The Computus Einsidlensis: First Edition and Translation with an Introductory Commentary

Abstract

The present thesis consists of three parts: a commentary, edition, and translation of the Computus Einsidlensis (CE), an early medieval textbook on the calculation of the date of Easter (computus) from Ireland. The commentary introduces the text by placing it firmly in the context of the final and crucial phase of the Easter controversy of the Latin West. A comparative study of related texts shows CE to have been composed in Southern Ireland in c. AD 710 to 718, making it the earliest of the four comprehensive textbooks, the Munich Computus, De ratione conputandi, and Bede?s De ratione temporum. The commentary further discusses sources and structure of CE, highlighting its extraordinarily logical and mathematical approach, which is unique among the early textbooks on computus. An examination of later texts and the sole manuscript witness suggests that CE enjoyed only limited reception in Ireland, even less so on the continent. The edition provides the corrected Latin text with a critical apparatus and an apparatus indicating sources and further parallel passages in other texts.