Quarter days

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In British and Irish tradition, the quarter days were the four dates in each year on which servants were hired, and rents were due. They fell on four religious festivals roughly three months apart and close to the two solstices and two equinoxes.

The significance of quarter days is now limited, although leasehold payments and rents for land and premises in England are often still due on the old English quarter days.

The quarter days have been observed at least since the Middle Ages, and they ensured that debts and unresolved lawsuits were not allowed to linger on. Accounts had to be settled, a reckoning had to be made and publicly recorded on the quarter days.[1]

In England

The English quarter days (also observed in Wales and the Channel Islands) are:

Lady Day was also the first day of the year in British dominions (excluding Scotland) until 1752 (when it was harmonised with the Scottish practice of 1 January being New Year's Day). The British tax year still starts on 'Old' Lady Day (6 April under the Gregorian calendar corresponded to 25 March under the Julian calendar). The dates of the Quarter Days observed in northern England until the 18th century were the same as those in Scotland.[2]

The cross-quarter days are four holidays falling in between the quarter days: Candlemas (2 February), May Day (1 May), Lammas (1 August), and All Hallows (1 November). The Scottish term days, which fulfil a similar role as days on which rents are paid, correspond more nearly to the cross-quarter days than to the English quarter days.

There is a mnemonic for remembering on which day of the month the first three quarter days fall (Christmas being easy to recall): the second digit of the day of the month is the number of letters in the month's name. So March has five letters and Lady Day is 25 March; similarly June has four letters and September nine, with Midsummer Day and Michaelmas falling on the 24th and 29th respectively.

In Ireland

Prior to the Christianization of Ireland in the 5th century AD, the Celtic quarter days were observed:

These are now called cross-quarter days since they fall about halfway into each of the English quarters.

In Scotland

The "Old Scottish term days" corresponded approximately to the old Celtic quarter days:

  • Candlemas (2 February)
  • Whitsunday (legislatively fixed for this purpose on 15 May)
  • Lammas (1 August)
  • Martinmas (11 November).

These were also the dates of the Quarter Days observed in northern England until the 18th century.[2]

The dates for removals and for the employment of servants of Whitsunday and Martinmas were changed in 1886 to 28 May and 28 November respectively.[3] The Term & Quarter Days (Scotland) Act 1990 redefined the "Scottish term days", in official use, as the 28th of February, May, August and November respectively. The Act specifies that the new dates take effect on 13 June 1991 (12 months from the date it was passed).

See also

Notes and references

  1. ↑ Clines, David J. A. (1998). On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays, 1967-1998 (Continuum International Publishing), p. 801.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Fitton, Mike (1994) Quarter Days and Courts
  3. ↑ Mairi Robinson (chief ed.): The Concise Scots Dictionary, Aberdeen University Press, 1985
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