the moriconion liturgical calendar

8/8/2019 The Moriconion Liturgical Calendar

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THE CALENDAROF

MORICONIONAn observational lunisolar liturgical cal endar

DEINIOL JONES

Ategninum oinan mteran, berteyo yemnou. Poterosest melinodubus ac rte wo sowonon, eti poteros est

blros ac crde tre argyon?

I know one mother, who bore twin sons. Which one was swarthy andran under the sun, and which was pale and walked through snow?


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BackgroundBackground

That the inhabitants of pre-Roman Britain had a cycle of religious and ritual observances

governed by the passage of time- that is, a calendar of festivals, a ritual year- is undeniable.

The ritual year of modern Britain and Ireland can even provide some scanty pieces of

evidence of what that cycle was like. This basic proposition, of course, leads us to thequestion of what exactly governed the occurrence of these festivals. Was it simply a matter

of the local priests or nobles deciding that the time was right? Or was the beginning of a

natural event the trigger for a festival: did the first thunderstorm of spring signal the

beginning of a festival of planting?

Classical authors make much of the Celtic interest in astrology and astronomy. Following

this, the ancient Celts also undoubtedly marked the passage of time. The Roman author

Pliny remarks that the Gauls measured their months and years by the moon, grouping theminto saeculi of thirty years: that they had formal calendars is fairly indisputable. It is

therefore logical to assume that these calendars were the organising principle behind any

annual cycle of festivals.

However, the only pre-Christian native Celtic calendar which survives is that discovered

at Coligny in 1897. Could this then serve as the basis of a ritual calendar for use in

Brythonic reconstructionism? Yes, it could. However, the Coligny calendar was used by

tribes living in the Jura Mountains of south-eastern France. It is highly unlikely that it wasa pan-Celtic calendar: only one of the months of the Coligny calendar finds a cognate

elsewhere in the Celtic lands. It is rather more likely that, like the Greeks, calendars were

localised. So, while authentically Celtic, the Coligny calendar is hardly authentically

Brythonic.

For that matter, whats wrong with using the Gregorian calendar anyway? For one thing,

it does have the benefit (if you choose to see it that way), of aligning our annual festivals

with those of the wider neopagan community. However, we have enough evidence fromcomparative and internal sources to suggest that recurring religious observences were not

only played out on an annual scale, but that there was also a cycle of observances based on

the lunar month. Reconciling this cycle with an annual festival cycle seems both logical and

elegant.

Therefore, I humbly propose the following calendar. Taking the attested Celtic calendar

of Coligny as its basic reference, this calendar is lunisolar and observational, meaning that it

follows the phases of the moon more closely than the Gregorian calendar does. It usesattested Celtic and (where possible) Brythonic terminology and organisational patterns,

while also taking the comparative evidence into account. In what follows, we shall first


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explore the background information which informs the calendar, and then discuss the

operation and organisation of the calendar itself.

The Coligny CalendarThe Coligny Calendar

The Coligny Calendar was engraved onto a large bronze tablet, written in Gaulish using

elegant Roman inscriptional capitals. Excellent and detailed descriptions of the calendar can

be readily found elsewhere, so in what follows Im going to limit myself to outlining only a

few of the more salient characteristics.

The Calendar of Coligny is a lunisolar calendar, which attempts to reconcile the solar year

with the lunar month. As a lunar year of twelve lunar months only totals 354 or 355 days, a

relatively elaborate system of intercalation was used to bring this back in line with the

length of the solar year: every two and a half years an extra month was inserted into the

calendar, giving a basic intercalary cycle of five years.

The year was divided into two halves, a winter half beginning with the month of SAMON

and a summer half beginning with the month of GIAMON. Interestingly, the placement of the

intercalary month varied within the five year cycle: the first intercalary month was placed

at the beginning of the first year, before the beginning of the winter half at SAMON. The

second was placed in the third year of the cycle, at the beginning of the summer half of the

year before GIAMON.

Like the year as a whole, the month was also divided into halves. The first half was always

fifteen days, the second half either fourteen days or fifteen depending on the length of the

month. Months of thirty days were identified as MAT, and those of twenty-nine as ANM, which

are conventionally translated as lucky and unlucky respectively. Days themselves could

be accompanied by abbreviations including D, MD, NNSDS, the interpretation of which remains

controversial. These daily markings, as well as other equally obscure markings such as PRINNI

LOUDET, PRINNI LAGET, AMB and IVO have been the subject of great scholarly debate, and the

interpretation of them forms much of the academic literature written about the calendar-notably Garret Olmsteds works.

As well as this, scholars have also argued about when the months began (full moon, dark

moon, quarter or new moon?) and when the year itself began: most favouring the equation

of SAMON with the Irish Samhain and a consequent autumn start to the year, but a

considerable minority claim that the calendar began in spring or at midsummer. A rather

smaller portion of the academic literature attempts to correlate the calendar to

astronomical phenomena, such as the precession of the equinoxes or as a predictor ofeclipses. This aspect has been seized upon with rather more enthusiasm by groups of eager

neopagans, claiming the calendars more perplexing markings as indications of a complex


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system of Druidic astronomy. Personally, I take the more mundane view that these

markings are probably more likely to resemble the markings on Roman fasti, which served

to indicate times which were appropriate and/or auspicious for legal or religious dealings.

In my opinion, the Coligny calendar bears striking resemblences in structure to the pre-

Julian calendar of Rome, as well as several instances of similarity to the Hindu and Hellenic

calendars. This could be explained as borrowing the basic calendrical system from a

common source (it is assumed that the Roman calendar is derived from those of Greek-speaking southern Italy, which are in turn derived ultimately from Babylonian models), or it

could be explained as common Indo-European inheritance- or perhaps a mixture of both.

While it would almost certainly be preposterous to suggest that the Proto-Indo-Europeans

had a sophisticated common calendar, it is not unreasonable to assume that they too

marked the passage of time by lunar months: one of the Proto-Indo-European terms for

moon is clearly related to the verbal root meaning to measure. Similarly, a few early hymns in

the Rig Veda allude to a lunisolar calendar with intercalary months. It is perhaps worth

noting that the Roman, Hindu and Hellenic calendars, in common with the calendar of

Coligny, divide the month into two halves, with the full moon standing at the dividing point

between the two. This division is absent from the Babylonian calendar and its closest lunar

derivatives.

Modern Celtic TimekeepingModern Celtic Timekeeping

Since their conversion to Christianity at least, the modern Celtic-speaking peoples have

used various forms of the Roman calendar: first the Julian and subsequently the Gregorian

calendar, which is the calendar in common use throughout the world today. While they

adopted the reckoning of the Roman calendar wholesale, with its ties to the solar year, the

curious lengths of its month and its complex system of intercalation; some few traces of

native calendar traditions remain. This is most apparent in the names given to the months

of the year, which frequently are not simply borrowed from the Latin.

In the table below, the names of the months in all six modern Celtic languages are given.

Those names with Latin etyma have been identified by small caps, while native Celtic names

are given in boldface:


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Welsh Cornish Breton IrishScottishGaelic

Manx

January IONAWR GENVER GENVER EANIR FaoilleachJerreygeuree

February CHWEFROR WHEVREL CHWEVRER FEABHRA GearranToshiaght

arree

March MAWRTH MERTH MEURZH MRTA MRT MAYRNT

April EBRELL EBREL EBREL AIBRAN Giblean AVERIL

May MAI ME MAE Bealtaine Citean Boaldyn

June Mehefin Metheven Mezheven Meitheamh OgmhosMean

souree

July Gorffennaf Gortheren Gouere IL IUCHARJerreysouree

August AUST EST EOST Lnasa Lnasdal Luanistyn

September Medi Gwyngala GwengoloMen

FmhairSultain

Meanfouyir

October Hydref Hedra HereDeireadhFmhair Dmhair

Jerreyfouyir

November Tachwedd Du Du Samhain SamhainMee

Houney

December Rhagfyr Kevardhu Kerzu NOLLAIG DbhlachdMEENYNOLLICK

Table 1: Names of the months in the modern Celtic Languages

At first glance, there appears to be little commonality across the entire family (save that

all languages have borrowed the Latin name for March), let alone among the individual

branches. From this table, one cannot reconstruct a proto-Goidelic or a proto-Brythonic listof month-names, much less anything which goes further back than that.

Nevertheless, let us examine the names of June more closely: aside from Gaelics Ogmhos,

all of the names here are cognate, going back to something like *medio-sam- mid-summer.

On the Brythonic side, we also have the names for July, which all etymologically mean end

of summer. An older native term for May exists in Welsh: Cyntefin, which is cognate to the

Gaelic Citean- both meaning first [month] of summer. The Manx names for January,

February, June, July, September and October are all in origin phrases indicating eithermiddle or end plus the name of the season, as do the Irish names for September and

October.

We can determine from this then a common Insular Celtic pattern of naming the months

after their position in the season. Furthermore, we can also see that the seasons were

considered to begin not with the solstices and equinoxes but with what are commonly

referred to as the cross-quarters: were this not the case we would expect the Manx

toshiaght arree beginning of spring to correspond to April, not February. Perhapsunfortunately, the names of the months of the Coligny Calendar do not appear to have any

etymological correspondence with the Insular names, beyond the SAMON-Samhain connection


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already mentioned: this may serve to underscore the point that it was highly unlike that

there was a common Celtic calendar.


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The CalendarThe Calendar

While not claiming to be an authentic reconstruction of any pre-Christian Celtic

calendar, I believe that it is not unlikely that the pre-Roman Brythons, in common with

other early Indo-European peoples, would have made use of a lunisolar calendar wherein

the month is keyed to the phases of the moon, but would have also been linked to theseasons, neccessitating the periodic correction of an intercalary month. The evidence for

this, in my opinion, can be found in the Calendar of Coligny (for the structure), and in the

native month-names preserved in the modern Celtic languages.

Working our way upwards, unit by unit, we begin with the day. As in the Athenian and

Jewish calendars, there is ample evidence from the classical authors that the Celts

considered days to end and begin at sunset. The Moriconion Calendar therefore considers

the day to begin at sunset, a fact which should be recalled when giving correspondences toGregorian dates. A statement such as the current year begins on the 27th of October

should be understood as after the sunset of the 27th of October.

The month is considered to begin with the sighting of the first sliver of the new moon,

which generally occurs one or two days after the astronomical new moon. This first day

of the month is referred to as centulugrfirst crescent. The month itself is divided into two

halves, a light half lasting from the beginning of the month to the full moon, and a dark

half lasting from the full moon to the following new moon.

Months are grouped into amsters trimesters, comprising three months each. These

trimesters correspond to the four seasons, to which we give the names giamos winter,

wesantnosspring, samossummerand messusautumn. Only this last presents difficulties: it

is not possible to reconstruct a Proto-Celtic term for autumn: the Brythonic languages

largely use words meaning harvest, while the Goidelic languages derive their word from

*uo-giyamo- before winter. In lieu of a readily reconstructable term for the season, the

Moriconion Calendar uses the verbal noun of metet to reap, which also gives Welsh mediharvest, autumn, September. Each month is named according to whether it is the first,

middle or final month of its trimester.

The trimesters are further grouped together into two rt or semesters, which therefore

comprise six months each. The first semester, giamorton, covers winter and spring while

the second, samorton, covers summer and autumn. The full regular year, then, is made up

of two semesters, four trimesters and twelve lunar months. The full structure of a year is

shown in the table below:


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Table 2: The structure of the year

semester trimester month

giamorton winter half

giamos winter

centugiamos first of winter

medyogiamosmiddle of

winter

worpennogiamos end of winter

wesantnos spring

centuswesantn

first of spring

medyoswesantn

middle ofspring

worpennonwesantn

end of spring

samorton summer half

samos summer

centusam first of summer

medyosammiddle ofsummer

worpennosam end of summer

messus autumn

centumessus first of autumn

medyomessusmiddle ofautumn

worpennomessus end of autumn

IntercalationIntercalation

The beginning of each semester is to be the second new moon after an equinox. Innormal years, this means that the first month of one semester should follow the final

month of the preceding semester. However, given that the lunar year and the solar year do

not match up, in some years the final month of a semester will begin on an equinox full

moon, leaving a full lunar month between the end of one semester and the beginning of the

next. These extra months are counted as intercalary months belonging to the following

semester, but do not affect the naming of the months in that semester (they are in the

semester, but not of it). The name given to the intercalary month is ambantaronos

(ambantaronos wo samon where it occurs before samorton and wo giamon where it occurs

before giamorton), a name taken from the Coligny Calendar. These embolismic semesters

(those including an intercalary month) occur roughly every two and a half years, the

systematisation of which reoccurrence forms the basis of the Coligny Calendar.

Tables of correspondenceTables of correspondence

In the two table below, the start dates of each month between 2010 and 2020 are shown,

along with the presence or otherwise of intercalary months.


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Table 3a: 2009-2014

2009-10 2010-11 2011-12 2012-13 2013-14

ambantaronos - - - 16.10.12 -

centugiamos 18.11.09 07.11.10 27.10.11 14.11.12 04.11.13

medyogiamos 17.12.09 06.12.10 26.11.11 14.12.12 04.12.13

worpennogiamos 16.01.10 05.01.11 25.12.11 12.01.13 02.01.14

centus wesantn 15.02.10 04.02.11 23.01.12 11.02.13 01.02.14

medyos wesantn 16.03.10 05.03.11 22.02.12 11.03.13 02.03.14

worpennon wesantn 15.04.10 04.04.11 22.03.12 11.04.13 31.03.14

ambantaronos - - - - -

centusam 15.05.10 04.05.11 22.04.12 11.05.13 30.04.14

medyosam 13.06.10 02.06.11 21.05.12 09.06.13 29.05.14

worpennosam 12.07.10 01.07.11 20.06.12 09.07.13 28.06.14

centumessus 11.08.10 31.07.11 20.07.12 07.08.13 27.07.14

medyomessus 09.09.10 30.08.11 18.08.12 06.09.13 26.08.14

worpennomessus 08.10.10 28.09.11 17.09.12 06.10.13 25.09.14

Table 3b: 2014-2019

2014-15 2015-16 2016-17 2017-18 2018-19

ambantaronos - 14.10.15 - - -

centugiamos 24.10.14 11.11.15 31.10.16 20.10.17 08.11.18

medyogiamos 23.11.14 12.12.15 30.11.16 19.11.17 08.12.18

worpennogiamos 23.12.14 11.01.16 30.12.16 19.12.17 07.01.19

centus wesantn 21.01.15 09.02.16 29.01.17 17.01.18 05.02.19

medyos wesant

n

19.02.15 10.03.16 27.02.17 16.02.18 07.03.19worpennon wesantn 21.03.15 08.04.16 29.03.17 18.03.18 06.04.19

ambantaronos - - - 17.04.18 -

centusam 19.04.15 08.05.16 27.04.17 16.05.18 06.05.19

medyosam 19.05.15 06.06.16 27.05.17 14.06.18 04.06.19

worpennosam 17.06.15 05.07.16 25.06.17 15.07.18 03.07.19

centumessus 17.07.15 03.08.16 24.07.17 12.08.18 02.08.19

medyomessus 15.08.15 02.09.16 22.08.17 10.09.18 31.08.19

worpennomessus 14.09.15 02.10.16 21.09.17 10.10.18 29.09.19


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Appendix 1 - Coligny and MoriconionAppendix 1 - Coligny and Moriconion

In the following table, the months of the Moriconion Calendar are given with their

Coligny correspondents:

Table 4: Coligny and Moriconion month names

Coligny Moriconion1 SAMON centugiamos

2 DUMAN medyogiamos

3 RIUROS worpennogiamos

4 ANAGANT centus wesantn

5 OGRON medyos wesantn

6 CUTIOSworpennonwesantn

7 GIAMON centusam

8 SIMIUISON medyosam

9 EQUOS worpennosam

10 ELEMBIU centumessus

11 AEDRIN medyomessus

12 CANTLOS worpennomessus

the moriconion liturgical calendar

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