Sir, – The poet Mary O’Malley, writing humorously about new year celebrations, says of January 1st, “Pope Gregory set the date in stone in 1852″ (”It’s true that no one ever regarded the first of January with indifference”, Rite & Reason, December 31st).
Pope Gregory XIII did not set January 1st as the start of the year, rather Julius Caesar did in his Julian calendar of 45 BC, but Pope Gregory accepted it, which was significant.
The Christian church had its own religious moveable calendar, still with us notably in relation to the date of Easter.
From early times, the Feast of the Annunciation in many Christian lands was start of the year and fixed for civil purposes as March 21st, the vernal equinox, or a contiguous date.
That changed with Pope Gregory’s bull Inter Gravissimas. Neither was the date of the Gregorian calendar 1852 (a typo), rather it came into effect on October 4th, 1582.
For many centuries before, scholars had reckoned the Julian calendar slightly in error in calculating the number of days in the solar year and reckoned the number of days by which the Julian calendar was out in their respective lifetimes.
By the 16th century, the number of days out could have been reckoned as high as 14 but 10 was chosen. So, the following day to October 4th, 1582, became not the Julian 5th but the Gregorian 15th.
The Gregorian calendar of 1582 was accepted in Catholic lands but not in Protestant ones, including Elizabethan England. That remained the case in England and its colonies for nigh on 200 years when London decided to row in with the rest of Europe, Catholic and Protestant now too, though not Orthodox (Russia did not make the change until 1918 post-revolution, and Greece not till 1923) and adopted the Gregorian or “New Style” calendar as London preferred to call it. The change in Great Britain and Ireland occurred on September 2nd, 1752, skipping 11 days, one day extra being required for the delay since 1582 to make up for the Julian fault, so the next day became September 14th. In London there were riots by crowds believing they had lost 11 days of their lifespans. – Yours, etc,
Dr DECLAN O’DONOVAN,
Dalkey,
Co Dublin.