Re: The Emacs Calculator and calendar

[Juanma Barranquero <lekktu@gmail.com>]

On Sun, Oct 7, 2012 at 7:30 PM, Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> wrote:

> you're making some distinction that you have not explained.

Presumably Paul is distinguishing between the Roman "julian calendar"
(introduced in 45 BC, following a really weird 445-days long 46 BC)
and posterior fixes and adjustments. For example, it was changed in
Augustus' time (a few decades after introduction) because they had
added a leap year every three years, not four. There were other
changes related to the start of the year, or to align chistian
festivities with some fixed point of the solar year.

And, in any case, that calendar wasn't as generally used as some
people think. In the Iberian Peninsula they used the "Hispanic Era",
with its origin at 38 BC, until the 14th century. So anyone using a
Julian date as "contemporary" to refer to Spain's history would only
be right from 1383 to 1582, approx. Less than two centuries (a bit
more in some parts of Spain, with a maximum of four centuries in
Catalonia). The crusades, from 3rd to 9th, would have a different date
if you asked contemporary catalonian or castilian people.

Aren't calendars fun?

    Juanma