Friday, February 29, 2008
Annus bissextilis
It only comes once every four years...just about. For the record, here is the bull Inter Gravissimas of 1581 by which Pope Gregory XIII reformed the Julian calendar. (And here is an English translation.)
Particularly charming bits:
Papa Gregorius requiescat in pace.
Particularly charming bits:
- Number 7 explains "ut de mense octobris anni MDLXXXII decem dies inclusive a tertia nonarum usque ad pridie idus eximantur"--that ten days will be removed from October 1582, from October 5th through October 14th inclusive. "But wait," you ask, "Won't St. Denis of Paris be upset, since his feast day is omitted?" No, Pope Gregory has thought of that too. Not only St. Denis and companions, but also Pope St. Mark and the martyrs Sergius, Bacchus, Marcellus and Apuleius (whose normal feast days won't exist either) will all crowd onto October 15th that year, and Pope St. Callistus will go to October 16th. (Presumably there wasn't room for two popes on the 15th.)
- In number 8, Pope Gregory commands judges to ensure that anyone who paid a full month's rent in October 1582 gets his full 31 days' worth, despite that month's having only 21 days.
- Remember that in 1582, the Christian world extended from New Spain in the far west all the way to Japan, where Nagasaki was a flourishing Catholic city. Naturally the papal bull could not arrive everywhere by October 1582, so Gregory provides in no. 14 that those regions skip October 5th through 14th in whatever year they do receive Inter Gravissimas.
- Finally, I love no. 12, which bases Gregory's authority over the calendar not on his being St. Peter's successor, not on the imperial pretensions of the now-discredited Donation of Constantine, not even on the mandate of the Council of Trent to reform the breviary, but on the office of Pontifex Maximus which he inherited from Julius Caesar, the last pontifex to reform the calendar.
Papa Gregorius requiescat in pace.
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