[DCRM-L] Lady day date confusion

Wed Aug 16 13:36:42 MDT 2023

The Gregorian calendar was adopted formally by official bodies (such as government and church) in 1752, but January 1 as the first day of the calendar year was in common practice long before that. If the ESTC corrects the date in their record, follow their practice; they know something specific. Unless you have evidence to the contrary, take the date as given. (Date correction in ESTC record counts as evidence.)

In general, ESTC records are trustworthy as to their content, but they do not follow standard cataloging practices, despite the 040 coding, so don’t follow their cataloging choices blindly.

______________________
Deborah J Leslie [cid:image001.png at 01D9D057.7357B400] , M.A., M.L.S. | Senior Cataloger | Folger Shakespeare Library | djleslie at folger.edu<mailto:djleslie at folger.edu> | Opinions her own

From: DCRM-L <dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu> On Behalf Of Jessie Sherwood via DCRM-L
Sent: Tuesday, August 15, 2023 12:18
To: DCRM Users' Group <dcrm-l at lib.byu.edu>
Cc: Jessie Sherwood <jcsherwood at law.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Re: [DCRM-L] Lady day date confusion

I refer to Cheney's Handbook of dates for students of English history on the (blessedly rare) occasions when I have to cope with English books.

On Tue, Aug 15, 2023 at 7:37 AM Erin Blake via DCRM-L <dcrm-l at lib.byu.edu<mailto:dcrm-l at lib.byu.edu>> wrote:
It's even more complicated than that: Lady Day Dating and the Julian/Gregorian Calendar are two separate things. Here's how I explained the difference to myself, which later went into a Folger blog post:
It’s especially important for researchers working with British documents to remember that Lady Day dating (affecting year numbering every 1 January through 24 March) and the Julian calendar (affecting day numbering year round) are separate because they were not modernized at the same time. Scotland officially dropped Lady Day dating after 31 December 1599, which was followed by 1 January 1600, but continued to use the Julian calendar until Wednesday 2 September 1752, which was followed by Thursday 14 September 1752. England and Wales also switched from the Julian calendar in September 1752, but had already modernized year numbering the previous January (31 December 1751 was followed by 1 January 1752).
See https://www.folger.edu/blogs/collation/untangling-dating/<https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/5_M5CpYoyni2BQnhPt7J4?domain=folger.edu/> for the whole post.

Short version: if you've got an English imprint with an exact day and year, and the day was within 1 January and 24 March, and the year was 1751 or earlier, add one to the year.

Erin

______________________
Erin Blake, Ph.D.  |  Senior Cataloger  |  Folger Shakespeare Library  |  201 E. Capitol St. SE, Washington, DC, 20003  |  eblake at folger.edu<mailto:eblake at folger.edu>  |  www.folger.edu<https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/cDpBCrkqApiqGw8S4Lkij?domain=urldefense.com>   |  Pronouns: she/her/hers

On Tue, Aug 15, 2023 at 10:22 AM Huber, Seth via DCRM-L <dcrm-l at lib.byu.edu<mailto:dcrm-l at lib.byu.edu>> wrote:
I am working on some English political pamphlets primarily from the 1640s. Most of the records I have found in OCLC take the year as given on the piece, but in some cases the ESTC records have noted that Lady day dating has been used, while entries that exist in Wing take the date as given. I have not dealt with Lady day dating to this point, so I’m wondering if I should assume that it applies to everything printed before the region of origin adopted the Gregorian calendar or only take it into account when specified in a union list or some other reference source? At this point I can’t tell if I am overthinking or what and I would be glad for clarification on this. Thanks,
Seth Huber
Technical Services Librarian/Head of Cataloging
University of Missouri—Columbia
huberse at missouri.edu<mailto:huberse at missouri.edu>
573-884-4648

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--
Jessie Sherwood
Associate Librarian
The Robbins Collection and Research Center
University of California Berkeley, School of Law
Tel: 510.643.1236
jcsherwood at law.berkeley.edu<mailto:jcsherwood at law.berkeley.edu>

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