Note 529 — Chapter II · THE SAINTS’ DAYS

[The feast was, however, observed in England before the Norman Conquest. The evidence for this is given by Mr Edmund Bishop in his tract, On the Origins of the Feast of the Conception of the Bl. V. M., London, Burns & Oates, 1904. From this the following is taken: (1) Calendar contained in Cotton MS. Titus D., xxvii., has the entry in the original hand at 8th Dec: “Conceptio sancte Dei genitricis Mariæ.” This MS. was written in the New Minster, Winchester, under Abbot Aelfwin (1034-57). (2) Calendar of the Old Minster, Winchester (Cotton MS., Vitellius E., xviii.), has the same entry. The MS. is attributed by Hicks to or about 1030. (3) Add. MS., 28, 188, a pontifical and benedictional of the eleventh century probably written for Bp. Leofric (1046-72), and “distinctly pre-Norman.” In this, fol. 161, is a “Benedictio in Conceptione Sancte Mariæ.” (4) Harl. MS. 2892, also a pontifical and benedictional written for Canterbury in the first half of the eleventh century (to judge from the handwriting); a similar benediction occurs, ff. 189-90. (5) To these, in a letter to the translator, Mr Bishop adds: I. In the Leofric Missal, among the Masses added to the book by Bp. Leofric, is a Mass for the feast of the Conception (p. 268); II. In a Worcester Calendar of about 1064, and written therefore under St Wulstan and before the conquest, the feast of the Conception is entered at 8th Dec. Trans.]