medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
The problem goes back to before the English switch to the Gregorian
Calendar, which is enacted to begin in 1751, to take effect in 1752.
The Julian Calendar, with 3 years of 365 days followed by a leap year of
366 days is not accurate enough to keep the equinoxes and solstices more or
less where they were deemed they should be over the repeated four-year
cycles. Put simply, there were too many leap years, and those added leap
days caused the seasonal markings to fall sooner than they should. For
example, by the sixteenth century, the Spring equinox was falling around
March 11/12 instead of March 21/22.
The solution was the Gregorian Calendar of 1582 instituted by Pope Gregory
XIII. Now, instead of the unvarying four-year cycle of 3 365-day years
followed by a leap year of 366 days, it was decided that the "century
years", 1600, 1700, 1800 etc, would be leap years only if they were evenly
divisible by 4--so 1600 was a leap year, but 1700 was not, nor was 1800 and
1900, but 2000 was.
There was still the problem of the equinoxes and solstices coming 10 days
earlier than they should, so in 1582 10 days were skipped, with October 4
being followed by October 15, so that year was 355 days long. But this was
only in the countries that adopted the Gregorian Calendar, and England was
one of those that did not (that little matter of the Reformation and Queen
Elizabeth I's excommunication by the pope in 1570). Thus the English
calendar was 10 days behind the calendar on the Continent.
1600 came, which was a leap year on both calendars. But 1700 was not a
leap year for those who used the Gregorian Calendar, but it still was in
England, which meant that now the equinoxes and solstices were occurring 11
days before they should and the English calendar was 11 days ahead of the
calendar on the Continent.
England corrected the disparity by adopting the Gregorian Calendar,
effective 1752, and those 11 days had to be corrected, so September 2,
1752, was followed by September 14, 1752. By excising those days, the
English calendar was now in sync with that on the Continent and the
equinoxes and solstices were falling on the dates when people felt they
should, not 11 days before.
Thus it isn't true that 1751 in England "ended on September 1st, and went
straight to January 1st 1752."
One of the problems for individuals, however, was what to do about their
birthdays--keep their old observances or add 11 days and follow the
corrected date. The American president Thomas Jefferson decided to keep to
his customary observance and even had put on his tombstone that he was born
April 2, "O. S." (for "Old Style") under the Julian Calendar in effect when
he was born in 1743, which corresponded to April 13 according to the
changes made in 1752.
However, the idea that there were riots around the changes is a myth.
I hope this is clear, that it is correct, and that it helps. I probably
missed a few details, so I stand to be corrected.
Steve Fanning
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