Abstract
The late tenth-century Old English metrical calendar Menologium has been compared with some Old Irish calendar poems ever since Hennig claimed in his influential article published in 1952 that Old Irish Félire Adamnáin and Énlaith betha are obvious Irish counterparts of the Menologium. Hennig regarded the cyclic structure of the Menologium and its incorporation of the feasts of the saints into the natural cycle of the year as two telling signs of the influence. His view has escaped any major assessment or criticism and has been repeated in subsequent Menologium scholarship. If we reexamine the issue, however, it turns out that it is difficult to detect any major affinity between these Old English and Old Irish poems that might show a close connection between them. The cyclic structure of the Menologium has its origin in its peculiar system of locating feasts and not in some influence from Old Irish poems, whereas the incorporation of the feasts of the saints into the natural cycle is universally attested and is not necessarily attributed to some peculiar tradition of early medieval Irish Christianity. Those calendar poems are, in fact, quite different both in their structure and their nature; unlike the Old Irish poems, the Menologium has a methodical structure and is computistical, practical and informative, while the Old Irish calendar poems are naturalistic, impressionistic and devotional, which the Menologium is not.
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