LBNT
153
LEHT
enee, but it is also possible that the fact was borne in
mind that Cfajist lay forty hours in the tomb. On the
other hand just as Pentecost (the fifty days) was a
period during which Christians were j oy ous and praved
standing, though they were not always engaged in
such prayer, so the Quadragesima (the forty days) was
originally a period marked by fasting, but not neces-
sarily a period in which the faitliful fasted every day.
Still, this principle was differently understood in dif-
ferent localities, and great divergences of practice
were the result. In Rome, in the fifth century, Lent
lasted six weeks, but according to the historian Soc-
rates there were only three weeks of actual fasting,
exclusive even then of the Saturdav and Sunday, and,
tf Duchesne's view may be trusted these weeks were
not continuous, but were the first, the fourth, and the
sixth of the series, being connected with the ordina-
tions (Christian Worship, 213). Possibly, however,
these three weeks had to do with the "scrutinies
preparatory to Baptism (a. v.), for by some author-
ities (e. g., A. J. Maclean in his " Recent Discoveries")
the duty of fasting along with the candidate for bap-
tism is put forward as the chief influence at work m
the development of the forty days. But throughout
the Orient generally, with some few exceptions, the
same arrangement prevailed as St. Athanasius's
"Festal Letters" show us to have obtxiinod in Alex-
andria, namely, the six weeks of Lent were only pre-
paratory to a fast of exceptional severity maintamed
during Holy Week. This is enjoined by the "Apos-
tolic Constitutions" (V, xiii), and presupposed by St.
Chrysostom (Horn, xxx in (jien.. i). But the number
forty t having once established itself, produced other
modifications. It seemed to many necessary that
there should not only bo fasting during forty days but
forty actual fasting days. Thus we find ^theria in
her " Peregrinatio "speaking of a I/Cnt of eight weeks
in all observed at Jerusalem, which, remcml>ering that
both the Saturday and Sunday of ordinary weeks
were exempt, gives five times eight, i. e. forty days
for fasting. On the other hand, in many localities
people were content to observe no more than a six
weeks' period, sometimes, as at Milan, fasting only
five days in the week after the oriental fashion (Am-
brose, "De Elia et Jejunio", 10). In the time of
Gregory the Great (590-604) there were apparently at
Rome six weeks of six days each, making thirty-six
fast days in all, which St. Gregory, who is followed
therein by many medieval writers, describes as the
spiritual tithing of the year, thirty-six days bein^ ap-
proximately the tenth part of three hundred and sixty-
five. At a later date the wish to realize the exact
number of forty days led to the practice of beginning
Lent upon our present Ash W^ednesday, but the
('hurch of Milan even to this day adheres to the more
primitive arrangement, which still betrays itself in the
Roman Missal when the priest in the Secret of the
Mass on the first Sunday of I^ent speaks of "sacrifi-
cium quadragesimalis initii", the sacrifice of the open-
ing of Lent. Neither was. there originally less diver-
gence regarding the nature of the favSt. For example,
the historian ^crates (Hist. EccL, V, 22) tells of the
practice of the fifth century: "Some abstain from
every sort of creature that has life, while others of all
the fiving creatures eat of fish only. Others eat birds
as well as fish, because, according to the Mosaic ac-
count of the Creation, they too sprang from the water;
others abstain from fruit covered with a hard shell and
from eggs. Some eat dry bread only, others not even
that; otJiers again when they have fasted to the ninth
hour (three o?clock) partake of various kinds of food."
.\mid this diversity some inclined to the extreme
limits of rigour. Epiphanius, Palladius, and the au-
thor of the " Life of St. Melania the Younger" seem to
contemplate a st&te of things in which ordinary
Christians were expected to pass twent v-four hours or
more without food of any kind, especially during Holy
Week, while the more austere actually subsisted dur>
ing part or the whole of Lent upon one or two meals 8
week (see RampoUa, "Vita di S. Melania Giuniore",
appendix xxv, p. 478). But the ordinary rule on fast>-
ing days was to take but one meal a day and that only
in the evening, while meat and, in the early centuries,
wine were entirely forbidden. During Holy Week, or
at least on Good Friday, it was common to enjoin the
xerophaaiay i. e. a diet of dry food, bread, salt, and
vegetables. There does not seem at the beginning to
have been any prohibition of laciiciniaf as the passage
just quoted from Socrates would show. Moreover, at
a somewhat later date, Bede tells us of Bishop Cedda,
that during Lent he took only one meal a day con-
sisting of " a little bread, a hen's egg, and a little milk
mixed with water" (Hist. EccL, III, xxiii), while
Theodulphus of Orl^ns in the eighth century re-
garded abstinence from eggs, cheese, and fish as a
mark of exceptional virtue. None the less St. Gregory
writing to St. Augustine of England laid down the
rule, "We abstain from flesh meat, and from all
things that come from flesh, as milk, cheese, and eggs."
This decision was afterwards enshrined in the " Corpus
Juris", and must be regarded as the conunon law of
the Church. Still exceptions were admitted, and dis-
pensations to eat " lacticinia" were often granted upon
condition of making a contribution to some pious
work. These dispensations were known in Germany
as Butlerhrie/e, and several churches are said to have
been partly built by the proceeds of such exemptions.
One of the steeples of Rouen cathedral was for this
reason formerly known as the Butter Tower. This
general prohibition of eggs and milk during Lent is
perpetuated in the popular custom of blessing or
making gifts of eggs at Easter, and in the English
usage of eating panc-akes on Shrove Tuesday.
Relaxations of tfie Lenten Fast. — From what has been said it will be clear that in the early Middle Ages Lent throughout the greater part of the Western Church consisted of forty weekdays, which were all fast days, and six Sundavs. From the beginning to the end of that time all Aesh meat, and also, for the most part, "lacticinia", were forbidden even on Sun- days, while on all the fasting days only one meal was taken, which single meal was not permitted before evening. At a ver3r early period, however (we find the first mention of it in Socrates), the practice began to be tolerated of breaking the fast at the hour of none, i. e., three o'clock. We learn in particular that Charlemagne, about the year 800, took his lenten re- past at 2 p. m. This gradual anticipation of the hour of dinner was facilitated by the fact that the canon- ical hours of none, vespers, etc., represented rather periods than fixed points of time. The ninth hour, or none, was no doubt strictly three o'clock in the after- noon, but the Office of none might be recited as soon as sext, which, of course, corresponded to the sixth hour, or midday, was finished. Hence none in course of time came to be regarded as beginninj^ at midday, and this point of view is perpetuated m our word noony which means midday and not three o'clock in the afternoon. Now the hour for breaking the fast during Lent was after Vespers (the evening service), but by a gradual process the recitation of Vespers was more and more anticipated, until the principle was at last officially recognized, as it is at present, that Ves- pers in Lent may be said at midday. In this way, al- though the author of the " Micrologus" in the eleventh century still declared that those who took food before evening did not observe the lenten fast according to the canons (P. L., CLI, 1013), still, even at the close of the thirteenth century, certain theologians, for example the Franciscan Richard Middleton, who based his decision in part upon contemporary usaf;e, pronounced that a man who took his dinner at mid- day did not break the lenten fast. Still more material was the relaxation afforded by the introduction of