The seasons of the calendar were different before 4 October 1582, than after that date. However before then the calendar had been fixed at 365 days and not adjusted for many years therefore didn’t really match anything. The purpose for the change by the Pope, was to put Easter on the same calendar range that it was in at the council of Nicene in the year of 325, and to fix the calendar to 365.25 days.
However basically prior to that the seasons were calculated based upon Astrology and it fell into the four seasons we know as Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter and the months numbered one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven and twelve. We still have those names to the months left in March, September, October, November and December.
The months between March and September of April and May were probably meant to be months two and three however as they were in spring they were probably changed by the folks of the time to be renamed for ‘spring like activities’ instead of month two and three. Month four or June is named for the moon as the moon is in astrology is the ruler of Cancer or the forth month in Astrology, July was changed by Julius Cesar, and August by Octavian or Cesar Augusto or Cesar Octavius. That leaves only two January (month of burning trunks) and February (month of dreadful ice) left searching for a name, those are tag names Macedonian months names from Wikipedia, and they make some sense to me.
Spring
March - Aries
April - Taurus
May - Gemini
Summer
June – Cancer
July – Leo
August – Virgo
Fall
September – Libra
October – Scorpio
November – Sagittarius
Winter
December – Capricorn
January - Aquarius
February – Pisces
Therefore, Halloween or the eve before All Hallows' Day is the last day of October, month eight and is followed by All Saints Day or the first day of November or month nine in the old calendar. All Saints day was put there by the Catholic Church because Halloween was deemed such a ‘bad pagan event day’ and renamed to Saint Hollow’s eve by the Church.
Also of note the calendar became fixed at 365 days for quite a long time by the church and lost all the astrological meaning for the times also and at the change of the calendar in 1582 January first was the first day of the year. However, because the first day of spring was the first of March the Astrologers tried to keep everything calendar wise prior to the year 325 in sync, when the church took over the calendar.
Samhain from Irish samhain, Scottish Gaelic samhainn, Old Irish samain, “summer's end", from sam "summer" and fuin "end" is a festival held at the end of the harvest season in Gaelic and Brythonic cultures. Principally a harvest festival, it also has aspects of a festival of the dead. It had its roots in ancient Celtic polytheism, and continued to be celebrated through medieval times, and is seen as contributing to the modern celebration of Halloween. Many scholars believe that it was the beginning of the Celtic year.
The night of Samhain, in Irish, Oíche Shamhna and Scots Gaelic, Oidhche Shamhna, is one of the principal festivals of the Celtic calendar, and falls on the October 31. It represents the final harvest. In modern Ireland and Scotland, the name by which Halloween is known in the Gaelic language is still Oíche/Oidhche Shamhna. It is still the custom in some areas to set a place for the dead at the Samhain feast, and to tell tales of the ancestors on that night.
That is also from Wikipedia, however, it is also what I know and agree with.
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I love to read about how we arrived at some of the "Traditions" we celebrate!
sharing the light,
the Enlightenment advisor
The Jewish folk still use the Lunar Calendar and in fact I’ve been told by one that is the principle of a Hebrew school in the LA area that in the old days, those would be the days before year 1, that a lunar year was only 30 days or so days long. That why Methuselah lived 969 years old. When those ‘Lunar’ years or one time around the earth of the Moon are dived by 12 to be generous you get 80.75 solar years old for Methuselah.
However, somewhere around 6 thousand + or so years the thought of the Solar year, probably because of the annual flooding of the Nile came into being and the solar year was counted on an annual basis from then on.
The Moon is going away from the earth thus the ‘Lunar’ month will be a bit longer every cycle around the earth a wee bit, but over tens of thousands of years that will be quite a bit of days for each month, while the Solar year from spring equinox to spring equinox the sun will be in the same place for a very long time. Thus more stability in the calendar is a good thing, however as the rotation of the earth is slowing every day a wee bit, the days are getting longer. Therefore the 24 hour day and the minutes from the atomic clocks which ‘we’ say is relevant is in reality not, but used anyway and adjusted for the slowing of the earth over time, from time to time.
Therefore I just prefer Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter and forget the months.
The old astrological data has just been moved to the current calendar and an Aries is, depending upon the Vernal Equinox, sometime around March 20th till somewhere around 30 days later.