Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 6.djvu/413

 COMPUTATION OF TIME— OUR CALENDAR.

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��But it is said that when Augustus Caesar ascended the imperial throne, his vanity would not be satisfied unless the month bearing his name should be as long as any other, and especial- ly as long as July — which was named for his predecessor ; so he very fool- ishly, as we think, changed the calen- dar, by taking one day from February and adding it to August. But he found that this brought three months of thirty-one days together, to prevent which, one day each was .taken from September and November and added to October and December.

The additional day, which was add- ed every fourth year in the Julian cal- endar, was inserted between the 24th and 25th of February. This month, then, having twenty-nine days in the ordinary year (before the change by Augustus), the 25th of February was the 6th of the calends of March, or, sexto-calendas. The additional, or intercalary day, was added immedi- ately before this, which thus gave to this year two sixth days before the calends of March — hence the term bissextile is given to the year having three hundred and sixty-six days, and denoting the year as having two sixth days. Our term leap year, not very appropriately, to be sure, is used be- cause this year overleaps, or covers be- tween its termini, an extra day more than the limits of an ordinary year.

Although this Julian method of in- tercalation is perhaps the most con- venient that could be adopted, yet it will be seen at once that it makes the year too long by eleven minutes and fourteen seconds, which, though but little in a single year, or several years, yet amounts to a day in about 128 years. When the Julian calendar was introduced, forty- five years before Christ and a little more, the vernal equinox fell on the 25th of March ; but in the year a. d. 325 the first great council of the church was held at Nice, at which the bishops not only decreed as to the Arian controversy and adopted the Nicene creed, but also made a decree upon the celebration of

��Easter which was based upon a thor- ough examination of astronomical principles. It was then calculated (though not with precise accuracy) that owing to the error in the basis of the Julian calendar, the equinox had fallen back to the 21st of March, or nearly to that, and the celebration of Easter was established upon that ba- sis. As the centuries rolled on the equinox retrograded still more, until in the year 1582 it had retrograded to the nth of the month.

Pope Gregory XIII ruled from 157a to 1585. He was born at Bologna, February 7, 1502, and was known as Hugo Buoncompagni. He was first a lawyer, then a priest, and finally Pope of Rome. He was a man of enlarged and liberal views, great en- ergy and zeal, and very remarkable ability. Among his other distinctions was that of the correction of the Jul- ian calendar, and the promulgation of that known by his name, the Grego- rian calendar.

As we have seen, the event from which the Romans computed their time, when the Julian calendar was adopted, was the building of the city of Rome. This continued to be their era for many centuries. But after the reign of Constantine (a. d. 306), and particularly under the reign of Theo- dosius (a. d. 379-395), the Christian religion was made the religion of the empire, and in a. d. 516 Dionysius, the monk, introduced the Christian era, as the event or date from which time should be computed. This sys- tem was introduced and adopted in the empire during that (the 6th) cen- tury, and was introduced and used in England before the close of the 8th century. But Dionysius also intro- duced another innovation. He had his year commence on the 25th of March, and in different countries many different times of commencing the year were adopted. In England the custom of beginning the year with the 25th of March prevailed in the 1 2th century, and continued to do

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