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Dates in MoEML

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Dates and calendars present notoriously difficult problems for scholars of the medieval and early modern periods. Widespread variations in the use of the Julian calendar across Europe meant that travelling from city to city even within the same country might mean transitioning from one year to another (R. L. Poole, quoted in Cheney 8). In 1582 the Gregorian calendar was first introduced, bringing some measure of standardization, but it was only gradually adopted over several centuries; England, for instance, did not switch until 1752. To complicate the issue still further, the date of the New Year in the Julian calendar as it was used in England varies between December, January and March, so it is often very difficult to determine what the standardized Gregorian equivalent would be for any historical date prior to 1752, especially a date occurring in a primary source text.
MoEML takes a very scrupulous approach to encoding dates. We tag Julian dates as carefully as possible, specifying what variant of the Julian calendar is in use, and our web application converts those dates to a Gregorian equivalent in the form of an explanatory popup. For further information, see our presentation Encoding historical dates correctly: is it practical, and is it worth it? (Digital Humanities 2013 Conference), and our Praxis page on Encoding Dates.

Calendars

Julian Sic

The Julian calendar, in use in the British Empire until September 1752. This calendar is used for dates where the date of the beginning of the year is ambigious.

Julian (Regularized to 1 January)

The Julian calendar with the calendar year regularized to beginning on 1 January.

Julian (Regularized to 25 March)

The Julian calendar with the calendar year beginning on 25 March. This was the calendar used in the British Empire until September 1752.

Gregorian

The Gregorian calendar, used in the British Empire from September 1752. Sometimes referred to as New Style (NS). Years run from January 1 through December 31.

Anno Mundi

The Anno Mundi (year of the world) calendar is based on the supposed date of the creation of the world, which is calculated from Biblical sources. At least two different creation dates are in common use. See Anno Mundi (Wikipedia).

Regnal

Regnal dates are given as the number of years into the reign of a particular monarch. Our practice is to tag such dates with @calendar="regnal", and provide an equivalent date using a more systematic calendar (usually Julian) in a custom dating attribute.

References

Cite this page

MLA citation

Holmes, Martin D., and Joey Takeda. Dates in MoEML. The Map of Early Modern London, Edition 6.6, edited by Janelle Jenstad, U of Victoria, 30 Jun. 2021, mapoflondon.uvic.ca/edition/6.6/dates.htm.

Chicago citation

Holmes, Martin D., and Joey Takeda. Dates in MoEML. The Map of Early Modern London, Edition 6.6. Ed. Janelle Jenstad. Victoria: University of Victoria. Accessed June 30, 2021. mapoflondon.uvic.ca/edition/6.6/dates.htm.

APA citation

Holmes, M. D., & Takeda, J. 2021. Dates in MoEML. In J. Jenstad (Ed), The Map of Early Modern London (Edition 6.6). Victoria: University of Victoria. Retrieved from https://mapoflondon.uvic.ca/editions/6.6/dates.htm.

RIS file (for RefMan, RefWorks, EndNote etc.)

Provider: University of Victoria
Database: The Map of Early Modern London
Content: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

TY  - ELEC
A1  - Holmes, Martin
A1  - Takeda, Joey
ED  - Jenstad, Janelle
T1  - Dates in MoEML
T2  - The Map of Early Modern London
ET  - 6.6
PY  - 2021
DA  - 2021/06/30
CY  - Victoria
PB  - University of Victoria
LA  - English
UR  - https://mapoflondon.uvic.ca/edition/6.6/dates.htm
UR  - https://mapoflondon.uvic.ca/edition/6.6/xml/standalone/dates.xml
ER  -

TEI citation

<bibl type="mla"><author><name ref="#HOLM3"><surname>Holmes</surname>, <forename>Martin</forename> <forename>D.</forename></name></author>, and <author><name ref="#TAKE1"><forename>Joey</forename> <surname>Takeda</surname></name></author>. <title level="a">Dates in MoEML</title>. <title level="m">The Map of Early Modern London</title>, Edition <edition>6.6</edition>, edited by <editor><name ref="#JENS1"><forename>Janelle</forename> <surname>Jenstad</surname></name></editor>, <publisher>U of Victoria</publisher>, <date when="2021-06-30">30 Jun. 2021</date>, <ref target="https://mapoflondon.uvic.ca/edition/6.6/dates.htm">mapoflondon.uvic.ca/edition/6.6/dates.htm</ref>.</bibl>

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