A year and a day?

[Aulrick Vendour]

I am rereading some of the books before AMoL comes out, and I found this interesting thing I haven't noticed before:

"You seem to be conversant with all the aspects of tower law. What penalty do rebles face?"
"For the leaders," Alviarin said slowly, "stilling." She frowned slightly, skirts swaying just barely as her feet shifted. Good. Even accepted knew this, and she could not understand why Elaida asked. Very good. "For many of the rest, too."
"Perhaps." The leaders might themselves escape that, most of them, if they sybmitted properly. The minimum penalty in law was to be briched in the Grand Hall before the assembled sisters, folloed by at least a year and a day in public penance.

There's no need to bring a quote about the Aiel year and a day serving as Gai'shain...

I wonder what is the meaning of a year and a day. Why that number? It can't possibly be coincidence, not with Aiel serving Aes Sedai before the breaking, and now both suddenly have that time of penance exactly the same?

Do we know what it means?

 

[Toral Delvar]

i think it comes from English common law
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_and_a_day_rule
For example,
It was held that a death was conclusively presumed not to be murder (or any other homicide) if it occurred more than a year and one day since the act (or omission) that was alleged to have been its cause.
But I don't know why it was chosen

 

[Midian Venamar]

It seems to me to be a mixture of that English common law, and the year of Jubilee in the Jewish faith
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jubilee_(biblical)

 

[Kessa Toireann]

There are a number of older pagan religions that believe in "a year and a day" as a sufficient time for growth, since you go through a complete cycle of the wheel of the year and acknowledge your accomplishment at the beginning of the next. I thought that is what it came from

 

[Aulrick Vendour]

But I can't seems to recall the Jewish faith talked about an extra day for... Well for anything really!

Also: Thanx Kessa. That's interesting.

 

[Lunara al'Kiera]

The Year and a Day is well known throughout the pagan faiths. Apprenticeship lasts a year and a day. Standard handfasting lasts for a year and a day. It gives time for personal growth and changes of view.

 

[Aran Cherubim]

Looking at the Dano-Norwegian laws from the 1600s, it seems a year and a day was the maximum time allowed to wait before claiming the return of debt, or lost property. It wouldn't surprise me if this was at earlier stages also applies in more general ways in medieval Europe. I seem to recall from somewhere that people who made their living in a free city were automatically considered a citizen after living there one year and a day. (although I wasn't able to find citations on this).

It is, simply put, an early form of a statute of limitations.

 

[Almira ni'Caldazare]

It will make it easier to link the tower and aile.