Daily Medieval

One of the oldest calendars in continuous use is the Hebrew Calendar. It was not just a way of counting days to get through a solar cycle, h...

We've been looking at the origins of the terms Anno Domini and Before Christ to mark the passing of years. Those were Christian-centri...

After Dionysius Exiguus used the phrase anno Domini  to describe the year (525) in which he was writing a table of dates for Easter, the co...

The post about Quarter Days promised an explanation for Cross-Quarter Days, and here it is. Just as the Quarter Days are the solstices and ...

I mentioned yesterday that Lady Day was one of the Quarter Days, and that I would explain them. As you might guess, Quarter Days are a Brit...

Yesterday's post on the new year  mentioned the solstices and equinoxes and their significance in the calendar year. The winter solstice...

Yesterday's post briefly pointed out the confusion over how to state the year that legislation took place when the date of the start of...

Michaelmas (Michael's Mass) honors St. Michael the Archangel. He is credited with defeating Lucifer during the war in Heaven that led to...

The term "Tridentine" refers to the Council of Trent (1545 through 1563), the 19th ecumenical council of the Roman Catholic Church...

It seems obvious to Westerners that the new year should start on the first of January, which we then named New Year's Day. This is fairl...

It is the first of April, and while you might expect something about pulling pranks and acting the fool, instead we are going to talk about...

Following on the heels of yesterday's discussion of Leap Day, I thought we should give some attention to the poor saint whose feast day...

Bernard of Botone (d.1266) gloss on Leap Day Most of you know that Julius Caesar in the 1st century BCE wanted to fix the fact that sol...

We have looked at some of the possible reasons for dating Christ's birth to December 25th, but how early was that dating settled upon?...

Was December 25th the default date for Christmas because of a Roman Saturnalia or because of deliberate copying with Mithraism? Connected...

Sunrise on the Winter Solstice at Stonehenge Sol stitium  [Latin: "sun standing still"] is the origin of the Modern English s...

This is the 500th post on the Daily Medieval blog. In its honor, let us look at the year 500 CE and how it overlaps some of the previous ...

Month of May from British Library MS Harley 2332 I don't mean locating a mate, but the practice of locating a particular event some...

[ source ] In the Middle Ages, birthdays were not usually marked by the common people. They didn't keep calendars on the kitchen wal...

Clearly, Old New Year is still a big deal! Happy New Year! Today, 14 January,* is the "original" New Year's Day in the J...