In Europe in the Middle Ages, and specifically in France, the year was
marked by the events in the Christian calendar, with the new year
beginning at Easter.

I have three questions:

Can you show me the church calendar that would have been in use?--that
is, a list of the marker events in the ecclesiastical year and their
approximate dates?

Were month and day used for anything, or were people just not aware of
them?  If you said "September" to them, would that have any meaning?

How did people mark their birthdays?  Would a person have known that
her birthday was, say, September 7th or May 26th, and would she have
observed it on that date, or only approximately?

Thank you,
Archae0pteryx

---

Request for Question Clarification by scriptor-ga on 05 Mar 2005 05:43 PST

Dear Archae0pteryx,

Look what I've found! A calculator that creates a medieval calendar
for any year between 500 and 1582 (the year of the calendar reform),
for various calendar variants:
http://www.wallandbinkley.com/mcc/mcc_main.html

When you choose a particular month and the "Show Month" option, you
will get the saints' days, ecclesiastical feasts, etc.

Dates are displayed using the old Roman system. This makes sense,
since the Roman calendar system was commonly in use throughout the
Middle Ages, and even later: Shakespeare knew that his audience
understood what the "Ides of March" were - and he wrote his plays for
ordinary people.

I know, of course, that calculation of the correct Easter date was a
real problem in the Middle Ages - all over Europe, Christians
celebrated Easter at different days in the same year; with the
calendar aligned with the Easter date, this led to differing
calendars, still confusing today for historians when reading old
documents. This was one of the reasons for the calendar reform.

Is this tool already helpful for you? If so, I will see what I can do
with the other two questions.

Greetings,
Scriptor

---

Clarification of Question by archae0pteryx-ga on 05 Mar 2005 10:25 PST

Hi, Scriptor,

How nice to see you here, and thank you for taking my question.  I'm
always confident of the answers when I see your name.  How ever did
you find that calendar calculator?  I searched and searched (as usual)
before I gave up and posted my question, and I did not even come
close.

Yes, that will completely answer my first question.  It's more than I
supposed was possible online, and this particular tool probably
couldn't be found in a book because it would take thousands of pages
to show each month for a few centuries instead of calculating them
dynamically.  (My good old hard-copy analog encyclopedia is still an
excellent resource, assuming that the history of the Middle Ages has
not really changed too much in the past ten years, but it wouldn't do
what this does.)

Please do tackle the other two parts.  Myoarin has offered some
helpful remarks too.

Tryx

---

Request for Question Clarification by scriptor-ga on 05 Mar 2005 12:55 PST

I found the calculator when I did a search for "calendrier medieval".
It was the very first result:
://www.google.de/search?hl=de&newwindow=1&c2coff=1&q=%22calendrier+medieval%22&spell=1

And myoarin-ga's note on the name day, or saint's day, is very
important. The birthday did not use to be very important to people of
earlier centuries. Actually, celebrating birthdays was often even
considered a heathen custom. Much more important was the day of
baptism, when a child received the name (usually of the day's saint)
and partook of salvation. To put in blunt words, a human did not
become a human before receiving the sacrament of baptism. Physical
birth was only of secondary importance.
Even for simple peasants, the saint's days clearly marked the dates of
the calendar. Maybe they did not know: "Today is 11 November", but
they certainly knew: "Today is Martini". The fact that knowledge of
the saint's days was common and used in everyday life is still visible
today in the European languages: In German, for example, currants are
called "Johannisbeeren" (John's Berries), because in earlier
centuries, the first berries were picked on St. John's day (24 June)
each year. The peasants did certain things on particular days,
connected recurring events with the saints' days they happened on. So
the surely knew the concept of dates, albeit in a form different from
the abstract system of the calendar. And if even the rural folks knew
the saints' days, I think that the people in towns and cities did,
too. After all, they witnessed the celebrations, processions and
holiday services; it's hard to imagine that anyone could ignore the
saints' days.
So I think that most people in the middle ages understood the concept
of dates, and that they knew on what day they had been baptized. The
question whether they knew and used the months' names is a bit more
tricky. I will see what research reveals.

Greetings,
Scriptor

Greetings again.
Check it out when you get to Dijon.
Concerning birthdays, I seriously doubt that people were very precise
about them.    Throughout the Christian world it was common to
celebrated one's Name Day, the church calendar date on which one's
patron saint was celebrated/remembered.  I don't know when, but it
became the practice to baptise persons with a saint's name, as is
still customary in the RC church:  all those Josephs in Bavaria in the
19th c., Rainer Maria Rilke.  Even in Lutheran Sweden 100 years ago,
the name day was more recognized than the birthday date, there being a
calendar of names, some saints, maybe the others once considered to be
such on the north rim of Christianity, although some of the names are
also old Norse ones.
Even as late as the 1890s in Sweden, people were sloppy about date of
birth.  My father's birthdate was recorded variously as one of three
consecutive dates.
Just where, I do not know, probably in the family Bible, baptism
certificate, and ?  (So how much credence can one give specific birth
dates from centuries before?)
As you know, the names of the calendar months go back to Roman times
and were used by the church, which had to keep track of things (Pope
Gregory's calendar reform) and know when Easter was coming: the first
Sunday after the full moon after the spring equinox.

I have found a German website that tells that into the 16th c. the old
German names for the months were used  (maybe 'cause the church spoke
Latin), but doesn't seem to remark on whether the months corresponded
precisely with those of the church calendar, but probably; the church
had a very important position in life then.
A start for you ...  regards

Hi, Myoarin, and thank you for your interest in helping me.  Short of
having a medieval studies scholar at my beck and call (which I may
need before I'm through), having excellent researchers and
knowledgeable commenters here at GA is like having a living library.

If there is any difference in birthdate tracking and associated
customs between the nobility and the peasantry, I am interested in
customs among common people.  I don't have any nobility in my story.

Why did you mention Dijon in particular?  It's not on my itinerary. 
Should it be?  What is there to check out in Dijon?

Thanks,
Archae0pteryx

Hello archae0pteryx-ga,

What an intriguing question. The information already gathered by
scriptor-ga and myoarin-ga piqued my interest further. I want to call
your attention to the fact that the Catholic liturgical year starts
with Advent, not Easter. In addition, I discovered that there were
variations on the beginning of the secular new year. Here are some
resources that might be helpful to you with your research for your
book, not just for information about the medieval calendar. It?s been
a lot of fun watching your questions on medieval life.

~ czh ~


http://www.lepg.org/liturgy.htm
The Liturgical Year

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liturgical_year
Liturgical year

http://medievalwriting.50megs.com/elephantbook/history.htm
General Medieval History Resources
***** This is a fantastic collection of resources that I highly recommend.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0271019042/103-7809790-8659834
The Medieval Calendar Year

http://www.getty.edu/art/collections/presentation/p41_127344-1.html
Medieval Calendars 
The medieval calendar served as a map of the Church year. While
following the method of the Roman calendar in determining dates, it
also listed saints' days and other religious feasts and recorded the
phases of the moon. Many calendars also featured related illustrations
of saints, feasts, monthly labors, leisure activities, and signs of
the zodiac.

http://www.compusmart.ab.ca/fhenders/pdf/HistoricalDatesMedievalLiturgical.pdf
?Historical? Dates in Medieval Liturgical Calendars

http://the-orb.net/encyclop/culture/music/orbdyer.html
The Medieval Mass and Its Music
 -- The Liturgical Year
 -- The Medieval Experience of the Mass
 -- Medieval Interpretations of the Mass
 -- Selective Bibliography

Oh, thank you, czh, how kind!  (I keep wishing you had a pronounceable
pseudonym.)  I am grateful for your good suggestions.  I'm building a
little reference file of topics and URLs, and I will add these.

Barbara Tuchman says (A Distant Mirror, p. xv):  "Unfortunately,
medieval chronology is extremely hard to pin down.  The year was
considered to begin at Easter and since this could fall any time
between March 22 and April 22, a fixed date of March 25 was generally
preferred ... Moreover, chroniclers did not date an event by the day
of the month but by the religious calendar--speaking, for example, of
two days before the Nativity of the Virgin, or the Monday after
Epiphany, or St. John the Baptist's Day, or the third Sunday in Lent."

This is where I got the idea that the new year began at Easter.

I don't necessarily mean the Church's year.  I don't care about the
Church in this context except as it set the calendar of dates by which
things were known.  If there was such a thing as a secular year,
that's what I'm referring to.

Anyway, there are some Cathars in the picture, and they don't care
about the Church's year either.

I have the feeling that if and when my story ever makes it out into
the world, a number of folks are going to think it sounds awfully
familiar...

Tryx

Hello again Tryx,

About my name. I didn't realize when I first registered for GA that I
had only one chance to pick a name so I'm stuck with one that I meant
to be a temporary placeholder.

I'm having fun looking at your questions because I love history,
political science, psychology and religion and this question about
medieval calendars has it all. You're right about some places using
Easter as the start of the year. I took another look and came up with
a very interesting long article that might be of interest to you. It
provides an excellent discussion of the difficulties of figuring out
medieval dates. In addition, I think you'll get a kick out of the
Useful Pre-1650 trivia. Enjoy!

~ czh ~

http://www.locksley.com/Today/
THE MEDIEVAL BOOK OF DAYS: INFORMATION SHEET

Some comments by Tony Jebson, a Society member from England: 

I read with interest Susan Caroll-Clark's article on time (looking
forward to seeing the rest of these!), and thought I'd summarise some
of the starts to the calendar year (I've found 8). All of these are
expressed relative to our current Jan 1 start:

1. The Annunciation (25th March) preceding January 1st. Known as the
"Stylus Pisanus", used in Pisa.

2. September 1st preceding January 1st. Known as the Constantinople Indiction. 

3. September 24th preceding January 1st. Known as the Caesarean Indiction. 

4. December 25th (Christmas Day, Mid-Winters day) preceding January 1st. 

5. January 1st! Yes, some places actually used this one... 

6. The Annunciation (25th March) after January 1st. Known as the
"Stylus Florentinus", used in Florence.

7. March 1st after January 1st. used in Venice. 

8. Easter. Wonderful! A different start every year... used in France.

This should be rather interesting:

Borst, Arno: The Ordering of Time

"This book is a concise history of the use and interpretation of time,
written by one of the foremost medievalists in Europe today":
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/hfs.cgi/00/12609.ctl

Available here:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0226066592/202-6383572-1323037

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0226066592/103-1320758-1328635

"Search inside this book" (including "Table of Contents" etc.):
http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0226066592/ref=sib_dp_pt/103-1320758-1328635#reader-link

German edition:
http://www2.txt.de/cgi-bin/WebObjects/TXTSVWagenbach.woa/45/wo/KFFrJ1THyP6y0hQNi3/2.5.7.9.0.14

HI Archy,  or Tryx, whichebver you prefer,
Just been celebrating our son's 30th birthday  (by the calndear in
this context, with obvious ingluence on my typing  ;-)  )
Dijon was a reference to your summer trip and the last comment there,
which I found supportive of my feeling that the area has more to offer
than I knew.
(That's better, the cramp from clutching a glass has gone.)

I started the above comment last might  - about 16 PST - and decided
not to send it, so when I just did, I was behind the further
discussion.
Barbara Tuchman's book is wonderful.
Another way of dating - by the year at least - was from the crowning
of the ruler, and I will swear that in the early seventies in
Australia, I received some document that still had a space for that:
something like  "in the .... year of the reign of Her Majesty", but I
can't find it (would frame it and hang it in the guest loo).
Without starting a religious discussion, our calendar now is on this
principle with "Christ the King" ruling for all times. ( I know,
dangling participle)

In the discussion in 1999 about whether the millenium started on Jan 1
2000 or 2001, there was a lot of talk about how there could not be a
year zero, so that 2000 years could only be finished at the end of the
year 2000.  Good math, maybe, but there was a "first" year  ("in the
first year after the Birth..."), and we go on counting like that now,
just that we know when one year is ended, that we are beginning the
new year. In some obituaries, this is also used:  ... died in his 98th
year."  Makes it sound like he was closer to a century than "the 97
year-old passed away on Michaelmas."

I know, no one asked for that,
and as to czh's moniker, I read silently "chick", partly (wholy?)
because I presume a lady behind any ga-name not obviously male,
especially of the comments are good  :-), correct me if I'm wrong;
I'll still like the comments.
best,

Back again.
fp-ga reecommends an excellent book, her first reference to Arno
Borst's book (Univ. of Chicago Press, $ 19.50)
Borst, 80, retired prof, is one of  - if not - the specialist on the
subject, and it is extremely interesting , much more so than  
recognized when I was just doing my thing above.
Just been reading a two column article in today's Frankfurt paper
about his latest book: Der Streit um den karolingischen Kalender"
(Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Studien und Texte, Band 36. Hahnsche
Buchhandlung, Hannover 2004 XXVIII, 200 pages, 25 Euro, if you read
German).
He claims  - and in this book is defending -  that Carl the Great was
responsible for establishing a common calendar ( the
"Reichskalender")in his wide-spread realm, based on a calendar said to
have first been drawn up in the Lorch monastery in 789, of which there
are (or were) 63 copies.  The origin for this is said to have come
from Rome via Anglo-Saxon monasteries (Irish ones, too, no doubt,
before someone takes umbrage).
In this book, Borst is defending his work mainly against the thesis of
Harvard Prof Paul Mayvaert and a couple of unnameds that the 8th c.
calendar reform occurred a generation or two earlier.
It really is a very interesting question.

Hi, all--

You guys are terrific, with all your helpful comments and suggestions.
 Thank you.  I am not really looking to become deeply educated on
timekeeping in the Middle Ages, but I am a stickler for authenticity
of detail in my writing, and that's why I check on particular points
of fact as I encounter them.  It would be too easy to follow every
interesting thread and stray away from the main task!  But if I were
going to make a quest of the question, I know there are great leads
here.

I'm not sure if Scriptor is still looking, but I'll give him a chance
to post a formal answer anyway since he has already done part of the
work.

For czh:  I got stuck with what I thought was a temporary name too,
and I wasn't too happy with it.  That's why I finally took the step of
changing it.  I'm afraid that when I hear your initials pronounced as
a name, it sounds like what I'd say just before someone says
"Gesundheit."

Archae0pteryx

tryx,  (I tried to send this yesterday, see end.)

I was just enjoying this question's display of how ga works and
recalled that in earlier times, many more saints days were celebrated,
so that I imagine that the common people did indeed have a feeling for
the calendar of saints, not one for every day, but like some people
remember birthdays, skipping along from one to the next:  "if it's
Norm's today, then Mary's is next week."  And each church was named
after a saint.  Only in modern times are we so bold as to call one 
"Christ Church". e.g., The Vatican's cathedral is St Peter's and St
Paul's  (check that before you repeat it).
And the saints each had their specialty, making them more memberable
and useful.  You asked for intercession by St. Veit against epilepsy,
St. Florian against fire, St. Anthony (of Padua, there are several
others) when you lost something, and so on.  I have a friend who still
repeats a ditty of appeal to St.A. when he's looking for something he
misplaced.  So, the saints were much present in people's minds.  I
once (30 years ago!) went to a little chapel in the country for
Laurentii in August, and the people brought their animals to be
blessed and sang a rather vivid hymn about his martyrdom  - he was
grilled, literally (maybe the source for the expression for an
intensive interegation?).
Anyway, probably you know all that from you preparation for your book,
but just to be sure.
One day you can post a question:  "Who wrote .... , and we can all buy it.  :-)
And now I need a saint that will interceed with ga so that it accepts
my posting.  It refuses to for most hours of the day and night. 
Regards, Myoarin
It refused again:  "Unable to process request. Please try again later."

I always pronounce 'czh' as 'Cesar', as in Cesar Romero, a movie star
of yesteryear.

Of course, czh-ga could be a lady.

Which would spoil everything.