Note 313 — BOOK V

This passage is preceded by a table indicating the date of Easter for 95 years (627–721). It is clear that although Isidore was not acquainted with the plan of Dionysius Exiguus to institute the Christian era, he was acquainted with the essentials of his Easter table. Dionysius had given the dates for Easter in five 19-year cycles, dating from 525; in Isidore this is continued for the years 627 to 721. Isidore’s table consists merely of parallel columns of the days of the month and corresponding days of the moon on which Easter fell. Each date is marked C or E, abbreviations for communis annus and embolismus which describe respectively the year of twelve and that of thirteen lunar months in use in the Hebrew chronology. A further abbreviation, B, stands opposite each fourth year, to mark the leap-years. The years are not numbered according to any era, and the assignment of dates, 627–721, is inferred from the dates given for Easter. See Ideler, Chronologie, vol. ii, p. 290 (Berlin, 1826). Isidore does not make it plain that he understood the mathematics of the computation of Easter. It is of interest that in 643 the fourth synod of Toledo passed an enactment to secure a common observance of Easter throughout the Spanish churches, no doubt according to this Easter-table. See Gams, Die Kirchengeschichte von Spanien (Regensburg, 1874), vol. ii, part 2, p. 94.