The Origin of April Fools Day
We have some interesting commemorations in America and around the world. One of them is April Fool’s Day, which has been celebrated every April 1st for centuries.
There is a reason for everything, and sometimes those reasons can be absurd. April Fool’s Day, however, has a valid reason for its existence. It all began in the latter part of the sixteenth century, when the Holy Roman Empire was in control all over Europe – and it was losing that hold, because of the Protestant Reformation.
The Pope at the time was Gregory XIII. In his attempt to keep the power over the populace that had been in place for centuries, he decided to update the calendar. In doing so, he changed the New Year from April 1 to January 1 in 1582.
For those who studied ancient history, most civilizations began their year in the month of April. Rome did it. The ancient Jews did it.
Gregory XIII decided January was better, and implemented it as the first month of the new year. The Gregorian Calendar is the one we still use, with very little alteration, in the modern world.
Not everybody likes change. There were, naturally, dissidents all over Europe who detested the change and refused to acknowledge the new calendar, stubbornly keeping April 1 as the beginning of the new year.
Gregory XIII did what so many rulers, usurpers, and even tyrants have done for millennia. He was used to forcing the issue, something he did to French Protestants in 1572 with the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre. Those who refused to implement the new calendar, though, were ubiquitous, and force wouldn’t work as well with so many refusals all over the empire. Pope Gregory turned to the next best thing – ridicule. Anyone who refused to adhere to the new calendar were called, not surprisingly, FOOLS.
Those determined to keep April 1 as the new year relished the new title.
They made a celebration of it. And we still celebrate it, albeit in a lesser fashion, today.
Gregory XIII died in 1585, a mere three years after implementing his new calendar. Interestingly, he died in April.
His legacy not only lives on with his calendar, it lives on with April Fool’s Day.
Hopefully it’s a good day for all.
