Numa added two months, Januarius and Februarius. Numa’s year consisted therefore of twelve months, according to the moon’s course. But Numa’s lunar year did not agree with the course of the sun, and he therefore introduced, every other year, an intercalary month, between the 23d and 24th of February. The length of this month was decided by the priests, who lengthened or shortened the year, to suit their convenience. Cicero, in a letter to Atticus, x. 17, writes, in strong disfavor, of Numa’s calendar.
Julius Cæsar, with the aid of Sosigenes of Alexandria, adjusted this astronomical account. To bring matters into order, Suetonius, in his life of Julius Cæsar, 40, says, they were constrained to make one final year of fifteen months, to close the confusion.
Hence arose the Julian or Solar year, the year of the Christian world. The “alteration of the style” is only an amendment of the Julian calendar, in one particular, by Pope Gregory, in 1582. In 325, A. D., the vernal equinox occurred March 21, and in 1582 it occurred March 10. He called the astronomers to council, and, by their advice, obliterated ten days from the current year, between October 4, and 15.
These ten days make the difference, from 1582 to February 29, 1700. From March 1, 1700, to February 29, 1800, eleven days were required, and from March 1, 1800, to February 29, 1900, twelve days. In all Roman Catholic countries, this alteration of the style was instantly adopted; but not in Great Britain, till 1752. The Greeks and Russians have never adopted the Gregorian alteration of the style.
The commencement of the year has been assigned to very different periods. In some of the Italian states, as recently as 1745, the year has been taken to commence, at the Annunciation, March 25. Writers of the sixth century have, occasionally, like the Romans, considered March 1 as New Year’s day. Charles IX. by a special edict, in 1563, decreed, that the year should be considered to commence, on the first of January. In Germany, about the eleventh century, the year commenced at Christmas. Such was the practice, in modern Rome, and other Italian cities, as late as the fifteenth century.
Gervais of Canterbury, who lived early in the thirteenth century, states, that all writers of his country considered Christmas the true beginning of the year. In Great Britain, from the twelfth century, till the alteration of the style in 1752, the Annunciation, or March 25, was commonly considered the first day of the year. After this, the year was taken to commence, on the first of January.
The Chaldæan and Egyptian years commenced with the Autumnal equinox. The Japanese and the Chinese date their year from the new moon, nearest the Winter solstice.
As Diemschid, king of Persia, entered Persepolis, the sun happened to be entering into Aries. In commemoration of this coincidence, he decreed, that the year should change front, and commence, forever more, in the Vernal, instead of the Autumnal equinox. The Swedish year, of old, began, most happily, at the Winter solstice, or at the time of the sun’s reäppearance in the horizon, after the usual quarantine, or absence of forty days. The Turks and Arabs date the advent of their year, upon the sixteenth of July.
In our own country, the year, in former times, commenced in March. In the Mass. Hist. Coll., vol. xvii. p. 136, may be found certain votes, passed in Boston, Nov. 30, 1635, among which is the following—“that all such as have allotments for habitations allotted unto them, shall build thereon, before the first of the first month next, called March.” In Johnson’s Wonder-working Providence, ch. 27, the writer says of the Boston pilgrims, in 1633: “Thus this poor people, having now tasted liberally of the salvation of the Lord, &c. &c., set apart the 16 day of October, which they call the eighth Moneth, not out of any pevish humor of singularity, as some are ready to censor them with, but of purpose to prevent the Heathenish and Popish observation of Dayes, Moneths, and Yeares, that they may be forgotten, among the people of the Lord.” If October was their eighth month, March was necessarily their first. Whatever the practice may have been, in this respect, it was by no means universal, in New England, during a considerable period, before the alteration of the style in 1752.
A reference to the record will show, that, until 1752, the old style was adhered to, by the courts, in this country, and the 25th of March was considered to be New Year’s day. But it was not so with the public journals. Thus the Boston News Letter, the Boston Gazette, the New England Courant and other journals, existing here, before the adoption of the new style, in Great Britain, in 1752, considered the year, as commencing on the first of January.