VOL. XXI.3 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 43? 



Report of the Consultation on John Dee's Proposal for Reforming the Calendar, 

 A. D. 1582. By the Lord Treasurer Burleigh. N° 257, P- 355. 



It was agreed on by Mr. Digges, Mr. Savile, and Mr. Chambers, that on 

 their perusal of the book written by Mr. Dee, viz. as a Discourse upon the 

 Reformation of the vulgar Calendar for the Civil Year, that they allow of his 

 opinion ; viz. that as in the Roman calendar reformed there are 10 days cut off 

 to reduce the civil year to the state it was established in at the council of Nice, 

 it had been better to have cut off 1 1 days, and to have reduced the civil year 

 to the state it was in at the birth of Christ. And therefore the better to agree 

 with all the adjacent countries that have received the reformation of subtracting 

 10 days only, they think it may be agreed to without any manifest error, having 

 regard to observe certain rules hereafter, for omitting some leap years in some 

 hundred years. And for the subtracting of 10 days, Mr. Dee has compiled a 

 form of a calendar, beginning at May and ending at August, wherein every of 

 these four months. May, June, July, August, shall have in the ends of them 

 some days taken away without changing of any feast or holy day, moveable or 

 fixed, or without altering the courses of Trinity term, that is to say, May to 

 consist of 28 days, taking from it 3 days ; June to have 2g days, taking from it 

 but 1 day ; July to consist of 28 days, taking from it 3 days; August to consist 

 of 28 days, taking from it 3 days; all which together make 10 days. 



And because the Roman calendar has a great many rules added to it, which 

 skilful computists or astronomers alone are capable of understanding, it is thought 

 proper to make a short table like an ephemerides, to continue the certainty of 

 all the moveable feasts, depending only on Easter, and agree with the Roman 

 calendar, which may serve for 1 or 20O years, and so be easily renewed when 

 there shall be occasion for it. 



Reflections on the foregoing Paper. By Mr. John Greaves, Savilian Professor 

 of Astronomy at Oxford, l645. N° 257, P- 356. 



As I cannot wholly approve of this reformation of the Roman calendar, pro- 

 posed by Mr. Dee, so I cannot altt)gether disapprove. For I like the subtrac- 

 tion of 10 days, as the church of Rome has done, beginning the computation 

 from the council of Nice, though it cannot be denied, but that the reformation 

 from the time of our Saviour had been much better. But since the fathers of 

 the council of Nice thought it better to look forwards than to look backwards, 

 and to have a greater care of avoiding distractions in the church about the 

 celebration of Easter for the future than to remedy errors past, I think we shall 

 do well to follow the example of the church of Rome. And whereas some have 



