"Fresh as a bridegroom; and
his chin new reap'd
Showed
like a stubble-land at harvest-home;"
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) King Henry IV. Part I. Act 1 Scene 3.
"With the current explosion of mundane questions of Y2K to set the stage and the general millennialist panic abounding, an educated explanation of how calendars were used in the Medieval Period and how specific dates for events in that period are derived for modern history texts would be very timely. I know that this might be a bit too much for one article, so you might have a "mini-series" on your hands...?" – Lord Alton Peteo
Lord Alton, I know I have been nagging on you for a year now to give me a question, and now that you have, I feel I should thank you for giving me a year’s worth of questions in several small lines. Thank you. In the upcoming year, I’ll try to have a little bit more about this every month, in addition to any other questions that come up.
So, as the first installment on this monthly "Peteo’s Pence" I will talk about the basic "calendars" used by people in the Middle Ages. There were three "years" that people understood. There were the Agricultural year, the Liturgical year and the Calendar year.
The Agricultural year really seems to have been the major calendar in people's lives, from the King to the lowliest serf. Even those people who lived in the towns were greatly effected by the ebb and flow of the seasons. This is because their lives were more closely tied to the soil. Because it is so important, it seems odd that this method of measuring the year doesn't seem to have had a real beginning. There is some sort of modern historian's thought that it began in September at Michaelmas (or St. Michael's Day, Sept 29). It was this time when the people began to harvest the fruit, plowing for the winter's crops, and fattening up the cattle and pigs in their herds that were surplus or too weak to make it through the winter. Those that aren't to be killed are moved to their winter housing. Slaughtering the surplus animals begins at Martinmas (or St. Martin's Day, Nov 11), which also marked the first day of Winter. Most of the meat is pickled, potted, cured, and preserved. The world in winter seems to have been one geared around finding things to do and keeping up people's spirits and doing all the building and maintaining chores on ditches, and buildings, and preparing for the Spring's work. Plowing and lambing begin at this time. Spring begins at the end of the first week in February, and is marked by the early planting and moving the animals out from their winter housing. Planting continues until Easter The cattle should have calved by Easter as well, and so dairy production can begin. Summer begins early in May, lambs are weaned. In June, the sheep are sheared. St. John's day marks the beginning of the hay-cutting season. August is the time to harvest grain, and bringing in the sheaves for storage. When the grain harvest ended, the grain was threshed and winnowed. By which time it was back to Michaelmas.
The Liturgical year, the year that governed the Church's celebrations, began with March 25, Lady Day or the Annunciation - the day that the Virgin Mary was told that she was going to give birth in nine months. You may remember that back in July we discussed Moveable and Immoveable Feasts? This is where that comes in, since March 25 was also the date assumed by the Medieval Church to be the Spring, or Vernal, Equinox. Easter, or Pasca, was figured to take place on the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the Vernal Equinox, and most of the moveable feasts are reckoned from the date of Easter. Palm Sunday (1 week before Easter); Shere Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, Easter, Hock Monday (or Rope Monday); Hock Tuesday (or Hockday); Hock Wednesday; Rogation Sunday (5 weeks after Easter); Rogation days (the Days between Rogation and Ascension Day); Ascension Day (Thursday after Rogation); Whitsunday (or Pentecost; the Sunday 10 days after Ascension Day and 7 weeks after Easter); Trinity Sunday (1 week after Whitsunday); and Corpus Christi Day (the Thursday after Trinity). Corpus Christi Day was a big party day. The four Sundays in Advent were also moveable feasts since they were not tied to a specific date being the four Sundays before Christmas. Finally, we come back around to Shrove Tuesday (6 weeks and 5 days before Easter and was the last big party before Lent); Ash Wednesday (6 weeks and 4 days before Easter and the first day of Lent). Lent is a season of religious penance, during which all Christians were supposed to abstain from eating meat. The immoveable feasts are mostly saint's days, or days venerating specific ritual objects or concepts. The more important of these are "The Discovery of the Cross" (also called Holy Rood Day in May and Crouchmas. May 3), The Nativity of St. John the Baptist (June 24), The Nativity of Our Lady ("Lady Day in Harvest". Sept 8), The Exultation of the Cross ("Holy Rood Day in Harvest". Sep 14), All Saint's and All Souls (Nov 1 & 2), Christmas (Dec 25), Epiphany (Jan 6). Different locations would venerate different local cults, and different saints. For example, St. Thomas a Becket and St. George are both important English Saints.
Dates in Calendar year was expressed in one of three ways, one for most people, in the Roman fashion for the more learned, and according to the feast days. The system used for expressing dates for most people was basically the same as the one we use today: "xii Ianuarii". The Roman system was based on the Kalends (abbreviated "kl."), the Nones ("N."), and the Ides ("Id."). The Kalend is the first of the month, the Nones are the 5th or 7th (depending on the month) and the Ides the 13th or 15th of the month. The dates are counted backwards to the next of these days (for example, if today is the 12th of January, it is 2 id. Tomorrow would be the Ides, the day after would be the 19 kl.). Finally, dating by the Feast days involves noting the Eve or Vigil of the Feast Day (Tomorrow is the Feast of St Hilary the Bishop, so tonight is the Vigil. The Morrow (or Second) of St. Hilary is the 14th. The Third is the 15th, and so on to eight days (the Octavas).
Determining the years was a bit different. In some places, such as England, the New Year was on April 25, which means that the number indicating the year changed only on that day. The dates would run April 23 1430 (or 1430/1); April 24, 1430; April 25, 1435, and so on (much as the AS year in the SCA changes on May 1). Another form of reckoning was to count the Regnal years, or the number of years the king has been on the throne, beginning on the date of his taking the throne.
Sources:
Carlson, I. Marc. English
Medieval Calendar. 1999.
Meeker, Harriet. "The Plain
FAQs" The Nordic Saga (July 1998)
Duncan, David Ewing. Calendar,
Humanity's Epic Struggle to Determine a True and Accurate Year. 1998
If you have any questions about things that interest you, please send them to me directly, or by way of Chronicler.