Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 3.djvu/199

 CALENDAR

165

CALENDAR

method of computation and are meant to supply, ready to hand, the means for ascertaining the day of the week in any assigned year, and more particularly the age of the moon. The age of the moon, ascer- tained by these methods, is read oul before the rasr- tyrologium every day during the public recitation of the Office of Prime. When the calendar was re- formed under Gregory XIII. it was considered advisa- ble to retain in a corrected form the old apparatus and names to which people were accustomed. As this system of computation is intricate and has little but an antiquarian interest to recommend if. we may refer the reader to the article Epact, or to the ex- planations given along with the calendar in every copy of the Roman Breviary and Missal.

Besides the calendars for ecclesiastical use which were written in the service-books, a practice grew up towards the close of the Middle Ages of compiling cal- endars for the use of the laity. These correspond rather to what we should now call almanacs, and in them the astrological element plays a much more prominent part than in the missals or hora-. One of the most famous of these compilations was that known as the "Calendrier des Bergers", or the "Shepherds' Calendar". It was several times most sumptuously printedat Paris before the end of the fifteenth century, and it afterwards spread to England and Germany. The religious tone is very pronounced, but we find at the same time the most elaborate astrological direc- tions as to lucky and unlucky days for certain medical operations, particularly bleeding, as well as for agri- cultural pursuits, such as sowing, reaping, ploughing, sheep-shearing, and the like. It is a remarkable illus- tration of the conservatism of the rustic mind that editions of the "Shepherds' Calendar" were published in London until past the middle of the seventeenth century, the essentially Catholic tone of the book be- ing easily recognizable under the very thinnest of disguises (see Ecclesiastical 'Review, July, 1902, pp.

The Modern Calendar Imposed by Authority. — It will have been inferred from what has been said above that considerable divergence prevailed among the calendars in use at the close of the Middle Ages. This lack of uniformity degenerated into an abuse, and was a fertile source of confusion. Hence the new Roman Breviary and Missal, which in ac- cordance with a decree of the Council of Trent event- ually saw the light in 1568 and 15711 respectively, contained a new calendar. Like other portions of the new liturgical code, the observance of the new calen- dar was made obligatory upon all churches which could not prove a prescription of two hundred years in the enjoyment of their own distinctive customs. This law, which is still in force, has not, of course, pre- \ ented successive sovereign pontiffs from adding very many new festivals; neither does it preclude diffi rent dioceses, or even churches, from adopting various local celebrations, where the permission of the pope or of the Congregation of Rites has been sought and

obtained. But though local saints may be added, 1 he bed in the Roman calendar must also be kept. In point of fact a considerable license is con- ceded in such matters. There is hardly any diocese in which the calendar, owing to these additions, docs not differ considerably from those of neighbouring dioceses or provinces, liven the introduction of a single new fea8t, owing to the transferences thus ne- tted, may effect a considerable disturbance. In

the British Isles, England, Ireland, and Scotland all celebrate a number of national saints independently

of each other, but these are merely additions to the

general Roman calendar whah ail observe in common.

moreover, this universal calendar during three centu- ries, and especially during the last thirty years, has undergone very notable modifications, partly in con- sequence of new saints' days that have been intro-

duced, partly in consequence of changes made in the grade of feasts already admitted. A tabular arrange- ment will help to make this clear. What the original meaning of the term double may have been is not en- tirely certain. Some think that the greater festivals were thus styled because the antiphons before and after the psalms were "duplicated", i. e. twice re- peated entire on these days. Others, with more probability, point to the fact that before the ninth century in certain places, for example at Home, it was customary on the greater feasts to recite two sets of Matins, the one of the feria or week-day, the other of the festival. Hence such days were known as "doubles". However this may be, the primitive division into doubles and simples has given place to a much more elaborate classification. At present we have six grades, to wit: doubles of the first class; doubles of the second class ; greater doubles ; doubles; semi-doubles; simples. Now from the various official revisions of the Breviary, made in 1568, 1662, 1631, 1882, the following data may be gleaned. For purposes of comparison we may add the figures for 1907: —

Feasts Entered in 166* The Breviary Pius V

1602

' Irriu-Tll Mil

irai

VIII

[8*2 Leo XUI

1907 Pius X

Doubles of the First Class

Doubles of the Sec- ond Class

Greater Doubles

Doubles

Semidoubles

19

17

53

60

19

IS 16 43 68

19

18 16 IS 78

21

28 24 128

74

23

27 25 133 72

Total 149

164

176

275

280

These figures (which include not merely the fixed but also the movable feasts, as well as octave days, etc.) will suffice to illustrate the crowding of the calen- dar which has taken place of recent years. Moreover, it must be remembered that, practically speaking, it never happens that feasts of the higher grade are "simplified", i. e. reduced to the level of bare com- memorations. If a greater double chances to fall on a day already occupied, it is "transferred", and a free day has to be found for it later on in the year. On the other hand, while there has been a great in- crease of doubles of the first ami second class, etc. (festa chori), the holidays of obligation (jesta rhori et fori), owing largely to the difficulties created by the civil rulers of the various European countries, have grown steadily fewer. Pre-Reformation England, with its forty or more holidays of precept, did not go beyond the rest of the world. To take almost the first example which comes to hand, in the Diocese of Liege, in 1287 (Mansi. Concilia, XXIV, 909), there wire, besides the Sundays, forty-two festivals on which the people were bidden to rest from servile work. It is. therefore, hardly surprising thai the ex- cessive number of these feast-days was included in 1523 among the Centum Gravamina, the Hundred Grievances, of the German nation, nor that Pope Urban VIII in 1642. deprived bishops of the right to institute new ecclesiastical holidays without the per- mission of the Holy See, and limited the number of those of general obligation to thirty-four. In the eighteenth century, under pressure from various tem- poral rulers, this list in certain countries was further curtailed. Many of those festivals which had hitherto

been holidays of precept Were reduced to the status of

feasts of devotion, i. e. the obligation of hearing Mass anil resting from servile work was abolished, while at the game tune their vigils ceased to lie observed as lays. But even after the concessions which Clement XIV, in 1772, made to the Empress Maria Theresa, eighteen holidays et fori) still re-