Time Out of Joint: Negotiating the Gregorian Calendar Reform on the Borderland of the Hungarian Kingdom

This article analyzes internal reactions to the Gregorian calendar reform introduced in 1582 within a borderland region of the Hungarian Kingdom, called Szepes County, which had become Protestant in the 1520s, although its church institutions were nominally under Catholic control. The papal ruling that primarily seemed a practical correction generated disputes and conflicts very soon after its introduction. This article looks at the conflicts as means of interpreting the community’s relationship to power, authority, questions of reform, and autonomy. The process of calendar reform in Szepes County was similar to that in other Protestant areas but was also characterized by the rivalry between representatives of the laity and clergy, and complicated by divisions among Lutherans who had just manifested themselves in debates over the acceptance of the Book of Concord.