Society & Politics

The Strange Modern Calendar

Have you ever wondered where the civil calendar of the world comes from?

The Strange modern Calendar

Calendars have been used by civilizations to tell not only the days of the week but when religious ceremonies and rituals take place. Although many civilizations have had their own unique calendar over the centuries, I will be focusing on how our modern calendar became to be. Modern era uses a version called the Gregorian calendar, introduced by Pope Gregory the 13th in October, 1582 to replace the Julian calendar that was created by Julius Caesar, in 46 B.C. as a one of the reforms of the Roman ten month calendar.

Ancient Rome had a precursor to their ten month calendar which relied on the lunar cycles.

The Roman ten month calendar featured each month having either 30 or 31 days, with 51 or so days without a month at the end, also known as the Romulus Calendar, it had 360 days total. Four months had 31 days, and were called “plenti” or full, while the other remaining months were called “cavi” or hollow. The calendar started on March and ended in December.

The months were as follows: March or Mensis Martius- 31 days , April or Mensis Aprilis – 30 days, May or Mensis Maius- 31 days, June or Mensis Lunius, Quintilis-31 days or Mensis Quintilis, Sextillis or Mensis Sextilis- 30 days, September or Mensis September – 30 days, October or Mensis October -31 days, November or Mensis November – 30 days, December or Mensis December. An interesting part to that time is that they did not adhere to it as much as we do now, making some months much smaller with 20 days or some months as large as 35 or more days.

The Roman Republic reformed their calendar to more closely follow the Greeks. The Roman King Numa was credited with adding in two additional months, January or Mensis Ianuarius, and February or Mensis Februarius in the beginning for the roman citizen, while their religious figures considered it to be at the end. In order to keep in line with the solar cycle, they instituted an additional month called Mercedonis every two years. January had 29 days, February had 28, Mercedonis had 23, March had 31, April had 29, May had 31, June had 29, Quintilis had 31, Sextillis had 29, September had 29, October had 31, November had 29, and December had 29. For two years, they had a calendar of 355 days, and every third year, they would have 377 days in total.

The Strange Modern Calendar

Julius Caesar had modified the calendar following his victory of the Great Roman Civil war, doing away with Mercedonis and adding more days to the year. The Julian calendar has 365 days of the year, divided into twelve months and features a leap day every four years.

Caesar institutionalized his version to approximate the solar year as inter-calculations were not done on a regular basis as intended and only added in by pontifices who managed the calendar and were politicians as well. Roman senators’ terms coincided with the calendar year, so the pontifices could change the year’s length to hurt their rivals or help their buddies. This irregular editing of the calendar to the solar year made things very confusing, especially during times of war. The calendar right after Caesar instituted the change had to include over four hundred days.

The month of Quintilis was renamed July, named after Julius Caesar and Sextillis was renamed after Emperor Augustus after their deaths by the Romans. The months were modified to have more days: January became 31, February became 28 or 29 depending on the year, March remained 31, April became 30, July remained 31, August became 31, September became 30, October remained 31, November became 30 and December became 31.

The Julian calendar had one problem that did not eventually fit into the plan of the Catholic Church as the solstices and equinoxes were not on fixed days but had drifted due to the setup of the leap years occurring too often due to calendar error, leap day had been on the third year for some time. February was also the last month of the year and the day itself was on the 24th instead of being added to the last day of the month. The Gregorian calendar made it easier for those of the faith to identify Easter. The drift still occurs but not as much under the Julian calendar but we will never be able to really give either of those occurrences a full accurate time as the days’ length increases due to the slowing of the Earth’s rotation but that is under thousands of years.

The majority of the world has adopted the Gregorian calendar for general use but there are exceptions- Iran, Afghanistan and Ethiopia. Other countries use the Gregorian calendar alongside their own.

The Strange Modern Calendar
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