Until fairly recent times, daily life in the British Isles played out on the ecclesiastical calendar. In fact, it does even today, if much less so than during the Middle Ages.
In some ways, free peasants and serfs had it much, much better than workers in the Industrial Revolution. For instance, the law issued by Edgar the Peaceful, King of the English, required they be left off work Sundays, which were defined as lasting from noon Saturday through dawn the following Monday. Still less than the modern weekend, but far more than the proletariat of the Gilded Age/Belle Epoque.
The time off did not stop there. Peasants and serfs also got the full Twelve Days of Christmas off and actually a little bit more, also getting Epiphany off since it too was a major feast, with women not resuming work until St. Distaff’s Day (7 January) and men not until Plough Monday, the Monday after Epiphany. The laws did not require masters of theows (slaves) to give them the time off, but strongly suggested it.
At Easter, they got Passion Week and Holy Week plus the two days of Hocktide, along with the entirety of Whitsuntide.
They also got St. Gregory’s Day (12 March), St. Augustine’s Day (26 May), St. Peter’s Day (29 June), St. Paul’s Day (30 June), All Hallows Eve (31 October) and All Saints’ Day (1 November), the week before St. Brice’s Day* (13 November, which included Martinmas), the Wednesdays of the four seasonal sets of Ember Days, plus the days of around forty-five different feasts, with their octaves if the feast had one.
I assume that after Pope Pius IV (1471-1484) added an octave to All Saints’ Day that the fall break moved from the week before St. Brice’s Day to that octave.
In 1009, the Council of Eynsham further stipulated that there be no markets or folk motes on Sundays, that peasants and serfs also be given off all feasts of St. Mary and all feasts of the Apostles, and that all Fridays be observed as fasts. It also added St. Edward Day (18 March) and St. Dunstan Day (19 May). Later, more English saints were added, until eventually there were some forty-five feasts in all, some with octaves, and likewise in the Scottish Church.
Because nearly all life events had religious significance, peasants, serfs, and other workers were given liberal time off for weddings, funerals, wakes, baptisms, confirmations, and ordinations of family.
As for how the ecclesiastical calendar affects modern life, in Scotland the heid courts of Sheriffs take place at Michaelmas (first Tuesday after Michaelmas), Yule, (first Tuesday after Epiphany), and Pasch (Tuesday after Low Sunday). Term and quarter days in Scotland are Whitsunday (legally fixed for this purpose on 15 May), Lammas (1 August), Martinmas (11 November), and Candlemas (2 February).
English legal terms are divided into session of Hillary (of Poitiers; 13 January), Easter, Trinity, and Michaelmas. In England, rent was due were Hock-Tuesday and Michaelmas. The quarter days in England and Wales are Lady Day (25 March), Midsummer (24 June), Michaelmas (29 September), and Christmas (25 December).
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