A regnal year is a year of the reign of a sovereign, from the Latin regnum meaning kingdom, rule.
The oldest dating systems were in regnal years, and considered the date as an ordinal, not a cardinal number. For example, a monarch could have a first year of rule, a second year of rule, a third, and so on, but a zero year of rule would be nonsense. Applying this ancient epoch system to modern calculations of time, which include zero, is what led to the debate over when the third millennium began.
Read more about Regnal Year: Reckoning in Various Cultures, Asian Era Names, Notable King Lists
Famous quotes containing the word year:
“Material advancement has its share in moral and intellectual progress. Becky Sharp’s acute remark that it is not difficult to be virtuous on ten thousand a year has its applications to nations; and it is futile to expect a hungry and squalid population to be anything but violent and gross.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)