The De temporibus chronicle

Chapter One introduced Bede’s works on time and outlined the Insular context for the creation of Bede’s De temporibus. As we have seen, the structure of De temporibus was influenced by earlier works, such as Isidore of Seville’s Eymologiae and Irish computus texts like De divisionibus temporum. Isidore followed his discussion of all eight divisions of time with a short chronicle of universal history, which was an epitome of his earlier Chronica Maiora. Although Bede was clearly influenced by Isidore and his Irish sources, he significantly diverged from computistical tradition at this point: rather than treating the largest divisions of time, saeculi and aetates (generations and ages), as abstract concepts, he addressed them within the format of a world chronicle. The chronicle ran from Creation to Bede’s annus praesens, AD 703, and comprises the last seven chapters of De temporibus (cc. 16–22), thus concluding the work. ¹ Throughout this book I am using the term ‘chronicle’ for texts whose authors distinguished their chronicle-type works from other forms of writing: for example, Eusebius’s and Bede’s chronicle works but not their histories. The gap between chronicles and annals is narrower, as it is unclear if their compilers distinguished between these forms, and, at present, there is a lack of scholarly consensus on such nomenclature. ²