Julius Caesar:
It all starts with Julius Caesar. No, it starts a long time before him, but he
is far enough back for our purposes. The
calendar in ancient Roman times was in a complete mess. We tend to take the calendar for granted, but
it is very important to keep an accurate calendar in place for a number of
reasons. Farming, in particular is one:
farmers need to know the dates so that they can prepare to carry out all their
essential operations at the right times in the year. Four important, fixed events occur during the
year: the two Solstices and the two Equinoxes, these “anchor” the calendar and
the seasons fit around these dates.
The winter
solstice on 22nd December is when the day is the shortest and
the night is the longest;
the summer solstice on 21st June is the longest day of the year and when the night is the shortest;
the summer solstice on 21st June is the longest day of the year and when the night is the shortest;
the spring (Vernal) and autumn (Autumnal) equinoxes on 20th March and
23rd September are when the day and the night are of equal
length.
Over time, the ancient Roman calendar which had started in synchronisation with the solar (or tropical) year, being the time it takes the Earth to orbit the Sun from one Vernal Equinox to the next, had gone completely adrift and confusion reigned.
Over time, the ancient Roman calendar which had started in synchronisation with the solar (or tropical) year, being the time it takes the Earth to orbit the Sun from one Vernal Equinox to the next, had gone completely adrift and confusion reigned.
To correct this, and get the calendar back on track,
Caesar commissioned philosophers, mathematicians and astronomers to measure the
year length accurately. They worked out
that the year was 365 and a quarter days long which, with the mathematics of
the time, was pretty close. To correct
this, they devised a system with three years of 365 days followed by one of 366
and that was imposed in 45 BC (our time) - known as the year of confusion because
it was made up to 445 days long - to correct previous errors.
However, the solar year is currently 365 days, 5 hours,
48 minutes and 46 seconds (*). But even this
figure fluctuates all the time as the Earth wobbles in its orbit around the Sun
and is tilted on its axis: which causes the seasons to follow each other over
the year. This meant that, over the
years and the centuries, the calendar started to drift again.
Gradually a clamour rose to get the calendar
corrected. Mainly this was from monks
and priests because they were greatly concerned that prayers were not being
made on the correct days for their appropriate saints and intercessions would
not be answered.
Aloysius Lilius:
Before we reach Gregory XIII’s commission to reform the
calendar, this good doctor’s contribution must be acknowledged. Lilius looked at all of the years since the
Julian calendar started, compared how many days were recorded for each year
with the length of that particular solar year, the variance and the cumulative
variance. This work amounts to over 1600
rows of data and cries out to be loaded on a spreadsheet. If only this man had a personal computer with
a good spreadsheet programme it would have saved him so much work. I would do anything I could to give him my
PC, but it is far too late now.
Lilius, and others engaged in investigating the calendar,
were greatly helped in this era by the advances in understanding of mathematics
at the time resulting from scholarly research coming from India, Persia,
Greece, Arabian and Jewish intellectuals.
Lilius was now able to examine the results of his calculations in the
light of current mathematical processes and observe clearly the trends in the
information.
The correction to the Julian calendar was, in fact, very
simple. He understood that it would be
impossible to get the calendar that we use to fit in perfectly with the solar
year as this is a variable. To keep
“our” year fairly close, he calculated that the leap years should be continued,
but leap centuries needed to enter
the equation. To be a leap century, the
year should be divisible not by four but by four hundred. The years 1600, 2000 and 2400 are leap
centuries but 1700, 1800 and 1900 are not; in other words, for every 400-year
cycle there will be 97 leap years
(containing a 29th February) not 100. Also, ten days needed to be deducted from the
current Julian calendar, then everything would be back on track.
Gregory XIII:
Eventually, in the 1570s, Pope Gregory XIII established
the long-awaited commission to reform the calendar. Antonio Lilius (brother of Aloysius)
supported the leap-century proposal. The
commission debated for a number of years and went deep into the mathematics and
astronomy of the situation discovering, as did Aloysius and others, that the
solar year is just too variable for the precision they sought. Eventually they all came around to the Lilius
plan which was presented to the Pope, adopted, sent to various monarchs and
authorities around Europe for approval then implemented in 1582.
Ten days were, therefore, dropped from the calendar that
year and henceforth the New Year would start on the 1st January each
year (not the 25th March).
Roman Catholic countries took up the Gregorian calendar
fairly quickly, but it was rejected by the Protestant and Orthodox
countries. Queen Elizabeth and her
advisers were quite interested and would have adopted the calendar there and
then; however, the Church of England objected strongly to this Papist plot and
it was not pursued at that time.
Over time, though, many countries adopted the Gregorian
calendar.
Great Britain:
Britain stuck to the Julian calendar for a long time and
for international communications was content to have OS (for Old Style) and NS
(for New Style) on its correspondence but Parliament was encouraged to correct
the Calendar. The Church of England,
this time, gave their full approval. Britain
had to drop eleven days from the calendar in 1752 (as the Julian calendar was even more adrift against the
Gregorian calendar when the change was made here) as well as the change to the
New Year date and implementation of the Leap Century rule. The change was made in September of that year
with the 3rd to the 13th days “removed”.
To forestall much of the confusion that had happened on
the Continent previously, a very comprehensive Bill was placed before and
accepted by Parliament: the Calendar
(New Style) Act 1750, to resolve as many problems as possible before the
change happened.
Legislation provided for payment of wages and interest
not to include the eleven lost days; when children should reach the age of
majority, soldiers and servants should complete their indentures and prisoners
should be released from jail.
There was a significant “Give us back our Eleven Days!” protest,
but this was ignored by the Government.
The Church of England, the newspapers and the Establishment got on with
the New Style calendar, problems arose, but these were dealt with
pragmatically.
The Quarter Days:
In Mr Duncan’s very comprehensive and wide-ranging book
(details below), he mentions very briefly that London bankers objected to paying
tax on 25th March 1753 (New Style) and the end of the tax year was moved
forward eleven days to accommodate that.
I think there was more to it than that as the Act of 1750 covered calculation of wages, salaries, interest etcetera quite comprehensively Tax, therefore, would only be paid for one
year on a “different” date and the Government had already ignored the “Give us
back our Eleven Days” movement. My
supposition is that the change was due more to Government finances than any
other reason.
Governments raise money by taxation and borrowing. The Bank of England (for instance) was
established in 1694 to raise the sum
of £1,200,000.00 to finance the war against France.
Borrowing by way of Treasury Bills and Bonds gives the
Government more certainty about their finances than just relying on
taxation. For instance, Treasury Bills
maturing up to 2068 are currently trading on the London Stock Exchange. In the 1750s the situation would be much the
same with the Government borrowing long-term on the Markets and paying interest
each quarter on the Quarter Days.
The Quarter Days are an old and traditional part of the
commercial landscape, they are:
25th March (Lady Day) 24th
June (Midsummer)
29th September (Michaelmas) 25th December (Christmas)
On these days Hiring Fairs would take place in Market
Towns across the land where farmers and estate-owners would select and employ
workers for the next season. Rents,
repayments and interest instalments for financial transactions would all fall
due on the Quarter Days. Yes, you are
right, Christmas Day was a
significant working day until relatively recently.
When Charles Dickens wrote “A Christmas Carol” in the
1840s, Christmas Day – the Quarter Day – was very definitely a working
day. Bob Cratchit did not get the day
off and, as he was working for Mr Scrooge - a money-lender, this would be a
very busy day indeed as any number of customers would be coming in to the
office to pay off loans or to pay the interest due that quarter. Bob would not be able to enjoy the Christmas
jollifications with his family until the day’s work was finished and he
eventually got home.
When the Bank
Holidays Act 1871 was passed
(eventually repealed by the Banking and
Financial Dealings Act 1971), Christmas Day had already become an accepted
Public Holiday and was not the subject of that Act.
Lady Day, the 25th March 1753 being effectively
the “old” new year’s day would be the day that a large number of Government
Bills and their “coupon” (interest) would be payable, and on the same date each
year for a long time into the future.
The Government could see the impact on their finances of continually having
to pay interest on its borrowings for the eleven days removed from the calendar. They baulked at this and unilaterally moved
the payment date forward to the 5th April each year to save this
expense. This new date obviously stuck
and from then on became the British Government’s financial year end, thus breaking
the link with the Quarter Days forever.
Every now and then a minor adjustment takes place in the
calendar year, but the addition of an extra second now and again is not
something that we often notice.
Occasionally the calendar does show an intriguing
juxtaposition, such as Ash Wednesday (the start of Lent) being followed exactly
a week later by National No Smoking Day.
Recommended reading
David Ewing DUNCAN “The Calendar. The 5000-year Struggle to Align the Clock and
the Heavens – and What Happened to the Missing Ten Days.” Fourth Estate – 1998.
Jacqueline De BOURGOING “The Calendar. Measuring Time. New Horizons.” Thames and Hudson – 2001.
(*) Glenn Research Centre – NASA:
