Year (Consular)

YEAR (CONSULAR). - The practice of naming years after the ordinary consuls (not the "suffect" consuls), whence their appellation "eponymous," dates back to 509 B.C. and lasted in the West until 534 and in the East until 541. Only with the year 153 B.C. did the beginning of the consular year begin to coincide with January 1; however, the consular year did not always have the ordinary duration; in certain years it was sometimes only six months long or even shorter.

From 535 to 547 A.D. in the West the formula was used: p(wt) (consulatum) Paulini iunioris I (up to XIII); in the East from 542 to 565 the formula was used: p. c. Basilii iunioris I (up to XXIV). With 566, since Justin II had claimed for the emperor the title of consul, the indication of the p. c. was added after the years of reign, minus one unit: e.g. Data die X Kal. Augustorum, imperante d. n. Mauricio Tiborio piissimo Aug. an. XIV, p. c. eiusdem d. n. an. XIII, indizione XIV = 596 (S. Gregorii, Reg., VI, 50: Jaffé-Wattenbach, 1434).

Also in Christian monuments and ecclesiastical documents, the consular or post-consular date, up to the 8th century, is the most common, as can be seen for example from the dated inscriptions ranging from the 3rd to the 7th century (cf. the list in E. Diehl, Inscriptiones lat. christ. veteres, III, Berlin 1931, pp. 229-63). The above-mentioned Byzantine formulary for dating, later adopted in the Liber Diurnus (ed. Th. E. von Sickel, Vienna 1889; cf. e.g. form. VII), contributed to making post-consular years appear in a certain number of pontifical documents up to the beginning of the 10th century, attributing them to the Carolingian emperors, since they had lost the true notion of them, equating them with the years of reign.

Here is how the date is formulated in the privilege of Paschal I for the Church of Ravenna, of July 11, 819: unquato Hindovico a Deo coronato magno pacifico imperatore anno sexto, et [post] consulatum eius anno sexto (G. Battelli, Exempla Scripturarum, fasc. III: Acta Pontificum, Vatican City 1933, p. 5 and pl. 1).

The last testimony of this anomaly is the letter of Pope Sergius III, of February 22, 904, which records the year IV and the p. c. IV of Louis III (Jaffé-Wattenbach, 1533). The date with the name of the Byzantine emperor and his p. c. appears for the last time in the privilege of Adrian I for Farfa of 772 (Jaffé-Wattenbach, 2395).

A. Pietro Frutaz