Everything about Old Style And New Style Dates totally explained
Old Style (or
OS) and
New Style (or
NS) are used in English language historical studies either to indicate that the start of the
Julian year has been adjusted to start on
1 January (NS) even though contemporary documents use a different start of year (OS); or to indicate that a date conforms to the
Julian calendar (OS), formerly in use in many countries, rather than the
Gregorian calendar (NS). In
Great Britain and the British colonies the change of start of the year and the change over from the Julian calendar occurred in 1752 and was enabled by the
Calendar (New Style) Act 1750.
Many other cultures have also changed their calendar system to adopt
Common Era dating and thus have old and new styles of dating: these are discussed briefly
later in the article.
Differences between the start of the year
When recording British history it's usual to use the dates recorded at the time of the event with the year adjusted to the start on the
1 January. So for example the
Battle of Hastings is universally known to have been fought on
14 October,
1066. But the start of the
Julian year wasn't always
1 January and was altered at different times in different countries.
From the 12
th century to 1752, the civil or legal year in England began on
25 March (
Lady Day) so for example the execution of
Charles I was recorded at the time in Parliament as happening on
30 January 164
8 (Old Style). In modern English language texts this date is usually recorded as "30 January 164
9" (New Style). but the "year starting 25th March was called the Civil or Legal Year, although the phrase Old Style was more commonly used."
Differences between Julian and Gregorian dates
Conversion of Julian to Gregorian dates>
| Time period (from March 1 of first year to February 29 of last year) |
Сorrection, days |
| 1–100 |
−2 |
| 100–200 |
−1 |
| 200–300 |
0 |
| 300–500 |
+1 |
| 500–600 |
+2 |
| 600–700 |
+3 |
| 700–900 |
+4 |
| 900–1000 |
+5 |
| 1000–1100 |
+6 |
| 1100–1300 |
+7 |
| 1300–1400 |
+8 |
| 1400–1500 |
+9 |
| 1500–1700 |
+10 |
| 1700–1800 |
+11 |
| 1800–1900 |
+12 |
| 1900–2100 |
+13 |
| 2100–2200 |
+14 |
The
Julian calendar was formerly in use in many European countries and their colonies, rather than the
Gregorian calendar, currently in use in most countries. Consequently and to avoid ambiguity, "Old Style" (OS) and "New Style" (NS) are sometimes added to historical dates to identify which system is being used (when giving a date in the period when both systems were in parallel use). This notation is used in Western European (and colonial) history: similar notations are in use for the equivalent conversions in Eastern Europe and Asia.
For a period of 170 years (1582–1752), both dating systems were in concurrent use in different parts of Western Europe and its colonies. The Julian calendar had drifted by 11 days from the solar calendar (due to its surfeit of leap years), so the day and month differ between the systems as well as does the year. System conversion for secular use occurred in
Eastern Orthodox countries as late as the twentieth century, and has still not occurred for ecclesiastic use in some of these countries.
Catholic countries such as
Italy,
Poland,
Spain, and
Portugal were first to change to the Gregorian calendar. Thursday,
4 October 1582 was followed by Friday,
15 October 1582, with ten days "missing". Countries that didn't change until the 1700s observed an additional
leap year, necessitating eleven "missing days". Some countries didn't change until the 1800s or 1900s, necessitating one or two more "missing days".
France changed from Julian to Gregorian Calendar on
9 December 1582 JU where the next day was
20 December 1582 GR. France used the
French Republican Calendar from
22 September 1792 GR to
31 December 1805 GR.
In
Russia, the terms "Old Style" and "New Style" have the same significance as elsewhere. The start of the year was moved to
January 1 in 1700, but the Gregorian calendar was introduced there much later, in the
Russian SFSR—on
February 14 1918 (Gregorian calendar). Hence the
October Revolution of 1917 is so called, despite having started on
November 7 under the Gregorian calendar (
October 25 [Juliancalendar]). Articles about the October Revolution which mention this date difference tend to do a full conversion to the dates from Julian to the Gregorian calendar. For example the article "The October (November) Revolution" the
Encyclopædia Britannica uses the format of "25 October (7 November, New Style);" to describe the date of the start of the revolution.
It is sometimes remarked that
William Shakespeare and
Miguel de Cervantes died on the same
date,
23 April 1616, but not on the same
day.
England was still using the Julian calendar in 1616, while
Spain was using the Gregorian calendar. Cervantes actually died ten days before Shakespeare.
Possible date conflicts
Occasionally using different calendars has caused confusion between contemporaries. For example one of the contributory factors for
Napoleon's victory at the
Battle of Austerlitz was the confusion between the Russians, who were using the Julian calendar, and the Austrians, who were using the Gregorian calendar, over the date that their forces should combine.
Usually, the mapping of new dates onto old dates with a start of year adjustment works well with little confusion for events which happened before the introduction of the Gregorian Calendar. For example the
Battle of Agincourt is universally known to have been fought on
25 October 1415, which is
Saint Crispin's Day. But for the period between the first introduction of the Gregorian calendar on
15 October 1582 and its introduction in Britain on
14 September 1752, there can be considerable confusion between events in continental western Europe and in British domains. Events in continental western Europe are usually reported in English language histories as happening under the Gregorian calendar. For example the
Battle of Blenheim is always given as
13 August 1704. However confusion occurs when an event affects both. For example
William III of England arrived at
Brixham in England on
5 November (Julian calendar), after setting sail from the
Netherlands on
11 November (Gregorian calendar).
The
Battle of Boyne took place only a few months later in Ireland on
1 July 1690 "Old Style". However, it's commemorated as taking place on
12 July "New Style" by the
Orange parades on "
The Twelfth", possibly because of
Protestant Orangemen's antipathy to Papal innovations and because it's in part a conflation of commemorations of the
Battle of Aughrim,
12 July (OS)
1691.
Because of the differences, English people and their correspondents often employed two dates,
dual dating, more or less automatically, as Benjamin Woolley observed in his biography of Dr
John Dee,
The Queen's Conjurer. Dee fought unsuccessfully for England to embrace the 1583/4 date set for the change. Woolley wrote because of "the decision, England remained outside the Gregorian system for a further 170 years, communications during that period customarily carrying two dates, one 'OS' or Old Style, the other 'NS' or New Style."
Thomas Jefferson, for example, lived during the time Great Britain, Ireland and the British colonies eventually converted to the Gregorian calendar, so he instructed that his tombstone bear his dates of birth and death in the Old Style and New Style, respectively. At Jefferson's birth the difference would have been eleven days between styles, had the New Style been converted to yet, as is evidenced by his "original" birthday of
April 2 and his New Style birthday of
April 13. They had used
lunisolar calendars previously. None of them used the Julian calendar; the Old Style and New Style dates in these countries usually mean the older lunisolar dates and the newer Gregorian calendar dates respectively. In these countries, the old style calendars were similar but not all the same. The
Arabic numerals may be used for both calendar dates in modern Japanese and Korean languages, but not Chinese.
Japan
Japan started using the Gregorian calendar on
1 January 1873, locally known as . The preceding day,
31 December 1872, was .
Japan currently employs two calendar systems: Gregorian and modified traditional
nengō. Specifically, the months and days now correspond to those of the Gregorian calendar, but the year is expressed as an offset of the
era. For example, the Gregorian year
2008 corresponds to
Heisei 20. An era doesn't necessarily begin on January 1st.
Korea
Korea started using the Gregorian calendar on
1 January 1896, which was the 17th day of the 11th lunar month in not only Korea but also in
China that still used the lunisolar calendar. The lunisolar
Korean calendar is now used in very limited unofficial purposes only.
China
The
Republic of China started using the Gregorian calendar on
1 January 1912, but the lunisolar
Chinese calendar is still used along with the Gregorian calendar, especially when determining certain traditional holidays. The reference has been a longitude of 120°E since 1929, which is also used for
Chinese Standard Time (
UTC+8). China,
Hong Kong,
Macau,
Malaysia,
Indonesia,
Singapore and
Taiwan all have legal holidays based on the lunisolar Chinese calendar, with the most important one being the
Chinese New Year.
To visually distinguish old and new style dates,
GB/T 15835-1995, General rules for writing numerals in publications, which is a national standard of the People's Republic of China, requires writing new style dates with Arabic numerals but
old style dates with Chinese characters, never Arabic numerals.
In Taiwan, even though new style dates are written in Chinese characters in very formal texts, it's now common to see Arabic numerals in new style dates in less formal texts. When writing old style dates, Chinese characters are usually used while Arabic numerals are considered very casual and strongly discouraged as in Mainland China. The
calendar year in Taiwan is usually expressed as the "Year of the Republic" — counting Year 1 as the foundation of the Republic of China in 1912 CE.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Old Style And New Style Dates'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://old_style_and_new_style_dates.totallyexplained.com">Old Style and New Style dates Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
