Notes on the Synod of Whitby. A study of astronomical observations in the Irish Annals

The astronomical entries scattered through the Irish Annals have been exami ned in a serious astronomical context by R.R. Newton as part of his researc h into the accelerations of the earth and moon, and by D. Schove and A. Fle tcher as part of the Spectrum of Time project. They have never, however, be en fully collated and examined as a whole as this paper undertakes to do. W hat emerges is a body of records from 442 to 1133 documenting eclipses, com ets, aurorae, volcanic dust clouds and possibly a supernova; from 664 to 11 33 all of these records are of observations made in or near Ireland, and mo st of them are accurate in their chronological and descriptive details. Ana lysis of the details of these records implies that, at least from the seven th to the eleventh centuries careful and sustained observation and recordin g of astro-nomical phenomena were conducted in some Irish monasteries and i t is clear that the underlying motive was religious and specifically eschat ological, i.e. to detect the first signs of the end of time as prognosticat ed in the Book of Revelation. Critical examination of this data allows us t o throw new light on the circumstances of the Synod of Whitby in 664 and to identify a possible Western observation of the supernova of 1054. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.