The early Germanic calendars were the regional

calendar A calendar is a system of organizing days. This is done by giving names to periods of time, typically days, weeks, months and years. A date is the designation of a single and specific day within such a system. A calendar is also a physi ...

s used among the early

Germanic peoples The Germanic peoples were historical groups of people that once occupied Central Europe and Scandinavia during antiquity and into the early Middle Ages. Since the 19th century, they have traditionally been defined by the use of ancient and ear ...

before they adopted the

Julian calendar The Julian calendar, proposed by Roman consul Julius Caesar in 46 BC, was a reform of the Roman calendar. It took effect on , by edict. It was designed with the aid of Greek mathematicians and astronomers such as Sosigenes of Alexandria. ...

in the

Early Middle Ages The Early Middle Ages (or early medieval period), sometimes controversially referred to as the Dark Ages, is typically regarded by historians as lasting from the late 5th or early 6th century to the 10th century. They marked the start of the Mi ...

. The calendars were an element of

early Germanic culture Early Germanic culture refers to the culture of the early Germanic peoples. Largely derived from a synthesis of Proto-Indo-European and indigenous Northern European elements, the Germanic culture started to exist in the Jastorf culture that de ...

. The Germanic peoples had names for the months that varied by region and dialect, but they were later replaced with local adaptations of the Julian month names. Records of

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th c ...

and

Old High German Old High German (OHG; german: Althochdeutsch (Ahd.)) is the earliest stage of the German language, conventionally covering the period from around 750 to 1050. There is no standardised or supra-regional form of German at this period, and Old Hig ...

month names date to the 8th and 9th centuries, respectively.

Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlement ...

month names are attested from the 13th century. As with most pre-modern calendars, the reckoning used in early

Germanic culture Germanic culture is a term referring to the culture of Germanic peoples, and can be used to refer to a range of time periods and nationalities, but is most commonly used in either a historical or contemporary context to denote groups that derive fr ...

was likely

lunisolar A lunisolar calendar is a calendar in many cultures, combining lunar calendars and solar calendars. The date of Lunisolar calendars therefore indicates both the Moon phase and the time of the solar year, that is the position of the Sun in the ...

. As an example, the

Runic calendar A Runic calendar (also Rune staff or Runic Almanac) is a perpetual calendar, variants of which were used in Northern Europe until the 19th century. A typical runic calendar consisted of several horizontal lines of symbols, one above the ot ...

developed in

medieval Sweden In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

was lunisolar, fixing the beginning of the year at the first

full moon The full moon is the lunar phase when the Moon appears fully illuminated from Earth's perspective. This occurs when Earth is located between the Sun and the Moon (when the ecliptic longitudes of the Sun and Moon differ by 180°). This means ...

after

winter solstice The winter solstice, also called the hibernal solstice, occurs when either of Earth's poles reaches its maximum tilt away from the Sun. This happens twice yearly, once in each hemisphere ( Northern and Southern). For that hemisphere, the wint ...

Months

The Germanic calendars were

, the months corresponding to

lunation In lunar calendars, a lunar month is the time between two successive syzygies of the same type: new moons or full moons. The precise definition varies, especially for the beginning of the month. Variations In Shona, Middle Eastern, and Euro ...

Tacitus Publius Cornelius Tacitus, known simply as Tacitus ( , ; – ), was a Roman historian and politician. Tacitus is widely regarded as one of the greatest Roman historiography, Roman historians by modern scholars. The surviving portions of his t ...

writes in his ''

Germania Germania ( ; ), also called Magna Germania (English: ''Great Germania''), Germania Libera (English: ''Free Germania''), or Germanic Barbaricum to distinguish it from the Roman province of the same name, was a large historical region in north ...

'' (Chapter 11) that the Germanic peoples observed the lunar months. The lunisolar calendar is reflected in the

Proto-Germanic Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages. Proto-Germanic eventually developed from pre-Proto-Germanic into three Germanic branc ...

term "month" (

Old Saxon Old Saxon, also known as Old Low German, was a Germanic language and the earliest recorded form of Low German (spoken nowadays in Northern Germany, the northeastern Netherlands, southern Denmark, the Americas and parts of Eastern Europe). It i ...

, and

, Gothic ''Month''
''Online Etymology Dictionary''), being a derivation of the word for "

moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...

", — which shares its ancestry with the Greek ''mene'' "moon", ''men'' "month", and Latin ''mensis'' "month".

Days and weeks

gives some indication of how the Germanic peoples of the first century reckoned the days. In contrast to Roman usage, they considered the day to begin at sunset, a system that in the Middle Ages came to be known as the " Florentine reckoning". The same system is also recorded for the

Gauls The Gauls ( la, Galli; grc, Γαλάται, ''Galátai'') were a group of Celtic peoples of mainland Europe in the Iron Age and the Roman period (roughly 5th century BC to 5th century AD). Their homeland was known as Gaul (''Gallia''). They spo ...

in Caesar's ''

Gallic Wars The Gallic Wars were waged between 58 and 50 BC by the Roman general Julius Caesar against the peoples of Gaul (present-day France, Belgium, Germany and Switzerland). Gallic, Germanic, and British tribes fought to defend their ho ...

''. :"They assemble, except in the case of a sudden emergency, on certain fixed days, either at new or at full moon; for this they consider the most auspicious season for the transaction of business. Instead of reckoning by days as we do, they reckon by nights, and in this manner fix both their ordinary and their legal appointments. Night they regard as bringing on day." The concept of the

week A week is a unit of time equal to seven days. It is the standard time period used for short cycles of days in most parts of the world. The days are often used to indicate common work days and rest days, as well as days of worship. Weeks are ofte ...

, on the other hand, was adopted from the Romans, from about the first century, the various

Germanic languages The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania and Southern Africa. The most widely spoken Germanic language, Engl ...

having adopted the Greco-Roman system of naming of the

days of the week A day is the time period of a full rotation of the Earth with respect to the Sun. On average, this is 24 hours, 1440 minutes, or 86,400 seconds. In everyday life, the word "day" often refers to a solar day, which is the length between two sola ...

after the

classical planet In classical antiquity, the seven classical planets or seven luminaries are the seven moving astronomical objects in the sky visible to the naked eye: the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. The word ''planet'' comes from ...

s, inserting loan translations for the names of the planets, substituting the names of Germanic gods in a process known as '.

Calendar terms

The year was divided into a summer half and a winter half, as attested in

and medieval Scandinavian sources. In Scandinavia this continued after Christianization; in Norway and Sweden the first day of summer is marked by the (14 April) and the first day of winter by the Calixtus Day (14 October). The month names do not coincide, so it is not possible to postulate names of a Common Germanic stage, except possibly the names of a spring month and a winter month, and . The names of the seasons are Common Germanic, , , , and for "spring" in north Germanic, but in west Germanic the term was used. The Common Germanic terms for "day", "month" and "year" were , and . The latter two continue

Proto-Indo-European Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo- ...

, , while is a Germanic innovation from a root meaning "to be hot, to burn". A number of terms for measuring time can be reconstructed for the proto-Germanic period.

Month names

Medieval

Bede Bede ( ; ang, Bǣda , ; 672/326 May 735), also known as Saint Bede, The Venerable Bede, and Bede the Venerable ( la, Beda Venerabilis), was an English monk at the monastery of St Peter and its companion monastery of St Paul in the Kingdom o ...

's Latin work '' De temporum ratione'' (''The Reckoning of Time''), written in 725, describes Old English month names. Bede mentions intercalation, the intercalary month being inserted around midsummer.

Charlemagne Charlemagne ( , ) or Charles the Great ( la, Carolus Magnus; german: Karl der Große; 2 April 747 – 28 January 814), a member of the Carolingian dynasty, was King of the Franks from 768, King of the Lombards from 774, and the first Em ...

(r. 768–814) recorded agricultural

names for the Julian months. These remained in use, with regional variants and innovations, until the end of the Middle Ages in

German-speaking Europe This article details the geographical distribution of speakers of the German language, regardless of the legislative status within the countries where it is spoken. In addition to the German-speaking area (german: Deutscher Sprachraum) in Europ ...

and they persisted in popular or dialectal use into the 19th century. They probably also influenced Fabre d'Eglantine when he named the months of the French Republican Calendar. The only agreement between the Old English and the Old High German (Carolingian) month names is the naming of April as "Easter month". Both traditions have a "holy month", the name of September in the Old English system and of December in the Old High German one. A separate tradition of month names developed in 10th-century Iceland, see below.

Modern

The Old High German month names introduced by Charlemagne persisted in regional usage and survive in German dialectal usage. The Latin month names were in predominant use throughout the medieval period, although the ''Summarium Heinrici'', an 11th-century pedagogical compendium, in chapter II.15 (''De temporibus et mensibus et annis'') advocates the use of the German month names rather than the more widespread Latin ones. In the late medieval to early modern period, dialectal or regional month names were adopted for use in

almanac An almanac (also spelled ''almanack'' and ''almanach'') is an annual publication listing a set of current information about one or multiple subjects. It includes information like weather forecasts, farmers' planting dates, tide tables, and other ...

s, and a number of variants or innovations developed, comparable to the tradition of "Indian month names" developed in American '' Farmers' Almanacs'' in the early 20th century. Some of the ''Farmers' Almanacs "Indian month names" are in fact derived from continental tradition. The Old English month names fell out of use entirely, being revived only in a fictional context in the

Shire calendar The Shire is a region of J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional Middle-earth, described in ''The Lord of the Rings'' and other works. The Shire is an inland area settled exclusively by hobbits, the Shire-folk, largely sheltered from the goings-on in the ...

constructed by

J. R. R. Tolkien John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (, ; 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer and philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works ''The Hobbit'' and '' The Lord of the Rings''. From 1925 to 1945, Tolkien was the Rawl ...

for use in his ''

The Lord of the Rings ''The Lord of the Rings'' is an epic high-fantasy novel by English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, intended to be Earth at some time in the distant past, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's bo ...

''.

Icelandic calendar

A special case is the Icelandic calendar developed in the 10th century which, inspired by the Julian calendar, introduced a purely solar reckoning with a year having a fixed number of weeks (52 weeks or 364 days). This necessitated the introduction of "leap weeks" instead of Julian leap days. The old Icelandic calendar is not in official use anymore, but some Icelandic holidays and annual feasts are still calculated from it. It has 12 months, of 30 days broken down into two groups of six often termed "winter months" and "summer months". The calendar is peculiar in that each month always start on the same

day of week In many languages, the names given to the seven days of the week are derived from the names of the classical planets in Hellenistic astronomy, which were in turn named after contemporary deities, a system introduced by the Sumerians and lat ...

. This was achieved by having 4 epagomenal days to bring the number of days up to 364 and then adding a ''sumarauki'' week in the middle of summer of some years. This was eventually done so as to ensure that the "summer season" begins on the Thursday between 9 and 15 April in the

. Hence always starts on a Friday sometime between 8 and 15 January of the Julian calendar, always starts on a Sunday between 7 and 14 February of the Julian calendar. * ("Short days") # (mid October – mid November, "slaughter month" or " Gór's month") # (mid November – mid December, "

Yule Yule, actually Yuletide ("Yule time") is a festival observed by the historical Germanic peoples, later undergoing Christianised reformulation resulting in the now better-known Christmastide. The earliest references to Yule are by way of indi ...

month") # (mid December – mid January, "fat sucking month") # (mid January – mid February, "frozen snow month") # (mid February – mid March, "Góa's month") # (mid March – mid April, "lone" or "single month") * ("Nightless days") # (mid April – mid May) Harpa is a female name, probably a forgotten goddess. The first day of Harpa is celebrated as ', the First Day of Summer # (mid May – mid June, another forgotten goddess) # (mid June – mid July, "

sun The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect ball of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core. The Sun radiates this energy mainly as light, ultraviolet, and infrared radi ...

month") # (mid July – mid August, "

hay Hay is grass, legumes, or other herbaceous plants that have been cut and dried to be stored for use as animal fodder, either for large grazing animals raised as livestock, such as cattle, horses, goats, and sheep, or for smaller domesticated ...

business month") # (mid August – mid September, "two" or "second month") # (mid September – mid October, "autumn month") Many of the months have also been used in Scandinavia, the Norwegian linguist

Ivar Aasen Ivar Andreas Aasen (; 5 August 1813 – 23 September 1896) was a Norwegian philologist, lexicographer, playwright, and poet. He is best known for having assembled one of the two official written versions of the Norwegian language, Nynorsk, from v ...

wrote down the following months in his dictionary, coming in this order: Jolemåne-Torre-Gjø-Kvina, of which two are identical to Iceland, and one is similar. They have developed differently in different regions. Þorri is pronounced tærri, torre and similar, and can mean both the moon after Yule-month, or be a name for January or February.

Notes and citations

External links and references

Northvegr article on dating

General information on old Germanic culture, including time. *

*

*

Anglo-Saxon month names
{{Authority control

Calendar A calendar is a system of organizing days. This is done by giving names to periods of time, typically days, weeks, months and years. A date is the designation of a single and specific day within such a system. A calendar is also a physi ...

Obsolete calendars