Bracton: Thorne Edition: English. Volume 4, Page 133

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Volume 4, Page 133

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[001] [with respect to the calendar] for this reason because of the need for avoiding this
[002] inconvenience, lest the feast of the birth of the Lord be celebrated in summer and
[003] the Nativity of St. John the Baptist in winter,¹ which could happen within 500 or
[004] 600 years; also the bad weather of winter would then appear under the signs of
[005] summer.² And for greater clearness let us say something of the year, that is, what
[006] a year is, and what is called a major and a minor year, and the reason why a day is
[007] added to the minor year. A day³ is a period of the motion by which the planet goes
[008] round its circular course. Of days,⁴ one⁵ is solar, another lunar, [which vary]
[009] according to the shortening or lengthening of the circles, and the speed of the planet
[010] in its circle. A third is artificial.⁶ Of years, some are major, some minor,⁷ one
[011] natural, the other conventional. The natural year is the time in which the sun goes
[012] round its circle. It consists of 365 days and the quarter or fourth of a day, that is,
[013] 6 hours.⁸ An hour is made up of 40 moments and thus a day is made up of 960
[014] moments. A conventional year, which is called a minor year, consists of 365 days, A
[015] major year consists of 366 days, where [the last day is not the lawful day for appearing
[016] according to some,] the minutes disregarded during the three preceding years
[017] are gathered up with the minutes of the fourth year to complete one full day, [That
[018] day thus excrescent is called ‘bisextus’ and the year in which it occurs ‘bisextilis,’]⁹
[019] which is always the lawful day for appearing,¹⁰ that is, on the 366th day,¹¹ in a leap
[020] year as in the other three years, [not] on the 367th, as some say, but erroneously, as
[021] is evident,¹² ¹³[because it is inserted at the sixth day before the kalends of March,
[022] where two days are counted on one letter, namely F.] because it is made up of the
[023] minutes of four years, of the [four] quarters taken together, and thus is counted, the
[024] day preceding and the night following, as one artificial day.¹⁴ And that it may appear
[025] how it may begin in one year and come to completion in the fourth,¹⁵ let us suppose
[026] a year beginning in the morning; it will be completed, when the circle of the year
[027] has been traversed, at mid-day, where the second year beginning, it will be completed¹⁶

Notes

1. B.N.B., iii, 301, Schulz, 278-9

2. Schulz, 279

3. ‘Dies’; Schulz, 295, 300

4. ‘Dierum’; Schulz, 300

5. ‘alius’

6. Supra iii, 275

7. ‘Annorum . . . minores,’ from line 8; B.N.B., iii, 300; Schulz, 300

8. ‘horis’

9. Continued at n. 13

10. Supra 132

11. ‘tricesimo’

12. Supra 132; cf. Schulz, 295, 300

13. Continued from n. 9; om: ‘Dicitur etiam bisextus,’ as Schulz, 295, 301

14. ‘ex illis . . . artificiali,’ from 134, lines 2-3

15. ‘Et ut pateat qualiter incipere [possit]’

16. Om: ‘dies’