RE: Colours

From: Carl W. Brown (cbrown@xnetinc.com)
Date: Mon Oct 23 2000 - 21:43:49 EDT


Timothy,

They also followed the Julian Calandar for leap days. Thus that extra day
added was Februray 24 moving St Matthias to Feb 25.

The reason February 24 is the day that is added goes back to the Julian
Calendar. The year originally started in March. Days were counted backwards
from three points in each month. Kalendae was the first day of the month.
Idus was either the 13th or 15th day of the month depending on the month and
Nonae was the 9th day before Idus. Julius Caesar declared that the 6th day
before Kalendae of March be doubled on leap years instead of having a leap
month of Intercalaris in the middle of February as the previous calandar had
done. One can still see that our calendar was originally based on a year
that started in March. September, October, November and December are derived
from the Latin for the numbers 7 through 10. Even more significant is that
most serial day routines first convert dates to a calendar with a year that
starts on March 1. The months then follow in a neat 31,30,31,30,30
31,30,31,30,30 31 and the remaining days of the year.

About AD 530 Bonifatius had a monk named Dionysius Exiguus determine the
year Jesus was born. He figured that it was December, 25 753 AUC (ab urbe
condita or the founding of Rome). The First year started with AD (Anno
Domini) 1 and the year before was BC 1. Because there was no year 0 the
2000th year is not complete until December 31, 2000. However, there is even
more confusion. Jesus was born during the reign of king Herod who died in
750 AUC or more than 2000 years ago. Also the Council of Tours in AD 567
abolished January 1 as the new year, so many places celebrated the first
millennium new year on March 1, making March 1, 2001 an alternate start of
the next Millennium.

Carl

-----Original Message-----
From: Timothy Partridge [mailto:timpart@perdix.demon.co.uk]
Sent: Sunday, October 22, 2000 3:34 PM
To: Unicode List
Subject: Re: Colours

William Overington" <WOverington@ngo.globalnet.co.uk> said:

>I am reminded of some pictures I once saw on collectable
> postcards. The pictures were reproductions from a medieval
> book, possibly, but I am not sure, The Tres Riches Heures of
> the Duc du Berry, which is a famous manuscript book.

> Some of the numbers were black and some were red.

Red letter days are certain Holy days and Saints' days in the
Christian calendar. Apparently the list was standardised by the
Council of Nicaea in A.D. 325.

25th Jan Conversion of St Paul
2nd Feb Purification
24th Feb St Matthias
25th Mar Annunciation
Ash Wednesday
25th Apr St Mark
1st May St Phillip and St James
Ascension Day
11th June St Barnabas
24th June St John the Baptist
29th June St Peter
25th July St James
18th Oct St Luke
28th Oct St Simon and St Jude
1st Nov All Saints
30th Nov St Andrew
21st Dec St Thomas

Dateless days in the above depend on the date of Easter.

   Tim



This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Tue Jul 10 2001 - 17:21:14 EDT