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Late antique and early medieval science is commonly defined by the 'quadrivium', the four subjects of the seven liberal arts relating to natural science: astronomy, geometry, arithmetic, and music. The seven-fold division of learning was designed in Late Antiquity by authors such as Martianus Capella, and these authors were studied intensively from the Carolingian age onwards. Because these subjects still have currency today, this leads to the anachronistic view that the 'artes' dominated intellectual thought in Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages. Quite the contrary, the 'artes' were an idealized curriculum with limited application in practice. Certainly, the 'artes' do not help in our understanding of the intellectual endeavour between the early fifth and the late eighth centuries. This period was dominated by 'computus', a calendrical science with the calculation of Easter at its core. Only 'computus' provides a traceable continuation of scientific thought from Late Antiquity to the early Middle Ages. The key questions were the mathematical modeling of the course of the sun through the zodiac (the Julian calendar) and of the moon phases (in various lunar calendars). This volume highlights key episodes in the transmission of calendrical ideas in this crucial period, and therewith helps explaining the transformation of intellectual culture into its new medieval Christian setting.

Calendar --- Calendar. --- Church calendar --- Church calendar. --- Computus --- History --- Priscianus --- Handschrift --- Sankt Gallen --- Stiftsbibliothek Sankt Gallen --- Cod. 904 --- Stiftsbibliothek Sankt. --- Europa --- To 1500 --- Europe. --- Ireland. --- Irlan. --- Irland

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The scientific knowledge that Irish, English, and continental European scholars nurtured and developed during the years c. AD 500 to c. AD 1200 was assimilated, in the first place, from the wider Roman world of Late Antiquity. Time-reckoning, calendars, and the minute reckonings required to compute the date of Easter, all involved the minutiae of mathematics (incl. the original concept of ‘digital calculation’) and astronomical observation in a truly scientific fashion. In fact, the ‘Dark Ages’ were anything but dark in the fields of mathematics and astronomy.The first Science of Computus conference in Galway in 2006 highlighted the transmission of Late Antique Mathematical Knowledge in Ireland & Europe, the development of astronomy in Early Medieval Ireland & Europe and the role of the Irish in the development of computistical mathematics. The proceedings of that conference should, therefore, appeal equally to those interested in the history of science in Ireland and Europe, and in the origins of present-day mathematical and astronomical ideas.

Conferences - Meetings --- Calendar --- Church calendar --- Calendrier --- Calendrier liturgique --- History --- Histoire --- Europe --- To 1500 --- Congresses --- Calendar, Ecclesiastical --- Computus ecclesiasticus --- Ecclesiastical calendar --- Heortology --- Religious calendars --- Fasts and feasts --- Computus --- Astronomy --- Chronology, Historical --- Chronology --- Christianity