« International Comestibles | Main | Silvester »
December 31, 2008
Letter from Bavaria
Today it’s Silvester. Which bears as little connection to your man Stallone as it does to the eponymous puddy cat.
Literally in means the man from out the woods, but more specifically it refers to Pope Silvester I, who died on December 24, 335. Silvester was Bishop of Rome in 314 and he was the first Bishop of Rome to call himself Pope. When he died he became a saint, as you do when you’re the Pope, and December 24 became Saint Silvester’s day.
Silvester I
Silvester lay peacefully for hundreds of years until another Pope, Gregory XIII, decided, in 1582, that the calendar everyone was using [the one with the nice pictures of medieval cats looking cute on medieval cushions] was out of kilter.
Gregory XIII
This revelation went largely unnoticed in England where, in November that year, a young 18 year old struggling playwright, by the name of William Shakespeare, married Anne Hathaway, a lady 8 years his senior.
Anne Hathaway [no relation]
The old calendar was based on one Julius Caesar had used [Roman cats looking cute on Roman cushions] and wise people everywhere had been arguing for many years that things were not entirely correct, what with the Earth moving cosmically about the heavens and not sticking to the clock like it was supposed to do.
So everyone got together and, after lots of Councils, a Compendium, several Cycles and few dozen reams of paper with lots of crossing out, it was decided that there should be 303 years of 365 days and 97 years of 366. This had the pleasing result that, when averaged out over the 400 years, a year lasted 365 days 5 hours 49 minutes and 12 seconds which, by strange coincidence, is the time it takes for the Earth to go round the Sun.
The Council of Trent, 1545 to 1563
When England finally got round to adopting the new calendar, in 1752, they had to lose 11 days in order to catch up with the rest of Europe. Not unreasonably everyone was furious, thinking that they were suddenly 11 days older and had generally lost out on possibly winning the lottery.
William Hogarth, 1755
detail of above showing caption on the slate “Give us back our Eleven Days”
The upshot of all this time wasting was that the equinox happened more equinoctially, Easter happened in the Easter Holidays and, in Germany, Silvester’s day moved from December 24 to the December 31 and Silvester became synonymous with New Year's Eve. So today we celebrate Silvester.
Now, since 1582 and the invention of digital watches, things have got a whole lot more accurate. So much so that tonight we’ve got longer to celebrate the coming of the New Year. Tonight we have an extra second, a leap second. One whole second – make good use of it.
Posted by john at December 31, 2008 02:29 PM
Comments
Damn! I was doing a bit of hoovering and I think I missed the leap second. Any chance of a replay?
Posted by: Daphne at December 31, 2008 05:13 PM
That leap second may make all the difference for Liz, Hee Hee
......I do love her : )
........Oh Yeah
HAPPY NEW YEAR
Posted by: paula moss at January 6, 2009 11:27 AM