question was considered in later times until the reformation of the calendar.

¹ For the years 1041 and 1056 (1048 and 1063 A.D.). He seems only to have known of the indictions A 15-year cycle used in the Roman Empire for tax assessments, later used for dating documents. from Helpericus, whose rule is to add 3 to the A.D. date and divide by 15. The table runs for 532 years from 1038 (1045 A.D.).