Seventh-century Ireland: the cradle of medieval science? IMMO WARNTJES INTRODUCTION Since the early modern period, historians of science have declared the entire period termed medieval a dark age, at least as far as Western Europe was concerned. The fall of the Roman Empire resulted, in this reading, in a loss of scientific texts and knowledge, which was only recovered in the course of the fifteenth-century Renaissance. This view was fundamentally revised in the s by the great Charles Homer Haskins, who drew attention to the so-called renais- sance of the twelfth century.  Fundamental Greek and Arabic texts became available to the Latin West through the translator schools of Spain and Sicily, and this revived Western science. In fact, the process set in slightly earlier, from around the s, personified by Gerbert of Aurillac, the future Pope Sylvester II, who had studied Arabic science in Spain.  Still, even in this reading, the period c.– remained dark, a period of no continuity of antique science, certainly of no innovation worth the name. This was not only due to a loss of texts, but also to a Christian, therefore theological-dogmatic approach to science that lacked the rationality of antique and renaissance scholars. Over the past few decades, however, doubts about this interpretation have been expressed, principally on the basis that the new and extremely complex texts available since c. could only be understood and developed further by minds capable of that task.  In fact, if science of the period – is analysed   Charles Homer Haskins, The renaissance of the th century (Cambridge, MA, , repr. ); idem, Studies in the history of mediaeval science (New York, ). Shortly afterwards, George Sarton produced his seminal Introduction to the history of science, : (Baltimore, MD, ).  For the earliest Western contact with Arabic science, see especially David Juste, Les Alchandreana primitives: étude sur les plus anciens traités astrologiques latins d’origine arabe (X e siècle) (Leiden, ), as well as the collected essays in Charles Burnett, Arabic into Latin in the Middle Ages: the translators and their intellectual and social context (Farnham, ); idem, Numerals and arithmetic in the Middle Ages (Farnham, ). For Gerbert’s scientific works, see the pioneering study by Nicolaus Bubnov, Gerberti, postea Silvestri II, papae, Opera mathematica (–) (Berlin, ); illuminating are the essays in Flavio G. Nuvolone, Gerberto d’Aurillac, da abate du Bobbio a papa dell’anno  (Bobbio, ), for the influence of Gerbert’s scientific opus, especially those by Marco Mostert and Menso Folkerts.  An excellent reappraisal of early medieval science can be found in Wolfgang Hein, Die Mathematik im Mittelalter: von Abakus bis Zahlenspiel (Darmstadt, ), though the importance of computus is underrated in Music and the Stars_Kelly & Doherty 09/07/2013 15:20 Page 44