every day's a holiday! » Western Europe

Lady Day

sinestor — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 20:26:45 +0000

March 25

Happy New Year!

For over six centuries, England celebrated March 25 as the first day of the new year, up until the adoption of the Gregorian Calendar in 1752.

Being stapled to one solar calendar for so long, it’s hard for us to understand how this is possible. I mean, March 25 isn’t even the first day of the month, let alone the first month of the year.

But remember, for much of antiquity, the agrarian world straddled two systems of keeping track of time. The months, which mirrored the lunar cycles, and the years, which followed the quarter days (solstices and equinoxes) of the sun.

The Spring Equinox, with its natural imagery of rebirth and fertility, was deemed the logical start of the new year, a tradition held in societies as far apart as pre-Muslim Persia, Mayan Mexico, and Celtic Europe. No matter what calendar Rome imposed on the latter of the three.

Thus March 24, 1700 in England was followed by March 25, 1701.

(The Jewish calendar follows a similar practice. The Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, starts in the seventh month of the year. Thus, the last day of the sixth month of 5769 is followed by the first day of the seventh month of 5770.)

Lady Day is so-named because it falls on the day of the Annunciation, celebrated on March 25, precisely nine months before Christmas. The Annunciation marks the visit of the Angel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary and the conception of Jesus Christ. Thus the New Year on March 25 honors the first moment of the incarnation of Jesus.

When the Annunciation falls during Holy Week, the Vatican moves the date to the Sunday after Easter. Thus, in 2008, the Annunciation fell on March 31.

The Annunciation – Old New Year’s Day

sinestor — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 17:06:56 +0000

March 25

But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus.

Luke 1:30-31

The Annunciation, da Vinci, c. 1475

Happy New Year!

Up until 1752, March 25th was the first day of the New Year in much of the English-speaking world. It was also known as Lady Day back then. March 25 marks the anniversary of the Annunciation—when the Angel Gabriel appeared to the Virgin Mary to inform her of her child to be.

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In the 6th century, a monk and historian named Dionysius Exiguus was asked to calculate the dates for Easter for many years. In order to do so, he set out to determine the precise dates of Jesus’s birth and death. Dionysius devised the Anno Domini (A.D.) dating system by counting backwards to Christ’s birth, or more accurately, Christ’s incarnation.

Using the reigns of Roman leaders, Dionysius calculated that the Christian calendar began 754 years after the foundation of Rome. He didn’t consider the first day of the Christian Era to be January 1 or even December 25, but nine months earlier—March 25—the Annunciation. In essence, the conception of Christ’s corporeal presence.

So, according to Dionysius’s system, March 24 in the year 999, for example, was followed by March 25 in the year 1000.

Though there are no clues in the Bible as to when the Annunciation occurred (except that it was six months after the conception of John the Baptist), early Christian scholars placed the date precisely nine months before Christmas.

For much of Christianity’s history, the Annunciation was one of the most important holidays of the year. Over the last few hundred years, the emphasis on the Annunciation has diminished, but it is still widely celebrated across the Christian world.

Why Do We Call Spring ‘Spring’?

Las Fallas & the Night of Fire

sinestor — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 21:32:03 +0000

March 19

Las Fallas has been described as a “pyromaniac’s dream” and a cross between “a bawdy Disneyland, the Fourth of July and the end of the world.”

Mascleta, March 2004

So how did the next-best-thing to the Apocalypse come to be celebrated on the feast day of Saint Joseph, adoptive father of Jesus?

Well, though St. Joseph’s Day is celebrated as Father’s Day across Italy, Spain, and Portugal, the Valencians chose to celebrate another calling of Joseph.

Joseph is also the patron saint of carpenters, an occupation that made up a good segment of the urban population in the Middle Ages. According to “Valencia en la epoca de los Corrogidores“, each Autumn, carpenters carved special planks of wood to serve as candle holders, either free-standing or hanging on the wall. Called estai, parot, or pelmodo, these medieval lamps provided light for carpenters to work by during the long winter nights.

Apparently the Valencian carpenters weren’t big fans of recycling. Each year on St. Joseph’s Day they would celebrate both their patron saint and the coming of spring by burning these special wooden candle holders along with any leftover wood.

The pagan tradition of burning effigies on or near the spring equinox had long been a ritual in pre-Christian Europe. The Valencia carpenters had the idea of killing two birds with one stone. The dressed up the wooden lamps as unpopular local authorities—perhaps an unscrupulous sheriff or maniacal mayor—before burning them.

Over the centuries the pelmodos became more and more intricate. Today they are not candle holders at all, but are sculptures as big as houses, large float-like creations that portray anything from reviled politicians to hot-topic social issues, such as “globalization swallowing the world.”

After five days of festivals and celebration these miraculous, almost supernatural creations go up in smoke, just as in days of yore. Called “La Crema”, the bonfires take place on the evening of Saint Joseph’s Day, March 19, and for one long night the conflagration makes Valencia look like —well, let’s just say Nero’s Rome couldn’t hold a candle.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXuCNPxdddk

(the flames really get going around 50 seconds)

La Fiesta de Las Fallas (Spanish)

10 Reasons NOT to go to Fallas

Valencia y la República

Las Fallas – Triumph of Fire