Copyright � 2026 by Shane
Tourtellotte
What’s this all about? You’re a chronic argonaut, to use H.G. Wells’s term1. You’re the master of the temporal element! What’s this writer doing, talking about mundane measurement of time? Haven’t you got that totally handled?
Well, I certainly hope you have it totally handled, but if I were trusting you on everything, I wouldn’t have needed to write this book. Besides, there’s some other reader who doesn’t have it handled. You’re welcome to read along as I educate that poor so-and-so.
We today are used to universal, standardized systems of tracking time, from seconds to years and beyond. They can lull us into thinking that nothing could be more natural and enduring. A time-traveler, though, needs to recognize how many things are subject to change.
The modern system of time zones based on the Prime Meridian at Greenwich, England dates back only to 1884. Before then, and in many places for decades afterward, timekeeping could be a very local matter. Going back two hundred years with the idea of arriving just minutes before some event of import you want to witness could lead to embarrassing -- or worse, exposing -- failure.
This problem proliferates when you go back before the time of mechanical clocks, or before the calendar you know so well was established. Reaching even a famous event within accuracy of a day could be a challenge, one you may well fail if you aren’t well versed in how people of that time and place measured the days and hours.
All three of our example eras pose interesting tests in the keeping of time. We’ll start with easily the least confounding -- though possibly the most dangerous -- of them.
The calendar used in Tudor England was the Julian calendar, famously promulgated by Julius Caesar, with adjustment to reflect the birth of Jesus rather than the founding of Rome as its central date2. This calendar was used all across what was then known as Christendom (despite being devised by a pre-Christian), until it was reformed in 1582 by a Christian of some note: Pope Gregory XIII.
The Gregorian calendar3, along with rectifying the frequency of leap years, moved the date ahead ten days, so the vernal equinox would fall on the day it had occupied in the early fourth century4. October 4th of 1582 led directly to October 15th, by Papal decree. The start of the year was also moved to the first of January. Previously, it had fallen on March 25th, the Feast of the Annunciation. Yes, March 24th, 1580 was followed by March 25th, 1581, and December 31st, 1581 was followed by January 1st, 15815.
Much of Europe promptly adopted the reformed calendar. That is to say, the Catholics did. Rulers of Protestant countries considered Gregory the henchman of the Devil if not the Antichrist himself, and would have no truck with his confusion of the dates.
England in 1582 was officially Protestant, so they stayed with the Julian calendar. They only switched over in the mid-1700s, which doesn’t concern you at the moment6. What does affect you is that if you’re visiting Elizabethan London, before or after the switchover date, they’re using the Julian calendar.
Mistakenly use the Gregorian date in London before 1582, and people will think you’re dumb and somewhat suspicious. Mistakenly use the Gregorian date after 1582, and people will think you’re a Catholic, and thus extremely suspicious. Elizabeth began a crackdown on Catholicism around 1580, due to domestic plots and, ironically, the acts of Gregory XIII7. This is a terrible spot to put yourself into, especially considering the methods of execution popular at the time.
Getting in the midst of a religious conflict is bad enough when it’s intentional. Don’t do it by accident.
At least Tudor England will be using a time system you recognize, even if calendrical details are different. In Japan at this time, they’ve barely heard of Gregory or Elizabeth, never mind Julius. Not only are their days of the year much different, so are the months, the weeks, and the hours.
Japan of the Sengoku Jidai had a lunar calendar, with months of 29 or 30 days. The pattern of short and long months changed every year for religious reasons, with an eye toward avoiding repetitions. At intervals, they would add an intercalary month, called the uruu, to the year, according to some complicated astronomical calculations. There are tables today tracking the specifics of those bygone calendars. Take one back if you’ll be visiting long enough to risk dating confusion.
The twelve months were also divided into twenty-four sub-months called sekki, each with its own name. These were also sometimes divided in three to create seventy-two micro-months called ko, and they all had their own names, and I’m not writing them all out. These were distinct from the Japanese week, which was ten days long. The tenth day of the week was the rest day. Those Japanese would laugh at us for expecting two rest days out of seven, with some agitating for three. Or they would seethe with envy. Perhaps both.
Layered atop this was the rokuyo cycle. This repeating six-day sequence told you which days were auspicious or inadvisable for various activities. Days could even be both, one way in the morning and the other in the afternoon, or you might need to hurry and fit something in at noontime. This may sound silly, but if you’re trying to arrange an event during your visit, not knowing this could be awkward or worse.
Years were counted as elements of eras, which at that time could be but weren’t always the reigns of emperors. As an example, the year AD 2000 was Heisei 12, the twelfth year of the reign of Emperor Akihito. This makes counting the time back to an earlier historical event tedious, but you’ll see there are worse methods.
They also used a sixty-year cycle, based on the twelve zodiacal signs, familiar from Chinese culture in their cycle of twelve years, combined with the five elements: wood, fire, earth, metal, and water. This divides evenly, but they complicated it by adding “older brother” and “younger brother” aspects to the elements. Still, counting back in time would be much easier with this method.
Divisions of the days will be unfamiliar. There were twelve hours in each day, six in daytime and six at night. Starting at 11 pm8, the hours would begin, counting down from nine to four, with six marking sunrise. This started again at 11 am, with six marking sunset. Hours were also identified by the twelve animals of the zodiac, much like their years.
Why count the hours down rather than up? The Japanese used burning incense sticks to measure hours. The numbers dwindled as the incense burned down9. Why not count one through three? Religious reasons. Bells or drums were used to sound the hours, akin to the clock chimes familiar to us. One, two, or three strokes were used as a Buddhist call to prayer. Ending the numbering of hours at four avoided confusion.
The incense measurement method was inaccurate for a surprising reason. When I say that daylight was six hours long, this is literally true. When daylight was longer, daylight hours were longer, and nighttime hours correspondingly shorter. When days were shorter, the reverse applied. This grates against our current conception of time, but it was not unique to Japan.
Roman divisions of the day resembled the Japanese example, though they had the 24-hour system that has become universal today. The Roman day had twelve hours of daylight and twelve hours of nighttime, year-round, and those hours lengthened and shortened with the seasons. They had sundials and water-clocks that measured out hours of uniform length, but these were recognized as imperfect, most useful close to the equinoxes and increasingly inaccurate near the solstices.
Roman hours were numbered first to twelfth, so that the hour ending at noon (or midnight) was hora sexta, the sixth hour10. There was some contention over when the day began, some saying at dawn, others saying at midnight. That may not affect you, depending on how early you get up or how late you stay out.
The Roman week is also different from ours -- or not, depending on when you arrive. From the early Republic, Rome employed an eight-day week they adopted from the Etruscans. The internundinum, as they termed it, ran between nundinae, market days. The nun- in both words stands for “nine,” which trips us up. Romans counted inclusively, so dates which to us are eight days apart they rendered as nine apart, because they counted both end dates11.
The nundinae were days of general rest and merrymaking, unless you had lots of business at those markets. The weekend was thus one day out of eight for Romans, a bit looser than the Japanese, but still putting us moderns to shame.
Early in the Imperial age, though, a seven-day week began creeping in, due to Babylonian, Hellenistic, and Jewish influences. Sources after the reign of Nero seldom mention the nundinae, so the eight-day week may have been superseded sometime in the preceding century. Be ready to see either system in use in the early Empire.
As for the months and the years … oh boy.
Rome, like Japan, used a lunar calendar, with intercalary months inserted about every other year. Through most of the Republic, they had months of either 29 or 31 days, except for February and the intercalary month12, which were shorter. March began the year and February or the intercalary month ended it, a method that persisted more or less until the Gregorian reform.
However, the Roman priests in charge of the calendar would sometimes adjust things by a day or so, to keep particular festivals from falling on particular days of the week, or things of the like. Also, they sometimes neglected their duty of keeping their lunar calendar aligned with the astronomical year, such as during the civil wars that brought Julius Caesar to absolute power in Rome. When Julius reformed the calendar, changing lengths of months and adding the quadrennial13 leap day, he needed to extend a year to 445 days to get things back in alignment.
Then there are dates within the months. Roman dating was anchored on the Kalends, the Nones, and the Ides. The Kalends was/were the first day of the month. The Ides fell on the 15th day during 31-day months, and on the 13th in 29-day months. The Nones came eight days (by our reckoning) before the Ides, so on the 5th or 7th.
You didn’t say a date was on the Nth day of the month. You said it was on the Kalends, Nones, or Ides -- or a number of days before, not after, those dates. Thus the 30th of May was instead “the third day before the Kalends of June.” That’s third, not second: remember Roman inclusive dating. May 31st would be rendered as “the day before the Kalends.” Best of luck doing this in your head14.
Dating the years methodically was, shall I say, not a priority. Years were generally given as being during the consulships of whichever two men had been elected for that year. You were expected to know hundreds of these duos, or pretend that you did. There was also the formula of numbering years ab urbe condita, or “from the founding of the city [of Rome],” which arose during the late Republic. Not only was this dating never widespread, but authorities disagreed on when Rome was founded, so contemporary sources would differ on dating by as much as several decades.
This avalanche of confusion leads to a very important point. For dates before the Julian calendar came into force, you cannot go by contemporary dating for when something took place. There are discrepancies as wide as four months at times. You need modern recalculation of the dates, and since we don’t have all the details on when specific changes, large and small, were made, they will not be entirely reliable. If you’re going back to witness the battle of Cannae, give yourself several days of leeway at least15.
I have not yet touched on the auspicious and inauspicious days Rome’s calendar had. No easy rokuyo cycle here, but a crazy quilt of days on which you could or couldn’t conduct official business, and should or shouldn’t conduct private business. Aside from memorizing a few dates of past national disasters, automatically inauspicious, I suggest not working too hard on it. Being confused about which upcoming days are fasti or nefasti will probably help you blend in.
Footnotes:
Wells published a short story in 1888 titled “The Chronic Argonauts.” Seven years later, he reworked the concept completely, writing a novel that became much more famous and launched his literary career.
Yes, the early Christians probably erred on the year Jesus was born. Go ahead and laugh at them: people have been doing so for centuries now.
Gregory didn’t do all the astronomical or mathematical work, but admit it, the Ghiraldian or Clavian calendar wouldn’t sound right. The Sosigenian calendar, for the one Julius established in consultation with Sosigenes of Alexandria, sounds even worse.
It involves the First Council of Nicaea, which set some important ground rules for the Christian church. Gregory appreciated that, and you can’t blame him.
Did you possibly not have the dates as totally handled as you thought you did?
For an example of the transition, George Washington was born on February 11, 1731, but in his early twenties his birthdate became February 22, 1732, which is how we know it today.
Among other things, he preemptively absolved any Catholic who assassinated her. That would get me paranoid too, I admit.
So that midnight would fall in the middle of the starting hour.
This uses the same principle as candle clocks, extant in China in the 6th century and in England in the 9th century.
This is how a customary nap after the noonday meal became known as the siesta.
If you’ve ever wondered why Jesus, crucified on Friday afternoon and resurrected on Sunday morning, was said to have risen after three days, this is why.
Called mensis intercalaris, meaning, well, you know. It was given the name Mercedonius later, but that was after the Empire fell.
That’s how he meant it. The calendar-keeping priests, using that dratted inclusive counting, held leap days every three years, and thanks to Brutus et al, Julius wasn’t around to clear things up. Augustus had to suspend leap years for a while to get the correction corrected.
Between this and Roman numerals, they really were gluttons for arithmetic punishment.
Or just don’t go. That thing was dangerous.
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