In British and Irish tradition, the quarter days were the four dates in each year on which servants were hired, and rents were due. They fell on four religious festivals roughly three months apart and close to the two solstices and two equinoxes.
The significance of quarter days is now limited, although leasehold payments and rents for land and premises in England are often still due on the old English quarter days.
The quarter days have been observed at least since the Middle Ages, and they ensured that debts and unresolved lawsuits were not allowed to linger on. Accounts had to be settled, a reckoning had to be made and publicly recorded on the quarter days.
Read more about Quarter Days: In England, In Ireland, In Scotland
Famous quotes containing the words quarter and/or days:
“The most winning woman I ever knew was hanged for poisoning three little children for their insurance-money, and the most repellent man of my acquaintance is a philanthropist who has spent nearly a quarter of a million upon the London poor.”
—Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930)
“Time turns the old days to derision,
Our loves into corpses or wives;
And marriage and death and division
Make barren our lives.”
—A.C. (Algernon Charles)