Rob Seaman said:
>> In the UK in 1750, there were two different Julian calendars in
>> use: the
>> day and month enumeration matched, but year numbers changed at
>> different
>> dates (1st January in Scotland, 25th March in England and Wales).
>
> I've heard this said, but what exactly does this mean from the point
> of view of the people of the time? Could see how the 1st of any
> month would be as good as any other for marking the count of years.
> But presumably you are saying something like that the sequence of
> dates was:
>
> 22 March 1750
> 23 March 1750
> 24 March 1750
> 25 March 1751
> 26 March 1751
> 27 March 1751
>
> Right?
Correct.
To quote *current* UK law:
====
That in and throughout all his Majesty's Dominions and Countries in Europe,
Asia, Africa, and America, belonging or subject to the Crown of Great
Britain, the said Supputation, according to which the Year of our Lord
beginneth on the 25th Day of March, shall not be made use of from and after
the last Day of December 1751;
and that the first Day of January next following the said last Day of
December shall be reckoned, taken, deemed and accounted to be the first Day
of the Year of our Lord 1752;
and the first Day of January, which shall happen next after the said first
Day of January 1752, shall be reckoned, taken, deemed and accounted to be
the first Day of the Year of our Lord 1753;
and so on, from Time to Time, the first Day of January in every Year, which
shall happen in Time to come, shall be reckoned, taken, deemed and
accounted to be the first Day of the Year;
and that each new Year shall accordingly commence, and begin to be
reckoned, from the first Day of every such Month of January next preceding
the 25th Day of March, on which such Year would, according to the present
Supputation, have begun or commenced:
====
> What this suggests to me is that the day-of-the-month and year-of-our-
> Lord counts were considered to be separate entities by folks of that
> time.
Right.
> Was also thinking to comment that day-of-the-week seems to have been
> considered quite distinct from day-of-the-month. Our current usage
> is to tie all three together into a single unitary calendar.
> Presumably this dates from Gregory, too, along with all the other
> cycles his priests were seeking to synchronize.
No, this seems to be *much* older, coming from Jewish practice. Gregory
didn't touch the sequence of days of the week.
--
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Received on Thu Jun 08 2006 - 01:00:56 PDT