Calendar - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition calendar

Definition :

Calendar [fr. Calendarium, Lat.; fr. Calend', the first day in the month in Roman reckoning], the order and series of months, together with the festivals and fasts, which make up the year. There are two modes of computing time-by the annual course of the sun, and by the periodical revolutions of the moon. The solar year consists of 365 days, 5 hours, 48', 45', 30'; the lunar year of 354 days, 3 hours, 48', 38', 12'. The Mohammedans adopt the lunar year. The solar year, calculated by the ancient Egyptians, has undergone various corrections and denominations.

The chief of the calendars now in use are the three following: (1) The Julian, so called because Julius C'sar introduced into the Roman Empire the solar or Egyptian year, instead of the lunar year. The Russians and Greeks are the only nations that now use the Julian year. The common Julian year consists of 365 days, and the bissextile or leap-year (see that title), which returns every four years, of 366 days. This computation is faulty, inasmuch as it allows 365 days and six entire hours for the annual revolution of the sun, being an excess every year of 11, 14, 30, beyond the true time. This, in a course of ages had amounted to several days, and began at length to derange the order of the seasons. Leo X. paid some attention to this, but Gregory XIII. caused a new calendar to be drawn up, which is called (2) the Gregorian; and because the civil year had gained ten days. He ordered, by a book published in 1581, that these days should be expunged, so that instead of the 5th of October, 1582, it should be reckoned the 15th. The Catholic states adopted this new calendar, but the Protestants and the rest of Europe adhered to the Julian, and hence the distinction between the old and new style, to which it is necessary to attend in all public acts and writings since 1582. The difference until 1699 was ten days, and eleven from 1700; twelve days must be reckoned during 1800, so that the 1st of January of the old style answers to the 13th of the new. (3) The Reformed Calendar differs from the Gregorian, as to the method of calculating the time of Easter and other movable feasts. The Protestants of Germany, Holland, Denmark, and Switzerland adopted this in 1700, Great Britain in 1752, Sweden in 1753, but since 1776 the Protestants of Germany, Switzerland, and Holland have adopted the Gregorian.

In England the year commenced on the 25th of March until 1753, but by the (English) Calendar (New Style) Act, 1750 (24 Geo. 2, c. 23), the beginning of the year was transferred to the 1st of January, and the 3rd of September, 1752, was reckoned the 14th of the same month in order to accommodate the English chronology to the new style. 6 Rymer's F'dera, 119; 2 Hall. Lit. Hist. 56, 329; Chitty's Statutes, tit. 'Time.'