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Prima etas mundi (Irish tract)

  • Middle Irish
  • prose
An Irish prose tract on the first five ‘ages of the world’ and synchronisms of Irish prehistory with Assyrian, Greek and Roman history.
Title
Prima etas mundi (Irish tract)

The tract being without title in the manuscript, it is commonly identified by the Latin part of its opening words. When Mac Carthy printed this text and other Comaimsirachta (‘Synchronisms’) from the Book of Ballymote, he designated it as tract A.

First words (prose)
  • Prima etas mundi .i. in ced ais don doman
Manuscripts
Dublin, Royal Irish Academy, MS 23 P 12 (536) = Book of Ballymote (Leabhar Bhaile an Mhóta) [1384 x 1406]
f. 5r(9)–5v(10).inf
beg. ‘Prima etas mundi .i. in ced ais don doman’
Language
  • Middle Irish
Date

Tentatively dated to the 11th or 12th century by Hildegard Tristram (1985): 33.

Form
prose (primary)
Textual relationships
Ó Cróinín suggests that the tract may have originated in the third recension of Sex aetates mundi, a copy of which is found in BB.
(Possible) sources: Sex aetates mundiSex aetates mundi

Classification

Sources

Primary sources Text editions and/or modern translations – in whole or in part – along with publications containing additions and corrections, if known. Diplomatic editions, facsimiles and digital image reproductions of the manuscripts are not always listed here but may be found in entries for the relevant manuscripts. For historical purposes, early editions, transcriptions and translations are not excluded, even if their reliability does not meet modern standards.

[ed.] [tr.] Mac Carthy, Bartholomew [ed. and tr.], The codex Palatino-Vaticanus, no. 830, Todd Lecture Series, 3, Dublin, 1892.
Internet Archive: <link>, <link>, <link> Internet Archive – originally from Google Books: <link>
278–287

Tract A. Boyle warns that the edition and translation are to be treated with caution as they are “highly unsatisfactory”.

Secondary sources (select)

Boyle, Elizabeth, “Biblical history in the Book of Ballymote”, in: Ruairí Ó hUiginn (ed.), Book of Ballymote, 2, Dublin: Royal Irish Academy, 2018. 51–76.
Tristram, Hildegard L. C. [ed.], Sex aetates mundi: die Weltzeitalter bei den Angelsachsen und den Iren. Untersuchungen und Texte, Anglistische Forschungen, 165, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1985.
Ó Cróinín, Dáibhí [ed.], The Irish Sex aetates mundi, Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1983.
web page identifiers
Contributors
Dennis Groenewegen
Page created
May 2023, last updated: July 2023
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