The Oxford Companion to the Year »

Bonnie Blackburn is General Editor of the series Monuments of Renaissance Music and a member of the Faculty of Music at Oxford University. Leofranc Holford-Strevens is a classicist and desk-editor with Oxford University Press. He is the author of Aulus Gellius. Both authors live in the United Kingdom.

What are the halcyon days? On what date do the dog days begin? What is Hansel Monday? How do Chinese, Muslim, Mesoamerican, Jewish, and Babylonian calendars differ from Christian calendars? The answers to these and hundreds of other intriguing questions about the way humans have marked and measured time over the millennia can be found in The Oxford Companion to the Year.
The desire to set aside certain periods of time to mark their significance is a transhistorical, transcultural phenomena. Virtually all cultures have marked special days or periods: the feast day of a saint, the celebration of a historical event, the turning of a season, a period of fasting, the birthday of an important historical figure. Around these days a rich body of traditions, beliefs, and superstitions have grown up, many of them only half-remembered today. Now, for the first time, Bonnie Blackburn and Leofranc Holford-Strevens combine this body of knowledge with a wide-ranging survey of calendars across cultures in an authoritative and engaging one-volume reference work. The first section of The Oxford Companion to the Year is a day-by-day survey of the calendar year, revealing the history, literature, legend, and lore associated with each season, month, and day. The second part provides a broader study of time-reckoning: historical and modern calendars, religious and civil, are explained, with handy tables for the conversion of dates between various systems and a helpful index to facilitate speedy reference.
The Oxford Companion to the Year is a unique and uniquely delightful reference source, an indispensable aid for all historians and antiquarians, and a rich mine of information and inspiration for browsers.

Library Journal

Blackburn (Music, Oxford Univ.) and Holford-Strevens (Aulus Gellius) have produced an interesting reference work that can be seen as a modern version of the medieval Book of Days. Recognizing the significance that the recording of time has had for almost all known cultures, they set out to explain the origins of calendar construction, taking care to examine the significance of each day of the year. The book is divided into two parts. "Part I: Calendar Customs" is a day-by-day guide to the year as organized by the Western calendar. Here, the authors explicate the peculiar attributes each day of the year has acquired. "Part II: Calendars and Chronology" is an in-depth study of how time has been organized over the ages. The authors explain more than 18 calendar systems from Anglo-Saxon to Zoroastrian and also include tables for converting dates from one calendar system to another. This work should appeal to browsers and researchers alike and would be a useful resource for academic as well as public libraries. Recommended for both.--Robert James Andrews, Duluth P.L., MN Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Part I: the bulk of the book consists of a January-December listing, divided by month and then by day. Each month begins with information, for example etymology of the name and quotations, dealing with the month in general, and each day contains information on holidays and anniversaries, saints and their legends, historical and social customs, and relevant quotations from historical and modern texts. Part I ends with a discussion of seasons, months, terms, weeks, and days in general, a section on the Western Church and the Orthodox Church years, and finally secular holidays not tied to a specific day (e.g. Thanksgiving).
Part II: a more technical section on calendars, throughout history and across the world, and chronology, including computus.