What is the Julian Calendar? – Discover the uses of the Julian calendar

The Julian calendar today is not very popular in the Western world, although there are regions and institutions such as the Orthodox Church that continue to use it. So, in the article it is explained what is the Julian calendar and what are its differences with the current system. In the same way, it talks about the history and origins of this calendar and what was its influence on leap years.

What does the Julian Calendar mean?

The current calendar is of great importance in the world, since it determines the date of any relevant event. In the same way, it fixes the time in which the planet completes its translation in one year. work periods, weeks and holidays They are also marked on this calendar, so it can be said that it governs and orders our lives. However, this was not the first to be used, since the Julian calendar was used before.

When talking about the Julian calendar, reference is made to the time division system that was used in the Roman Empire. It is a calendar that was promoted by the great emperor Julius Caesar in the year 46 BC, so the title comes from the agent. He boosted himself prior to Rome’s conquest of the Egyptians

This system was widely accepted throughout Europe and in the colonies of these countries in America. It was used in a way official until the year 1582, when the Gregorian calendar is driven. However, the Orthodox Church, the state of Jerusalem and Russia did not comply with this change, so they continue to use the Julian calendar.

Background to the Julian Calendar

The background of the Julian calendar goes back a long time before the formation of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. Well, ancient civilizations used calendars that were based on lunar movements to calculate the days. In this sense, the first evidence of what a solar calendar is was found in the Ancient Egypt. The reason for his need for a new almanac was to accurately predict the time of the rise of the Nile River.

In Italian territory, lunar calendars were used, but they did not count the weeks. Then, what is the pre-Julian Roman calendar was born, but before it was called the calendar of the Roman Empire. He had 304 days that they were distributed in 10 months, although other months were usually added. The company or motive had no relation to astronomy, but rather political and economic objectives.

In the pre-Julian Roman calendar, the year began in the month of March, which they called martuis. However, some religious pagans found time lags with this system. One of the reasons was that the time of winter was dated when it was still in autumn. Everything changed when Julius Caesar made a reform that changed the calendar to twelve months, starting in January.

What is the difference between the Julian and the Gregorian calendar?

The Julian calendar had many features identical to the current calendar, including leap years. However, there were some flaws with respect to the equinoxes, as this system was behind the tropical year. This error came from the Greeks, who already knew that they generated a time delay, but never considered a change. In that sense, the delay was one day every 128 yearsthat is, 11 minutes with 14 seconds per day.

The Julian calendar had 365 days per year and added leap years every four. By contrast, the Gregorian calendar has 365.25 days with the same number of leap years. So, the old system lost three days for every four centuries.

Despite the fact that the difference in days is not very long, this variation has an incidence on some dates. For example, this bug causes the Julian calendar to count on three extra leap days every 400 years. Which affects the Orthodox and Christian churches in the calculation of Easter. This moved the date of the religious celebration between April and May.

What are the months of the Julian calendar?

The names of the months in the Julian calendar were somewhat similar to the titles used today with the Gregorian calendar. However, these were named in Latin and with a name that resembled the name given to the gods of the Roman Empire. There were other months that only represented numbers and these changed over time.

• Martius: It represented today the month of March, it began the year and it was in honor of Mars or Ares in GreekGod of War.
• Aprilis: Beginning of spring, in honor of the goddess of flowers.
• Maius: His name comes from Maia goddess of abundance.
• Junius: Comes from Juno, who was the goddess of the hearth.
• Quintilis: The fifth month.
• Sextilis: Sixth month.
• September: The seventh month of the year.
• October: Represented the eighth month.
• November: Ninth month of the year.
• December: Before it was the tenth and last official month.
• Januarius: It was used sometimes like month 11in honor of the god Juno.
• Februarius: Its use was less common, but it justified the month of the bonfires, which in ancient Roman was februa.

Some time after the adoption of the Julian calendar, the Roman Empire changed the names of the fifth and sixth months. The reason for the modification was to commemorate the emperors Julius Caesar and Augustus Caesar, thus July and August were born. Other emperors had the same company, in order to record their names in posterity.

For example, Caligula wanted That September was called Germanicus, while Domitian had the business of naming October as domitianus. Even Nero suggested calling the month of April Neronnian.