Gary Somai a écrit:

On 18 Sep 2004 00:54:16 GMT,

On Fri, 17 Sep 2004 23:14:21 +0100, Gary Somai <gary@somai.fsworld.co.uk>
wrote in part:
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Question
Is it possible that Nostradamus used the Venetian style calendar,
which started the new year on March 1st?

Answer
No. All his almanac predictions run from January through to December,
so there is no reason to assume that he would start applying a
different calendar system in the Prophecies. And in any case the only
other calendars in use at the time in France, were the Ecclesiastical
Calendars, which began their new year on either March 25th, December
25th or at Easter.

Note: The Ecclesiastical Calendar that was *officially* in use in the
region of Provence, France (Where Nostradamus lived), was actually
celebrating December 25th as the start of the new year until the
Proclamation of Charles IX had come into affect.

*
Gary, you may wish to note that, prior to the end of the 15th
century, Provence was an independent state in its own right where
local custom might have been different from the one in use in
France proper. But upon the merging of Provence with France in
1486, there might have been a merging of ecclesiastical
conventions with some in use in France proper. So I would not be
surprized to find March 25 as religious, not civil, New Year's
Day in post-1486 Provence as well.

Thanks. On that basis then, i would agree that the new year had
probably changed to March 25th by the time Nostradamus was born.

*

Question
Some so called Nostradamus experts suggest that Nostradamus based his
prophecies on the new year beginning March 25th. Is this possible?

Answer
Anything is possible, depending on how far you're willing to let your
imagination run. However, since the date of N's Letter to Caesar is
actually dated March 1st, 1555 and the publishing date is printed as
May 4th, 1555, this would be impossible. To ignore this, would be to
suggest that Nostradamus wrote his Letter to Caesar, then traveled 10
months back in time to hand it to his publishers.

Gary S

*
Agreed. There is, however, a still obscure point which a quote

from Charles IX's Edict might assist in resolving, namely whether

he mentions the change in the New Year FROM such and such custom
TO January 1. Had his Edict remained silent on this point, I feel
that one would be unable to invoke that 1564 Edict as a basis for
claiming that March 1, or any other specific date, might have
been replaced by the January 1 date.
*

I haven't been able to find an actual quote from Charles IX, but i do
know the his edict of 1564 was basically putting into practice what
had occurred in the Council of Trent (1545-1563).

So i've been trudging through the canons and decrees of the sacred
and oecumenical Council of Trent, to see if i could find anything in
there that may be relevant to this discussion.

And lo and behold, although i haven't as yet found a specific decree,
i have noticed that the sessions of this Council were adopting the
Julian (January 1st) calendar from the start.

For example 1545-1546

From http://history.hanover.edu/texts/trent/ct01.html

----------------------------------------------------------
SESSION THE FIRST
OF THE OECUMENICAL AND GENERAL
COUNCIL OF TRENT
Celebrated under the sovereign Pontiff, Paul III, on the thirteenth
day of the month of December, in the year of the Lord, 1545.


DECREE TOUCHING THE OPENING OF THE COUNCIL
Doth it please you,--unto the praise and glory of the holy and
undivided Trinity, Father, and Son, and Holy Ghost ; for the increase
and exaltation of the Christian faith and religion; for the
extirpation of heresies; for the peace and union of the Church; for
the reformation of the Clergy and Christian people; for the depression
and extinction of the enemies of the Christian name,--to decree and
declare that the sacred and general council of Trent do begin, and
hath begun?

They answered: It pleaseth us.

[Page 13]

INDICTION OF THE NEXT SESSION
And whereas the solemnity of the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ is
near, and other festivals of the closing and opening year follow
thereupon, doth it please you, that the first ensuing session be held
on the Thursday after the Epiphany, which will be the seventh of the
month of January, in the year of the Lord MDXLVI?

They answered: It pleaseth us.
-----------------------------------------------------------

Which is why I was asking Jean to post it here, so as to clarify
that issue. All I got was a barrage of insults, as I had dared
challenge his very dead demi-god Michel Dufresne.
*

You won't get anything like that from Jean. It's like this Charlemagne
thing about March 1st. He post one single encyclopedia reference that
mentions this, which cannot be backed up by any other encyclopedia
reference or source and then he expects everyone to blindly follow it.
And he calls himself a researcher.. LOL!

I don't think that even Latremouille will tell you that the grand
Larousse Encyclopédique is not an absolute authority in the matter.

On Sat, 18 Sep 2004 13:40:36 +0100, Gary Somai <gary@somai.fsworld.co.uk>
wrote about what
*
On 18 Sep 2004 00:54:16 GMT,

Which is why I was asking Jean to post it here, so as to clarify
that issue. All I got was a barrage of insults, as I had dared
challenge his very dead demi-god Michel Dufresne.
*

You won't get anything like that from Jean. It's like this Charlemagne
thing about March 1st. He post one single encyclopedia reference that
mentions this, which cannot be backed up by any other encyclopedia
reference or source and then he expects everyone to blindly follow it.
And he calls himself a researcher.. LOL!

Gary S

*
Oh, I'm afraid it's much more complicated than that! It all
started when Jean got the idea that he actually was an exegete of
Nostradamus' writings. And it continued when he absolutely had to
give an interpretation of the now infamous quatrain X-72 for his
book about Centurie X.
*
He most certainly could not admit that Nostradamus (a genius who
sometimes made fools of those attempting to understand his
writings) would dare use the very frequent word ROY as a cryptic
anagram for the less frequent word NOYR, in line 2 of X-72, just
as Nostradamus had used the less frequent word NOIR in line 1 of
IV-47 to designate a wild king (ROI) killing Protestants, i.e.,
Charles IX, using the very same type of cryptic anagram.
*

He also could not admit that Nostradamus was making fools of
those attempting to understand his writings by using, from time
to time, the Julian calendar date of future events occurring
after the Gregorian reform of the calendar (1582).
*
So, instead of realizing that Nostradamus was speaking of July
1999 as the date of a total eclipse of the Sun occurring on
August 11, 1999 (therefore on July 29, 1999, Julian), Jean
Guernon decided that the words "sept mois" in line 1 of X-72 did
not really refer to the seventh month of 1999, but referred to
the seventh month after March 1, 1999, which he had decided was
New Year's Day in 1555, and that, in X-72, Nostradamus was using
March 1 to start the year 1999.
*
That's why Charlemagne came to the rescue! Or, as we say in
French: « Et voilà pourquoi votre fille est muette ! » (Molière)
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-------------- C E N T V R I E___D I X I E S M E -------------
----------------- (édition prétendue de 1568) ----------------
*
-------------------------- L X X I I. ------------------------
--------- L'an mil neuf cens nonante neuf sept mois ----------
--------- Du ciel viendra vn grand Roy deffraieur ------------
--------- Resusciter le grand Roy d'Angolmois. ---------------
--------- Auant apres Mars regner par bon heur. --------------
*
Ah, yes! By switching the prophecy from July to September, Jean
Guernon succeeded in eliminating from X-72 any reference to the
total eclipse of the Sun, to a war having occurred before that
eclipse, to a war having started after that same eclipse, and to
an event of July 1999 which did bring back into the news the name
of the Great King of Angoulême, i.e., the July 10 religious
wedding of Eudes, Duke of Angoulême, grandson of the Count of
Paris who had died June 18, on the same day the Duke of Angoulême
got married in a civil ceremony, thereby eliminating in totality
from his interpretation of X-72 anything which was mentioned (as
usual in an obscure fashion) by Nostradamus.
*
Which accounts for the barrage of insults I got when I suggested
that he post Charles IX's 1564 edict with respect to New Year's
Day, in support of his contention that March 1 was still used by
Nostradamus for dating his quatrains.
*
As you can see, the only way Jean Guernon can rescue his
contention that Nostradamus was still using March 1 as the
beginning of the year would be to show that Charles IX did refer
to that specific custom of March 1 in abolishing it in favour of
January 1. Were Charles' Edict referring to March, without any
greater degree of specificity, one could conclude from it that he
was referring to the March 25 (Annunciation) custom, as it is
admitted that it was indeed in use for religious purposes in some
regions of France in 1564.
*
An idea: Reading an account of Charles IX's long trip across
France might yield more information as to the various customs he
was encountering here and there. Unfortunately, when he arrived
in Salon to see Nostradamus, on October 17, 1564, the account of
that portion of his royal tour cannot possibly assist in
determining which kind of year he was using then, as October 1564
could not be anything other than... October 1564.
*
Have a nice day, ye all!
*
Claude Latrémouille
*
===

On Sat, 18 Sep 2004 13:40:36 +0100, Gary Somai <gary@somai.fsworld.co.uk>
wrote about what
*
On 18 Sep 2004 00:54:16 GMT,