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.

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.

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.

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].