Dr Máirín MacCarron's new book on Bede and time is published

1 Nov 2019

Dr Máirín MacCarron has just published a new book, Bede and Time: Computus, Theology and History in the Early Medieval World (Routledge: Studies in Early Medieval Britain and Ireland, 2020).

Dr Máirín MacCarron has just published a new book, Bede and Time: Computus, Theology and History in the Early Medieval World (Routledge: Studies in Early Medieval Britain and Ireland, 2020). The research for the book was funded by a National University of Ireland / Dr Garret FitzGerald postdoctoral fellowship, which MacCarron held at NUI Galway from 2012 to 2015.

Book description

The Venerable Bede (c.673–735) was the leading intellectual figure of the early Anglo-Saxon Church, and his extensive corpus of writings encompassed themes of exegesis, computus (dating of Easter and construction of calendars), history and hagiography. This book provides the first integrated analysis of Bede’s thought on time, and demonstrates that such a comprehensive examination allows a greater understanding of his writings on time, and illuminates the place of time and chronology in his other works. Bede was an outstanding intellect whose creativity and ingenuity were apparent in various genres of writing. MacCarron argues that in innovatively combining computus, theology and history, Bede transformed his contemporaries’ understanding of time and chronology.