The Anglo-Saxon Calendar

This is a purely notional calendar that I have invented, based upon various known aspects of solar calendars in the past and traditions in England, many of which still survive today. This page explains how the calendar is structured and my reasons for this. It is not intended to be a proposal for calendar reform, which I have detailed elsewhere, but more for personal interest.

How it works

The ancient Anglo-Saxon calendar was reputed to be a luni-solar calendar, following the cycles of the moon and adding an extra month every few years to keep it in line with the seasons. This calendar was reputed to have its new year on Christmas Eve. However, this would not be possible every year if the calendar were luni-solar, due to the lunar year not matching the solar year. It is thought that the 12 days of Christmas may have been epagomenal days added at the end of the year to compensate for this but this is speculative.

The calendar I have devised, however, is a solar one using Anglo-Saxon month names, in the same vein as Tolkien's Shire calendar. It is purely solar, with either 365 or 366 days depending on whether the year is common or leap. The most important event in the calendar is the winter solstice, or Yule, and each new year always begins on the day that the solstice takes place, according to universal time (UT). There are two calendars, the classical or traditional calendar and the standard or revised calendar, the latter being the one in general use. These calendars are explained below.

Structure of standard/revised calendar

All months in the standard Anglo-Saxon calendar comprise either 30 or 31 days, and the table below shows how the months are arranged. As stated above, the year always starts at Yule, and every other quarter starts on or near the other solar events of the year, namely the vernal equinox (Oster), the summer solstice (Lithe) and the autumn equinox (Mabon). The classical calendar follows these dates much more closely, but because the standard calendar has been revised to produce more regular months, the dates vary more widely, but never usually by more than a day. Originally, the year was split into just winter and summer, with summer beginning at Oster and winter beginning at Mabon. Under this arrangement the winter months (now autumn and winter) all have 30 days, and the summer months (now spring and summer) have 31 days, except Ostermonth, which has only 30 days in common years and 31 in leap years.

The following table shows the months with their current usual start dates in the Gregorian calendar. These dates can vary by up to two days either side of the given dates due to the shifting of the dates of solar events as compared to the calendar over the years. (Note that the prefixes "Fore-" and "After-" with respect to Yule and Lithe do not indicate periods before and after an event, but rather to their Old English meanings of "early" and "late". This is because the months of Yule and Lithe were each considered as single months of double the normal length, centred upon the solstices.)

Epoch

The epoch for the calendar is the year 444 C.E. and the era is called A.S.E. (Anglo-Saxon Era). The years are therefore approximately 444 years behind those of the Gregorian calendar.

Leap years

Leap years in the Anglo-Saxon calendar occur irregularly as the number of days in a year is governed by the time between one winter solstice and the next. They usually occur every four years but occasionally there is a five year gap, e.g as between Anglo-Saxon years 1562 (2005-6) and 1567 (2010-11).

The classical/traditional calendar

The classical/traditional calendar differs from the revised calendar in that the months are more irregular in length, ranging from 29 to 32 days. As with the revised calendar, the year always starts on the winter solstice, but the months are arranged in order for the beginning of the other quarters to coincide more closely with the other solstice and equinoxes. The arrangement in this version of the calendar is: Afteryule (30 days), Solmonth (29), Rethemonth (30), Ostermonth (31), Thrimilch (31), Forelithe (31), Afterlithe (31), Wedmonth (31{32}), Holimonth (31), Wintering (30), Blotmonth (30) and Foreyule (30).

Days of the week

The days of the week were named after Norse deities,apart from Saturday, Sunday and Monday, and have the same origins as the names that are still used today. The Old English names for the days of the week were: Sunnandæg, Monandæg, Tiwesdæg, Wodnesdæg, Þunresdæg, Frigedæg, and Sæternesdæg