Introduction

Abstract

The construction of chronologies for seventeenth-century literary figures is a perilous undertaking. It is often remarked, for example, that Shakespeare and Cervantes died on the same day. That statement is true inasmuch as both are believed to have died on 23 April 1616, but in fact Cervantes died ten days before Shakespeare: the Gregorian calendar in use in Spain was, in the seventeenth century, ten days ahead of the Julian calendar which was retained in England until 1752. Historians refer to the Julian Calendar as Old Style (OS.) and the Gregorian as New Style (N.S.), but literary scholars often muddy the water by using O.S. and N.S. to describe the discrepancy between documents that assume that the new year begins on 25 March and those that follow the continental (and Scottish) convention of reckoning the new year from 1 January. Further confusion is generated by Latin records, because they not only use unfamiliar terms for days of the week (Dies Solis, Lunae, Martis, Mercurii, Jovis, Veneris, Saturni), but they also fix the day of the month by the Roman system of counting backwards from the three divisions of the month (calends, nones and ides) rather than by counting forwards in ordinal numbers from the beginning of each month.