{"id":50808,"date":"2024-06-13T12:35:25","date_gmt":"2024-06-13T11:35:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/?p=50808"},"modified":"2024-06-13T12:35:25","modified_gmt":"2024-06-13T11:35:25","slug":"eostre-in-a-manuscript-of-bedes-de-ratione-temporum-in-berlin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/2024\/06\/13\/eostre-in-a-manuscript-of-bedes-de-ratione-temporum-in-berlin\/","title":{"rendered":"Eostre in a manuscript of Bede’s De ratione temporum in Berlin"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chapter 15 of Bede’s\u00a0De ratione temporum<\/em>, written in 723 AD, is headed “De mensibus Anglorum” – About the Months of the English – and contains fascinating details of the Old English months.\u00a0 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.”\u00a0 Easter is called passover (pasch) in most languages, however, which seems to surprise many.\u00a0 I have written about this passage before here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Yesterday I learned via Twitter<\/a> that a manuscript of this work has newly appeared online.\u00a0 This one is in Berlin, in the Staats Bibliothek, and has the shelfmark “Ms. Phill. 1832.”\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

I don’t tend to think of German manuscripts when I think of online manuscripts.\u00a0 But this is really a very fine example of how to place a manuscript online.\u00a0 Here’s the link to the page<\/a>.\u00a0 And you can download the whole thing as a PDF, at various resolutions.\u00a0 Interestingly the online image zooms in to a higher resolution still, which is very helpful for marginal notes.\u00a0 in fact the online browser is rather good.\u00a0 You can maximise the image full-screen too.\u00a0 It’s all fairly obvious and intuitive.<\/p>\n

In fact I’m rather impressed by the “Digitalisierte Sammlungen der Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin<\/a>.”\u00a0 You go to the home page<\/a>, and you can switch it into English very nicely.\u00a0 The search box actually works.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 I tried again with “Vita Sanctorum” and likewise got good things.\u00a0 I tried looking for the Life of St Nicholas that I knew was there, and found it.\u00a0 I tried a partial shelfmark, and found it.\u00a0 Really very good!\u00a0 What I cannot see, tho, is any way to browse the collection.\u00a0 It ought to have a list of collections (fonds), and a list by shelfmark of the mss within each.\u00a0 In the way that the Wiglaf site does<\/a>.\u00a0 Another marvel – every page shows a yellow “feedback” tab on the right, so I’ve written and suggested it!<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 It’s folio 27r.\u00a0 Here’s the start of the chapter:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Berlin MS Phill. 1832, fol. 27r: beginning of chapter 15 of Bede, de ratione temporum<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On the next page we find the famous passage about Eostre:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Berlin MS Phill. 1832, fol. 27r: end of chapter 15 of Bede, de ratione temporum, with mention of Eosturmonath<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Interestingly someone has written “April” over “Eusturmonath.”\u00a0 As a reminder:<\/p>\n

\n

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 voca\u00adbulo gaudia novae solemnitalis vocantes.<\/p>\n

Eosturmonath has a name which is now translated \u2018\u2018Paschal month\u2019\u2019, 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.\u00a0 (Faith Wallis translation with correction as here<\/a>).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Note also that the name of the goddess is “Eostre.”\u00a0 It is curious how often and how pompously it is given as “\u0112ostre” online, when no source adds any such marker.<\/p>\n

It’s still simply wonderful to see these things appear online!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chapter 15 of Bede’s\u00a0De 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.\u00a0 Most famous of these is April, known as Eosturmonath in Anglosaxon, and derived from an otherwise unknown goddess Eostre, which is the origin […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[19],"tags":[284,614,637,638,1075],"class_list":["post-50808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-from-my-diary-announcements","tag-bede","tag-easter","tag-eostre","tag-eosturmonath","tag-manuscripts"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50808\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}