12th Century Calendar

the year and the calendar

The 12th century year has 365 days, starting from the 25th of March. Every fourth year, the 6th day before the Kalends of March (24th February) was counted twice. This leap day was called the bisextus.

Each month (named as in modern times) was divided up into days, the first day was the "Kalends" of that month (eg Kalends of October). The 5th (or 7th in March, May, July, October) day of the month was the "Nones" and the 13th (or 15th in the above mentioned months) of the month was the ides of that month. In between days were listed as a number of days before any of these. For example: 2th January = 3 before Nones of January 25th February = 4 before Kalends March 15th March = Ides of March 14th April = 16 before Kalends May or in shorthand XVI KL May 14th May = day before ides of May

The week was seven days long, with the same names as in modern times.

Some days were considered unlucky for bloodletting and other activites- these were called egyptian days, and the dates varied with the month.

Days can also be refered to by the saints days and festivals held on that day. Many are constant in timing (eg John the baptist's nativity on 14th June) but others change according to factors such as the moon (eg easter.

Calendars also noted the soltices, equinoxes, lunar cyles (important for calculating festivals), seasons and "dogdays" - the dys the romans considered the hottest days of summer.

calculating the calendar

Some monastaries made the calculation of days and dates a specialty. Complicated tables could be used to predict factors from which weekday it will be on a certain date to when easter will fall. The complicated tables and specialisation required to read these suggest that even most literate people would not perform these tasks, rather would ask specialised monks, or their local priest. Local priests were expected to know such calculations, but accounts suggest in some areas testing of this knowledge was rather lax.

It was especially important to the religeous community to be able to calculate when special days such as easter fell, and also to remember when certain saints days might be celebrated. Books containing a day by day account of the year giving the relevant religous observances on each day (sometimes even what kind of vestments to wear) were kept for such purposes.

references

• St Alban's psalter essay "THE CALENDAR AND LITURGICAL APPARATUS" http: