Chapter 15 of Bede’s De ratione temporum, written in 723 AD, is headed “De mensibus Anglorum” – About the Months of the English – and contains fascinating details of the Old English months. Most famous of these is April, known as Eosturmonath in Anglosaxon, and derived from an otherwise unknown goddess Eostre, which is the origin of our English-only word “Easter.” Easter is called passover (pasch) in most languages, however, which seems to surprise many. I have written about this passage before here.
Yesterday I learned via Twitter that a manuscript of this work has newly appeared online. This one is in Berlin, in the Staats Bibliothek, and has the shelfmark “Ms. Phill. 1832.” I think it must be 9th century. That shelfmark tells us that this is one of the vast and improbable collection amassed by the bibliomaniac Phillips at Cheltenham, some of which were bought at auction by the Germans.
I don’t tend to think of German manuscripts when I think of online manuscripts. But this is really a very fine example of how to place a manuscript online. Here’s the link to the page. And you can download the whole thing as a PDF, at various resolutions. Interestingly the online image zooms in to a higher resolution still, which is very helpful for marginal notes. in fact the online browser is rather good. You can maximise the image full-screen too. It’s all fairly obvious and intuitive.
In fact I’m rather impressed by the “Digitalisierte Sammlungen der Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin.” You go to the home page, and you can switch it into English very nicely. The search box actually works. I tried entering “Beda”, and got stuff; and then some very nice tabs on the right to restrict the results to manuscripts, and how many. I tried again with “Vita Sanctorum” and likewise got good things. I tried looking for the Life of St Nicholas that I knew was there, and found it. I tried a partial shelfmark, and found it. Really very good! What I cannot see, tho, is any way to browse the collection. It ought to have a list of collections (fonds), and a list by shelfmark of the mss within each. In the way that the Wiglaf site does. Another marvel – every page shows a yellow “feedback” tab on the right, so I’ve written and suggested it!
I’ve already downloaded a copy, and added a bookmark to the page that I want in case I need to come back to this later. It’s folio 27r. Here’s the start of the chapter:
On the next page we find the famous passage about Eostre:
Interestingly someone has written “April” over “Eusturmonath.” As a reminder:
Eosturmonath, qui nunc paschalis mensis interpretatur, quondam a dea illorum quae Eostre vocabatur, et cui in illo festa celebrabant, nomen habuit, a cujus nomine nunc paschale tempus cognominant, consueto antiquae observationis vocabulo gaudia novae solemnitalis vocantes.
Eosturmonath has a name which is now translated ‘‘Paschal month’’, and which was once called after a goddess of theirs named Eostre, in whose honour feasts were celebrated in that month. Now they designate that Paschal season by its name, calling the joys of the new rite by the time-honoured name of the old observance. (Faith Wallis translation with correction as here).
Note also that the name of the goddess is “Eostre.” It is curious how often and how pompously it is given as “Ēostre” online, when no source adds any such marker.
It’s still simply wonderful to see these things appear online!
“It is curious how often and how pompously it is given as “Ēostre” online, when no source adds any such marker.”
To be fair, Bede’s manuscripts naturally omit all diacritics marking long vowels and diphthongs (Ēosturmōnath, Wēodmōnath, etc.), but there is no doubt that in Old English Ēaster had a long diphthong, so it is natural to assume that the name of the goddess had it too. Ēostre is perfectly justified from a linguistic point of view.
Which is not to say that there isn’t a degree of pomposity in writing Ēostre in contexts where linguistic exactitude isn’t a concern.
Good thoughts – thank you!