Byrhtferth

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Four elements (earth, water, air, fire), seasons, solstices, equinoxes, signs of the zodiac and ages of man. An Ogham inscription
is in the centre. Miniature from twelfth century English medieval manuscript MS Oxford St John's College 17, folium 7 verso. Copy from original about 1000 AD by Byrhtferth.

Byrhtferth (

historical works.[2][3] He was a leading man of science and best known as the author of many different works (although he may not have written many of them).[4] His Manual (Enchiridion), a scientific textbook, is Byrhtferth's best known work.[5]

He studied with Abbo of Fleury, who was invited to Ramsey Abbey by Oswald of Worcester to help teach. Abbo was there during the period 985 to 987, and became a large influence on Byhrtferth who was interested in the same studies, such as history, logic, astronomy, and mathematics.[6] We do not have contemporary biographies of Byrhtferth, and the only information we have is that given in his Manual and his Preface.[7]

Works

Byrhtferth's signature appears on only two unpublished works, his Latin and Old English Manual, and Latin Preface. He also composed a Latin life of St.

computus in the Manuscript BL Cotton Caligula A.xv[8] is attributed to him because of the stylistic similarity to the Old English that he wrote in the Manual.[3] Cyril Roy Hart also tentatively identifies him as the author of the verse Menologium preserved as a preface to a manuscript of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,[9][10] although Kazutomo Karasawa believes it more likely to have been written by an older contemporary.[11]

Byrhtferth has also been credited with Latin commentaries on Bede's De natura rerum and De temporum ratione (first attributed to him by John Herwagen) and a Vita S. Dunstani signed "B" (first attributed to him by Jean Mabillon).[4] However, many scholars argue that these works were not written by Byrhtferth, but instead were a compilation of material by several writers in the late ninth and early tenth centuries. This is argued because of the smooth, polished style of these works in comparison with the styles of the only signed works, the Manual and the Preface.[4]

  • Bodl. Ashmole MS 328 preserves Byrhtferth's Latin Enchiridion, or Manual. It is written in Latin and Old English and the largest part is that of a computus similar to the one in Preface. It touches on the belief that the divine order of the universe can be perceived through the study of numbers and it is valuable for the study of medieval number symbolism.[3] It also contains treatises on rhetorical and grammatical subjects, a table of weights and measures, and three theological tracts on the ages of the world, the loosing of Satan and the eight capital sins.[12]

computus which includes the Latin Epilogus ("Preface") by Byrhtferth. He also constructed a full-page diagram showing the harmony of the universe, and suggesting correspondences among cosmological, numerological, and physiological aspects of the world. Other items in the manuscript may in fact have been written by Byrhtferth, but this cannot be proved. Also, he may have compiled most of this material from works that Abbo of Fleury left behind at Ramsey Abbey after his death.[3]

Published works

References

  1. ^ Henry Bradley (1886). "Byrhtferth". In Dictionary of National Biography. 8. London. pp. 126–27.
  2. ^ The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo-Saxon England, ed. Michael Lapidge (1991)
  3. ^ a b c d e Medieval England: an encyclopedia; editors: Paul E. Szarmach, M. Teresa Tavormina, Joel T. Rosenthal. New York: Garland Publishing (1998)
  4. ^ a b c "The Old English Canon of Byrhtferth of Ramsey", Peter S. Baker. Speculum, Vol. 55, No. 1. (1980)
  5. ^ Byrhtferth of Ramsey. (2011). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved from http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/87049/Byrhtferth-of-Ramsey
  6. ^ a b Who's Who in Roman Britain and Anglo-Saxon England, Richard Fletcher. (2002)
  7. ^ Forsey, G. (1928). Byrhtferth's Preface. Speculum, 3(4), 505–22.
  8. ^ fols. MS 142v–143r
  9. ^ Hart, Cyril Roy (2003), Learning and Culture in Late Anglo-Saxon England..., Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, Vol. I, p. 122, & Vol. II, pp. 180–196.
  10. Cambridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2015, pp. 4 & 71
    .
  11. ^ Karasawa (2015), p. 71.
  12. ^ Schoolmasters of the Tenth Century Cora E. Lutz. Archon Books (1977)[page needed]
  13. ^ "The Calendar & the Cloister: Oxford – St. John's College MS 17".
  14. ^ Byrhtferth, f., Crawford, S. J. (Samuel John). (1929). Byrhtferth's Manual (A. D. 1011). London: Pub. for the Early English Text Society by H. Milford, Oxford University Press.

External links

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