15. The English months
TRANSLATION
[22 March].160 Now in pointing out that the 22nd day of the month Dystros is the equivalent of the 22nd day of March, /329/ Anatolius shows plainly that both months begin together.161 Should anyone claim that Anatolius did not write ''11th kalends'', but rather ''8th kalends'', he would prove thereby that [March] was not the same as the Egyptian month Phamenoth, whose 26th day is on the 11th, and not the 8th kalends of April. Both of them ^ that is, those who read ''8th kalends'' in Anatolius and those who read ''11th kalends'' ^ understand this day to refer to the 26th day of the Egyptian month. According to what we have stated above in our description of the Egyptian year, this date is established beyond doubt as falling on the 11th kalends of April.162
15. THE ENGLISH MONTHS
In olden time the English people ^ for it did not seem ¢tting to me that I should speak of other nations' observance of the year and yet be silent about my own nation's ^ calculated their months according to the course of the Moon. /330/ Hence, after the manner of the Greeks and the Romans, [the months] take their name from the Moon, for the Moon is called mona and the month monath.
The ¢rst month, which the Latins call January, is Giuli; February is called Solmonath; March Hrethmonath; April, Eosturmonath; May,
Thrimilchi; June, Litha; July, also Litha; August, Weodmonath; September, Halegmonath; October, Winter¢lleth; November, Blodmonath; December, Giuli, the same name by which January is called. They began the year on the 8th kalends of January [25 December], when we celebrate the birth of the Lord. That very night, which we hold so sacred, they used to call by the heathen word Modranecht, that is,
''mother's night'', because (we suspect) of the ceremonies they enacted all that night.
Whenever it was a common year, they gave three lunar months to each season. When an embolismic year occurred (that is, one of 13 lunar months) they assigned the extra month to summer, so that three months
160 Anatolius 2, as cited in Ru¢nus' trans. of Eusebius, Historia ecclesiastica 7.32.14 (723.10^14); cf. Bede, Letter to Wicthed 2.
161 Cf. Bede, Letter to Wicthed 9.
162 Bede is referring to ch. 11, where he showed that the Egyptian month Phamenoth began on the 5th kalends of March (24 February). As all Egyptian months are 30 days long, 26 Phamenoth falls on 22 March.