🌸 Origins of April Fool's Day 🌸 (Patreon)

Do you know where the origins of April Fool’s Day come from? Posted this article last year, but thought it would be an interestinr read for new coven members and a refresher for those who’ve read it already! Check out this article from Witchcraft Academy and History.com.

On April 1, 1700, English pranksters begin popularizing the annual tradition of April Fools’ Day, also called All Fool's Day, by playing practical jokes on each other. Editors from History.com wrote, "Some historians speculate that April Fools’ Day dates back to 1582, when France switched from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar, as called for by the Council of Trent in 1563. People who were slow to get the news or failed to recognize that the start of the new year had moved to January 1 and continued to celebrate it during the last week of March through April 1 became the butt of jokes and hoaxes.

These pranks included having paper fish placed on their backs and being referred to as poisson d’avril (April fish), said to symbolize a young, “easily hooked” fish and a gullible person.

April Fools’ Day spread throughout Britain during the 18th century. In Scotland, the tradition became a two-day event, starting with “hunting the gowk,” in which people were sent on phony errands (gowk is a word for cuckoo bird, a symbol for fool) and followed by Tailie Day, which involved pranks played on people’s derrieres, such as pinning fake tails or “kick me” signs on them.

Since the Roman Empire, the Julian calendar had been the primary method for tracking time. As a straightforward Lunar calendar, it split up the year into 13 months with 28 days in each. The Julian calendar also began in the Spring, so according to the Julian calendar, April 1st was the current January 1st."

Happy New Year!

The Roman Empire was very busy during the beginning of the year. The Legions would be marching from Rome and making their way through the passes in the Alps in the North because the snow had began to melt enough so they could pass through.

Grey Hart from Witchcraft Academy states, "This month, named for Janus, the Roman God of doorways and new beginnings, was the start of the New Year. One of the problems with the Julian calendar, is that if you multiply 28 by 13, you find that it is equal to 360. That works great for a circle, but there are five days that are missing from the standard solar year.

These five days were originally celebrated as Saturnalia. They were outside the calendar, and therefore outside time. Things that happened during Saturnalia, didn’t exist in the normal year. This was a time of partying, and ritual. Roman slaves and masters were known to reverse roles during Saturnalia. The Emperor would go out among the people, as an equal. What happened at Saturnalia, stayed at Saturnalia."

Some changes were made to the calendar when Julius Caesar was in power. The month of his birth was renamed after himself, which became July. Since this month was of utmost importance, he took three days from Saturnalia so that this month was longer than the rest.

Changes in the Calendar

Gray Hart writes, "His Nephew, Augustus, did the same, giving us the month of August. His month couldn’t be any shorter than his uncle’s, so Augustus took days from the following month, so that his month also had 31 days. This left the year with 13 months of 28 days each, except for July, August, and one month that had only 27 days, which was probably February. Saturnalia was now absorbed into the calendar properly. There was no more week outside the calendar. This didn’t stop the partying, it just meant that the end of each year was now followed immediately the next day, by the first of the next year.

Roman Emperors did things like this, simply because they could. The months of September, October, November and December were all named for the Roman numerals of seven, eight, nine and ten. These were the point in the year where each month fell, which was Fall and Winter. September was the seventh month, October the eighth, and so on."

This is the way it stayed long after the Fall of Rome, which was in 476. The Dark Ages and the Renaissance used the Julian calendar. However, when Rome fell, an Emperor could no longer make these dynamic changes any longer, so the Holy Roman Church was all that was left of the Roman Empire. As time went on though, even that fell notably. A major part of the Old Roman Empire was not under control of the Roman Church. Italy, Spain, Poland and Portugal were the countries solely dominated by the Pope in the late 1500's.

Time For Change

On Witchcraft Academy, it says, "In 1582, Pope Gregory XIII realized that the patchwork calendar that everyone was using, would no longer work. It had holes in it, there were Traditions and Holidays that no longer made sense. It needed to be overhauled. Luigi Lilio was an Italian doctor, astronomer and philosopher, who was more popularly known as Aloysius Lilius. It had been popular since the 15th century, for men of knowledge to Latinize, or Romanize their names.

Luigi had devised a calendar that took advantage of the Solar 365 day year, and made adjustments for the fact that the year wasn’t exactly 365 days in length, by adding one day every four years. It was an elegant solution, and Pope Gregory adopted it as the standard year, by Papal Bull in 1582."

With the new calendar, the beginning of the year changed to just following the Winter Solstice. There were 12 months in the calendar, instead of 13, and 30 or 31 days. One month on the calendar does keep the traditional 28 days, though. Every four years, this month would gain the extra day and this is still in the calendar that is used today.

Even though the newer calendar fixed a lot of the problems the old one had, there were still some things that were disorganized. The article states, "The names of the months were kept, even though half were named for Greek or Roman Gods. Janus – January, Februa – February, Mars – March (Also the month the Roman Legions moved north from Rome. This is why when an army moves, it is called marching) Aphrodite – April, Maia – May and Juno – June."

The Papal Shuffle

The months September through December continue to be in their seasonal positions, but they are not the seventh through tenth months and instead became the months nine through twelve.

More from Witchcraft Academy says, "Gregory also took the opportunity to move several Holy Days to match dates that were celebrated by Pagans. Christmas was moved from the Spring, to the Winter Solstice. The first day of celebration started on the Solstice, and lead up to the climatic Mass of Christ on the 25th. As the most important Holy Day of the Christian Calendar, it was placed on the most important Holy Day of the Pagan calendar. The Re(birth) of the Sun (Son).

Easter, was also moved. There was no fixed date for Easter, so Gregory placed it as the first Sunday after the first Full Moon after the Spring Equinox. That’s the most Pagan way of deciding when a Holy Day should be, that I can think of. The entire new calendar was to take effect in October, 1582. Ten days were dropped from that month, in order to sync the year to our orbit around the sun. People went to bed one night, and woke up the next morning, ten days later.

While those in the cities were all up to date, and informed, those who lived out in the country, took it less formally. Their calendar revolved around the seasons, not the day of the month. So by Spring of 1583, the people in the towns and cities, anywhere there was a church, had all adapted to the new calendar."

April Fools!

The article adds, "At this time, traditional Spring Markets were set up in these towns and cities. The country folk came to town to buy and sell as usual, and greeted everyone with “Happy New Year!”. Of course, the town folk knew better, and thought these people backward and foolish, for not keeping up with the times (literally). Anyone who wished others a Happy New Year on the first of April, came to be called an April Fool. Thus began the tradition of trying to lure others into believing a falsehood, then shouting “April Fools!”.

The other thing to remember, is that the Pagani, or country folk, tended to still follow the Old Ways. Any group of people big enough to be called a town, had a church. These farmers, lived outside town, and didn’t tend to go to town except a few times a year, to buy or sell. During the Growing Season, they had to tend their farms, so they couldn’t spend all day in church, while their fields lay untended. This is the origin of the word Pagan."

One More Thing...

The Protestant countries didn't accept the change in the calendar from Pope Gregory, because they thought it was a tactic for the Pope to conquer over them. The Gregorian calendar wasn't accepted for another 200 years in areas such as England and the colonies within. The Julian Calendar is still used in parts of the Eastern Orthodox Church, parts of Oriental Orthodoxy and the Berbers. The Julian calendar has two types of years: a normal year of 365 days and a leap year of 366 days.

It is great to know when a holiday is on the calendar, but it's also important to know why. Finding out why a holiday is what it is helps us learn about the history, how it was celebrated and so on. Think about some other holidays with origins you may not be familiar with! St. Patrick's Day, perhaps? If you are interested in learning more about St. Patrick's Day, too, look back to some previous posts on Patreon!

Sources:

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/april-fools-tradition-popularized

http://www.witchcraft-academy.com/april-fools/