lOsPosri'O — 0« the " Dc Mlr<ibiMus Samlac Scrij/Zurac.'" 197 



Paterni et Toiquati ad nostra usque tonipora dccnrrens, extremo auuo 

 Hiberniensium moiiente Manichaeoi iuter caeteios sapientes, peragitur. Et 

 duodeciinus nunc teitium annum agens ad futuroruni scientiam se praestans 

 a nobis qualeni fineni sit lialiiturus ignoratur." 



Let us now consider wliat conclusions may be drawn from the above 

 extracts. Leaving aside for the moment the Dedication, we see from (2), (3\ 

 and (4) that the treatise was written by an Irishman for the use or at the 

 suggestion of certain Irish ecclesiastics. A foreigner, or an Irishman writiii" 

 in Englami or on the Continent, would surely not have thought it necessary to 

 include the references to Ireland in (3) and (4). The exact meaning of (2) is not 

 clear. Are we to understand from it that the work was designed or commenced 

 by Bathanus and Vlanchianus, and then taken over and completed by the 

 anonymous writer ? As to the identifications of Bathanus and Manchianus 

 we are enabled to conjecture with a tolerable amount of probability, thanks to 

 the fourth extract, which gives us the actual date at which the book was 

 composed. This passage forms portion of a computistical disquisition dealing 

 with the Mundane Eeckoning of eleven Victorian Great Paschal Cycles of 

 532 years from the Creation. The writer employed a Mundane Period of 

 5'JOO" (i.e. A.M. 52Ul = a.d. 1) based on an interpolated passage in the 

 Prologue of the Cursus Paschalis of Victorius of Aquitaine,' from whom he 

 also derived his consular data.* The calculation is as follows : — 



Last year of the tenth cycle = 10 x 532 - 5200 = a.d. 120, date according 

 to our writer of the consulship of Alia and Sparsa (a corruption of Aviola 

 and Pansa); first year of the eleventh cycle = 121, consulship of Paternus 

 and Torquatus ; last year of the eleventh cycle = 11 x 5:J2 - 5200 = A.D. 652, 



' So the Mss. Mnnicliaeus is clearly a scribal blunder for Mavchianvs. The author 

 must have had some special reason for singling out for mention this Manchianus among 

 the other sapientes. Possibly he had studied with him, or both m»y have once been 

 connected with the same monastery. At any rate, we are not warranted in identifying 

 either the Manchianus or Bathanus of (2) with the author's ' ' most respected master " (1), 

 whose name is not given. 



- I follow here the admirable chronological investigations of MacCarthy (R. Irish 

 Acad., Todd Lecture Series, vol. iii, 1892, pp. 365-368, 393, and "Annals of Ulster," 

 iv, 1901, pp. xci, xcii). It is not, however, possible to agree with MacCarthy when he 

 states that it was from the " De Mirabililius " that the author of tlie forgery known as 

 the "Annals of Tigeruach" adopted this Mundane Period of 5200. 



^Section 9 in Monimseii's edition ("Chronica Minora," i, 1892, pp. 682-683; ap. 

 "Mon. Germ. Hist., Auct. Ant.," t. ix). 



* Ed. .Alommsen, loc. cit., i, p. 694. The indebtedness of the Irish writer to Victorius 

 was perceived by Mommsen, who, however, worked out tl\e date as 654. Reeves' 

 suggestion (Proc. R. I. Acad., vii, 1861, p. 517) that our author was here drawing 

 from the "Chronicle" of Cassiodorus (ed. Mommsen, loc. cit., ii, 1894, p. 120 55.), is 

 untenable. 



R.I. A. PROC, VOL. XXXV., SECT. C. [26] 



