WESTERN MEDIAEVAL KALENDARS: MARTYROLOGIES
The word _Martyrology_ has been sometimes applied to mere records of
names placed opposite days of the month, like the document which goes
under the name of Liberius (see p. 14), as well as to the fuller and
more elaborate accounts of saints and martyrs, with often something
of biographical detail, and notices of time and place, and (in the
case of martyrs) the manner of the passions, such as are to be found,
for example, in the Martyrology of Bede, and more particularly in the
additions of Florus, and the Martyrologies of Ado and Usuard.
The study of the Martyrologies is surrounded by many difficulties. They
were again and again copied, and re-handled. It demands much knowledge
and critical acumen to sever from the documents as they have come down to
us later additions, so that we may get at what may reasonably be regarded
as the original texts. Such work is always attended with considerable
uncertainty, and scholars are often divided in opinion as to the
results[133].
The influence of the later Martyrologies upon the mediaeval Kalendars of
the West is marked. Bede’s valuable work is the outcome of honest and
patient research; many days, however, were left blank—an offence to the
professional Martyrologist. It was much enlarged, about one hundred years
after his death, by one Florus, who (with some differences of opinion)
is generally supposed to have been a sub-deacon of Lyons. Ado, bishop
of Vienne, some twenty or thirty years later than Florus, prepared an
extensive Martyrology, which, together with the work of Florus, was
in turn utilised and abridged about A.D. 875 by Usuard, a priest and
Benedictine monk of the monastery of St Germain-des-Prés, then outside
the walls of Paris, who undertook his work at the instance of the Emperor
Charles the Bald. The book when completed was dedicated to the Emperor;
and before long Usuard’s Martyrology came in general to supersede
previous attempts of the same kind. Its influence on subsequent mediaeval
Kalendars is unmistakeable. Usuard came to be adopted almost universally
for use.
In monasteries and cathedral churches it was a common practice to read
aloud each day, sometimes in chapter, sometimes in choir, after Prime,
the part of the Martyrology which had reference to the commemorations
of the day or of the following day, together with notices of obits
and anniversaries of members of the ecclesiastical corporation and of
benefactors, which on the following day would be observed. Indeed, in
later times the name Martyrology is not infrequently applied to the mere
lists of such obits and anniversaries. The mediaeval martyrologies are
generally Usuard’s, but they have local additions.
The student who desires to know something of other early
Martyrologies, such as that which is called the Hieronymian,
the Lesser Roman, and the Martyrology of Rabanus, bishop of
Mainz, may consult Kellner (pp. 401-410) and Mr Birk’s article,
_Martyrology_, in _D. C. A._ Since the publication of the
latter article the _Henry Bradshaw Society_ has issued, under
the competent editorship of Mr Whitley Stokes, the metrical
_Martyrology of Oengus the Culdee_ (about A.D. 800) and the
metrical _Martyrology of Gorman_ (latter part of the twelfth
century), which are of much value in illustrating the hagiology
of the Irish Church. The scanty materials for the study of
Scottish mediaeval Kalendars (all of them late) have been
gathered together by Bishop A. P. Forbes in his _Kalendars of
Scottish Saints_, 1872. The _Martiloge in Englysshe_ printed
by Wynkyn de Worde (1526) and reprinted by the _Henry Bradshaw
Society_ (1893) is the Martyrology of the Church of Sarum, with
many additions.
By the tenth century the general features of Kalendars throughout Europe
are substantially identical as regards the greater days of observance.
But differences, often of much interest, arise through different churches
commemorating saints of local or national celebrity. It often happens
that by this means alone we are able to determine, or to conjecture
with considerable probability, the place or region where some liturgical
manuscript had its origin. When we find in a Kalendar a large proportion
of more or less obscure saints belonging to the Rhine valley, we may be
confident that the manuscript belongs to that region of Germany. When
an English Kalendar contains no notice of St Osmund we may be sure that
it did not originate at Salisbury. When we find St Margaret on Nov. 16,
St Fillan on Jan. 9, St Triduana on Oct. 8, and St Regulus on March 30,
there is an overwhelming probability that the manuscript belongs to
Scotland. In the Kalendar of York we find St Aidan (Aug. 31), St Hilda
of Whitby (Aug. 25), and St Paulinus, the archbishop (Oct. 10), but
these are all wanting to the Sarum Kalendar. St Kunnegund, the German
Empress, who died in A.D. 1040, figures largely in German Kalendars.
Sometimes we find marked not only her obit, but her canonization, and
her translation; and at Bamberg the octave of her translation was
observed. Outside Germany she is all but unknown. St Louis is naturally
an important personage in French Kalendars; and he appears as far north
as the Kalendars of Scandinavia. He never obtained a place in any of
the leading ‘uses’ of England. On the other hand, at an earlier date
continental influences on ecclesiastical affairs (not unknown before the
Conquest) became potent when Norman churchmen poured into this country
after A.D. 1066, and obtained places of the highest dignity. It is thus
probably that St Batildis, wife of Clovis II (Jan. 30), St Sulpicius,
bishop of Bourges (Jan. 17), St Medard, bishop of Noyon, with St Gildard,
bishop of Rouen (June 8), and St Andoen, another bishop of Rouen (Aug.
24), obtained days in our English Kalendars. All these are absent from
the Anglo-Saxon Kalendars printed by Hampson[134].
Again, occasionally a Church Kalendar exhibits features which may
be attributed to merely accidental circumstances. Relics of some
saint belonging to another and distant region may happen to have
been presented to some church; and thereupon his name is inserted
in its Kalendars. It is thus, with much probability, that Mr Warren
accounts for the appearance of the names of one northern bishop and
two northern abbots—Aidan, bishop of Lindisfarne,—Benedict, first
abbot, and Ceolfrith, second abbot of Wearmouth—in the Kalendar of the
Leofric Missal. In William of Malmesbury, we read that in A.D. 703
relics of these saints were brought to Glastonbury. And in the case of
two of these, Aidan (Aug. 31) and Ceolfrith (Sept. 25), the Leofric
Kalendar adds to each name the word, ‘in Glaestonia.’ Other evidence
makes it all but certain that Glastonbury and its history affected the
Leofric Kalendar. At Cologne, which claims to possess the heads of the
Three Kings, one cannot wonder that their Translation (July 23) is a
‘summum festum.’ In the Kalendars of the Orthodox Church of the East
the deposition of relics is frequently the occasion of the annual
commemoration of the event, and the insertion of a festival in the
Menology. In all countries translations of the bodies of saints are found
entered; and when the dates of such translations are known from history,
we are at once enabled to say of any particular manuscript service-book
that the Kalendar, in which some particular translation is marked _prima
manu_, was written after the known date. On the other side, when we find
any important festival absent, or, as is frequently the case, inserted in
a later handwriting, the strong presumption is raised that the original
Kalendar belongs to a time before the establishment of the festival.
Thus, the absence of the Conception of St Mary (Dec. 8) from a Kalendar
suggests that it is earlier than the last quarter of the eleventh
century; while the appearance of Corpus Christi goes to determine a
Kalendar to be later than A.D. 1260.
From what has been said, it will seen that, even apart from the style
of the handwriting, the formation of the various letters, the manner of
punctuation, and other palaeographical indications, the mere contents of
a Kalendar will often help the student to make a good conjecture as to
both the place of the origin of a manuscript and the time when it was
penned.
[Illustration: Kalendar of Durham Psalter (September)
Jesus College, Cambridge (MS. Q. B. 6). Cent. xii.]
As regards the particular Church for the use of which any Kalendar was
intended, attention should be directed not only to the appearance of
certain festivals, but to the rank and dignity of the festivals, which
are often indicated by some such notes as ‘principal,’ ‘of ix Lessons,’
‘of iii Lessons,’ ‘greater double,’ ‘lesser double,’ or some other term
of classification[135]. Classification in continental Kalendars is often
otherwise expressed[136]. In the Kalendar of the Missal of Westminster
Abbey the dignity of the greater festivals is marked by indicating the
number of copes (varying from two to eight) which were to be used, as
has been thought, by the monks who sang the Invitatory to _Venite_ at
Mattins. No one will be surprised to learn that at Westminster the Feast
of St Edward the Confessor (Jan. 5), and his Translation (Oct. 13) are
marked ‘viii cape,’ a dignity which is reached only in the cases of St
Peter and St Paul, the Assumption, All Saints, and Christmas: while in
the Sarum Kalendar St Edward is marked on Jan. 5 only by a ‘memory,’
and his Translation is but a ‘lower double.’ At Holyrood Abbey, near
Edinburgh, Holy Cross Day was naturally one of the greatest festivals
of the year, while in the Aberdeen Breviary the Invention of the Cross
and the Exaltation were both ‘lesser doubles.’ At Hereford, Thomas of
Hereford (Oct. 2) was a ‘principal feast,’ and so was his Translation
(Oct. 25); neither day appears in the Sarum Kalendar. The Translation
of the Three Kings, already referred to, which is a ‘summum festum’ at
Cologne, is all but unknown elsewhere. These examples will suffice for
our purpose.
It remains to notice entries of other kinds not uncommon in mediaeval
Kalendars. There are notices of what I may call an antiquarian kind,
which did not at all, or but seldom, affect the service of the day,
but which are not without an interest of their own. Thus, such entries
as the following are not uncommon. ‘The first day of the world’ (March
18); ‘Adam was created’ (March 23); ‘Noah entered the ark’ (March 17);
‘The Resurrection of the Lord’ (March 27), by which is meant that the
actual resurrection of the Saviour took place on this day of the month,
in the year in which the Lord was crucified. This assigned date is of
great antiquity. We find it in Tertullian (_adv. Judaeos_ c. 8); and
later it was accepted by Hippolytus and Augustine, and it is frequent
in the Kalendars of the early mediaeval period. In the Sarum Kalendar
it is marked as a principal feast of three lessons, but there is no
service answering to the day in the Breviary. We find ‘Noah comes forth
from the ark’ (April 29); ‘The devil departs from the Lord’ (Feb. 15);
‘The Ascension of the Lord’ (May 5); this last mentioned day is plainly
a corollary to the date assigned to the Resurrection, but it is not so
frequently inserted in the Kalendars.
We may pass without comment entries of astronomical interest, such as
‘Sol in aquario,’ ‘Sol in piscibus,’ and such like; the solstices and the
equinoxes; the days when the four seasons began; and such weather-notes
as the dates when the dog-days (_dies caniculares_) began and ended.
It will be observed that there was at least ancient precedent for what
gave offence to Bishop Wren when he wrote of the Kalendar of the Book of
Common Prayer, ‘Out with the dog-days from among the Saints.’
Some of the features just noticed continued to make their appearance in
various English Kalendars after the Reformation. The Kalendar, indeed,
of the Prayer Book of 1549 looks to our eyes singularly bare, with no
days marked other than what we call the red-letter festivals. In 1552,
the ‘dog-days’ reappear, and also the astronomical notes as to dates of
the sun’s entrance into the various signs of the zodiac. To these are
added, for reasons of practical convenience, the Term days. The Prayer
Book of 1559 adds further the hours of the rising and setting of the sun
at the beginning of each month. In the Primer of Edward VI (1553) the
names of a very large number of the old Saints’ Days are introduced, and
the convenient reminder of ‘Fish’ is placed at the days preceding the
Purification, St Matthias, the Annunciation, St John Baptist, St Peter,
St James, St Bartholomew, St Matthew, St Simon and St Jude, All Saints,
St Andrew, St Thomas, and Christmas. This Kalendar also, after the manner
of many mediaeval Kalendars, marks the first possible day for Easter,
and ‘first of the Ascension,’ ‘uttermost Ascension,’ ‘first Pentecost,’
‘uttermost Pentecost.’ In some of the unauthorised books of devotion
issued in Elizabeth’s reign we find some of the dates inferred rightly
or wrongly from the Scripture history, which had long before appeared
in mediaeval Kalendars, such as days connected with Noah’s story, the
Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension of the Lord; and to these many other
days of historical interest are added[137].
In many of the mediaeval Kalendars we find entered at Jan. 28, March 11,
and April 15, respectively, the words ‘Claves Quadragesimae,’ ‘Claves
Paschae,’ and ‘Claves Rogationum.’ The number of days to be counted
from each of these dates to the beginning of Lent, to Easter, and to
the Rogation Days, varying according to the place which any given year
occupies in the Cycle of Golden Numbers, may be found with the help of a
table prefixed to the Kalendar. It should be noted that the ‘terminus’ of
the key never falls on the day of the fast or festival sought, and if the
terminus of the key for Easter falls on a Sunday, Easter is the following
Sunday.
Several of the old Kalendars exhibit the days on which ‘the months of
the Egyptians’ and ‘the months of the Greeks’ begin, with the names of
these several months. In some early English Kalendars the Saxon names
of the months are also inserted. This feature may have been of use to
historical students, but having no bearing on ecclesiastical life in the
West it is passed over here without further notice.
For a similar reason we do not describe the verses frequently inserted
at the various months, with advice as to agricultural operations,
blood-letting, rules of health, and the unlucky, or Egyptian days.
Occasionally attached to early Kalendars and Martyrologies is
to be found the Horologium or Shadow-clock—a set of rules for
determining, in a rough way, the hour of the day by measuring
one’s own shadow on the ground[138].
The modern Roman Martyrology was preceded towards the close of the
fifteenth century and in the sixteenth century by several attempts to
provide what was thought to be a more serviceable work than that of
Usuard. Among the more remarkable of these are the Martyrology of the
Italian mathematician Francesco Maurolico, and that of Pietro Galesini,
published first at Milan in the year 1577. The latter work had the
effect of making manifest that there was need for the correction of the
Roman Martyrology. Gregory XIII appointed a commission to deal with the
subject. The result of the labours of the commission was printed in 1584.
Further corrections were made by Cardinal Baronius; and the work as
revised by him is in substance the modern Roman Martyrology[139].