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12 the old vigil was formally abolished is uncertain: (Card. Bona de Divina Psalmod. c 4. §. 3, contends that vigils were regulated only, and not abolished, except in a provincial Spanish synod; they were prohibited also in the Council of Cognac, A. D. 1260.) Yet it fell into desuetude, and then the name was transferred to the fast of the preceding day; which fast probably existed before the vigil was disused. "Since the saints," says Alcuin, "arrived at their present happiness through temporal affliction, we, as we rejoice together with them in their eternal joy, so must we needs suffer with them, that following their steps throughout, we may … arrive at the same joys. To mark this, on the days preceding those of their birth (into the other life), which days we call their vigils, eating more sparingly than usual, we devoutly preface those solemnities with the due observance of fasts, and with affliction of the flesh; that, purified by the abstinence of the preceding day, we may the more worthily celebrate the joy of the following festival." Fasting, then, seems to have been a primary part of the solemnity,—to remind Christians, namely, in their days of ease, how "through much tribulation we must