CALENDAR
164
CALENDAR
Another early calendar which must possess an in-
terest 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 altengiisehe Menologium, p. 40).
The writer's main purpose is indicated by his conclud-
ing words: —
Nu ge findan magon Haligra tiid, the man healdan sceal, Swa bebugeth gebod geond Brytenricu Sexna kyninges on thas sylfan tiid.
(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 pecu- liar 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 calen- dar or rather martyrologium composed about 848 in Latin hexameters by Wandelbert of Priim.
Later Developments. — 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 lacunae 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 devo- tional interests, creating such feasts as those of All Saints, All Souls, the Blessed Trinity, the various fes- tivals 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 invo- cations under which Our Lady is honoured, and the duplications of feasts provided by translations, dedi- cations, 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 t heir 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 meas- ure local, informal, and popular, with the result that it was not always very discerning. Later the author- ity 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 num- ber 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 Iris 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 set-
tled 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 arti-
cle like the present. All the more important celebra-
tions will be found treated separately in their proper
place, e. g. All Saints, All Souls, Candlemas,
Corpus Christi, etc.
Various Peculiarities of Calendars. — 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 horse. 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 re- ferring 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 be- low the entries for each month, e. g. Proeedunt du- plices in mortis tempore pisces, referring to the fact that at the beginning of March the sun is in the con- stellation 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 con- fessed that the traces of pagan, or at least secular, in- fluences 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 Jumicges 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; JEgypti Farmuthi; Gra?c. Xanthicos; Lat. Apr; Sax. Eastermonath;" and further against 26 April we find the entry "IX .Egyptior. mensis paschse. " [i. e. Pashons]. As a rule, the information given about the Coptic arrangement of months isat least approximately correct. Inother specimens again the so-called dies trgyptiaei which were reputed to be unlucky (see Chabas, "Le Calen- drier des jours fastes et nefastes de 1'annee egyp- tienne", pp. 22, 1 19 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 A.ges we often find beautifully drawn vignettes, sometimes broadly or delicately humorous, illustrating with much play of the imagination the different seasons of the year.
I >ne feature which comesdown 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 " Dominica)
Letter". These have reference to a highly artificial
