The continuation of the Alexandrian Easter table in seventh-century Iberia and its transmission to ninth-century Francia

Abstract

The question of how to calculate the date of Easter was a hotly debated issue in early Christianity. The matter was ultimately decided by around AD 800 in favour of the Alexandrian / Dionysian reckoning, which remained the unanimously accepted method throughout Christendom until the Gregorian calendar reform of 1582. It was invented in Alexandria in the late third century and was popularized in the Latin West by Dionysius Exiguus in AD 525. It constituted a 532-year Easter cycle, but producing the full cycle only became fashionable in the eighth century. Before then, the Alexandrian / Dionysian reckoning circulated in 95-year tables. The most ancient surviving table is attributed to Cyril of Alexandria and covered the years AD 437-531. Its continuation, most famously attributed to Dionysius Exiguus, spanned the years AD 532-626. This was followed by a third table of AD 627-721, before this Easter reckoning was more appropriately represented by its 532-year cyclic structure. The 95-year table of AD 627-721 has survived in only one copy, transmitted in three manuscripts : London, BL, Harley 3017 ; Paris, BNF, lat. 5543 ; Longleat House, Marquess of Bath, NMR 10589.The context in which this table survives is Isidore’s Etymologiae 6.17. The present article argues that this table presents a Visigothic continuation of the Alexandrian reckoning independent of the Dionysian tradition and traces its transmission from seventh-century Iberia through Ireland to the ninth-century Loire valley