Computus and Its Cultural Context in the Latin West, AD 300-1200

by I. Warntjes, D.O. Croinin

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.