Today, January 1 is widely celebrated as the beginning of the New Year, but it was not always that way.
Our modern calendar is based off the ancient Roman calendar, but the ancient Roman calendar is a bit different from ours. This is what scholars believe the ancient Roman calendar would have looked like originally:
Martius
Aprilis
Maius
Iunius
Quintilis
Sextilis
September
October
November
December
Notice that there are only ten months on the Roman calendar, not twelve. January and February were not on the calendar at all. Instead, the calendar began with March, making March 1 the first day of the new year. The name of the month of “Martius” comes from Mars, the Roman god of war, because, in ancient times, warfare never took place during the winter. Instead, war would only occur during spring, summer, and fall. The Romans would actually halt their armies and bring them back home for the winter season. This meant that Martius, the first month of spring, was also the first month of the Roman fighting season. (Despite what you may have heard, the name March actually has no connection whatsoever to the English word march. All of the names of the months come from Latin, not English.)
The name Aprilis literally means “month of opening.” The month of Maius is named after Maia, the ancient Roman goddess of growth and vegetation, who was also the mother of the god Mercurius. The month of Iunius is named after Iuno, the ancient Roman goddess of marriage. During the month of Iunius, the Romans would pay homage to Iuno.
All of the other months on the Roman calendar are named for their number. Quintilis means “fifth month.” Sextilis means “sixth month.” September means “seventh month.” October means “eighth month.” November means “ninth month.” Lastly, December means “tenth month.”
Later, the months of Ianuarius and Februarius were added to the beginning of the year. The month of Ianuarius is named after Ianus because Ianus was the Roman god of doorways. Februarius means “month of purification” because many ancient Roman purification festivals took place during this month. The addition of these two new months to the beginning of the year threw off the numbering on all of the other months, but the months still kept the same names they had always had. This is the reason why December is Latin for “tenth month,” even though December is actually the twelfth month of the year.
Even later, the months of Quintilis and Sextilis were renamed as “Iulius” and “Augustus” respectively, in honor of Julius Caesar and Emperor Augustus.
This is where things get really complicated. In 567 A.D., the Council of Tours recommended that the New Year begin on Easter instead of January 1. This arbitrary change to the calendar, however, resulted in all kinds of widespread confusion. With no way of knowing which day was the real start of the new year, people began celebrating all kinds of different dates. Some people celebrated the New Year on December 25, Christmas Day. Other people reverted back to celebrating the New Year on March 1. Other people celebrated the New Year on March 25, the Feast of the Annunciation. Other people celebrated Easter as the beginning of the New Year, following the recommendation of the Council of Tours. This craziness continued until 1582, when the Gregorian Calendar officially reinstituted January 1 as the beginning of the New Year.
Unfortunately, this still was not the end of all the craziness. Most Protestant countries refused to adopt the Gregorian calendar, meaning that Great Britain and its colonies in North America continued to regard March 25 as the beginning of the New Year. Then, finally, in 1752, Great Britain adopted the Gregorian calendar and began celebrating January 1 as the beginning of the New Year.
This New Year, keep in mind that the calendar has not always been the way it is today. In fact, for the majority of western history, the new year began in March, not in January.
Contrary to popular misconception, the calendar is not a monolithic, unchanging, sacrosanct artifact; instead, it is merely an ever-changing, and, indeed, fallible mechanism invented by humans to make sense of the changing of the seasons.
SOURCES
Naso, Publius Ovidius. Fasti.
“The Roman Calendar.” uchicago.edu. http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/Encyclopaedia_romana/calendar/romancalendar.html.
“The Roman Calendar.” timeanddate.com. https://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/roman-calendar.html.
IMAGE CREDITS
The featured image for this article is a drawing of the Fasti Antiates Maiores, an ancient Roman calendar from sometime around 60 B.C. or thereabouts. This image is in the public domain in the United States of America. This image was retrieved from Wikimedia Commons.
