06 — The Reckoning of Time
Bede was, in his own estimation and that of the Middle Ages, as much a master of time as of history. This section treats the science of the computus that he raised to its classic form in The Reckoning of Time (725): the Anno Domini dating he popularized and made the framework of historical narrative, the calendrical machinery by which the date of Easter is found, and the world chronicle and sober eschatology — the six ages of the world and the refusal to calculate the end — in which his reckoning of time reaches its consummation.
Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (pre-Schism; Doctor of the Church; the Father of English History)
Time, for Bede, was not a neutral backdrop but a creature of God, ordered and measurable, given to be reckoned rightly. The same monk who insisted on naming his historical sources brought a mathematical and observational discipline to the calendar, and the result — De temporibus (703) and above all De temporum ratione (The Reckoning of Time, 725) — became the standard textbook of the computus for the Latin West and earned him, alone among Englishmen, the title Doctor of the Church. This section follows that achievement in two movements. The first is the science of dating and Easter: Bede’s adoption and diffusion of the Incarnation era devised by Dionysius Exiguus, his innovation in making Anno Domini the spine of a major work of history, and the lunar and solar cycles, epacts, embolismic months, and the threefold rule by which the Paschalion fixes Easter — together with the celebrated observation of the tides and the moon. The second is the largest reckoning of all: Bede’s world chronicle on the six ages, his deliberate revision of the world’s chronology downward, the heresy charge it drew at Bishop Wilfrid’s table, and the restrained, anti-millenarian eschatology — strongly resonant with the Orthodox mind — by which he confessed the end and refused to date it.
Files in This Section
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| Anno Domini and the Computus | Bede’s popularization of Anno Domini dating (devised by Dionysius Exiguus, c. 525) and his innovation as the first major historian to carry it systematically through a narrative (HE 1.2; 5.23–24); the computus of The Reckoning of Time — the divisions of time, the lunar and solar cycles, the nineteen-year cycle, the saltus lunae and embolismic months, epacts and concurrents, the threefold rule of Easter and Bede’s continuation of the Paschal table; and his observation of the tides and the “law of the sea-coast.” |
| The World Chronicle and Eschatology | The six ages of the world (sex aetates mundi) and the seventh and eighth ages; the two chronicles (De temporibus, 703; the Chronica maiora, The Reckoning of Time ch. 66); Bede’s downward revision of the Anno Mundi chronology and the heresy charge at Wilfrid’s table (c. 708); and his answer in the Letter to Plegwine, defending the chronology and refusing to calculate the end (Acts 1:7; Matthew 24:36) — a restrained, anti-millenarian eschatology consonant with Orthodox tradition. |
See Also
- Teacher and Computist — the computistical textbooks and the Whitby settlement the Easter reckoning presupposes
- The Historia Ecclesiastica — the history in which Anno Domini became the framework of narrative
- The Critique of the Church — Bede’s late reforming concern as the sixth age ran on toward its hidden end
- Legacy and Assessment — the long afterlife of Bede the computist and Doctor of the Church
- The Church Calendar — the Paschalion and the rule for Easter Bede’s computus served
- Eschatology — the Orthodox doctrine of last things, the six ages, and the refusal to date the end
References
- Bede. The Reckoning of Time (De temporum ratione). Translated, with introduction, notes, and commentary, by Faith Wallis. Translated Texts for Historians 29. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1999. (The standard English edition, with the Letter to Plegwine in the appendix; cited by chapter.)
- Bede. Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Edited and translated by Bertram Colgrave and R. A. B. Mynors. Oxford Medieval Texts. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969. (Cited by book.chapter.)
- Darby, Peter. Bede and the End of Time. Studies in Early Medieval Britain. Farnham: Ashgate, 2012.
- Brown, George Hardin. A Companion to Bede. Anglo-Saxon Studies 12. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2009.
- DeGregorio, Scott, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Bede. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.