Everything about Inter Gravissimas totally explained
Inter gravissimas was a
papal bull issued by
Pope Gregory XIII on
February 24,
1582. The document reformed the
Julian calendar and created a new calendar which came to be called the
Gregorian calendar, which is used in most countries today.
The intention of this bull was "to restore" the previous calendar so that "the calendar itself will never need published any further change".
By "restore" Gregory meant to move the
vernal equinox close to
March 21 (removing ten days of drift) and the
Paschal Full Moon to the 14th day of the moon (removing three days of drift), near where they'd been during the
Council of Nicaea (
May 20 -
August 25,
325), even though that council didn't specify any rules. Furthermore, the
Roman Catholic Church didn't even use these rules until
Dionysius Exiguus translated the rules of the
Church of Alexandria from
Greek into
Latin in 525. Britain adopted them at the
Council of Whitby in 664 and France adopted them about 775. Before these years, France and Rome used the tables of
Victorius of Aquitaine, which were published in 457. Britain before 664 and Rome before 457 used an 84-year Paschal cycle called the
Latercus.
Gregory also sought to make changes to the calendar to ensure that, in the future, the equinox and the 14th day of the Paschal moon, and consequently Easter Sunday, didn't move from their positions.
The changes made to the Julian calendar were as follows:
1. reduction of the number of
leap years - centennial years, such as
1700,
1800, and
1900 ceased to be leap years, but years that can be divided by 400, such as
1600 and
2000 continued to be;
2. turning back extra days -
October 4,
1582 was to be followed by
October 15,
1582 and these 10 missing days were not to be counted in calculating end days of loans, etc.;
3. consequently,
Easter will be computed via new
Paschal tables.
The name of the bull consists of the first two words of the bull, which starts:
"Inter gravissimas pastoralis officii nostri curas…" ("Among the most serious duties of our pastoral office…").
Attached to the bull were six canons which enabled the computation of the new Gregorian Easter and two calendars listing
saints' days, one for the last 2½ months of 1582 and another for the entire new Gregorian year.
The bull, canons, and calendars were reprinted as part of the front matter of the principal book explaining and defending the Gregorian calendar,
Christoph Clavius,
Romani calendarij à Gregorio XIII. P. M. restituti explicatio (1603), which is tome V in his collected works
Opera Mathematica (1612).
Adoption
Though Gregory's reform was "enacted" in the most solemn of forms available to the Church, in fact the
bull had no authority beyond the
Catholic Church and the
Papal States. The changes which he was "proposing" were changes to the
civil calendar over which he'd no authority. The changes required "adoption" by the civil authorities in each country to have legal effect.
For dates on which various countries adopted the Gregorian reforms, see
Gregorian calendar.
The
Nicene Council of 325 sought to devise rules whereby all Christians would celebrate
Easter on the same day. In fact it took a very long time before Christians achieved that objective (see
Easter for the issues which arose). However, the bull
Inter gravissimas, which wasn't immediately adopted by many European countries, became the law of the
Catholic Church. It wasn't recognised, however, by
Protestant Churches nor by
Orthodox Churches and others. Consequently, the day on which Easter was celebrated by different Christian Churches again diverged.
Further Information
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