Was the first December 25-31st in AD 1 or BC1?
If Anno Domini is the Year of our Lord, marking the years of history by the coming of Jesus into the world, then why don't we celebrate his birth on January 1st, rather than December 25th?
And if Jesus earthly life began at conception, then the year should actually begin around March 25th.
There, now you really have got a headache.
Until the 17th century, the year often did start on 21 March, depending upon who was counting. Unfortunately they also sometimes counted from 1 Jan, which made life very confusing in the late winter each year.
ReplyDeleteAnd the first December 25 would have been loads of years before AD1, as the Roman months had names long before the start of the "Common Era".