Comparative Uiew of the Two Calendars. 61 THE 182 fixed Feasts of the Church of Sarum are represented by 92 in the present Anglican Calendar. Of moveable feasts, the 7 Sarum are represented by 5 Anglican, those of Corpus Christi and of Relics being omitted in the latter. Of these Feasts (Fixed and Moveable combined), 20 have Octaves in the Sarum rite; 7 in the English. The 8" Principal Double Feasts" of Sarum are represented by 7 Anglican, the Assumption being omitted. The 8" Greater Double Feasts" of the former are represented by 6 Anglican; Corpus Christi and the Feast of Relics being wanting. The 20"Lesser Double Feasts" of the Sarum Calendar are represented by 18 Anglican: the two Feasts of S. Thomas of 61 I.e., Christmas, Epiphany, Easter, Ascension, Pentecost, and the Feasts of the Patron Saint, and of the Dedication of a Church. If the Sarum Octaves, however, are held to be tacitly included in the Anglican Calendar, the proportion expressed below will be considerably modified. The Anglican Calendar would then give 230 festivals to 135 ferias, Canterbury being omitted.62 The 18" Inferior Doubles" are all preserved. Of Vigils, the Sarum Calendar gives 11; the Anglican, 16. The actual changes in the Calendar may therefore be summed up as follows: the omission of 90 feasts, of which 7 only are of the superior grade, the remaining 83 consisting almost entirely of "Simple" Feasts and memorials. Taking in the Octaves, and allowing a Feast of Dedication and of the Patron Saint to each Church, the Sarum rite appointed 329 festival days to 36 ferial; while the Anglican allows 146 festal to 219 ferial. Of the 197 Saints commemorated in the Sarum Calendar, some 49 are local, most of which are preserved in the Modern Calendar.63 It must of course be borne in mind that in addition to the Saints named in the Sarum ritual, many others were honoured 62 These feasts, however, were arbitrarily removed from the Calendar by Henry VIII. and never by any Church authority. 68 The chief exceptions are: SS. Cuthbert, Wulstan, John of Beverley. Aldhelm, Kenelm, Osmund, German, Oswald, Cuthburga, Bertinus, Edith, Wulfran, Frideswide, Winifred, Edmund. [In the Roman Calendar 354 saints are commemorated in 256 festivals. Of these 108 are contained in the Sarum Calendar. Allowing for the moveable feasts and octaves, the Roman Calendar gives 345 feasts to 20 ferias, the Sarum, as we have seen, 329 feasts to 36 ferias.] 64 The Calendar contained only such festivals and memorials as formed part of the Breviary services. The "Martyrology"—portions of which were in particular dioceses and places, and in particular Religious Orders. read each day in the service of Prime in cathedral and collegiate churches, and in the chapels of religious houses (as appears from the Hereford Breviary)— contained brief notices of a much greater number of saints. In England the most celebrated martyrology was that of S. Bede; but there were others peculiar to various religious orders, as the Benedictine, the Franciscan, &c. The "Martyrologium Romanum," set forth by command of Gregory XIII., and revised by authority of Urban VIII.,* is that now generally used in the West. An English translation by a Jesuit Father, ["G. K.,"] printed at S. Omer's by Thomas Geubels, A.D. 1667, is extant. The Calendar attached to the " Sarum Encheiridion," (a book of private devotions,) as given by Mr. Chambers,† contains 225 festivals and memorials, giving with the 140 days "within octaves" exactly 365 non-ferial days; but of course many of these festivals fell within one or other of the twenty octaves; so that the ferial feature was not unrepresented. Many of these feasts were peculiar to the Church of York, and others appear to have been inserted for private observance. The Calendar translated in the present work is taken from the Breviary printed at Paris by Chevallon, A.D. 1580. * The Council of Trent ordered a general revision of the Roman office-books, and their adoption in all churches which could not claim for their local Rituals a prescriptive use of 200 years. The Sarum family of Liturgical books would not have fallen within this decree; but on the 25th December, 1549, on the occasion of a presumed wish to get back the Latin services, an order was sent to each bishop from the king, commanding the "defacing and abolishing" of all the service-books of old English use that could be found. On the return of England, under Queen Mary, to the Communion of the West, the consequent difficulty of obtaining copies, combined with a desire to "Romanize to the full, led so many of the clergy to apply to Cardinal Pole for particular licenses to use the Roman Breviary and Missal, that that rite very speedily superseded the old English uses, and is still the "use" of the Anglo-Roman communion. Thus perished, except as it is enshrined in the Book of Common Prayer, one of the most venerable of Rituals, after a career (counting from its first beginning in Saxon times) of a thousand years. "The Encheiridion, or Daily Hours of Private Devotion, according to Sarum Use." Translated and arranged by a Layman of the English Church. London: Lumley, 1860. |