Byrhtferth ( ang, Byrhtferð; ) was a priest and
monk
A monk (, from el, μοναχός, ''monachos'', "single, solitary" via Latin ) is a person who practices religious asceticism by monastic living, either alone or with any number of other monks. A monk may be a person who decides to dedica ...
who lived at
Ramsey Abbey in
Huntingdonshire
Huntingdonshire (; abbreviated Hunts) is a non-metropolitan district of Cambridgeshire and a historic county of England. The district council is based in Huntingdon. Other towns include St Ives, Godmanchester, St Neots and Ramsey. The popu ...
(now part of
Cambridgeshire
Cambridgeshire (abbreviated Cambs.) is a county in the East of England, bordering Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the north-east, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfordshire to the south, and Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire to the ...
) in England. He had a deep impact on the intellectual life of later
Anglo-Saxon England and wrote many
computistic,
hagiographic
A hagiography (; ) is a biography of a saint or an ecclesiastical leader, as well as, by extension, an adulatory and idealized biography of a founder, saint, monk, nun or icon in any of the world's religions. Early Christian hagiographies might ...
, and
historical works.
[''The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo-Saxon England'', ed. Michael Lapidge (1991)][''Medieval England: an encyclopedia''; editors: Paul E. Szarmach, M. Teresa Tavormina, Joel T. Rosenthal. New York: Garland Publishing (1998)] 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).
["The Old English Canon of Byrhtferth of Ramsey", Peter S. Baker. ''Speculum'', Vol. 55, No. 1. (1980)] His ''Manual'' (''Enchiridion''), a scientific textbook, is Byrhtferth's best known work.
He studied with
Abbo of Fleury
Abbo or Abbon of Fleury ( la, Abbo Floriacensis; – 13 November 1004), also known as Saint Abbo or Abbon, was a monk and abbot of Fleury Abbey in present-day Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire near Orléans, France.
Life
Abbo was born near Orléans ...
, who was invited to
Ramsey Abbey by
Oswald of Worcester
Oswald of Worcester (died 29 February 992) was Archbishop of York from 972 to his death in 992. He was of Danish ancestry, but brought up by his uncle, Oda, who sent him to France to the abbey of Fleury to become a monk. After a number of ye ...
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.
[''Who's Who in Roman Britain and Anglo-Saxon England'', Richard Fletcher. (2002)] We do not have contemporary biographies of Byrhtferth, and the only information we have is the one in his ''Manual'' and his ''Preface''.
Writings
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.
Egwin
Saint Egwin of Evesham, OSB (died 30 December 717) was a Benedictine monk and, later, the third Bishop of Worcester in England.
Life
Egwin was born in Worcester of a noble family, and was a descendant of Mercian kings. He may possibly have been ...
, compiled a chronicle of
Northumbria
la, Regnum Northanhymbrorum
, conventional_long_name = Kingdom of Northumbria
, common_name = Northumbria
, status = State
, status_text = Unified Anglian kingdom (before 876)North: Anglian kingdom (af ...
n history in the 990s, wrote a Latin life of
Oswald of Worcester
Oswald of Worcester (died 29 February 992) was Archbishop of York from 972 to his death in 992. He was of Danish ancestry, but brought up by his uncle, Oda, who sent him to France to the abbey of Fleury to become a monk. After a number of ye ...
(the ''Vita Oswaldi'') about the year 1000, and it is suggested that he is responsible for the early sections of the ''Historia regum'', or ''History of the Kings'', attributed to
Simeon of Durham
__NOTOC__
Symeon (or Simeon) of Durham (died after 1129) was an English chronicler and a monk of Durham Priory.
Biography
Symeon entered the Benedictine monastery at Jarrow as a youth. It moved to Durham in 1074, and he was professed in 1085 o ...
. This last attribution is based on the similarity of the style between Simeon and Byrhtferth.
The last of Byrhtferth's works is an unsigned fragment of Old English text on ''
computus'' in the Manuscript
BL Cotton Caligula A.xv, fols. MS 142v–143r. It is attributed to him because of the stylistic similarity to the Old English that he wrote in the ''Manual''.
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
Dom Jean Mabillon, O.S.B., (; 23 November 1632 – 27 December 1707) was a French Benedictine monk and scholar of the Congregation of Saint Maur. He is considered the founder of the disciplines of palaeography and diplomatics.
Early life
Mabi ...
).
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''.
*
Bodl. Ashmole MS 328 preserves Byrhtferth's Latin ''Enchiridion'', or ''Manual''. It is written in Latin and
Old English
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th c ...
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 can be of great reference for the study of medieval number symbolism.
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.
[''Schoolmasters of the Tenth Century'' Cora E. Lutz. Archon Books (1977)]
Preface
St John's College, Oxford MS 17 contains several computistical works by Bede and Helperic, and a ''
computus'' which includes the Latin ''Epilogus'', or ''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
A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand – or, once practical typewriters became available, typewritten – as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in ...
may in fact have been written by Byrhtferth, but it cannot be proved. Also, he may have compiled most of these things from works that
Abbo of Fleury
Abbo or Abbon of Fleury ( la, Abbo Floriacensis; – 13 November 1004), also known as Saint Abbo or Abbon, was a monk and abbot of Fleury Abbey in present-day Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire near Orléans, France.
Life
Abbo was born near Orléans ...
left behind at
Ramsey Abbey after his death.
Published works
*
*Byrhtferth's Manual (AD 1011) (1929).
[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. Edited from ms. Ashmole 328 in the Bodleian library. With an introduction, translation, sources, vocabulary, glossary of technical terms, appendices and seventeen plates by Samuel J. Crawford. Published for Early English Text Society, ''Original series'', 127.
* Byrhtferth's Enchiridion, edited and translated by Peter S. Baker and Michael Lapidge. Oxford: Published for the Early English Text Society, ''Supplementary series'', 15, by the Oxford University Press, 1995.
References
External links
*
Anonymous life of Oswald (in Latin), pg. 399 ff.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Byrhtferth
970s births
1020s deaths
11th-century English historians
Christian hagiographers
English Christian monks
10th-century English historians
English chroniclers
11th-century English writers
Medieval English mathematicians
Medieval English astronomers
11th-century astronomers
11th-century mathematicians
11th-century Latin writers