PART III THE MATERIAL UPON WHICH THE HISTORY OF THE ECCLESIASTICAL YEAR IS BASED (continued 2)

11. The Martyrologies of Bede, Florus, Wandelbert, and Œngus[812]

Before the ninth century, the Frankish Church had produced no martyrology of its own, apart from the so-called Hieronymianum, but on the other hand the young Anglo-Saxon Church put out a work of this kind in the eighth century, its author being the learned historian of the Anglo-Saxon Church, the Venerable Bede. Whether he undertook the work spontaneously or at the desire of his superiors, whether it was intended merely for his own monastery, or for a wider circle are questions which cannot be answered, for there is no introduction to the work to inform us on these points. The work was used in the Frankish empire as is proved by the MSS. of it found there as well as by the later additions of Florus.

Bede composed his Martyrologium in 731, as he informs us at the conclusion of his history.[813] It was his intention to give in addition to the days of the saints’ deaths, the nature of their deaths, and the names of the judges by whom they were condemned, for by this means the date of their deaths could be determined with certainty. The basis of his work was the existing Roman Calendar while he exceeded its limits in many directions. In the first place, he added to it the saints of England such as were then venerated; these were few in number, Alban, Cuthbert, Augustine, Mellitus, Etheltrud, Victor and Paulinus (10th October), Brigid, etc. Then a comparatively large number of names of Frankish saints were also introduced, e.g. Maximin of Treves (31st May), Clodoald (St Cloud), Remigius, Denys, Lambert († 17th September 709), the Theban legion, and a few others. Bede rises still further above the standpoint of national churches and particularism by admitting some names from the Old Testament, e.g. Ezechiel (10th April), Jeremias (1st May), Eliseus (14th June), Isaias (6th July), Samuel (20th August), etc.; the dates on which they are commemorated being taken for the most part from Greek menologies.

Bede collected material for his Martyrologium with great diligence, and enriched his subject matter with notes from his own reading, as is shown for instance by his reference to St Cyprian’s treatise De Lapsis in connection with the martyrs Castus and Æmilius (22nd May) who are named in it; other sources upon which he also drew were the Gesta Pontificum, the writings of Eusebius, St Gregory’s Dialogues, and especially a number of Passiones Martyrum. Bede’s work shows both diligence and originality, and an intelligent employment of the materials which came to hand. Yet, in spite of his diligence, he found material to fill up only a hundred and eighty days, and so the half of the year remains vacant; still his compilation is fuller than the Frankish calendars of the eighth century, and the notes attached to the names of each saint are remarkable for brevity and precision.

Although the value of Bede’s work is incontestable it was soon found insufficient; it was diligently copied, and used, but additions of all sorts were made to it as is proved by the large number of variations in the existing MSS. Perhaps it met with more acceptance abroad than at home, for the thirteenth canon of the second council of Cloveshove which met in 747, only twelve years after Bede’s death, enjoined the use of the Roman martyrology, without even mentioning Bede.

As regards its publication, the martyrology of Bede was printed for the first time in Cologne in 1616, but as in the text thus published, all the days of the year are provided with the names of saints, it is impossible that it represents the original text of Bede, for all old writers agree in stating that in it many days were left vacant. The Bollandist Henschen found first of all a fragment of the genuine Bede among the MSS. of Queen Christina of Sweden, and then, later on, the complete text at Dijon.[814]

Bede’s martyrology was newly worked over and considerably enlarged by a certain Florus; according to Wandelbert of Prüm,[815] this was the subdeacon Florus of Lyons, who, later on, as deacon, wrote against Scotus Erigena in 852, and died in 860; he was a contemporary of Wandelbert’s. Against this must be set down the authority of Trithemius, who considers that this Florus was a Monk of the monastery of St Trudo in the diocese of Liège about 760. Although Trithemius gives no authority for this statement, still writers on the history of literature, especially Fabricius, are in complete agreement with him. Still which ever of the two is correct, one is inclined to ask how it came to pass that so striking an enlargement of the work—each day of the year being provided with the name of a saint—could have appeared so soon after Bede and before the appearance of the great martyrology of Ado.

Wandelbert of Prüm turned Bede’s martyrology into verse in the twenty-fifth year of the Emperor Lothaire I. (848); his version is of no importance for the history and development of this department of liturgical studies, yet it may be consulted for questions connected with local history.[816]

The martyrology of Œngus the Culdee, written in the ancient Irish (Celtic) language certainly belongs to the same period. Nothing further is known of the author except that he was a monk in the Monastery of Conenagh in the ninth century. The martyrology is written in rhymed verse, extends over the entire year, and contains for the most part the names of Irish saints.[817] Certainly later is the similar work of Gorman, Abbot of Louth in Leinster. It was written in unrhymed verse between 1166 and 1174.[818]

12. The Martyrologies of Ado, Usuardus, Rabanus Maurus, and Notker Balbulus

The most important document in this department of literature, and one which bears directly upon scientific investigations, is the martyrology of Ado, Bishop of Vienne. Ado was born in northern France about 800, and entered at an early age the Monastery of Ferrières in the diocese of Sens, from whence he was sent to the Monastery of Prüm where he lived for many years under Abbot Markward (829-853). In consequence of some misunderstandings he left Prüm and went to Rome, where he spent five years and then went to Ravenna. He returned to France later and lived for some time as a simple monk in a monastery in the neighbourhood of Lyons. After the death of Bishop Agilmar of Vienne († 7th July 860) he succeeded to the see and died on the 16th December 873.

He compiled the martyrology which bears his name in 858 before he became bishop,[819] the basis of his work being a very ancient martyrology with which he had become acquainted in Ravenna. If his information can be trusted, a bishop of Ravenna, whose name he does not give, received this ancient document from a bishop of Rome who is also nameless. The rest of the material he collected himself, and in particular he made notes of any information concerning martyrs which had come in his way. Many of the sources at his disposal have since been lost, thus rendering his martyrology all the more important for us.

It consists of three parts: 1. A calendar containing the names of one or more saints for each day accompanied by notices naturally brief; in the printed edition it bears incorrectly the title, Vetus Martyrologium Romanum, given to it by its first editors, Jacob Mosander and Heribert Rosweyde;[820] 2. A Libellus de Festivitatibus SS. Apostolorum;[821] 3. The martyrology itself,[822] consisting of extracts from the acts of the martyrs and other writings.

His preface contains matter which deserves attention.[823] He had often been urged, he says, by holy men, by his superiors, and by Bishop Remigius of Lyons to complete the martyrology; since the martyrology of Bede, which Florus had enlarged, still leaves many days without saints, he had undertaken to fill up these gaps, and for this purpose he had made use of the MSS. describing the sufferings of the martyrs, from which he had made quotations for the benefit of the weaker brethren; the ancient martyrology which came originally from Rome, served him as a foundation upon which to build.

The frank avowal of his intention to fill in the spaces left vacant by his predecessors, might create a prejudice against the trustworthiness and excellence of his work, but a closer inspection will dispel this suspicion, and this would be still more the case had we the original form of the work before us; in the existing editions there are additions of a later date, such as the name Rictiovarus.

From the entries on the 20th April and the 17th November it is plain that the Cologne MS. of this martyrology edited by Rosweyde comes from Stablo, and it may have been that at Stablo the names of some Frankish saints were inserted into it. Ado went much further than Bede in admitting names from the Old Testament. Roseweyde’s conjecture that this calendar, the so-called “Little Ado,” is the Roman martyrology mentioned by Gregory I. in his letter to Eulogius, is devoid of proof and obviously mistaken, for in that document there were no Old Testament names. This “Little Ado” is not a martyrology at all, but a calendar, and displays none of the peculiarities which characterise the calendars of the city of Rome of that date; neither is it an independent work, but only an abstract made by Ado from his own larger work, and a summary of its contents. The preface prefixed to the two other parts is chiefly concerned with the martyrology, and not with this abstract, and it is only the circumstance that this abstract is found in MSS., with some later additions and altogether separate from the larger work, which led the first editor to regard it as a treatise by itself; it is merely the abstract used at Stablo and Malmedy, and not an original Roman work, though it is plain from Ado’s preface that the existing Roman calendar was employed in its composition.[824]

Two or three decades later, Usuardus composed his martyrology after Ado’s example, which he dedicated to Charles the Bald in 875. Usuardus was a monk of St Germain des Près, then outside the gates of Paris, but now surrounded by the city; his work is by no means so full as Ado’s, but is more polished in style, and more uniform in its treatment of the different entries, and on this account is more suited for use in choir. It was accordingly used throughout the entire West, and in all Benedictine monasteries,[825] and even in Rome itself with the exception of the Vatican basilica. At the end of the fifteenth century it was so to speak, the universal martyrology of the Western Church, and indeed no other was known.[826]

The value of these works depends naturally upon the sources employed by the redactor, and also upon his personal qualities, as, for instance, whether he revelled in the miraculous or was inclined to be critical.

Two martyrologies by German authors must now be dealt with—those of Rabanus Maurus and Notker Balbulus.

The former when Archbishop of Mainz completed a martyrology which he had compiled from secondary sources; it is dedicated to Abbot Radleich of Seligenstadt, who died in 853-54, and whose epitaph was composed by Rabanus,[827] but the composition of the martyrology must be dated a few years earlier, about 850, though the exact date cannot be discovered. As sources, he drew upon the Acts of the martyrs which he found ready to hand, and also the Hieronymianum, Bede, and Florus; the treatment of the material is very unequal, sometimes a long account being given, sometimes nothing more than the name; legends and historical errors are frequent.

The same is true of the martyrology of Notker Balbulus who was a monk at St Gall from 840 to 912, and composed his work under Pope Formosus (891-896). He knew and used the Hieronymianum, as, for example, for the 9th August, V. Id. Aug. First class sources were beyond his reach, a loss of which he was himself conscious.[828]

All these martyrologies of which we have spoken, were private compilations without anything of an official character about them. The existence of so many following upon the Hieronymianum shows that it did not satisfy liturgical requirements and was little used. On this account, martyrologies were drawn up at a later date containing full descriptions of the lives and sufferings of the saints for each day of the year, which would serve as edifying and entertaining reading for religious, priests and other pious persons. However even the best of them were no longer practicable in the sixteenth century, and Gregory XIII. conceived the purpose of putting out one better adapted for use in divine service. A further step was taken in 1580 when he commissioned the learned Cardinal Sirleto to compare the martyrology used in Rome with the oldest and best MSS. and to correct the errors which had crept into it in course of time.[829] Sirleto associated ten other learned men with himself among whom were Cæsar Baronius and Aloysius Lilius, the astronomer. Baronius was the soul of the undertaking, and, after three years’ labour, the Martyrologium Romanum Gregorii XIII. was completed, and a papal brief of the 14th January 1584, prescribed the exclusive use of this work in choir at the canonical hours. Baronius based his labours on Usuardus, correcting and enlarging his martyrology by means of the materials then forthcoming; could he have used the materials discovered later, or those which we now possess, his work would naturally have been much better; many, too, of the earlier mistakes remain uncorrected. The editors were far from claiming freedom from errors for their work, and made improvements in later editions, beginning with that of 1586. It is not necessary to regard all the individuals named in the Roman martyrology as saints in the liturgical sense of the word, and their admission there, according to the expression of Benedict XIV. is in no wise equal to canonisation.[830] Since the time of Baronius, the official martyrology has indeed remained untouched, but science has not been inactive during this long period; much has been explained and corrected, and, on the whole, it has come to be recognised as a principle which must be followed in investigating the histories of the saints of ancient times, that recourse is to be had to the earliest existing sources of information, and also, where the evidence is contradictory, local official sources, where they exist, are to have the preference.

13. Important Calendars from the Eighth to the Eleventh Centuries

While the martyrologies were for the most part the outcome of individual effort, the calendars, on the other hand, are entirely official in their origin. In times when annual calendars, like our present ordos, had not yet appeared, their place was taken by the official calendar, and every one had to make out his ordo for himself with its assistance. From many points of view they are more important for our purpose than the martyrologies.

As complete missals took the place of the sacramentaries they were usually provided with a table, like an index, which gave a list of the saints’ days contained in the missal; these so-called calendars have from then until now formed an integral part of written and printed missals, and even appear by themselves like abbreviated martyrologies. A remarkably large number of calendars of this kind have come down to us from the Middle Ages, and, since they are important for the history of local churches, they have recently been published, as, for example, by Martène-Durand, Misset and Weale, Grotefend, Ulysse Chevalier, Lechler, etc.[831] For our purpose, the following deserve to be noticed:

1. A Roman calendar of the seventh century, discovered by Prof. de Ram, and printed in Binterim, Denkw. vii. 56-67. It begins with Christmas, March is called mensis primus, the station churches of Rome are given in Lent, on the 13th May there is the Dedicatio Mariæ ad Martyres, All Saints does not appear. The only litany is the so-called litania major; the Annunciation and the Cathedra Petri are omitted, in March a pascha annotina is inserted without date, St Athanasius is passed over on the 20th January; there are only faint traces of Advent. This calendar is very ancient and formed part of the codex of the gospels written under Louis the Pious; in the time of Lothaire I., it belonged to the Monastery of Münsterbilsen in the diocese of Liège.

2. A calendar belonging to Bologna. It is found in a codex of the Monastery of Leno, was discovered by Giovanni Mercati in the Ambrosiana, and published in the Révue Bénédictine, 1902 (353-355). It has the Ordinatio Episcopatus Jacobi Apost. on the 27th December, and, on the 17th May a natalis S. Marci Evang., found nowhere else.

3. The so-called calendar of Charlemagne forms, along with an Easter table, the beginning of an Evangeliarum written in 781 by command of the emperor and his consort by a scribe called Godescale.[832] It is only deserving of notice from the number of names of Frankish saints inserted into a calendar originally Roman, e.g. Bishop Maximin of Treves (31st May), Boniface (5th June), Medard (8th June), Martialis (30th June) Kilian (1st August), Mauritius (22nd September), Remigius (1st October), etc. The Apostle Thomas is placed, strange to say, on the 3rd July, and St Petronilla on the 31st May.

4. A calendar is incorporated in a treatise De Computo, by an unknown author, written in 810 (published by Muratori, Analecta, iii. 108, and also in Migne, Patr. Lat., cxxix. 1274). It seems to come from the diocese of Sens on account of S. Columbæ Virg. on the 31st December; All Saints is omitted. This calendar is Roman with Frankish additions; for the date see chap. 153, Migne, cxxix., 1364.

5. The last four months of the year are unfortunately missing from the calendar of Alt-Corbie (Corbeiense) given by Martène-Durand, Thes. Nov. Anced., iii., 1591, Paris, 1717. The same is the case with a very old calendar of Tours.

6. Codex 83ᴵᴵ. of the cathedral library in Cologne contains an ancient calendar, fol. 72 B-76. This codex contains a large collection of annalistical writings and computation tables and was written under Archbishop Hildebold. The second treatise in the volume is Isidore’s chronicle which concludes with the words: “Seven hundred and eighty-nine years have passed since Christ’s Nativity”; further on, fol. 76 B, was inserted after the death of Charlemagne, and also of Hildebold (818). Thus the codex was written between 798 and 818, and belonged to the old cathedral of Cologne which was dedicated to St Peter. The calendar, however, does not belong to Cologne for the local saints are absent, but there is a number of names of Frankish saints, pointing to the north of France as the locality where it was drawn up; no explanation of the legend of St Ursula can be learnt from it. For a calendar of its early date, it is remarkably full of saints, while the Cologne Calendar, shortly to be referred, to has many vacant days. The codex has been described by Jaffé and Wattenbach, Ecclesiæ Metrop. Colon. codices manuscripti, Berlin, 1874, 29 et seqq.

7. The Gellonense comes from the Monastery of St Guillaume du Désert in the diocese of Lodève, and belongs to the beginning of the ninth century, and has been edited by D’Achery, Spicilegium, ii. 25 et seqq. It begins with Christmas and is preceded by a Breviarum Apostolorum in thirteen sections containing information concerning the apostles.

8. A Kalendarium Gothicum (ed. Lorenzana) of the seventh century (Migne, lxxxvi. 38 et seqq.). Besides this, there is the Mozarabic Sanctorale (ib. 1031 et seqq.) and a fragment of a Kalendarium Gothico-Hispanum (Migne, lxxxv. 1050 et seqq.).

Of later date, but still always useful for historical investigation are:—

9. Two Anglo-Saxon calendars of the tenth century belonging apparently to the diocese of Winchester (Migne, lxxii. 619 et seqq.).

10. Two from Corbie; in Martène and Durand (Thes. Nov. Anecd., iii. 1571-1594).

11. A calendar of Floriac and a martyrology of Auxerre (Migne, cxxxviii. 1186-1258).

12. A calendar of Mantua and two of Vallombrosa (Ib. 1258 et seqq.).

13. A calendar of Besançon of the eleventh century, which goes by the name of S. Protadii (Migne, lxxx. 411), and an old French calendar called after the name of its first owner Chauvellin (Migne, lxxii. 607).

For convenience we separate the most ancient calendars of German origin from the others, and consider them by themselves.

1. The oldest calendar of Mainz belongs to the first half of the ninth century, and was published from a codex in the Vatican by Jostes in the Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum (Schröder and Röthe) for 1896, 148-158. All Saints is absent, and the resurrection of Christ is entered on the 25th March.

2. A Kalendarium Verdinense, from the Monastery of Werden on the Ruhr, published by Bandini (Catal. Bibl. Lauretianæ Suppl., Migne, cxxxviii. 1203 et seqq.). It contained All Saints, and the Dedicatio S. Mariæ s. Turris Vincentii on the 13th May as well. Among the special saints of Cologne are given the two Ewalds, Kunibert, Gereon, the Moors, and the eleven thousand virgins, but without Ursula, and designated as simply virgins and not martyrs; it also contains the names of the two first bishops of Halberstadt, Thiatgrim († 840) and Hildegrim († 21st December 888), which indicates the date of its composition, and it has the name of the first abbot of Werden, Hetharicus, and the Dedicatio Eccl. Majoris. Unfortunately the months from April to July are missing.

3. The sacramentary in the cathedral library of Cologne (codex 88, fol. 3-9) contains a complete calendar for this cathedral. It is essentially the Roman Calendar of the ninth century, with the addition of the local saints of Cologne, the two Ewalds, Kunibert, Brictius, Quintinus, Severin, Gereon and his 318 companions, the 360 Moors, and the 11,000 virgins without Ursula, and designated simply as virgins. Other names deserving notice are: Briga (Brigida) 1st February, Arealis (?) 28th April, Marcus episcopus, Boniface the martyr, Medard, Lambert, and Mauricius with 6666 companions. The calendar belongs to the second half of the ninth century, and is proved to have belonged to the cathedral of Cologne begun by Hildebold and consecrated by Willibert in 873, by the fact that it gives the day of the consecration of the cathedral correctly (23rd September), and is described as belonging to the Church of St Peter, to whom the former cathedral was dedicated. The sacramentary, but not the calendar, has been printed by J. Pamelius in his “Liturgicon Ecclesiæ Latinæ,” tom. ii. (Col. Agr. 1571), but unfortunately with so many arbitrary alterations that it is quite useless as an edition of the text.

4. In the library at Düsseldorf there is a sacramentary, (codex D. I.) written in the lifetime of Bishop Altfrid of Hildesheim († 874), which contains (fol. 217-222) a calendar showing northern French influence. Only the 11,000 virgins are given of the local saints of Cologne, and here again Ursula is not named, and the virgins are not called martyrs. The book belonged to the Convent of Essen on the Ruhr founded by Altfrid. This MS. gives in fol. 64 A the order of the festivals observed within the jurisdiction of the monastery during the ninth century: “Istas præcipuas solemnitates in anno totus populus sabbatizare debet: In die Nat. Domini dies IV., in octabas Domini, in Teophania, in Purificatione Mariæ, in Pascha Domini dies IV., in Ascensione Domini, in Pentecoste dies IV., in Nat. S. Johannis, in Nat. Sanctorum Apostolorum Petri et Pauli, in Assumptione S. Mariæ, in Nat. S. Remedii [Remigii], in Missa Michahelis, in Solemnitate Omnium Sanctorum, in Nat. S. Martini, in Nat. S. Andreæ.”

Binterim published a Cologne calendar, apparently of the ninth century, under the title Kalendarium Ecclesiæ Germ. Coloniensis Sæculi Noni (Cologne, 1824), and Harless attributes it to the second half of the same century (Archiv. f. die Gesch. des Niederrheins, vi. 67). It is, however, much later, for it gives all the feasts of the apostles, and provides them with vigils, and all the days of the year are filled in with the names of saints. For these reasons I should date the calendar as belonging to the eleventh century at the earliest.

5. The Kalendarium Germanicum Pervetustum Sæc. X., printed by M. Fr. Beck (Aug. Vind., 1687). Gerbert (Mon. Lit. Alem. i. 455 A. I.) correctly regards it as coming from Alsace and probably from Strassburg, because it contains the saints venerated in that city, Arbogast (20th July), Florentius, Ottilia and Aurelia. The basis of this document is again the Roman Calendar, still many Frankish saints have been added, but Gereon alone of the saints of Cologne. The latest date given in it is the Dormitio S. Uodalrici (4th July). It has only one name from the Old Testament, that of the prophet Ezechiel.

6. A calendar of Freising, drawn up under Bishop Abraham, between 893 and 993. The 25th March is marked as Conceptio Domini. There is only one feast of St Peter’s Chair. The calendar has been printed by Lechler, “Mittelalterliche Kirchenfeste und Kalendarien in Bayern,” Freiburg, 1891.

7. The so-called Martyrologium Stabulense, the calendar of the Monastery of Stablo. The date of the original MS. can be deduced from the fact that on the vii. Idus Junii the coronation of King Henry II., which was performed by Archbishop Willigis at Mainz on the 7th June 1002, is entered by the first hand, while the ordination of Archbishop Tagino of Magdeburg in the 2nd February 1004, has been entered by a second hand. Archbishop Tagino’s death is not entered. The calendar has only Gereon with 319 companions of the local saints of Cologne. St Ulrich of Augsburg, although he died in 997, is entered by the second hand. The calendar has been published by Martène, Ampl. Coll., and by Zaccaria, Antiq. Med. Ævi (see Migne, cxxxviii. 1194).

8. Hontheim has published the five most ancient calendars of Treves in the Prodromus Historiæ Trevirensis, i. 378-405. According to him, only the first belongs to the tenth century, all the others being later. For a calendar of the tenth century, it is very full of names, many of them being from the old Testament—Ezechial, Daniel, etc.; it mentions neither the legend of the Innumerable Company of Martyrs at Treves on the 4th and 5th October, nor Palmatius, Thyrsus, etc.; neither does it contain All Souls, St Catherine, or St Peter’s Chair, but it has Gereon and his 318 companions. It is only in the fourth and fifth calendars which belong to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries that Thyrsus, Palmatius, etc., appear.

When one considers the details presented by calendars, one is bound to acknowledge that the Roman Depositio Martyrum stands at the head of this long line of liturgical documents, and was the model after which they were composed. Like them, the Depositio Martyrum was drawn up according to months, and commenced with Christmas. Like them, it contained the official list of the martyrs who received ecclesiastical veneration in the local church of Rome in the fourth century. Were it not so, it would not have deserved to be incorporated in the Philocalian collection, the Hemerologium Valentini, since this comprised only official documents; had it not been official it would not have been worth transcribing.

CONCLUSION

All estates of men in the Church have had their share in the formation of the ecclesiastical year, for the growth of the Church’s festivals has continued without interruption from the beginning until now, and has extended over all the countries of Christendom. Having wended our way through the centuries and arrived at the conclusion of our work, it is a pleasure to render our tribute of thanks and praise to the men who have in the past made this sphere of study their own.

The few writers of the Middle Ages who treated the Church’s year and the festivals of the saints in a comprehensive manner were entirely occupied with contributing to the correct performance of ecclesiastical ceremonies, and with explaining why each ceremony must be done in one way and not in another. They not infrequently brought allegorical and symbolical considerations to bear on the question.

In more modern times, Cornelius Schulting, a native of Steenwijk in North Holland, and afterwards professor of theology at Cologne and canon of St Andrew’s († 1604) undertook a full exposition of the matter; his object was mainly practical, and his work can only be regarded as a first attempt. The keen controversialist, Jacobus Gretser S.J. († 1625), is more occupied with his polemic against the Calvinists than with lucid demonstration. More in harmony with modern requirements, is the French oratorian Louis Thomassin, a native of Aix in Provence, and a partisan of Port Royal, who died in 1695; he wrote a small compendium which may be used with profit at the present day.

The study of the ecclesiastical year was considerably advanced by the labours of Adrien Baillet, born in 1649, in the diocese of Beauvais († 1706), parish priest of a small country living at Baumont and librarian to M. de Lamoignon; he was entirely devoted to the pursuit of knowledge, and scarcely ever allowed himself any relaxation. He composed a great work worthy of ranking alongside the labours of Tillemont, to whom he is closely related in spirit. The course of his historical treatment of the subject is considerably obscured by the superabundance of biographical matter. Two valuable monographs were published by Prosper Lambertini (Pope Benedict XIV.) when bishop of Bologna, which treat in a masterly manner of the feasts of our Lord and of our Lady respectively.

Finally, the learned priest of Bilk, near Düsseldorf, Fr. Ant. Binterim († 1855) dealt with this subject in one volume of his Denkwürdigkeiten. He treats in the first place of the observance of Sunday, then of the Sundays of the Church’s year in general, and finally of the movable and immovable feasts. Of these he naturally deals only with the most important, following the order of the calendar, by which arrangement Christmas comes last.

The author of this book commenced his researches by a comparative study of the martyrologies, calendars, annals, and works dealing with the computation of time, and then set to work upon the historical and liturgical material which he had before him from the point of vantage thus obtained. The fortunate circumstance that the most of the works required for this branch of study are contained in Migne’s collection, renders the labour of comparison possible, and frequently brings remarkable parallels to light.