DICUIL (fl.
825), Irish monastic scholar, grammarian and geographer. He was the author
of the De mensura orbis terrae, finished in 825, which contains
the earliest clear notice of a European discovery of and settlement in
Iceland and the most definite Western reference to the old freshwater canal
between the Nile and the Red Sea, finally blocked up in 767. In 795 (February
1 - August 1) Irish hermits had visited Iceland; on their return they reported
the marvel of the perpetual day at midsummer in “ Thule,” where there was
then “ no darkness to hinder one from doing what one would.” These eremites
also navigated the sea north of Iceland on their first arrival, and found
it ice-free for one day’s sail, after which they came to the ice-wall.
Relics of this, and perhaps of other Irish religious settlements, were
found by the permanent Scandinavian colonists of Icelind in the 9th century.
Of the old Egyptian freshwater canal Dicuil learnt from one “ brother Fidelis,”
probably another Irish monk, who, on his way to Jerusalem, sailed along
the “ Nile ” into the Red Sea – passing on his way the “Barns of Joseph
” or Pyramids of Giza, which are well described. Dicuil’s knowledge of
the islands north and west of Britain is evidently intimate; his references
to Irish exploration and colonization, and to (more recent) Scandinavian
devastation of the same, as far as the Faeroes, are noteworthy, like his
notice of the elephant sent by Harun al-Rashid (in 801) to Charles the
Great, the most curious item in a political and diplomatic intercourse
of high importance. Dicuil’s reading was wide; he quotes from, or refers
to, thirty Greek and Latin writers, including the classical Homer, Hecataeus,
Herodotus, Thucydides, Virgil, Pliny and King Juba, the sub-classical Solinus,
the patristic St Isidore and Orosius, and his contemporary the Irish poet
Sedulius; – in particular, he professes to utilize the alleged surveys
of the Roman world executed by order of Julius Caesar, Augustus and Theodosius
(whether Theodosius the Great or Theodosius II. is uncertain). He probably
did not know Greek; his references to Greek authors do not imply this.
Though certainly Irish by birth, it has been conjectured (from his references
to Sedulius and the caliph’s elephant) that he was in later life in an
Irish monastery in the Frankish empire. Letronne inclines to identify
him with Dicuil or Dichull, abbot of Pahlacht, born about 760.
There are seven chief MSS. of the De mensura (Dicuil’s tract
on grammar is lost); of these the earliest: and best are (1) Paris, National
Library, Lat. 4806; (2) Dresden, Regius D. 182; both are of the loth century.
Three editions exist: (1) C. A. Walckenaer’s, Paris, 1807; (2) A. Letronne’s,
Paris, 1814, best as to commentary; (3) G. Parthey’s, Berlin, 1870, best
as to text. See also C. R. Beazley, Dame of Modern Geography (London,
1897), i. 317-327, 522-523, 529; T.
Wright, Biographia Britannica literaria, Anglo-Saxon Period
(London, 1842), pp. 372-376.
(C. R. B.)
Charles
R. Beazley
Eleventh Edition