1. Introduction

The external worship of God, if it is not to remain vague and indefinite, finds expression on the one hand through certain elements belonging to the senses, such as signs and words, and on the other it is connected with places and times. By the changes of day and night, of seasons and years, Creation calls upon man to raise his mind to God at stated times and to enter into communion with Him. The day with its brightness is suited for work, night with its stillness invites man to turn his thoughts in upon himself. The change of day and night calls upon us to begin the day’s work with God, and to commend ourselves to His keeping in the darkness of the night. The course of the seasons, too, matures the fruits of the earth necessary for our support, and the succession of years reminds us of the fleeting nature of everything earthly, for our whole life is composed of successive years. Consequently the civilised peoples already in remote antiquity have found a call to the worship of God in the changing seasons and times, and so have introduced sacred seasons. Sacred times and places are common to all religions in general. The change of times, bringing with them corresponding changes in nature, made a religious impression upon mankind. In turn, man sanctified certain times and dedicated them to God, and these days thus consecrated to God became festivals.

The worship of God takes precedence over the daily affairs of common life, and accordingly displaces such of them as are not necessary for the support of natural life or the wellbeing of society. Thus it came to pass that the ordinary affairs of life gave place to the worship of God, and rest from labour became an essential part of the worship paid to Him. Man abstained from his wonted tasks on certain days, which received in consequence a higher consecration. And so among the ancient Romans, the idea of a day of rest and a holy day were intimately connected and received the name of feria. But it was among the Hebrews that the days set apart for the worship of God received the most distinctive character as days of rest.[1]

The Christian Church on her part, in wishing that the day set apart for the worship of God should be observed as far as possible as a day of rest from labour, acts in accordance with ideas and customs which nature itself has planted in the human race, and which need no other justification. The term sabbatismus (Sabbath rest) soon entered into the theological language of Christendom, and in public life the Christian holy days, at first only Sundays, gradually, even in secular legislation, became recognised as days of rest, sometimes in a larger and sometimes in a smaller number.

The entire number of ecclesiastical holy days and seasons is actually codified for us in the different Church Calendars. Their contents fall into two essentially different divisions, each possessing an entirely different origin and history. The first division consists of festivals of our Lord, distributed over the year, regulated and co-ordinated in accordance with certain laws. The second division consists of commemorations of the saints in no wise connected with the festivals of our Lord or with one another. Occupying to some extent an intermediate position between these two chief divisions come the festivals of our Blessed Lady, which have this in common with the festivals of the saints, that they fall on fixed days, but, on the other hand, they are to a certain extent connected with each other, and with some feasts of our Lord. This is carried out in such a way that they are distributed throughout the entire Church’s year, and are included in each of the festal seasons.

The former of these two divisions is the most important, and its chief feasts are also the oldest. The festivals of our Lord, Easter and Pentecost especially, compose what is called the Church’s year in the stricter sense, and, if they coincide with a saint’s day, they take precedence. The Church’s year is built upon a single basis and according to one plan, which did not originate in the mind of any one person, but developed out of the historical conditions resulting from the connection of Christianity with Judaism.

In the course of the ecclesiastical year, the Church brings before us the chief events in our Lord’s life and the most striking instances of His work of redemption. The central point of the whole is the commemoration of His death and resurrection—i.e. Easter—to which all other events are related, whether those which reach backward to Christmas, or those which reach onwards to the completion of His redemptive work at Whitsuntide. In addition, there is, on the one hand, Advent, as a time of preparation for our Lord’s coming, reminding us of the four or five thousand years which intervened between the Creation and that event, and, on the other, the Sundays after Pentecost, representing the period after the foundation of the Church, and devoted to the consideration of the redemption won for us, along with its doctrines and blessings. The weeks of the year form the links of the chain, each Sunday marking the character of the week which follows it.

The sacred seasons, as they pass in orderly succession, give outward expression to the spirit which animates the Church, and are of the utmost importance from the point of view of her worship, since they form one of the chief elements in the instruction of mankind in the truths of Christianity. By them one easily becomes familiar with Christianity itself.

Every religion has its festivals, but none has so rich and so carefully thought out a system of feasts as the Catholic Church. If we may compare it to some artistically constructed edifice, we can regard the festivals of our Lord as forming the piers which support all the rest, the lesser feasts as contributing the decorations, and the Sundays, with their attendant weeks, as the stones of which the walls are built. Naturally all this did not exist at first, but, like many other things in the Church, has grown up into its present proportions from small beginnings.

We are not told that the Divine Founder of the Church appointed a single festival or left behind Him any instructions on the matter; still the germ, destined by Providence to develop afterwards into the system of festivals with which we are familiar, existed from the beginning. The subsequent rich and varied development of this system was not the work of individuals, but was due to the working of the spirit which ever rules the Universal Church, and ever renews itself within her. Love towards the Redeemer and gratitude for what He has done for us called the round of Christian festivals into being. The authorities in the Church have played the part of the gardener, pruning away superfluous shoots and branches. In view of the numerous institutions of this kind, some of which date back to remote antiquity, it was not a mere figure of speech which Tertullian made use of when, referring to the numerous heathen festivals, he addressed the Christians of his time with the words, “You have your own ‘fasti’” (“Habes tuos fastos.”—De Corona, c. 13).

The outline of the ecclesiastical year was prefigured in the Old Law, while the synagogue furnished the fundamental elements in its festivals, the Sabbath in particular, and in the division of the year into weeks. This renders a glance at the religious year of the Jews necessary, for, apart from it, it is impossible to understand the essential character of the Christian year.

The Jewish festivals in the time of Christ were instituted either in commemoration of events connected with the divine covenant, such as the Passover, or they were of an agrarian character or commemorated some national event, as the dedication of the Temple, Purim, Jom Kippar, etc.

According to the dates of their origin they fall into two classes:—

(a) The ancient festivals instituted by Moses: the Passover, the Feast of Weeks, in the earlier part of the year; the Feast of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement, and the Feast of Tabernacles, in autumn, i.e. on the first, seventh, and fifteenth days of the month Tizri.

(b) The more recent festivals instituted by the Synagogue, such as the Dedication of the Temple on the 25th Chisleu; Purim, or the Feast of Haman, on the 14th Adar. To these were added four fast days as days of national humiliation.

Consequently, since the death of Christ took place on the first day of the feast of the Passover (15th Nisan), and since the Descent of the Holy Ghost followed on the day of Pentecost, the chief Jewish feasts served as the foundation of the Christian ecclesiastical year, and the Apostles could join with the Jews in their Passover celebration. Certainly the object of their feast was very different from that of the Jews, yet, outwardly there was no separation from the synagogue.

2. Sunday and its Observance as a Day of Rest

The Sabbath and the week of seven days, by their appointment in the ancient Law, formed already a necessary element of the ecclesiastical year and maintained their position in the Church. The division of the year into weeks is not specifically Jewish, but rather Semitic, since we find it in existence in ancient Babylon, though there a new week began with the first day of every month, and the first, seventh, fourteenth, twenty-first, and twenty-eighth days of the month were always days of rest.[2] This system of dividing time into weeks received a religious consecration among the Jews, inasmuch as the Sabbath rest was enjoined by the Law under the severest sanctions. All servile work of whatsoever kind must be laid aside on the Sabbath, according to the Jewish law. It was not even permitted to light a fire or prepare food. Important as was the place given to rest, it was, however, only one part, and that a subordinate part of the Sabbath festival. The most important part was the performance of the acts of divine worship God enjoined upon the people, that is to say the sacrifice of a holocaust, consisting of two yearling lambs, along with “flour tempered with oil and the libations.”[3]

There is no evidence of the Sabbath having been abrogated by Christ or the Apostles, but St Paul declared its observance was not binding on Gentile converts, who soon formed the majority of those converted to the faith; and in Col. ii. 16, he classes it along with the feasts of the new moon. Accordingly, the observance of the Sabbath fell more and more into the background, yet not without leaving some traces behind.[4] It appears at first to have rather existed side by side with Sunday.[5] Among the Christians, the first day of the Jewish week, the prima sabbati, the present Sunday, was held in honour as the day of our Lord’s resurrection and was called the Lord’s Day.[6] This name took the place of the name dies solis, formerly in use among the Greeks and Romans. The different days of the week were named after the heavenly bodies, which in turn took their names from the chief divinities of heathen mythology. Thus the names dies solis, lunæ, Martis, etc., were very general and widespread in antiquity. The Christians did not employ these titles for liturgical purposes, but called the week-days simply feriæ, and distinguished them merely by numbers.[7] In the romance languages the ecclesiastical name for Sunday, dies dominica, has quite taken the place of all others.

These names were already in use in the Apostolic period, and Sunday was the day on which the eucharistic worship of God was performed.[8] Christian worship in the earliest time consisted of two parts. Already, in the letters of Pliny, we find mention of a nocturnal service of preparation at which psalms were sung, prayers recited, and passages read from Holy Scripture. The eucharistic part of the service followed at dawn. These two parts appear sharply distinguished, especially in the diary of Silvia (or Etheria). The vigil service developed out of the first part. The second part in Silvia’s diary usually bears the name of Oblatio, while the term missa denotes merely the dismissal of the faithful and the respective divisions of the psalmody.[9] There also seems to have been a general confession of sins at the commencement of the service, which explains the exhortation of the “Teaching of the Apostles,” that the faithful should confess their sins on Sunday. At any rate, Eusebius plainly refers to the practice, and adds, “We, the adherents of the New Covenant, are constantly nourished by the Body of Christ; we continually partake of the Blood of the Lamb, and celebrate every week on Sunday the mysteries of the true Lamb, by Whom we have been redeemed.”[10] Upon the cessation of persecution, the present arrangement of divine service soon became established—that is to say, Mass and Sermon at nine A.M., with Vespers and Compline as popular devotions in the afternoon.

Besides Sunday, at least in Tertullian’s time, the liturgy was performed on Wednesday and Friday, the so-called Station Days. In the East, on the other hand, it was performed only on Saturdays, at least in many places.[11] To put on one’s best clothes for attendance at worship was a custom of the heathen, which the Christians retained, and which has survived to the present day.[12]

As to the grounds for celebrating Sunday, the Fathers are unanimous from the earliest times—it was kept as a festival because Christ rose again on the first day of the Jewish week.[13] A clear indication of this is given by the practice observed in Jerusalem in the fourth century of reading at the psalmody on each of the Sundays in Quinquagesima, the Gospel of the resurrection of Jesus.[14]

The first Christian Emperor did his best to promote the observance of Sunday and to show it all respect as a day of prayer. He gave leave to the Christian soldiers of his army to be absent from duty in order that they might attend divine service. The heathen soldiers, however, had to assemble in camp without their arms, and offer up a prayer for the Emperor and his family.[15] Eusebius, in his “Life of Constantine,” mentions in detail these pious endeavours of the Emperor, yet his information must have been incomplete, since Sozomen[16] informs us that Constantine also forbade the law-courts to sit on Sunday. It has been attempted to throw doubt on the veracity of this information because of the silence of Eusebius; but Sozomen was an advocate, and must have been better up in the existing legislation than Eusebius, and, moreover, a clear grasp of the point at issue along with a lucid representation of all the facts concerned is not one of the excellences of Eusebius. The information given by Sozomen is further supported by the fact that a law of Constantine’s directed to the same end is in existence.[17]

The prohibition of the transaction of legal business on Sunday was frequently renewed by his successors, and extended so as to suspend the courts of arbitration, and to prohibit summonses for debt.[18]

A law of Valentinian II., in A.D. 425, forbade games in the Circus, and all theatrical representations on Sunday. To the honour of the Emperors it must be said that they suppressed these representations more than once.[19] The Emperor Leo also renewed the law concerning the Sunday rest, and went so far as to forbid music on Sundays,[20] but his law is not included in the general collection of statutes, having been repealed after a short time.

As regards working on Sunday, the Church very carefully avoided the adoption of a pharisaical observance of the day; but, from the beginning, there was a consensus of Christian opinion against the continuance of all work which rendered the attendance of the faithful at divine worship impossible—as, for instance, the labours of slaves or the work of servants. In course of time this was extended so as to exclude all kinds of work out of keeping with the dignity of the day. As to details, different views prevailed to a great extent in different places and times.[21] The first Christian Emperor had already, according to Eusebius,[22] made a law prescribing throughout his Empire rest on Sundays, and even on Fridays as well. Ecclesiastical legislation on its part maintained that slaves must have sufficient free time to attend divine worship and receive religious instruction in church. Attendance at this was regarded as the duty of all grown up Christians.[23] For the rest, the prohibition of work on Sunday was not always regarded in antiquity as of general obligation. Thus, for example, the Council of Laodicea forbade Christians on the one hand to celebrate Saturday in the Jewish manner, and, on the other, enjoined rest from labour only “in so far as it was possible.”[24]

That the establishment of rest from labour had special reference to slaves is shown by the so-called Apostolic Constitutions. In them we have (8, 33) the days on which slaves were to be free from labour once more enumerated in detail, and the limits of the earlier legislation considerably extended.

Days of rest for slaves were to be: Saturday and Sunday, Holy Week and Easter Week, the Ascension, Whitsunday, Christmas, Epiphany, all festivals of Apostles, St Stephen’s Day, and the feasts of certain martyrs. Naturally the object of this ordinance was not to make all these days festivals in the strict sense of the word.

In his anxiety to do honour to the holy days of the Church, the first Christian Emperor went still further. He desired to make Friday, the day of Christ’s death, a day of rest and devotion as well.[25] We have no information as to how far this regulation took practical effect during his life. No trace of such a custom exists at a later date except among the Nestorians. How earnest he was in securing the execution of these decrees is shown by the fact that he commanded the prefects of the provinces not only to observe Sundays, but also to celebrate the commemorations of the martyrs, within their jurisdictions.[26]

It has been already observed that Saturday as well as Sunday had its liturgical observance. In certain Eastern countries it attained to a position almost equal to that of Sunday. For, in the Apostolic Constitutions, it is laid down that the faithful shall attend divine service on this day also, and abstain from servile work,[27] although the rank of Sunday was acknowledged to be higher.[28] The Council of Laodicea forbade indeed, as we have observed above, the abandonment of work on Saturday, but it enjoined the reading of the Gospel as on Sunday (Can. 16). Traces of this pre-eminence of Saturday among the week-days exists at the present time in the Churches of the East.[29]

In conclusion, it is to be noticed that, in the Middle Ages, the rest from labour commenced, contrary to our present custom, with the Vespers of Saturday. Pope Alexander III., however, decreed that local custom should retain its prescriptive right, and so it came to pass that the practice of reckoning the feast day from midnight to midnight became general.[30]

3. The Classification of Festivals

According to the points of view taken, festivals may be divided into different classes:—

1. According to the object of the festival, into festivals of our Lord and festivals of the saints.

The former fall into three divisions: (a) movable feasts—Easter, Pentecost, etc.; (b) immovable feasts—Christmas, Epiphany, etc.; (c) such as are not included in the above cycles and are immovable, e.g., the Transfiguration, Invention of the Cross, etc.

The saints whose feasts are celebrated are either Old Testament personages—although these do not appear in the Roman Calendar as they do in others, especially those of the Oriental Churches—or Apostles, martyrs, virgins, confessors, angels, and, finally, the Mother of our Lord.

2. With regard to their observance, festivals may be either local or general.

3. According to their character, we may theoretically divide the festivals into commemorative and devotional festivals. Commemorative festivals are those which celebrate a historical event, e.g., the birth, and death of Jesus, the death of an Apostle, of a martyr, etc. These, in many cases, are celebrated on the actual day of the event commemorated. As devotional festivals, we may rank those which celebrate some mystery of the Faith, e.g., the Holy Trinity, or those which, although they commemorate a particular event, such as the Transfiguration, do not celebrate it on the day on which it actually happened.

Since the number of festivals altered much in the course of centuries, and their objects are so various, they are distinguished from one another by differences of rank and a whole series of gradations has arisen.

In the first place there are purely ecclesiastical festivals whose celebration is confined within the four walls of the Church (festa chori), and festivals which have their bearing upon the common life of the people, chiefly on account of the rest from labour which is conjoined with them (festa fori).

The so-called feriæ and the festivals strictly so called are clearly distinguished from one another. According to the practice of the Church, the ordinary days of the year have their place in the liturgy, and share to a certain extent in the festal character of the season, although distinguished from those days on which is commemorated some mystery of our redemption or the memory of a saint. These latter are holy days (festa) in a higher sense.

These holy days again are divided into greater or lesser feasts—in the language of the rubrics, into festa duplicia and simplicia, with an intermediate class, the semi-duplicia. This is more marked in the arrangements of the Breviary than in the Missal. This does not exhaust the differences between festivals, for there are further distinctions in their rank, especially in the case of the festivals of our Lord and of the chief mysteries of our redemption, i.e. duplicia majora, and duplicia primæ and secundæ classis. The festa duplicia primæ classis are usually kept up for eight days—the so-called octave; so too some of the secundæ classis.

The different rank of feasts is not so elaborate among the Greeks and Russians, for they divide their festivals simply into greater, intermediate, and lesser, which are marked in their Calendars by special signs.

The octave which belongs to the chief festivals has its origin in Judaism, for the Jews prolonged for eight days the festivals which commemorated the two chief religious and political events in their history—the Exodus from Egypt or the Passover, and the Dedication of the Temple.[31] With regard to the Passover, there was another reason for prolonging the feast during eight days. Since many Jews, after the Exile, remained scattered throughout various countries, there was a risk, owing to the uncertain character of the Jewish Calendar, that the correct date of the feast might not be known to all. In order to avoid the misfortune of celebrating the feast on a wrong day, the feast was prolonged for eight days, one of which would certainly be the right day. The first, second, seventh, and last days were especially regarded as festivals.[32] Then Pentecost and Christmas were also observed with an octave, and so matters remained for a long period. It was owing to the influence which the Franciscan Order exerted in liturgical affairs that the number of octaves was increased. The Franciscans provided an inordinate number of festivals with octaves in their Breviary, and observed each day of the octave with the rite of a festum duplex. In this way a number of saints’ festivals, in addition to the feasts of our Lord, were provided with octaves. According to the ancient Roman rite, the observance of the octave consisted merely in a simple commemoration of the festival inserted in the office on the eighth day, without taking any notice of the festival on the intervening six days.[33] A single example of this ancient custom still exists in the Breviary in the festum S. Agnetis secundo.

Formerly saints’ festivals were not distinguished from one another in rank, but all were kept with the rite of a festum simplex, as it is now called, and also were provided with one lection only, as the Breviary developed. An alteration in this respect was introduced by Gregory VII., who appointed that the commemoration of Popes who were also martyrs should be celebrated as festa duplicia.[34] Next, Boniface VIII., in 1298, ordered that the feasts of the Apostles, Evangelists, and four great doctors of the Western Church should be advanced to the same rank.[35] The Franciscans brought about a complete revolution by celebrating in their Breviary and in their churches all festivals of the saints as duplicia, and by adding a number of new saints.[36] Pius V. reduced the rank of many feasts, but over and above the duplicia he permitted doubles of the first and second class. To the ordinary duplex, or duplex simpliciter per annum, Clement VIII. added yet another species, the duplex majus.[37] Thus, according to the present regulations, feasts are ranked either as simplex, semiduplex, duplex, majus, duplex II. and I. classis.[38]

4. The Gradual Increase of Festivals. Their Decrease in the Last Three Centuries. The Present Position

It is a recognised fact in history that the festivals of the Church in the course of centuries considerably increased in number, and that, when this increase had reached its highest point, their number began again to diminish. This was partly effected by means of legislation and without disturbance, but partly by the violent proceedings attendant upon the French Revolution. The stages in this process will be best understood from an account of the secular and ecclesiastical legislation by which they were brought about.

Tertullian[39] is the first ecclesiastical writer who enumerates the feasts celebrated among the Christians. The only festivals known to him, and to Origen after him, are Easter and Pentecost.[40] His statement is all the more noteworthy, because the exigencies of his controversy with Celsus required he should specify all the festivals by name. These are, besides Sundays, the Parasceve, Easter, and Pentecost. Tertullian and Origen are witnesses respectively for the East and West, and since their evidence coincides, it is certain that in the third century only the first germs existed of that Church-life which subsequently was to reach so rich a development. The cessation of persecution removed those hindrances which up to then had stood in the way of its evolution.

The increase of festivals can now be traced with the assistance of secular legislation, inasmuch as the Christian Emperors prohibited the sitting of the law-courts and games in the circus on certain days. It has been already shown that Constantine, as early as 321, appointed that no legal business should be transacted on all Sundays of the year. In a proclamation concerning the regulation of legal vacations, put forth by Valentinian II. and his colleague in the Empire, and dated from Rome on the 7th August 389, the seven days before and after Easter are added to the Sundays.[41] In the same way as special sittings of the law-courts were abolished on Sundays, so, later on, the proceedings before the judge of arbitration were forbidden.

When a day became recognised as exempt from legal business, this did not at once render it a festival or holy day, otherwise, according to the law of 389, there would have been fifteen consecutive holy days. The prohibition of legal proceedings in the courts on a given day, had regard, in the first place, to the removal of all hindrances which might interfere with attendance at divine worship on the part of those employed therein. In the second place, however, it must be remembered that in those days the sittings of the criminal courts almost always implied the application of torture; and such proceedings on holy days seemed especially out of place. This must also have been the reason why Valentinian and his colleague forbade prosecutions in the criminal courts throughout the whole of Lent. He certainly did not aim at changing all the days of Lent into feast-days. This law was renewed by Justinian.[42]

The legislation concerning Christmas and Epiphany exhibits a good deal of vacillation, probably connected with the fact that these two festivals were not yet generally celebrated and recognised everywhere in the fourth century. They seem to have been originally mentioned in the law of 389, but to have been struck out by the redactors of the Codex Theodosianus.[43] It was only through the inclusion of the law in question in the Code of Justinian that they were finally marked as days on which the law-courts did not sit. This privilege had been already taken away from heathen festivals by a law of Valentinian and his colleague in 392.[44]

Alongside these laws we find others forbidding games in the Circus and in the theatres. These interfered with the attendance of many persons at divine service as much as, or even more than, the proceedings in the law-courts, for they began early in the morning and lasted the whole day. Valentinian II. and his colleague, on the 19th June 386, re-enacted one of their earlier laws forbidding the performance of such plays on Sundays.[45] Through later legislation, it came to pass that the same held good for the seven days before and after Easter as well, and in 395 were added all the days of the year which were regarded as feriæ.[46] Finally, a law of Theodosius II. of 1st February 425, gives a list of all those days on which these spectacles (theatrorum atque circensium voluptas) were forbidden. These were all the Sundays of the year, Christmas, Epiphany, and the whole period from Easter to Pentecost.[47] In A.D. 400 Arcadius and Honorius forbade races on Sundays, plainly for the reason that they drew away the people from divine service.[48]

In order to illustrate the increase in the number of festivals, we make use, as we have said, of the official decrees on the subject put forth by the authorities both in Church and State, where such are at our disposal. The service-books, which do not always give the distinction between festa in choro and in foro with precision, will be consulted when necessary.

A list of feasts and sacred seasons appears for the first time in the fifth book of the Apostolic Constitutions, viz. the Birthday of our Lord (25th December), Epiphany, Lent, the Holy Week of the Passover, the Passover of the Resurrection, the Sunday after Easter, on which is read the Gospel of unbelieving Thomas, Ascension, and Pentecost. This gives the festivals in the fourth century. Other evidence of the same period, i.e. the sermons of Chrysostom and others, affords certain proof for the existence of five or six festivals only, according as Good Friday is included among them or not, viz. Christmas, Epiphany, the Passion, the Resurrection, the Ascension of Christ, and Pentecost.[49]

A list of the festivals celebrated at Tours and in the neighbouring Abbey of St Martin’s during the fifth century, is given us by Perpetuus (461-91), the sixth bishop of the see.[50] In this is shown the days on which the principal service is held in the cathedral, and those on which it is held in other churches in the town:—

The regulations for festivals contained in the statutes of Sonnatius, Bishop of Reims (614-31), show a further development. It marks as festivals: Nativitas Domini, Circumcisio, Epiphania, Annunciatio Beatæ Mariæ, Resurrectio Domini cum die sequenti, Ascensio Domini, dies Pentecostes, Nativitas beati Joannis Baptistæ, Nativitas apostolorum Petri et Pauli, Assumptio beatæ Mariæ, ejusdem Nativitas, Nativitas Andreæ apostoli et omnes dies dominicales. These thirteen days were to be celebrated “absque omni opere forensi.”[52] The omission of Candlemas Day is remarkable. The day after Easter appears for the first time as a holy day. The Council of Maçon, however, had already gone further and forbidden (Can. 2) servile work throughout the whole of Easter week. This extension of the festival was probably at that time unique, while we often meet with it in the ninth century, when it had probably become general.

According to this document, the number of days which in the course of the year were exempt from labour did not exceed sixty-three in the seventh century. Their number was considerably increased in the subsequent period. In the notes on festivals ascribed to St Boniface, it has increased to seventy-one, including the two Sundays on which Easter and Pentecost fall. These notes are included in the collection known as statuta quædam S. Bonifacii,[53] and even if they do not owe their origin to St Boniface, they belong without doubt to his period. Days in which rest from labour (sabbatismus) is enjoined in this document are Christmas (four days), the Circumcision, Epiphany, Purification, Easter (four days), Ascension, Nativity of St John the Baptist, the festival of SS. Peter and Paul, the Assumption, the Nativity of Our Lady, St Andrew’s Day (30th November). Pentecost is passed over because it has already been mentioned in the thirty-fourth canon, but it was to be celebrated in the same manner as Easter, that is, during four days with a vigil.

In the Frankish Empire, during the ninth century, the regulations for holy days were everywhere reduced to order, and in consequence we possess numerous ordinances bearing on the subject. With the exception of festivals of local saints and patrons, they present little variety. With regard to the Assumptio B.V.M. alone, there seems to have been some fluctuations in France at the beginning of the ninth century, as a statement of the Council of Aix-la-Chapelle in 809 proves. The Council enumerates the following festivals: Natalis Domini, natales S. Stephani, S. Joannis Evangelistæ, SS. Innocentium, octabas Domini (the Circumcision), Epiphania, Purificatio S. Mariæ, Pascha dies octo, Litania major, scensa Domini, Pentecoste, natales S. Joannis Baptistæ, SS. Petri et Pauli, S. Martini, S. Andreæ. De Assumptione S. Mariæ interrogandum reliquimus.[54] The Council of Mainz in 813, however, in its thirty-sixth canon, includes this last festival along with the others, as well as the litania with four days, i.e. including the preceding Sunday. It also directs that, besides the commemoration of those martyrs and confessors whose relics repose within the diocese, the anniversary of the dedication of the church shall also be celebrated.[55] About the same time, i.e. in 827, Bishop Hetto of Basle put out a statute, in the eighth chapter of which the festivals entailing rest from servile work (dies feriandi) are enumerated: Christmas and the three following days, Octava Domini, Theophania, Purificatio S.M., Pascha (which, according to the seventh chapter, was prolonged for eight days), the three Rogation days, the Ascension, the Saturday before Pentecost, St John Baptist, the festivals of the Apostles, Assumptio S. Mariæ, St Michael, the Dedication of the Church, and the Feast of the patron saint, these two last to be observed locally. Three other days, i.e. St Remigius, St Maurice, and St Martin, were not exempt from servile work.[56] This arrangement differs from the preceding, inasmuch as it includes all the Apostles, while the other mentions only SS. Peter and Paul, and St Andrew. The festivals of the Apostles are also absent from the list given by the Council of Mainz in 809.

The Council of Mainz in 813, and the statutes of Bishop Rudolph of Bourges and Bishop Walter of Orleans in the same century, prescribe eight days for the festival of Pentecost, as well as for Easter, and mention in addition the Nativity of our Lady and St Remigius as festivals.[57] The Council of Ingelheim in 948 retained the Easter octave but reduced the festival of Pentecost to four days, which were finally reduced to three by the Council of Constance.[58] A few additions to these festivals are given in the collections of canons put out at a subsequent period by Burchard of Worms[59] and Ivo of Chartres.[60]

The Canon Law contains two lists of festivals, the one representing the state of things in the twelfth, the other that in the thirteenth century. The former, in the decretal of Gratian,[61] enumerates all the Sundays in the year from Vespers to Vespers, and then, throughout the year, the following days are exempt from servile work: Christmas and the three following days, St Silvester, Octava Domini, Theophania, Purificatio S. Mariæ, Easter and the entire Easter week, the three Rogation days, the Ascension, the days of Pentecost (probably three), St John the Baptist’s Day, all the Apostles, St Lawrence, Assumptio and Nativitas B.M.V., the Dedication of the Church, St Michael and All Saints, and, finally, the festivals approved by the bishop of the diocese. This list exhibits a further increase on its predecessors.

The decretal of Gregory IX., Conquestus est nobis, of the year 1232,[62] is important for the Middle Ages, although it does not represent the highest point in the development. According to it, legal business was not to be transacted on the Natalis Domini, S. Stephani, Joannis Evangelistæ, SS. Innocentium, S. Silvestri, Circumcisionis, Epiphaniæ, Septem Diebus Dominicæ Passionis, Resurrectionis cum septem Sequentibus, Ascensionis, Pentecostes cum duobus qui sequuntur, Nativitatis Baptistæ, Festivitatum omnium Virginis Gloriosæ, Duodecim Apostolorum et præcipue Petri et Pauli, Beati Laurentii, Dedicationis Beati Michælis, Sollemnitatis omnium Sanctorum ac Diebus Dominicis ceterisque sollemnitatibus, quas singuli episcopi in suis diæcesibus cum clero et populo duxerint sollemniter celebrandas. Setting down the number of Our Lady’s feasts as five, and the Apostles’ as eleven, we have here ninety-five days in the year on which no legal proceedings took place, not counting the particular festivals of the country and diocese. The above-mentioned decretal is silent concerning servile work. We may assume that there were ten out of the fifteen days exempt from legal proceedings on which servile work was permitted, and thus the total of days exempt from labour must have amounted to eighty-five in the course of the year, omitting the festivals proper to the diocese.[63]

With this, the highest point of development was almost attained, for only a very few festivals were added later, such as Corpus Christi, and, for certain localities, the Conception of Our Blessed Lady, and one or two more, but the number of local festivals might, under certain circumstances, be largely augmented. Between the thirteenth and the eighteenth centuries there were dioceses in which the number of days exempt from labour reached or even exceeded a hundred, so that, generally speaking, in every week there was another day besides the Sunday on which ordinary occupations were laid aside.[64] In some dioceses[65] the number of festivals observed exceeded those proscribed by lawful authority.[66]

In the Byzantine Empire the number of days exempt from legal proceedings was even more considerable than in the West. A distinction was made between whole holidays and half holidays. The Emperor Manuel Comnenus reduced their number by a constitution, dated March 1166. According to this, the first-class comprised no fewer than sixty-six days, not including Sundays, and the second comprised twenty-seven.

From the Calendar of Calcasendi,[67] we learn what were the festivals observed by the Copts in Egypt, in the eighth century, under Mahomedan rule. They distinguished between greater and lesser festivals, and kept seven of each.

The greater festivals are:—