Bibliography
Leofranc
Holford-Strevens
Works authored
Holford-Strevens, Leofranc, The Disputatio Chori et praetextati: the Roman calendar for beginners, Studia Traditionis Theologiae, 32, Turnhout: Brepols, 2019.
abstract:
The first book of Macrobius' Saturnalia, written probably in the 430s AD, includes a historical exposition of the Roman calendar with a dramatic date some fifty years earlier, set in the mouth of the learned senator Vettius Agorius Praetextatus, followed by more technical detail at the request of an Egyptian named Horus, who as a foreigner is allowed to seek elementary information for which no one brought up in Roman culture would need to ask. This text was excerpted in early medieval Ireland, with some but by no means all its pagan matter excised, to provide an introduction for those who at best understood the rules of this recent import but not the rationale for them; it is quoted by Bede as Disputatio Chori et Praetextati, Chorus being a corrupted form of Horus. The excerpt took on a textual life of its own, which the present edition, the first devoted to the Disputatio rather than Macrobius, seeks to clarify; it examines the manuscripts and the relations between them, presents a critical edition with apparatus criticus and translation, and attaches a full-scale commentary concerned above all with the information provided in the text.
abstract:
The first book of Macrobius' Saturnalia, written probably in the 430s AD, includes a historical exposition of the Roman calendar with a dramatic date some fifty years earlier, set in the mouth of the learned senator Vettius Agorius Praetextatus, followed by more technical detail at the request of an Egyptian named Horus, who as a foreigner is allowed to seek elementary information for which no one brought up in Roman culture would need to ask. This text was excerpted in early medieval Ireland, with some but by no means all its pagan matter excised, to provide an introduction for those who at best understood the rules of this recent import but not the rationale for them; it is quoted by Bede as Disputatio Chori et Praetextati, Chorus being a corrupted form of Horus. The excerpt took on a textual life of its own, which the present edition, the first devoted to the Disputatio rather than Macrobius, seeks to clarify; it examines the manuscripts and the relations between them, presents a critical edition with apparatus criticus and translation, and attaches a full-scale commentary concerned above all with the information provided in the text.
Contributions to journals
Contributions to edited collections or authored works
Holford-Strevens, Leofranc, “The harp that once through Aulus’ halls”, in: Pádraic Moran, and Immo Warntjes (eds), Early medieval Ireland and Europe: chronology, contacts, scholarship. A Festschrift for Dáibhí Ó Cróinín, 14, Turnhout: Brepols, 2015. 395–404.
abstract:
Dáibhí Ó Cróinín’s association of the debate in Virgilius Maro Grammaticus on the vocative of ego with that in Aulus Gellius on the vocative of egregius is confirmed by other echoes of the Noctes Atticae in the Epitomae and Epistolae. The work must therefore be added to the classical texts that were known in early medieval Ireland.
abstract:
Dáibhí Ó Cróinín’s association of the debate in Virgilius Maro Grammaticus on the vocative of ego with that in Aulus Gellius on the vocative of egregius is confirmed by other echoes of the Noctes Atticae in the Epitomae and Epistolae. The work must therefore be added to the classical texts that were known in early medieval Ireland.
Holford-Strevens, Leofranc, “Church politics and the computus: from Milan to the ends of the earth”, in: Immo Warntjes, and Dáibhí Ó Cróinín (eds), The Easter controversy of Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages: its manuscripts, texts, and tables. Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on the Science of Computus in Ireland and Europe, Galway, 18–20 July, 2008, 10, Turnhout: Brepols, 2011. 1–20.
Holford-Strevens, Leofranc, “Marital discord in Northumbria: Lent and Easter, his and hers”, in: Immo Warntjes, and Dáibhí Ó Cróinín (eds), Computus and its cultural context in the Latin West, AD 300–1200: Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on the Science of Computus in Ireland and Europe, 5, Turnhout: Brepols, 2010. 143–158.
abstract:
The report that before the Synod of Whitby King Ōswiu of Northumbria sometimes kept Easter on a day that for Queen Eanflǣd was still Palm Sunday has traditionally been interpreted with reference to the conflicting rules about luna XIIII on a Sunday and dismissed as a mere occasional nuisance. In fact, this discrepancy occurred in over half the years of their marriage, but was never due to that cause; it was not the only difference in their Easter dates, and even when their Easter dates agreed, the king’s Lent began later than the Queen’s. The consequences not only for court life but for Northumbrian society in general are considered as the background to Ōswiu’s abandonment of the Latercus at Whitby.
abstract:
The report that before the Synod of Whitby King Ōswiu of Northumbria sometimes kept Easter on a day that for Queen Eanflǣd was still Palm Sunday has traditionally been interpreted with reference to the conflicting rules about luna XIIII on a Sunday and dismissed as a mere occasional nuisance. In fact, this discrepancy occurred in over half the years of their marriage, but was never due to that cause; it was not the only difference in their Easter dates, and even when their Easter dates agreed, the king’s Lent began later than the Queen’s. The consequences not only for court life but for Northumbrian society in general are considered as the background to Ōswiu’s abandonment of the Latercus at Whitby.
