And so, we arrive at April 1st, 2022, better known to many as April Fools’ Day, not because of as many imagine the opportunity to prank all and sundry to our hearts content, but rather in celebration of the date when the Council of Trent, in accordance with the Edict of Roussillon, required France to change from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar in the year of 1564.
The English being the Englich belittle this fact, rather suggesting the celebration is much older, dating back to the ‘Nun’s Priest’s Tale’ included in the volume ‘Canterbury Tales’ by Geoffrey Chaucer, written around 1392.
I have no preference on such scholarly matters, preferring to recall the numerous often unkind japes my less considerate persona has played forward in celebrations of the occasion. A reference to Charles Lawton’s representation of Quasimodo, the much-maligned hunchback, in the movie telling of the ‘Hunchback of Notre Dame’, circa 1939, might reward the viewer with some insight into the truth and flavor of the origin.
Daily Abstract Thoughts 