Hitherto, we have spoken of dates where both the year and the day of the month are set down in figures. But in ancient writings, even where the year is expressed in figures, nothing is more common than to indicate the day of the month only by reference to some festival or other peculiarity in the service of the church. Thus, an English letter of the latter part of the 15th c. is dated in this way: "Written at Paston, in haste, the Wednesday next after Deus qui errantibus;" that is, the first Wednesday after the third Sunday after Easter, on which day that portion of the church service which is called the introit begins with the words Deus qui errantibus. So, again, as late as the year 1610, the battle of Weisscnburg, near Prague, is described by the contemporary chroniclers as having been fought " upon the Sunday on which the church sings Ileddite qua aunt Casaris Casarir that is, the 22d Sunday after Pentecost, which, in the year referred to, fell upon the 8th Nov. A still more common way of dating was by refer ence to a saint's day. Thus, the English parliament which met at 'Westminster on the 6th Oct., 1399, is described in the contemporary record as meeting " on Monday, the Feast of St. Faith the Virgin;" and the Scottish parliament which met at Scone on the 3d Dec., 1318, as meeting "on the Sunday next after the feast of St. Andrew the Apostle." In order, therefore, to interpret all this class of dates—and it is a very large one—reeourse must be had to the calendar and service books of the church, or to the " glossaries of dates " and " catalogues of saints' days " which antiquaries have compiled from them.
For centuries, it was more common to date by the year of the king's reign than by the year of our Lord. The risk of error in reducing this way of computation to that now in use is such, that in Rymer's Fadera, a great collection of English state papers, printed at the public expense, in the beginning of the 18th c., many documents of all the reigns from Richard I, to Edward IV. are misplaced by a whole year. Those mis takes arose chiefly from insufficient inquiry as to the day from which the king dated his reign. This was assumed to be from the day of his predecessor's death, but in point of fact the early English sovereigns dated their reign only from the day of their corona tion. Where a D., therefore, has to be ascertained by reference to a regnal year, it becomes necessary to make sure not only of the time when the king came to the throne, but of the very day from which he reckoned his reign. In tha case of the popes of Rome, this inquiry is at once more than usually necessary, and more than usually troublesome, inasmuch as, until comparatively recent times, scarcely any two of them in immediate succession dated or computed on the same principle. Not a few of them, indeed, adopted different computations at different times of their reign. Thus, Pius II., during his pontificate of six years (1458-64), commenced the year sometimes on the 25th Dec., sometimes on the 1st Jan., and sometimes on the 25th Mar. Some popes, again, dated from the day of their election; others, from the day of their consecration or coronation. Nor is it only in interpreting regnal years into modern chronology that there is a chance of error; there is proof that occasionally the regnal years were wrongly computed at the time, by the kings themselves, or rather by the.ofilecrs who wrote their
charters. Thus, for example, it has been discovered that from the time that king David II. of Scotland returned from captivity in 1357, the year given as that of his reign is one year short of the truth. In dealing with regnal years, there is yet another risk of mistake to be guarded against. Until the 16th c., it was not common for kings to distinguish themselves by numbers from their predecessors of the same name. In order, therefore, to discriminate one from another, charters or other deeds of the English Henries and Edwards, or the Scottish Roberts and Jameses, recourse must be had to such tests as the character of the writing, its seal, its style and language, and above all, the names of the persons enumerated in it.
With no other help than is to be gained from such tests, the antiquary is often called on to fix the date of a charter, containing no reference to the year of our Lord, the year of the king's reign, the year of the pope's poutifioate, or any other measure of time. If the persons mentioned in the deed be men of note, he may be able to ascertain its date to a year, a month, or even a day; on the other hand, if they are obscure, he may be unable to reduce the date within a narrower range than 50 or even 100 years.
The skill of the antiquary is not unfrequently put to the proof in another way. Dates were often recorded by reference only to an event of the time. Thus, one leaf of the Scottish statute-book contains two acts of parliament, with no more explicit record of their date than that the one was passed " at Aberdeen in Lent next after the com ing in Scotland of Vivian the legate of the apostolic see;" and that the other was passed at Stirling " on the Monday next before the feast of St. Margaret the maiden next after the first coronation of Philip king of the French." An examination of contemporary chronicles fixes the date.of the one statute to 1177; of the other to 1180.
In. order to facilitate the discovery and rectification of dates, various elaborate works have been published. By far the most important—L'Art de Verifier les Dales des faits Historiques, des Charles, des Chroniques et autres Monuments—is due chiefly to the labors of the Benedictines of St. Maur. The best edition of this admirable work is that of Paris, in 8 folios, the first three containing the period from the birth of Christ till the year 1770, being published in 1783-87; the fourthcontaining the period before the birth of Christ, in 1820; and the last four, continuing the work from 1770 down wards, in 1821-38. A reprint of this edition, in 42 octavos appeared at Paris in 1818-44. Of the other French works, it will he enough to name two—the Nouveau Traits de Diplomatique, also by the Benedictines of St. Maur (Par. 1750-65, in 6 vols. 4to), and the Elements de Paleographic, par Nat. de 'frailly (Par. 1838, in 2 vols. 4to). The best English work is The Chronology of History, by the late sir Harris Nicolas, pub lished in Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopedia, 1838. Haydn's Dictionary of Dates (Vincent's edition, 1876) is a standard popular work.