De temporum ratione

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

De Temporum Ratione is a treatise on the reckoning of time written in Latin by the Northumbrian Anglo-Saxon monk Bede. It included an introduction to the traditional ancient and medieval view of the cosmos, including an explanation of how the spherical earth influenced the changing length of daylight, of how the seasonal motion of the Sun and Moon influenced the changing appearance of the New Moon at evening twilight, and a quantitative relation between the changes of the Tides at a given place and the daily motion of the moon. (Wallis 2004, pp. 82-85, 307-312). It described a variety of ancient calendars, including the Anglo-Saxon calendar.[1] Since the focus of his book was calculation, Bede gave instructions for computing the date of Easter and the related time of the Easter Full Moon, for calculating the motion of the Sun and Moon through the zodiac, and for many other calculations related to the calendar.

[edit] References

Jones, Charles W., ed. Bedae opera didascalia 2, De temporum ratione, Corpus Christianorum Series Latina, 123B, Turnhout: Brepols, 1997. ISBN 978-2-503-01235-3
Wallis, Faith, trans. Bede: The Reckoning of Time, Liverpool: Liverpool Univ. Pr., 2004. ISBN 0-85323-693-3.