LUNAR CYCLE. - In chronology this name (Latin circulus lunae, or lunaris; French cycle lunaire; German Mondzyklus) designates a period of nineteen solar years, corresponding to 235 lunations or lunar months, which are necessary for a given moment of the solar year to correspond once again with the same lunar phase.

It is one of the computations adopted in the Middle Ages for determining Easter: already used by the Greeks, the Jews derived it from them in 338 A.D. In itself it corresponds exactly to the so-called "nineteen-year" cycle (circulus decennovennalis), with which it is in fact often confused, but it differs from it in the ideal starting date, which in the c. l. is calculated as A.D. 3, whereas in the nineteen-year cycle it is placed in the year 1 B.C. It is found cited in certain medieval documents, alongside the date.

Bibliography3 works

BIBL.: E. Brinckmeier, Praktisches Handbuch der historischen Chronologie... des Mittelalters, Berlin 1882, p. 65; A. Giry, Manuel de diplomatique, Paris 1894, pp. 148-49; H. Grotefend, Abriss der Chronologie des deutschen Mittelalters und der Neuzeit (Grundriss der Geschichtswissenschaft, ed. by A. Meister, I, III), 2nd ed., Leipzig-Berlin 1912, pp. 7-10.

Alessandro Pratesi

@incollection{ec3_ciclo_lunare, author = {Pratesi, Alessandro}, title = {Ciclo Lunare}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {III}, pages = {1592}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1949}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/ciclo-lunare} }

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Lunar Cycle

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