Dominical Letter

Dominical Letter, in the Church Calendar, the letter which marks the Sunday (Lat. dies dominica, Lord's day) in any given year. In the calendar of pagan Rome the first eight letters of the alphabet were used to mark successive days, the eighth (or in Roman reckoning, which includes both the terminal members in reckoning from the first of a, series, the ninth) being the "nundinee," or market-day and day of public business. The Christian Church adopted this notation for the week, reducing the letters used, of course, to seven. As, however, the only use of the letters is to indicate when Sunday will come they have obtained their present name. If the Sunday letter be A, Sunday is January 1; if D, January 4; and so on. Hence, of course, the other Sundays can be found. In leap years there are two Sunday letters, one up to February 29, the next behind in order after that date. The method of finding them is stated -in the opening of the Prayer Book. Given the Dominical Letter and certain other data (e.g. the Golden Number) also dealt with there, the chief Church festivals for any given year may easily be discovered. The object of these letters and other data is, in fact, to obviate the necessity of an almanack.