The Munich Computus and the 84 (14)-year Easter reckoning

Abstract

Abstract:The construction, and especially the assignment of the Easter dates, of the Easter reckoning used in the British Isles from the fifth to the eighth century, here called the 84 (14), has been a matter of scholarly debate for the past 400 years. Since the discovery of the Munich Computus in AD 1878, the text that became the primary source for this Easter reckoning, the debate has centred almost exclusively on it. This changed with the discovery of an Easter table of this reckoning in AD 1985, which provided reliable Easter dates as well as a most valuable insight into the construction of the table itself. However, these two primary sources have never been compared thoroughly. Such a comparison is provided in the present article, which leads to an analysis of its implication for the 84 (14) in general, and for the Munich Computus in particular.