[Ian Fenton Macinnes <ifm5u@faraday.clas.virginia.edu>: Re: leap years in XVIth century England]

[Peter Graham <psgraham@GANDALF.RUTGERS.EDU>]

Without permission I am forwarding the following which may be of interest to
some readers of ExLibris; the context, as you can probably infer, is that
someone on the list asked for a source for leap years in early modern Europe.
From:  Peter Graham, Rutgers University Libraries / Moderator, ExLibris

                ---------------

Received: from ulkyvm.louisville.edu by gandalf.rutgers.edu
 (5.59/SMI4.0/RU1.5/3.08)
        id AA27634; Sat, 14 Aug 93 15:20:49 EDT
Message-Id: <9308141920.AA27634@gandalf.rutgers.edu>
Received: from ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU by ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU (IBM VM SMTP V2R1)
   with BSMTP id 2108; Sat, 14 Aug 93 15:20:56 EDT
Received: from ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU by ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU (Mailer R2.08
 R208004) with BSMTP id 4016; Sat, 14 Aug 93 15:20:55 EDT
Date:         Sat, 14 Aug 1993 15:19:16 -0400
Reply-To: Early Modern History - Renaissance <RENAIS-L@ulkyvm.bitnet>
Sender: Early Modern History - Renaissance <RENAIS-L@ulkyvm.bitnet>
From: Ian Fenton Macinnes <ifm5u@faraday.clas.virginia.edu>
Subject:      Re: leap years in XVIth century England
X-To:         Early Modern History - Renaissance
              <RENAIS-L%ulkyvm.BITNET@virginia.edu>
To: Multiple recipients of list RENAIS-L <RENAIS-L@ulkyvm.bitnet>

As other listmembers have said, you *could* look in Cheney's
*Handbook of Dates* for your information.  If all you want is
leap years however, they are extraordinarily easy to find in the
Julian calendar (which is why things went so wrong with it). All
years of the Christian era divisible by four are leap years
according to the Julian calendar (old style).  The Gregorian
reformation modified this so that years divisible by 100 but not
by 400 are common (ie 1900 was a common year, but 2000 will be a
leap year).

If you use a Macintosh and you don't like plowing through
Cheney's handbook of dates, I can send you a copy of a Hypercard
stack I have written called "English Calendar."  It will provide
all the information that a handbook will, at the click of a
mouse, (except for regnal years: I 'm still working on these),
and it can be modified to apply to countries that adopted the New
style sooner than England.

--Ian MacInnes
University of Virginia
ifm5u@Virginia.edu


Peter Graham   psgraham@gandalf.rutgers.edu       Rutgers University Libraries
169 College Avenue, New Brunswick, NJ 08903    (908)932-5908 Fax:(908)932-5888