This week we are delighted to talk to the always enlightening Dr Christian Schweizer about his Research Ireland funded research on Dicuil, an Irish scholar who was prominent in the Carolingian Court in Aachen in the early 9th century. Dicuil wrote many fascinating texts covering a variety of disciplines including geography, astronomy and computistics, some of which, Dr Schweizer explains were annual "gifts" owed to King/Emperor Louis the Pious in return for his patronage. We also hear about other famous Irish scholars on the continent and ponder whether there are many parallels between their experiences and academia today.

Suggested reading:

-Christian Schweizer, ‘Categorizing Dicuil’s De cursu solis lunaeque’ in Peritia: Journal of the Medieval Academy of Ireland, xxxiii (2022), pp 227-48.⁠ https://doi.org/10.1484/J.PERIT.5.131906⁠

-Anthony Harvey, ‘"Battling Andrew" and the West-Brit Syndrome Twelve Hundred Years Ago’, Classics Ireland 9 (2002), 19-27.
- Anthony Harvey, How linguistics can help the historian (Dublin, 2021), 11-22.

-Sam Ottewill-Soulsby, ‘The Elephant’s Knee: Questioning Ancient Wisdom in the Ninth Century’, in The Historian’s Sketchpad, November 30, 2023.

⁠https://salutemmundo.wordpress.com/2023/11/30/the-elephants-knee-questioning-ancient-wisdom-in-the-ninth-century/⁠

- Tutrone, F. (2020). ‘Lucretius Franco-Hibernicus: Dicuil's Liber de astronomia and the Carolingian reception of De rerum natura’, Illinois Classical Studies 45.1, 224-52.

- Ross, H. E. and Knott, B. I. (2019), ‘Dicuil (9th century) on triangular and square numbers’, British Journal for the History of Mathematics, 34.2, 79-94.

- Dicuil, Liber de mensura orbis terrae, ed. & trans. J. J. Tierney [and Ludwig Bieler] (1967). Dublin: School of Celtic Studies.

Regular episodes every two weeks (on a Friday)

Email: medievalirishhistory@gmail.com

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Supported by the Dept of Early Irish, Dept of Music, Dept of History, Maynooth University, & Taighde Éireann (formerly Science Foundation Ireland/Irish Research Council).

Views expressed are the speakers' own.

Production: Tiago de Oliveira Veloso Silva.

Logo design: Matheus de Paula Costa

Music: Lexin_Music