Byrhtferth

Byrhtferth (Old English: Byrhtferð; c. 970 – c. 1020) was a priest and monk who lived at Ramsey Abbey in Huntingdonshire (now part of Cambridgeshire) in England.

[3] Cyril Roy Hart also tentatively identifies him as the author of the verse Menologium preserved as a preface to a manuscript of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,[9][10] although Kazutomo Karasawa believes it more likely to have been written by an older contemporary.

[4] However, many scholars argue that these works were not written by Byrhtferth, but instead were a compilation of material by several writers in the late ninth and early tenth centuries.

[4] St John's College, Oxford MS 17 [13] contains several computistical works by Bede and Helperic, and a computus which includes the Latin Epilogus ("Preface") by Byrhtferth.

He also constructed a full-page diagram showing the harmony of the universe, and suggesting correspondences among cosmological, numerological, and physiological aspects of the world.

Byrhtferth's diagram with the Four elements (earth, water, air, fire), seasons, solstices, equinoxes, signs of the zodiac and ages of man. An Ogham inscription is in the centre. Miniature from twelfth century English medieval manuscript MS Oxford St John's College 17, folium 7 verso. Copy from original about 1000 AD by Byrhtferth.