HOWLETT, D. R.

I-Revues

A POSSIBLE DATE FOR ALDHELM'S 
'LETTER TO HEAHFRITH' 
In an earlier issue of this journal I edited Aldhelm's 'Letter to 
Heahfrith', a polemic composition designed to dissuade a young 
Englishman from study in Ireland by extolling Theodore and 
Hadrian and flamboyantly displaying the form of learning inculcat­
ed in their school at Canterbury. ' In implying that the new English 
learning superseded the older Irish tradition Aldhelm quoted respect­
fully at the beginning of the letter the diction of the finest Irish Latin 
poem, Altus Prosator, perhaps by Virgilius Maro Grammaticus.2 At 
the end of the letter in the words 
Ut uersidicus ait : Digna : 
Fiat fante Glingio 
gurgo fugax fambulo 
Aldhelm simultaneously parodied Irish Latin verse and prose, the 
rhyming heptasyllabic couplets composed by Irish poets of the sev­
enth century and the words of the most famous and imaginative Irish 
grammarian of the seventh century, who had written3 
Verumtamen ne in illud Glengi incedam, quod cuidam conflictum fugienti 
dicere fidenter ausus est : gurgo inquit fugax fambulo dignus est, pauca tibi tui 
negotii necessaria de pronomine profabor. 
1. D. R. HOWLETT 'Aldhelm and Irish Learning', ALMA LH (1994), pp. 37-75 at 
37-58. 
2. Idem 'Three Works by Virgilius Maro Grammaticus' in 'Seven Studies in 
Seventh-Century Texts', Perula Χ (1996), pp. 1-70 at 50-7. 
3. G. PoLARA and L. CARUSO ed. and transi. Virgilio Marone grammatico Epitomi 
ed Epistole (Naples 1979), p. 206. 
100 D. R. HOWLETT 
Long before Aldhelm a feature recurrent in the Hiberno-Latin tra-
dition was the infixing of indications of dates of composition. In the 
Epistola de Controuersia Paschali written to Ségéne fifth abbot of 
Iona and Béccán the hermit A.D. 633 about reckoning of the date of 
Easter the computist Cummian enclosed his argument within a chi-
astic envelope, A-B-c-argument-c'-ß'-A', in which the six outer parts 
contain exactly 633 words.4 
In Versus de Annis a Principio the poet dates his work three 
ways,5 first from the baptism of Christ to the death of Domnall King 
of the Scots in A.D. 645, second from that date forward to the end of 
the period of his reckoning, and third backward to Creation. The 
number of the ages of the world squared equals the number of lines 
in the poem (6X6 = 36), and the number of lines squared equals the 
number of letters in the text (36 X 36 = 1296). The three categories 
of the poet's reckoning doubled equal the number of ages of the 
world, which, added to the doubled number of the year of composi-
tion, equals the number of letters (3 X 2 = 6 ; 645 X 2 = 1290 ; 
6 + 1290 = 1296). 
Laidcenn mac Baith Bannaig of Clúain-ferta Mo-Lúa signed his 
Lorica in a central line, in which the central word is centro.6 Within 
the verse is an anagram identical in metre and rhyme with the verse 
in which it is embedded : 
CAPITALI CÈNTRO CARTILÀGINI 
TÍ[BI] PRÁCTICA LORICA LÁITGENNI 
for you an effective Lorica of Laidcenn. 
Laidcenn may also have dated his poem. 
4. M. WALSH and D. Ó CRÓINÍN ed. and transi. Cummian s Letter 'De controver-
sia paschali' together with a related Irish computistical tract 'De ratione conputan-
di\ Studies and Texts LXXXVI (Toronto 1988). D. R. HOWLETT 'Cummian's Letter 
to Ségéne and Béccán' in 'The Earliest Irish Writers at Home and Abroad', Peritia 
VIII (1994), pp. 10-17 ; 'Afterthoughts on Foreskins in Cummian's Letter' in 'Five 
Experiments in Textual Reconstruction and Analysis', Ibid. IX (1995), pp. 1-50 at 
3-6 ; The Celtic Latin Tradition of Biblical Style (Dublin 1995), pp. 91-102. 
5. 'Seven Studies', pp. 1-6. 
6. D. R. HOWLETT 'Laidcenn mac Baith : Egloga and Lorica' in 'Five 
Experiments', pp. 6-18 ; Ά Possible Date for Laidcenn's Lorica' in 'Seven Studies', 
pp. 68-9. 
A POSSIBLE DATE FOR ALDHELM'S 'LETTER TO HEAHFRITH' 101 
Suffragare Trinitatis Unitas, 
Unitatis miserere Trinitas, 
Suffragare queso mihi pósito 
Maris magni uelut in periculo, 
Ut non secum trahat me mortalitas 
Huius anni neque mundi uanitas. 
Undertake support, Unity of Trinity, 
be merciful, Trinity of Unity, 
undertake support, I ask, for me placed 
as if in the peril of a great sea, 
so that the mortality of this year may not draw me with it 
nor the vanity of the world. 
The last syllable of huius anni is the fifty-ninth of the poem, repre-
senting perhaps the year of the century. The sixth line may represent 
the month of the year. The twenty-third word may represent the day 
of the month. In the year 659 the twenty-third day of June was the 
Second Sunday after Trinity, the twenty-second day from Whitsun 
inclusive, which occurred after the twenty-second week of that year. 
Laidcenn's death is recorded in the Annals of Ulster s.a. 661. 
In the Antiphonary of Bangor the Memoria Abbatum Nostrorum, 
which begins Sancta sanctorum opera, celebrates fifteen abbots of 
Bangor, of whom the last named, Cronanus, who ruled A.D. 680-91, 
is mentioned in the present and future tenses.7 The numbers of let-
ters in the Prologue, the four alphabetic stanzas, and the refrain in the 
future tense about Crónán, 152 + 120 + 124 + 121 + 125 + 41, total 
683, which may suggest the year of composition. 
In the same manuscript the Versiculi Familiae Benchuir, which 
begin Benchuir bona regula,8 contain exactly 686 letters, which may 
suggest the year of composition. 
Nearly a century after Cummian in the Hiberno-Latin tradition, a 
generation after Aldhelm in the Anglo-Latin tradition, the Venerable 
Bede published his Ecclesiastical History of the English People in 
A.D. 731, composing the Preface in one hundred lines, every one of 
which ends with a correct cursus rhythm. ' From Historia 
7. Celtic Latin Tradition, pp. 187-9. 
8. Ibid. pp. 189-93. 
9. D. R. HOWLETT 'Insular Latin Writers' Rhythms', Peritia XI (1997 forth-
coming). 
102 D. R. HOWLETT 
Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum and Praefatio to Explicit Praefatio 
inclusive there are exactly 731 words. 
In his Breuiloquium de omnibus Sanctis Wulfstan the Cantor of 
Winchester fixed the text with a Prologue in epanaleptic couplets, in 
which the first letters of the hexameter verses form the acrostic 
WLFSTANVS.I0 There are as many letters in the Prologue as there 
are lines in the rest of the poem, 696. The Epilogue exhibits an acros-
tic NVNC ET IN AEWM DEO GRATIAS AMEN and a telestich 
NVNC ET IN AEWM SIT DEO LAVS AMEN. The 994 letters of the 
Epilogue may suggest the year of composition. 
In an earlier issue of this journal I edited Aldhelmi Carmen 
Rhythmicum, about a storm that destroyed a church in which 
Aldhelm was praying on Saint Paul's Day, 29 June. " Beginning from 
1 January, 29 June is the 180th day of the year. There are 180 lines 
of verse before et nisi natalicia Pauli Sancii sollemnia. Beginning 
from et nisi natalicia there are eighteen words before nouies binos 
circiter. After Pauli Sancti sollemnia there are eighteen lines of verse 
to the end of the Epilogue. From sollemnia inclusive to the end of the 
Epilogue there are fifty-two words, one for each week of the year. 
From Pauli Sancti inclusive to the end of the Epilogue there are 365 
letters, one for each day of the year. The number of letters in parts I 
and II is exactly ten times that amount, 3650. 
Given the conventions of dating texts long before Aldhelm in the 
Hiberno-Latin tradition and after Aldhelm in the Anglo-Latin tradi-
tion, indeed in Aldhelm's own poem, it is not unreasonable to look 
for indications of date in the 'Letter to Heahfrith'. n 
Theodore and Hadrian began to teach in Canterbury from A.D. 670 
and may have taken awhile to persuade someone like Aldhelm, who 
had been taught by the Irishman Maeldub, that their learning was 
superior to that of Irish scholars. As from A.D. 675 Aldhelm was 
10. E DOLBEAU 'Le Breuiloquium de omnibus Sanctis. Un poème inconnu de 
Wulfstan chantre de Winchester', Analecta Bollandiana CVI (1988), pp. 35-97. 
D. R. HOWLETT 'Numerical Play in Wulfstan's Verse and Prose', Mittellateinisches 
Jahrbuch XXXI (1996), pp. 61-7. 
11. D. R. HOWLETT 'Aldhelmi Carmen Rhythmicum ', ALMA LUI ( 1995), pp. 119-
40. 
12. I owe thanks to Dr Dáibhí Ó Cróinín for suggesting the possibility of an 
infixed date in this composition. 
A POSSIBLE DATE FOR ALDHELM'S 'LETTER TO HEAHFRITH' 103 
abbot of Malmesbury, he is likely to have written this letter during 
the period between 670 and 675. 
In the edition and analysis I presented evidence of composition on 
multiples of the number 8. Among eight parallel and chiastic patterns 
the centre of the first parallelism is at line 20, and the crux of the first 
chiasmus is at the same place. '3 
Postquam uestram repedantem istuc ambrosiani 20 (19) 
ex Hiberniae brumosis circionis insulae climatibus. 
Ubi ter bino circiter annorum circulo. 
über sofiae sugens metabatur. 
Territorii marginem Britannici sospitem applicuisse. 
rumigerulis referentibus comperimus. ... 25 (24) 
Including the Salutation the sentence beginning Postquam is the 
twentieth line of the composition, though it is the nineteenth of the 
letter proper. The line that details Heahfrith's sojourn in Ireland is 
Ubi ter bino circiter annorum circulo 'where in about a thrice-dou-
ble cycle of years'. If one played loosely with the numerals ter bino, 
as 32, and multiplied them by the number of the line (21), 32 X 21 
would equal 672. Reckoning more precisely, from the beginning of 
the letter proper, from Primitus pantorum procerum praetorumque to 
ubi ter bino circiter annorum circulo inclusive, there are 112 words, 
which, multiplied by 3 and 2, equal 672. The Irish among whom 
Heahfrith had been studying used to reckon Easter on an eighty-four-
year cycle. That, multiplied by the number 8 on which composition 
of the letter is based, would equal 672. 
Oxford D. R. HOWLETT 
Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources 
Bodleian Library 
13. 'Aldhelm and Irish Learning', pp. 46-7, 51, 54-5. 


A possible date for Aldhelm's 'Letter to Heahfrith'

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