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The Dating Game: Time-Keeping in the Middle Ages

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The Dating Game: Time-Keeping in the Middle Ages The Dating Game: Time-keeping in the Middle Ages Mistress Alheydis von Körckhingen, Delftwood Originally presented at Delftwood A&S, Thursday, June 22, 2006 Last updated: November 10, 2010 Event:_______________________________ Date:________________________________ Available online at: http://www.manor.frodelius.com/Classes/TheDatingGame.pdf The Dating Game: Time-Keeping in the Middle Ages page 1 Mistress Alheydis von Körckhingen The Names of the Days of the Week Although the Romans and others named the days in a rotating cycle of seven names, they did not acknowledge a civic week as we do. Market days occurred (generally) every eight days, and marked the most important civic cycle of the time. The fact that the “day” on which the market occurred shifted was of little bother to them, just as today we are not flustered by the fact that Christmas and Halloween shift by one of two days each year. The seven-day week, with Sunday as a holy day, was a product of Emperor Constantine’s edict of 321, which established Sunday as the Christian Sabbath. Some say Constantine’s policy was driven by his dual adherence to Christianity and sun-worship. A god by any other name… Our names for the days of the week derive from the seven planets known in antiquity, and the corresponding deities associated with them: Planet Roman Roman Latin Medieval Latin Churc h Use Anglo -Saxon English Planet-god Day-names Day-names Day-names Planet-God Day-names Sun Sol Dies solis Dies dominica prima feria Sun Sunday Moon Luna Dies lunae Dies lune secunda feria Moon Monday Mars Mars Dies martis Dies martis tercia Tiw Tue sday Mercury Mercurius Dies mercurii Dies mercurii quarta feria Woden Wednesday Jupiter Jupiter Dies iovis Dies jovis quinta feria Thor Thursday Venus Venus Dies veneris Dies veneris sexta feria Freya Friday Saturn Saturnus Dies saturni Dies sabbati sa bbatum Saturn Saturday Order Up! The ancients believed that the planets (including the moon and the sun) revolved around the earth. These planets were arranged with the moon closet to the earth and Saturn farthest from the earth as follows: Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn So why aren’t the days of the week in that order? Blame the Mesopotamians. Their astrologers assigned a planet-god to rule over each hour of the day. Beginning with Saturn ruling over the first hour of Saturn’s Day, the second hour of Saturday was ruled by Jupiter (moving closer to the earth); the third by Mars, etc. At the end of the day, the twenty-fourth hour of Saturday was ruled by Mars. This left the first hour of the next day to be ruled by the Sun, thus making the entire next day the Sun’s day. Following this routine, the gods’ days line up this way: (Saturday), Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday Here’s a handy little chart to help illustrate: The Dating Game: Time-Keeping in the Middle Ages page 2 Mistress Alheydis von Körckhingen The Names of the Months The first Roman calendar, said to have been developed by the mythic first king of Rome, Romulus, included only ten months, totaling 304 days (some 61¼ days short): Martis (named after Mars), Aprilis (apparently refers to raising hogs), Maius (after a local Italian goddess), Junius (after the queen of the Latin gods), Quintilis (“fifth”), Sextilis (“sixth”), September (“seventh”), October (“eighth”), November (“ninth”), December (“tenth”). Romulus’s successor, Numa, added two more months to make a 12-month year totaling 355 days, placing Januarius and Februarius at the end of Romulus’s year. Enter Julius Caesar This calendar veered wildly from the solar year, with intercalary months injected now and then to try and realign the vernal equinox with March 25, its traditional date. In 46 BC, with the calendar year running over two months off of the solar year, Julius Caesar mandated a new calendar, and extended the year 46 BC to 445 days to realign the date of the vernal equinox, calling it the “ultimus annus confusioni” (“the last year of confusion”). Ceasar moved the first of the year to January, reorganized the months into alternating lengths of 30 and 31 days, and instituted the leap year every four years. As an added touch, the Roman senate renamed Quintilius to Julius in honor of Julius Ceasar. Julius Ceasar Ceasar Augustus Charlemagne 46BC 8 BC Januarius 31 Januarius 31 Wintarmanoth Winter Februarius 29/30 Februarius 28/29 Hornung Antler shedding Martis 31 Martis 31 Lentzinmanoth Lent Aprilis 30 Aprilis 30 Ostarmano th Easter Maius 31 Maius 31 Winnemanoth Grazing Junius 30 Junius 30 Brachmanoth Plowing Quintilius/ 31 Julius* 31 Heauvimanoth Haying Julius Sextilius 30 Augustus** 31 Aranmanoth Reaping September 31 September 30 Witumanoth Wood -cutting October 30 Oc tober 31 Windumemanoth Vintning November 31 November 30 Herbistmanoth Harvest/Grazing December 30 December 31 Heilagmanoth Holy month An August Moment The Julian administration, in a baffling inability to count past three, botched up the first few leap years, ordering a leap year every three years instead of four. In 8 BC, Ceasar Augustus fixed the mess by omitting three leap years. He took the opportunity to be similarly honored by the senate when they renamed Sextilius to Augustus in his honor. Rather than have August (only 30 days) be inferior to Julius (31 days), a day was taken from February and added to August. Then, rather than have three months of 31 days on a row, the lengths of September-October and November- December were switched. Other than the few leap year errors, which were resolved by 8 AD, the Augustan calendar remained in use unchanged in Europe until the Gregorian reform of 1582. Over almost 16 centuries, it veered from the true solar year by only 10 days. The Dating Game: Time-Keeping in the Middle Ages page 3 Mistress Alheydis von Körckhingen Frankly Speaking Charlemagne, who openly emulated the Roman Caesars, introduced his own Frankish names of the months. While some of these remained in colloquial use in German speaking countries, the Roman month names were never displaced. The Days of the Month Your days are Numbered We take for granted that the days of the month are simply numbered from first to last, but for most of our period, people used the roman system of backwardly counting down to fixed marker days called Kalends, Nones and Ides. Kalends always fell on the first of the month; Nones on either the fifth or the seventh; Ides on either the 13 th or 15 th . As an example, the 31 st of December would be known as the second day before the Kalends of January. The 10 th of March would be known as the sixth day before the Ides of March. Attached is a chart giving the names of the days of the month as they were given in Medieval Church Latin. The Imperial Roman Latin phrases would have been slightly different and slightly longer. Medieval Church Latin: Septimo Idus Novembris “The seventh Ides of November” Roman Imperial Latin: ante diem septimum Idus Novembris “The seventh day before the Ides of November” Rendering the church Latin into English is pretty straightforward. Note the slight change in spelling from Latin Kaledas , Nonas and Idus to the English Kalends , Nones and Ides . Here are some examples from the month of March: Church Latin English Modern Date Kalendas Martii Kalends of March March 1 Tertio (III) Nonas Martii Third Nones of March March 5 Secundo (II) Nonas Martii Second Nones of March March 6 Pridie (eve) Nonas Martii Eve of the Nones of March March 6 Nonas Martii Nones of March March 7 Quinto (V) Idus Martii Fifth Ides of March March 11 Pridie Idus Martii Eve of the Ides of March March 14 Idus Martii Ides of March March 15 Decimo (X) Kalendas Aprilis Tenth Kalends of April March 23 Pridie Kalendas Aprilis Eve of the Kalends of April March 31 Feast Days The Medieval Calendar was punctuated by feast days, which marked the anniversaries of important dates in church history. The highest Holy days remembered events in the life of Christ and of Mary. Lesser feasts marked events in the lives of saints. In addition, high Holy Days outside of Lent were often marked by an octave, a remembrance held one week after the main feast day. Many feast days were fixed to the yearly calendar dates, but others depended upon Easter (“moveable feasts”) and shifted on the calendar from year to year. The list of “official” feast days varied from region to region throughout Europe, with saints of local importance appearing in calendars of localized use. The list of feast days also changed over time as new saints were canonized and others fell out of devotional favor. A standard source for The Dating Game: Time-Keeping in the Middle Ages page 4 Mistress Alheydis von Körckhingen feast days recognized in England is C. R. Cheney’s A Handbook of Dates for Students of British History . That’s Bologna! Bologna, Italy had it’s own way of counting the days. They counted the days entering the month up to either the 15 th (or 16 th in the case of months with 31 days). Then they counted down the days exiting the month. Under this system, May 4 th would be the quarto die intrante Madio , while May 28 th would be the quarto die exeunte (or stante ) Madio . Numbering the Years The way in which the year AD ( anno domini ) was calculated varied throughout our period. For clarity, I will use BCE (“before the common era”) and CE (“common era”) to refer to years as we currently number them in the modern western world.
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