Numerical answer
1. This was not mere administrative tidiness but an assertion of authority: only a central power secure in its legitimacy could plausibly tell millions of people that ten days of their calendar simply did not exist.
2. By the sixteenth century, the Julian calendar's slight yearly overcorrection had accumulated into a ten-day drift from the astronomical equinox that determined the date of Easter.
3. Pope Gregory XIII responded in 1582 by decreeing that the day following the fourth of October would be the fifteenth, erasing the accumulated error at a stroke.
4. Unsurprisingly, that authority was accepted only where it was recognised, and Protestant Europe delayed adoption for generations.
2. By the sixteenth century, the Julian calendar's slight yearly overcorrection had accumulated into a ten-day drift from the astronomical equinox that determined the date of Easter.
3. Pope Gregory XIII responded in 1582 by decreeing that the day following the fourth of October would be the fifteenth, erasing the accumulated error at a stroke.
4. Unsurprisingly, that authority was accepted only where it was recognised, and Protestant Europe delayed adoption for generations.
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Answer: 2314
Sentence 2 introduces the problem (the ten-day drift) that motivates the reform, so it must open. Sentence 3 describes Gregory's direct response to that drift ('erasing the accumulated error'), following naturally. Sentence 1 then comments on the deeper significance of that decree ('This was not mere administrative tidiness'), referring back to sentence 3's action. Sentence 4 closes by noting the consequence of authority being 'accepted only where recognised,' linking to sentence 1's point about legitimacy. The chain is 2 (problem) → 3 (response) → 1 (significance) → 4 (consequence): 2314.
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