Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 3.djvu/198

 Another early calendar which must possess an interest for all English-speaking students is the "Anglo-Saxon Menologium", a short but rather ornate poem of the tenth century, describing the principal feasts of each month and probably intended for popular use (see Imelmann, Das altenglische Menologium, p. 40). The writer's main purpose is indicated by his concluding words:—

(Now ye may find the holy tides which men should observe as the command goeth through Britain of the king of the Saxons at this same time.) The use of metrical calendars, however, was by no means peculiar to England. The Irish "Calendar of Aengus", already referred to, was written in verse, and some of the versified Latin calendars printed by Hampson have been shown by Dr. Whitley Stokes to present clear signs of Irish influences. So on the Continent, to take but one example, we have an elaborate calendar or rather martyrologium composed about 848 in Latin hexameters by Wandelbert of Prüm.

—The history of the more detailed martyrologia, which has recently been worked out with such thoroughness by Dom Quentin, may serve to show how far-reaching is the principle that nature abhors a vacuum. Almost all the writers, such as Florus, Ado, and Usuard, who undertook the task of supplementing the martyrologium of Bede, worked with the avowed object of filling up the days which he had left blank. We may fairly infer that the same spirit will have affected the calendar as well. The mere sight of a vacant space, no doubt, in many cases tempted scribes and correctors to fill it up, if their erudition sufficed for the purpose; and though for a long time these entries remained mere paper-commemorations, they will certainly in the long run have reacted upon the liturgy. We may say that much the same influence was at work when Alcuin took in hand the task of supplying the lacunæ in the "Gregorian Saeramentary", more particularly when he provided a complete set of different masses for the Sundays after Pentecost. But besides this we have, of course, to consider the potent factor of new devotional interests, creating such feasts as those of All Saints, All Souls, the Blessed Trinity, the various festivals of the Angels, and notably St. Michael, and, in more modern times, Corpus Christi, the Sacred Heart, the Five Wounds, the commemoration of the various instruments of the Passion, the many different invocations under which Our Lady is honoured, and the duplications of feasts provided by translations, dedications, and miraculous events, such as the Stigmata of St. Francis of Assisi or the "Transverberation" of the heart of St. Teresa. Necessarily also, among the countless holy men who lived in the practice of heroic virtue, some in a more pronounced way caught the imagination of their contemporaries. The piety of the faithful who had been the witness of their virtues during life, or who, after their death, benefited by the power of their intercession with God, clamoured for some adequate means of manifesting devotion and gratitude.

At first this recognition of sanctity was in a measure local, informal, and popular, with the result that it was not always very discerning. Later the authority of the Holy See was invoked to pronounce after full inquiry a formal decree of canonization. But if this system, on the one hand, tended to limit the number of recognized saints, it also helped to extend more widely the fame of those whose history or miracles were more remarkable. Thus, in the end, we find that the cult us of such a saint as St. Thomas of Canterbury, to take an English example, was not limited to his own diocese or to his own province, but within a period of ten years after his death his name found a place in the calendars of almost every country of Europe. To these causes we must add the growth of literary culture among the people, especially after the invention of printing, and last, but by no means least, the cosmopolitan character of so many of the religious orders. Wherever the Cistercians had settled the name of St. Bernard was necessarily held in honour. If, again, there was no part of Christendom in which the friars had not laboured, so were there hardly any of the faithful who had not heard of St. Francis, St. Dominic, St. Clare, St. Catharine of Siena, and many more. It is no wonder, then, if at an early date the calendar grew crowded, and if in our own times hardly any vacant days are left in which some festival does not take precedence and exclude the ferial office. To enter into detail regarding this great variety of feasts would be impossible in an article like the present. All the more important celebrations will be found treated separately in their proper place, e. g., , , , etc.

—From the ninth century onwards a calendar was a common adjunct to most of the different classes of service-books, e. g. sacramentaries, psalters, antiphonaries, and even pontificals. At a later date, and especially after such books came to be printed, it was hardly ever omitted before missals, breviaries, and horæ. In the printed liturgical calendars with which we are now more familiar, we find little but the bare catalogue of ecclesiastical feasts. In the calendars of early date there is a much greater variety of information. We have, for example, a number of astronomical data referring to the times of equinox and solstice, the sun's entry into the various signs of the Zodiac, the dog days, the beginning of the four seasons, etc., and these are often emphasized by verses written above or below the entries for each month, e. g. Procedunt duplices in martis tempore pisces, referring to the fact that at the beginning of March the sun is in the constellation Pisces. Sometimes, also, the verses thus prefixed bear an astrological import, e. g. Jani prima dies et septima fine timetur, which is meant to convey that the first day of the month of January and the seventh from the end are unlucky. It must be confessed that the traces of pagan, or at least secular, influences in many of our surviving early calendars are numerous. A very curious feature in many Anglo-Saxon documents of this class is the acquaintance which they manifest with Oriental and especially Coptic usages. For instance in the Jumièges Missal, at the head of each month we have a line giving the Oriental names for the corresponding period; e. g. in the case of April: "Hebr. Nisan; Ægypti Farmuthi; Græc. Xanthicos; Lat. Apr; Sax. Eastermonath;" and further against 26 April we find the entry "IX Ægyptior. mensis paschæ. " [i. e. Pashons]. As a rule, the information given about the Coptic arrangement of months is at least approximately correct. In other specimens again the so-called dies ægyptiaci which were reputed to be unlucky (see Chabas, "Le Calendrier des jours fastes et néfastes de l'année égyptienne", pp. 22, 119 sq.) are carefully noted.

As regards ornament, early calendars are sometimes inserted in a sort of arcading. two pillars forming the sides of each column of writing, and an arch crowning the whole; while in the later Middle Ages we often find beautifully drawn vignettes, sometimes broadly or delicately humorous, illustrating with much play of the imagination the different seasons of the year. One feature which comes down from the earliest times, but which survives even in the printed calendars of our existing Breviary and Missal, is the insertion against each day of the "Epact" and the "Dominical Letter". These have reference to a highly artificial