New Year's
Day:
Based on Roman custom, January 1st retained this name through the middle
ages even though the
date of the church year did not officially change until March 25th (see
below). The Roman custom of gift giving was observed on New Year's
Day in the middle ages as one of the 12 days of Christmas (today this has
shifted to Christmas day). Romans had exchanged strenae, called étrennes
by the French, hoguinane by the Normans and handsels by the English,
a term also used in Scotland,1
where hogmanay first meant a gift made to the poor or to children
at the New Year.3
In
the 13th century the English monarch Henry III was criticized for
extorting New Year gifts f3
A description of
New Year's Day festivities, including the word handsels, is found in
the 14th century poem, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight:
Wyle
New Yer was so yep that hit was new cummen,
That day doubble on the
dece was the douth served,
Fro the kyng was cummen with knyghtes into
the halle,
The chauntré of the chapel cheved to an ende.
Loude crye
was ther kest of clerkes and other,
Nowel nayted onewe, nevened ful
ofte;
And sythen riche forth runnen to reche hondeselle,
Yeyed
yeres-yiftes on high, yelde hem bi hond,
Debated busyly aboute tho
giftes;
Ladies laghed ful loude, thogh thay lost haden,
And he that
wan was not wrothe, that may ye wel trawe.
While
New Year was so fresh that it was newly come,
That day double on the dais
was the company served,
Forth
the king was come with knights into the hall,
The
chanting from the chapel came to an end.
Loud
cries were there cast by clerks and others,
Noel!
proclaimed anew, was named full often;
And
then nobles ran forth to give out handsels,
Called
out year-gifts on high, yielded them by hand,
Debated
busily about the gifts;
Ladies
laughed full loudly, though they had lost,
And
he that won was not wrathful; of that you may be sure.
[translated
by R. Shell]
.
(This seems to be a
kind of gift exchange
game;
the last two lines
suggest that the forfeit for ladies, when they lost, was a kiss.)
.
King Edward III, on New Year's Day, 1376, gave his daughter Isabella a
complete set of chapel furnishings and two saddles, one of red velvet
embroidered with gold violets, and one ornamented with suns of gold and
copper. Each of twelve ladies were presented with an ornamental bow,
to hunt with Isabella at Windsor.2
.
Late
fifteenth century: As the king (Henry VII) put on his shoes that morning,
trumpets sounded and a present arrived from the queen, followed by servants
of the leading courtiers each bearing gifts from them. In her own
chamber, the queen received hers. The royal couple had arranged for
reciprocal presents, usually in cash, to be sent out to the officers of the
household and to the chief lay and clerical dignitaries of the realm. . .
Upon the same morning the fifth earl of Northumberland (Henry Percy) was
awoken by minstrels playing before his door, followed by his own fanfare of
trumpets. He then received his gifts, making them in turn to his
sovereigns and his own household. Similar scenes were enacted in the
residences of other magnates, while gentry exchanged presents with their
servants, not usually receiving any from royalty but often dispatching them
to local aristocrats. Religious houses gave to their own staff and to
each other. It is not clear whether gifts were exchanged between
commoners. . . At the end of the morning the monarch, Northumberland, and
probably all the other nobles and gentry who were keeping Christmas at home,
presided over a banquet. . . the evening was a notable one for
entertainments, from royal to parish level.3
.
Feast
of the Circumcision:
From the fifth to the tenth centuries clerical writers denounced the
excesses of Kalendae all over western Christendom, concentrating
especially on the associated custom of dressing up in animal skins, antlers,
and horns. The importance of the New Year festival seems to have declined relatively during the
medieval period, while that of Christmas day and Twelfth Night increased.3
The
holiday was also given a more Christian interpretation. The 8th day of
Christmas recalls Christ
submitting to the Law of Moses: "he that is eight days old shall
be circumcised among you, every man child in your generations."1
Feast of
Fools
(Asses): Commemorates the flight of the holy family into Egypt. The
original tradition was for choir boys to take over the important offices
in the cathedral community for a day. In 10th century Germany it
became accepted that the inferior clergy as well as the choir boys should
be given periods of licence in the three days after Christmas. In
12th century France the custom was taken up as the 'feast of fools'.
Later on, during the course of the 13th and 14th centuries, the festival
became the occasion for much buffoonery and satire, which reformers sought
to suppress.3
Calendar
Years:
The Roman year, inaugurated by Caesar and used by the old empire, began
on January 1st, dubbed stylus communis (style of the people) and
occasionally stylus circumcisionis, but in the middle ages different
locations even started their ecclesiastical year (A.D. dating) at
different times: on December 25th, Christmas day (stylus
nativitatis) or stylus curiae Romanae (style of the Roman curia),
since the papal chancellery sometimes opened that day. Some
communities, as in England, dated from March 25th (Annunciation Day, nine months before Christ's
birth), or from Good Friday, or the day after, or from Easter. Still
others began their year in March, around the time of the vernal equinox,
when some old German calendars and Rome's pre-Julian calendar began.5
For example, you may find an English date transcribed 12 Feb 1742/43; this likely
reflects a Julian calendar date originally written "1742", but is
reckoned 1743 by the Gregorian calendar. The regnum year begins on the anniversary of
the day that the reigning monarch (king, pope or even bishop) came to the throne (in the case of Edward
III, this was January 25, 1327). In this example, if you found an English
document dated 6 Jan Edw III:1, this would translate, by modern
reckoning, to January 6, 1328. There is also the agricultural year
which begins September 29th, on Michelmasse, when the harvest is in,
the accounting done, and new officers are chosen for the manor and for the
shire, or county (reeves, sheriffs, etc.).
Date transpositions and comparisons
become more baffling when you allow that different kingdoms used different
systems, and one could travel from France to Italy in a week's time and pass
through several different years! January 1st became the general date
mark by the end of the 16th century, but the English (including the American
colonies) did not move from March
25th until 1752, when they finally adopted the "New Style" (as
Protestants, they refused to call it "Gregorian") calendar,
dropping 11 days from the month of September that year.4
The Christian
church adopted the Julian (Roman) year, borrowed from the ancient Egyptian
solar calendar of 365¼ days (11 minutes and 14 seconds longer than the
actual solar year) . . . which eventually led to the reformed (current)
calendar instituted by Pope Gregory in 1582, but retained the lunar system,
moving some feast days (like Easter) around the solar calendar to keep them
in step with lunar cycles. During the first centuries some Christians
dated from the "Indiction" (15 year Roman cycles starting in 312),
others from the Roman conquest of Spain in 38 BC, and others from the Era of
the Passion (33 years after the nativity). The Anno Domini
system was proposed by the monk Dionysus Exiguus in 525, but was not
generally adopted in Europe for some centuries. The use of B.C.
was not used by scholars until the 17th century.4
The
Jewish calendar, which begins from a traditional date of creation (Anno
Mundi) 361BC, is based on lunar cycles, which use twelve months of 29 or
30 days (about 354 days) and add an extra month every two or three years to
account for solar cycles. Also the Muslim calendar, which dates
from the Hegira, 16 July 622AD, uses the lunar year.4
The
Year 2002
will be: 1999 according to Christ's actual birth circa 4
B.C.; 2756 according to the old Roman calendar; 5762
according to the Jewish calendar; 1422 according to the Muslim
calendar; 1380 according to the Persian calendar; 5122
in the current Maya great cycle; 6239 according to the first
Egyptian calendar; 211 according to the calendar of the French
Revolution; and the year of the Horse according to the Chinese
calendar.5
.
