On what date on the Christian calendar is the day of the Annunciation or Lady Day?
New Year's Day three main festivities among the twelve days of Christmastide. There, until the adoption of the Gregorian Calendar in 1752, the first day of the new year was the Western Christian Feast of the Annunciation, on 25 March, also called "Lady Day". Dates predicated on the year beginning on 25 March became known as "Annunciation Style" dates, while dates of the Gregorian Calendar commencing on 1 January were distinguished as "Circumcision Style" dates, because this was the date of the Feast of the Circumcision, the observed memorial of the eighth day of Jesus Christ's life after his birth, counted from the
Lady Day and onto new fields was often this day. As a result, farming families who were changing farms would travel from the old farm to the new one on Lady Day. After the calendar change, "Old Lady Day" (5 April), the former date of the Annunciation, largely assumed this role. The date is significant in some of the works of Thomas Hardy, such as "Tess of the d'Urbervilles" and "Far from the Madding Crowd". The logic of using Lady Day as the start of the year is that it roughly coincides with Equinox (when the length of day and night is