Talk:Julian calendar

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[edit] Start of year

As it was not directly relevant to Old Style and New Style dates so I removed it:

When recording history it is usual to use the dates recorded at the time of the event with the year adjusted to the start on the 1 January. But the start of the Julian year was not always 1 January and was altered at different times in different countries.

The ancient Roman calendar the year used in dates was the consular year, which began on the day when consuls first entered office — fixed at the Ides of March (15 March) in 222 BC,[1] but this event was moved to 1 January in 153 BC. When Julius Caesar introduced the Julian calendar the first day continued to be at 1 January of the new year.

While the start of Julian year was always 1 January the start of year was at different times in different countries. In the Middle Ages in Europe a number of significant feast days in the came to be used as the beginning of the year:

  • In Christmas Style dating the new year started on 25 December. This was used in Germany and England until the thirteenth century, and in Spain from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century.
  • In Incarnation or Annunciation Style dating the new year started on 25 March, the feast of the Annunciation. This was used in many parts of Europe in the Middle Ages, and was the style introduced by Dionysius Exiguus in AD 525.
  • In Easter Style dating, the new year started on Easter Saturday (or sometimes on Good Friday). This was used in France and some Italian cities from the eleventh to the sixteenth century. A disadvantage of this system was that because Easter was a movable feast the same date could occur twice in a year; the two occurrences were distinguished as "before Easter" and "after Easter".

1 March was the first day of the numbered year in the Republic of Venice until its destruction in 1797, and in Russia from 988 until 1492 (AM 7000). 1 September was used in Russia from 1492 until 1700.

It is not sourced, but some of it it may be of use for this article. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 13:37, 9 April 2008 (UTC)