Computus in the context of "Laterculus"

Computus in the context of "Laterculus"

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⭐ Core Definition: Computus

As a moveable feast, the date of Easter is determined in each year through a calculation known as computus paschalis (Latin for 'Easter computation') – often simply Computus – or as paschalion particularly in the Eastern Orthodox Church. Easter is celebrated on the first Sunday after the Paschal full moon (a mathematical approximation of the first astronomical full moon, on or after 21 March – itself a fixed approximation of the March equinox). Determining this date in advance requires a correlation between the lunar months and the solar year, while also accounting for the month, date, and weekday of the Julian or Gregorian calendar. The complexity of the algorithm arises because of the desire to associate the date of Easter with the date of the Jewish feast of Passover which, Christians believe, is when Jesus was crucified.

It was originally feasible for the entire Christian Church to receive the date of Easter each year through an annual announcement by the pope. By the early third century, however, communications in the Roman Empire had deteriorated to the point that the church put great value in a system that would allow the clergy to determine the date for themselves, independently yet consistently. Additionally, the church wished to eliminate dependencies on the Hebrew calendar, by deriving the date for Easter directly from the March equinox.

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👉 Computus in the context of Laterculus

A laterculus was, in late antiquity or the early medieval period, an inscribed tile, stone or terracotta tablet used for publishing certain kinds of information in list or calendar form. The term thus came to be used for the content represented by such an inscription, most often a list, register, or table, regardless of the medium in which it was published. A list of soldiers in a Roman military unit, such as of those recruited or discharged in a given year, may be called a laterculus, an example of which is found in an inscription from Vindonissa. The equivalent Greek term is plinthos (πλίνθος; see plinth for the architectural use).

A common type of laterculus was the computus, a table that calculates the date of Easter, and so laterculus will often be equivalent to fasti. Isidore of Seville said that a calendar cycle should be called a laterculus "because it has the years put in order by rows," that is, in a table.

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