BEDE, the Venerable, Saint (673-735)

De natura rerum et temporum ratione libri duo . Nunc recens inventi, & in lucem editi. Gustum quendam, humanissime lector, habes operum Bedae, eorum quae antea no extabant, quem si probabis, efficies ut primum tomum desideratum hactenus, à nobis vero nuper è situ prolatum, simus quaque prima occasione edituri. Basileae excudebat Henricus Petri mense martio, An: M. D. XXIX. Cum gratia & privilegio Caesareo

      Basle: Heinrich Petri, 1529. Folio: [alpha]-- [beta]6 [gama]4 a--l6 m8, 90 leaves, ff. [16] 74.Roman letter. Woodcut initials and a headpiece on f. 48. Leaf size and condition: 296 x 191mm. Title lightly dustsoiled, marginal repair to blank margin of last leaf. A fresh clean copy. Binding: Recent half morocco. Provenance and annotation: No marks of provenance, a few nineteenth-century pencil annotations. Walter Pagel (1896--1983); B. E. J. Pagel (1930--2007). References: VD16 B1439; Adams B449. First edition. This recension was not reprinted, all later editions deriving from different manuscript sources. § The first scientific works by an Englishman. This edition comprises the editio princeps of Bede's three authentic scientific works: De natura rerum, De temporibus and De temporum ratione. Many other computistical and scientific works have been ascribed to Bede but these three are the only complete works of undoubted authenticity. De natura rerum deals with natural phenomena, including Bede's statement that the earth is a sphere and explainations of the changing length of the day and the appearance of the moon. The first chapter, 'De computu vel loquela digitorum', is the main, and almost the only, source for the study of mediaeval finger reckoning or symbolism. The work is based on Isidore of Seville, but Bede 'was the most synthetic mind of that time, and his acquaintance with Pliny enabled him to go far beyond Isidore of Seville' (Sarton). De tempore provides an introduction to the principles of calculating the date of Easter and De tempore ratione contains the first formulation of a perpetual cycle of Easters based on the Metonic nineteen-year lunar cycle. It is in this work too that Bede established the convention that governs our everyday lives: the custom of counting the years from the birth of Christ. And it contains his important theory of tides, based on Pliny but advanced by personal observation. Bede understood that the tides are governed by the phases of the moon, and was the first to state the tidal principle of 'establishment of port,' the principle that high tide follows the moon's meridian passage at a certain interval, and that this interval is different at different ports. This most essential principle for coastal navigation has been described as the only original formulation of nature made in the West for eight centuries. Bede was born in or near Jarrow, county Durham, entered the Benedictine monastery at Wearmouth and transferred to the sister house of Jarrow. He remained there for the rest of his life and apparently never travelled more than fifty miles from his monastery. Bede's Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, for which he is known as the father of British history, first published at Strasbourg in 1475, was one of the first historical books to be printed. Adelard of Bath (c.1080--c.1160) is traditionally called 'The first English scientist' but Bede would seem to have a prior claim. Sarton named the first half of the eighth century 'The time of Bede' and he is the first Englishman to have an entry in the Dictionary of Scientific Biography. The editor of this edition was John Sichardus, a humanist scholar at Basle who was responsible for the first printed editions of many classic texts. In his study of Bede's scientific works, both authentic and spurius, Jones comments on this edition as follows. 'Sichardus' edition is beautifully printed; it is apparently scarce, for I have not seen a copy in America, and it is seldom mentioned by those who comment upon Bede's works. The texts were probably taken from a single manuscript. That of the long work, De Temporum Ratione, belongs to a family represented by Paris MS., Theol. Q. 172 (saec. xii, from Chomberg): and Munich MS., 18158 (seac. xi, from Tegernsee). This family of manuscripts is especially marked by the omission of DTR, Ch. XV ('De Mensibus Anglorum'). The omission of the chapter in Sichardus' text indicates that he did not compare manuscripts.' (Jones p. 6.) Literature: Sarton I, pp. 510--511; Charles Williams Jones, Bedae pseudepigrapha: scientific writings falsely attributed to Bede (1939) pp. 5--6; Ibid, DSB I, pp. 576--566.