Born Probably Ireland, 2nd half of eighth century
Died Possibly Bobbio, Italy, after 827 and possibly 834
Dungal was a monk in deacon’s orders, poet, theologian, teacher, and the foremost expert on astronomy in Carolingian circles after the death of Alcuin in 804. He styles himself “exul, pauper et peregrinus.” Although some historians doubt whether the Dungal of St. Denis, of Pavia, and of Bobbio, in a putative time of four decades, are one person, the prevalent opinion is (Garrison 101) that they are one and the same (but not the same person as “Hibernicus exul”).
Dungal, whose writings show him to have been a man of unusual attainments and perhaps a son of a wealthy Scotch-Irish family, presumably left his home about 784 or somewhat later, since we find him as a recluse in St. Denis in 801. Despite his geographical and social separation from Charlemagne’s court, one may still consider him as a member (Garrison 110–112) and as a favorite of Charlemagne. He enjoyed a reputation as a...
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Selected References
Butzer, Paul L., Kerner, Max and Oberschelp, Walter (eds.) (1997), [BKO], Charlemagne and his Heritage, 1200 Years of Civilization and Science in Europe, Vol. I, Brepols.
Dungal: Migne (ed.) (1864), Dungali Reclusi epistulae de duplici solis eclipse anno 810, Patrologia Latina vol. 105: col. 447–458. Also in Dümmler (ed.), (1895), MGH, Epistolae 4, 570–578 (Reprint 1994).
Eastwood, Bruce (1994), The astronomy of Macrobius in Carolingian Europe: Dungal’s letter of 811 to Charles the Great. Early medieval Europe 3, 117–34.
Eastwood, Bruce, Graßhoff, Gerd (2004), Planetary diagrams for Roman astronomy, in Medieval Europe, Trans. American Philos. Soc. 94, Pt. 3.
Eastwood, Bruce (2007), Ordering the Heavens – Roman Astronomy and Cosmology in the Carolingian Renaissance. History of Science and Medicine Library, Vol. 4, Series Medieval and Early Modern Science.
Ferrari, Mirella, (1993), Dungal, Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Vol. 42.
Garrison, Mary (1997), The English and the Irish at the court of Charlemagne, in BKO, 97–123.
NASA, Five Millennium Catalog of Solar Eclipses (Fred Espenak), http//eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse.html.
Newton, Robert R. (1972), Medieval chronicles and the rotation of the earth, The John Hopkins Univ. Press (Reprint 1990).
Schowe, Justin (1984), Chronology of eclipses and comets AD 1–1000, The Boydell Press.
Springsfeld, Kerstin (2002), Alkuins Einfluss auf die Komputistik zur Zeit Karls des Großen, Franz Steiner Verlag.
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Butzer, P.L., Oberschelp, W., Springsfeld, K. (2014). Dungal of Saint Denis. In: Hockey, T., et al. Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9917-7_389
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