Medieval weekday counting
In the medieval weekday counting , the days of the week (feriae) designated in Latin were continuously counted with ordinal numbers (prima, secunda, tertia etc.) , with the week starting on Sunday and Monday being the second day (feria secunda) . Sunday and Saturday, due to their Christian-Jewish meaning, were emphasized by the designation as this instead of feria . The exact dating of a weekday took place in this order by referring to the holy days and holidays . For example, for the year 1370, feria tertia ante festum pentecostes refers to May 28th as “Tuesday before Pentecost”.
Sunday | (dies) dominica , rarely also feria prima, feria dominica, lux dei |
Monday | feria secunda |
Tuesday | feria tertia |
Wednesday | feria quarta , rarely media septimana |
Thursday | feria quinta |
Friday | feria sexta |
Saturday | This sabbatinus / Sabbati, Sabbatum , rarely also feria septima / Sabbati |
Dating in relation to the Roman Catholic holy days and holidays appeared in Western Europe in the 11th century as a mirror of the Pope's growing authority and his universal claim to rule ( investiture controversy , oriental schism , church reforms of the 11th century ) and opposed the previously used ancient Roman names . The Reformation, in turn, ushered in the abandonment of the medieval counting of the weekday, in such a way that the continuous counting of the days of the month in German and Latin ( e.g. vicesima tertia die Junii = June 23) became common in the 16th century in German-speaking countries . This form of calendar was already known in the High Middle Ages, but was only rarely used, for example in the offices of Henry VI. and Frederick II.
literature
- Hermann Grotefend : Pocket book of the time calculation of the German Middle Ages and the modern times. 13th edition. Hahn, Hannover 1991, ISBN 3-7752-5177-4 , lemmas “Feria” and “Weekdays”. ( Web link to the online version ).
- Friedrich Beck, Eckart Henning (Hrsg.): The archival sources. With an introduction to the historical auxiliary sciences. (= UTB 8273). 4th revised edition. Böhlau, Cologne et al. 2004, ISBN 3-412-04804-6 , pp. 249-250.