The Medieval Calendar Part I

Since I have been working on a Calendar of the Saints I have learned so much.  First off I learned how to read it.  I know it sounds pretty bad but I must confess I am usually distracted by the art work and I never really gave much thought to the structure of the content.  In this first part of  the Medieval Calendar I will talk about how the days were listed and what some of the colors mean.

The medieval calendar has the same use today as it did way back then but today we usually refer to a day by a number and a month for example the 2nd of May or the 14th of August.  With the medieval calendar the days were referred to by a Saint’s feast day or other holy days/events for example if someone were to refer to Christmas, Saint Valentine’s, Saint Patrick’s, or Halloween you would automatically know that person was talking about December 25th, February 14th, March 17th, and October 31st.  In the middle ages most days were listed by a Saint’s feast day which is traditionally the day they were martyred or another way to look at it their “birthday” into heaven.  Other days were of events such as the Visitation of the Archangel Gabriel to Mary (July 2) or Epiphany which is when the three wise men arrived baring gifts for the Christ child (January 6).

Most of the days would have been written in a black or a dark brown but the more important days would have been written in red, hence a red-letter day, or sometimes in blue.  There are some calendars which have a three tiered system.  The most holy days of the year were in burnished gold; the next tier of importance would have been written in red and the least important days in black.  There is an exception to the triple tiered calendar and that is some of the deluxe French manuscripts from the late fourteenth century and early fifteenth century.  These were highly decorated calendars where they would alternate the feast days in red and blue ink and the holy days were in burnished gold.  Then there is the very rare calendar which might alternate those days in gold and silver.

In Part II, I will talk about what some of the pictures and images used in calendars mean and what the three or four columns of what looks to be random letters and numbers to the left of the days listed mean.  Hopefully I can get some pictures up to make it easy to visualize.

Most of the information above and what will be in Part II came from the book Painted Prayers: The Book of Hours in Medieval and Renaissance Art by Roger S. Wieck who is Curator of Medieval and Renassance Manuscripts at The Peirpont Morgan Library, New York.   I found the book to be very good and easy to read if you are interested in further reading.

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