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Days of the Week

• Message 1.Μύ

  Posted by Dazbo_46 (U8942524) on Tuesday, 10th July 2007

  Why didn't the Christian church change the names of the days of the week from their pagan origins?

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• Message 2

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  Posted by Idamante (U1894562) on Tuesday, 10th July 2007

  for the same reason they celebrate the birth of Christ during the period of the pagan midwinter festival.
  
  Basically if you want to convert people to a new religion it's easier if you let them carry on with as many of their old customs as possible, rather than trying to force them to change everything.

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  Posted by Zork (U9018754) on Sunday, 15th July 2007

  That's true if they changed everything people wouldn't want to convert.

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• Message 4

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  Posted by Stoggler (U1647829) on Monday, 16th July 2007

  But we changed the names of the months. Here are what they were called in Old English:
  
  JANUARY
  Γ¦tera Geola - "after Yule", a name used by Christians. Yule was a pagan festival.
  Formamonath - "first-month"
  Wulfmonath - "wolf-month"
  
  FEBRUARY
  Solmonath - "mud-month"
  
  MARCH
  Hrethmonath - "fierce-month"
  
  APRIL
  Eastermonath - "Easter-month"
  
  MAY
  Thrimilce - "three-milk"
  
  JUNE
  Seremonath - "dry-month"
  
  JULY
  Mædmonath - "meadow-month"
  
  AUGUST
  Weodmonath - "weed-month"
  
  SEPTEMBER
  Hærfestmonath - "harvest-month"
  
  OCTOBER
  Winmonath - "wine-month"
  
  NOVEMBER
  Blotmonath - "blood-month"
  
  DECEMBER
  Γ¦rra Geloa, early Yule, the first period of the pagan festival which was later borrowed and adapted by the Christian church to celebrate the birth of Jesus.
  
  Anyone know when we adopted the current names of the months?

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• Message 5

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  Posted by Solitaryhunter (U8358809) on Monday, 16th July 2007

  It has already been said that the Church kept or adapted some traditions to make proselytising easier for amongst an un-Christian population. When, for example, the seven 'Sacrements' became common practice (a wholly alien concept to a largely uneducated congregation), the Church also introduced 'sacrementals'. These lesser Sacrements included the blessing of harvests and other rituals that copied traditional 'pagan' practices.
  it is also the case that, in the period of the early church and through the middle ages, most people thought about time (over the medium/long term) in years and seasons. The nomenclature of months was only important to clerics, who had a religious calendar to observe. Consequently changing the months' names caused little controversy and mirrored the larger linguistic developments occuring at that time. However the days of the week were commonly used by everyone and to enforce a change of tradition would cause general resentment.
  Therefore we see that decisions regarding change (and the lack of change) were often based on pragmatism and practicality. Some things never change.

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• Message 6

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  Posted by Helena99 (U8659848) on Tuesday, 17th July 2007

  Boy, did the Saxons pick the right name for February, eh? Mudmonth - spot on!
  
  I'm curious as to when the days of the week were when the Romans were here, before the Saxons came. I have a vague feeling they had a ten day week, or maybe they didn't at all, and it was just all the kalends, nones, ides stuff?
  
  I would assume that the Christian week derives from whatever the Jewish calander did, as we just shifted the Sabbath by a day, and wasn't ti the Jews who started all the 'seven day week' with God resting on the seventh and having a kip?? (and on the eighth, starting elswhere in the universe on a less ambitious project.....)

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• Message 7

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  Posted by Flying_Arf-RIP_scrum_V_MB (U1505179) on Friday, 20th July 2007

  From Wikipedia
  
  Hindu civilization employed a seven-day week, mentioned in the Ramayana, a sacred epic written in Sanskrit about 500 BC, as Bhanu-vaar meaning Sunday, Soma-vaar meaning Moon-day and so forth.
  The ancient Babylonians observed a seven-day week, stemming from astronomical observation and association. Days and deities were based on the seven heavenly bodies or "luminaries" visible to the naked eye (the Sun, Moon, and 5 visible planets).
  The Hebrew (and later Christian, and Muslim) seven-day week corresponds to the biblical creation story, in which God created the universe in six days, then rested on the seventh.
  Other theories speculate that the fixed seven-day period appeared due to evenly dividing a lunar month into quarters.
  Μύ
  
  It would seem that we got some of the day names from the Babylonians Moon-Day, Sun-Day, Saturn-Day & the remainder from the Norse

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