Why Does Every Day Have a Name? A Calendar Built From Deaths

The practice began with local communities commemorating their own martyrs annually at the tomb, on the anniversary of the death, which was understood as the day of entry into eternal life and was therefore the appropriate date. Those local observances were recorded in lists, lists were exchanged between communities, and over centuries they accumulated into calendars covering most of the year, with popular figures adopted far from where they lived. Dates were sometimes chosen rather than recorded, particularly where nothing was known, and a considerable number of commemorations rest on traditions that cannot be verified. The result is a calendar in which nearly every date carries at least one name and many carry several.

In a society without printed calendars the system organised everything:

• •Dating documents, contracts and letters by the nearest commemoration
• •Setting the agricultural year, with sowing and harvest tied to named days
• •Fixing the dates of fairs, markets and hiring sessions
• •Determining rent and quarter days, which persist in several legal systems
• •Marking the patron of a parish, which was the principal local festival
• •Naming children, frequently after the figure commemorated on the day of birth

The Catholic calendar was revised substantially in 1969 and the changes were contentious. Several long-established commemorations were removed or reduced to local observance on the grounds that the historical evidence for the person was insufficient, including some extremely popular figures, which caused genuine distress and considerable press coverage. Dates were moved so that commemorations fell on the actual day of death where that was known. Duplicates were consolidated. The stated aim was to prioritise the principal seasons of the year over the accumulated commemorations that had come to overshadow them. Other churches conducted comparable revisions, and several traditions retain calendars that differ substantially from each other.

The process by which a person is added has become formal and lengthy. Early practice was local acclamation, with a community simply venerating somebody and the observance spreading, which is how the great majority of the older commemorations arose. Papal control was asserted progressively from around the tenth century and formalised later, producing a procedure requiring an investigation of the person's life and writings, evidence of exceptional virtue, and verified miracles attributed to their intercession, with medical panels examining claimed cures. The process takes decades and occasionally centuries, involves substantial cost, and requires somebody to promote the case actively. Orthodox and other traditions use quite different procedures, generally decided by a synod.

The system persists in secular life in ways that are largely invisible. National days in several countries are commemorations, with Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England each marking one and only some treating it as a holiday. Quarter days in English law and land practice are named commemorations and still govern rent and tenancy dates. Several university and legal terms are named after them. Name days remain a substantial celebration in parts of central and eastern Europe and in Greece, in some places more important than birthdays. Weather lore attaches to particular dates. And a considerable number of ordinary English phrases and place names derive from them without anybody noticing.

Commemorations were placed on the anniversary of death, understood as entry into eternal life, and accumulated into a calendar covering nearly every date as local lists were exchanged. That calendar dated documents, set the agricultural year and fixed fairs and rent days. A revision in 1969 removed commemorations lacking historical evidence and caused real controversy. Quarter days, national days and name days survive from it.