The other landmark of importance is furnished by a Berlin fragment containing a computation for finding the correct date for Easter Sunday.[28] Internal evidence makes it clear that this _Computus Paschalis_ first saw light shortly after A.D. 447. The presumption is that the Berlin leaves represent a very early copy, if not the original, of this composition. In no case can these leaves be regarded as a much later copy of the original, as the following purely palaeographical considerations, that is, considerations of style and form of letters, will go to show. [Footnote 28: See below, p. 16.] Let us assume, as we do in geometry, for the sake of argument, that the Fulda manuscript and the Berlin fragment were both written about the year 500--a date representing, roughly speaking, the middle point in the period of about one hundred years which separates the extreme limits of the dates possible for either of these two manuscripts, as the following diagram illustrates: Berlin Paschal Computus Codex Fuldensis of the Gospels A D 447 |<-----------------+------------------->| ca A D 546 A.D. 500 If our hypothesis be correct, then the script of these two manuscripts, as well as other palaeographical features, would offer striking similarities if not close resemblance. As a matter of fact, a careful comparison of the two manuscripts discloses differences so marked as to render our assumption absurd. The Berlin fragment is obviously much older than the Fulda manuscript. It would be rash to specify the exact interval of time that separates these two manuscripts, yet if we remember the slow development of types of writing the conclusion seems justified that at least several generations of evolution lie between the two manuscripts. If this be correct, we are forced to push the date of each as far back as the ascertained limit will permit, namely, the Fulda manuscript to the year 546 and the Berlin fragment to the year 447. Thus, apparently, considerations of form and style (purely palaeographical considerations) confirm the dates derived from examination of the internal evidence, and the Berlin and Fulda manuscripts may, in effect, be considered two dated manuscripts, two definite guide-posts. If the preceding conclusion accords with fact, then we may accept the traditional date (circa A.D. 371) of the Codex Vercellensis of the Gospels. The famous Vatican palimpsest of Cicero’s _De Re Publica_ seems more properly placed in the fourth than in the fifth century; and the older portion of the Bodleian manuscript of Jerome’s translation of the _Chronicle_ of Eusebius, dated after the year A.D. 442, becomes another guide-post in the history of uncial writing, since a comparison with the Berlin fragment of about A.D. 447 convinces one that the Bodleian manuscript can not have been written much after the date of its archetype, which is A.D. 442. [Sidenote: _Dated uncial manuscripts_]