24. The number of hours of moonlight
TRANSLATION
For example, in the third year of the 19-year cycle, a lunation which will have thirty days always begins with a plain letter A; /354/ the second
[day of the Moon] is on B, the third on C, likewise plain, that is, not markedwithanypoint.ThuseachlettershowstheageofitsMoonaccording to its position. Again a lunation which will have twenty-nine days begins at L with a point following; the second [Moon] is always on the M and third on the N, marked with the same sign.Thus the Moon, recurring in sequence, encodes its age in each letter.224 To make it easier to tell them apart, the ancients established that the ¢rst of the three alphabets /355/ should be unadorned, the second marked [with a point] afterwards and the third marked [with a point] in front, in order to distinguish them.225
24. THE NUMBER OF HOURS OF MOONLIGHT
The ancients also hand down a formula by which one can ascertain how many hours the Moon of any given age will shine. Since, they say, the ¢rst Moon shines for 4 puncti, this ¢gure is added every day from the second Moon up until the full Moon, and then deducted in equal measure as the Moon wanes.226 And so if you wish to know how many hours the second Moon shines, multiply 2 by 4, which makes 8 [puncti].
Divide by 5, because 5 puncti make one hour;227 5 times 1 is 5, and 3 remain. Therefore the second Moon shines for one hour and three puncti. Again, multiply 3 by 4, which makes 12. Divide by 5: 2 times 5 is
224 Literally, ''changes its age back into each letter'' (suam cuique literae restituit aetatem): 354.16^17.
225 Bede expects this system of lunar letters to function with a table, such as the one presented here. Indeed, his example based on the 3rd year of the 19-year cycle can only be worked with this table, and not merely from the calendar. A more skilled student could dispense with the table if he knew how to calculate the age of the Moon on the ¢rst of the month, but (a) this would make the lunar letters redundant, and (b) Bede speci¢es that this method is for those who cannot ^ or will not ^ do mathematics. For a discussion of this table, its history and variant versions, see Jones, Bedae pseudepigrapha 65^68, and Theodore von Sickel, ''Die Lunarbuchstaben in der Kalendarien des Mittelalters'', Sitzungsberichte der Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Wien, Phil.-hist. Kl. 38 (1861):159¡. It is not infrequently ascribed (falsely) to Jerome. All that can be said with certainty of its origins is that it predates Bede, for it is found in the Calendar of Willibrord (Paris, Bibliothe' que nationale lat. 10837) written ca.703^717: see facsimile and transcription in H.A. Wilson, The Calendar of St. Willibrord, Henry Bradshaw Society 55 (London: Harrison, 1918). Cf.
Jones, BOT 358.
226 Cf. ch. 17, n. 180.
227 On the di¡erence between ordinary puncti and lunar puncti, see ch. 4 above.