Such, as we have seen, was the length of the labourer's rest in England at the time of the council of Berghamstead (A.D. 696); but by the middle of the tenth century it was extended, and reached from nones (3 P.M.) on Saturday to the dawn of Monday.'

(5.) The festival of All Saints (which was intended to make up for the defects in the celebration of saints individually ") has been generally connected with the beginning of this period, when Boniface IV. obtained a grant of the Pantheon at Rome from Phocas, and consecrated it as the church of St. Mary ad Martyres in 607.* It would, however, appear that a festival of martyrs, on May 13, which arose out of the consecration of the Pantheon, has been confounded with All Saints' Day (Nov. 1), and that the latter was not observed at Rome until the eighth century." It was raised to the first class of festivals, and was recommended for general celebration, by Gregory IV. in 835. In the east, the Sunday after Whitsunday had been connected with the memory of All Saints as early as the time of St. Chrysostom."

The growing reverence for the Blessed Virgin led to an increase of festivals dedicated to her. The "Presentation in the Temple became the "Purification of St. Mary." Her Nativity (Sept. 8) was already celebrated both in the east and in the west, and her own "Presentation" (i. e. her supposed dedication to the service of the Temple) was established as a festival in the Greek church (Nov. 21), although it was not adopted in the west until the fourteenth century. In Spain, the appearance vouchsafed to Ildefonsus of Toledo occasioned the establishment of the "Expectation of St. Mary" (Dec. 18). The Assumption (Aug. 15) was also now introduced. In the silence of Scripture as to the Blessed Virgin's death, legends on the subject had arisen. At the time of the council of Ephesus (A.D. 431), she was supposed to have spent her last years with St. John in that city, and to have been interred in the church where the council met. But afterwards it came to be believed that she had been buried in the valley of Jehoshaphat, and thence had been caught up to heaven. From this tale, which

originated in a conjecture of Epiphanius that she never died, and was afterwards supported by sermons falsely ascribed to Jerome and Augustine, the festival of the Assumption took its rise. In one of the Capitularies it is mentioned as a subject for inquiry;" but the observance of it is sanctioned by the Council of Mentz, in 813. The other festivals named in the same canon areEaster with the week following, Ascension-day, Whitsunday and the week after it, the Nativity of St. John Baptist, St. Peter and St. Paul, St. Michael, St. Remigius, St. Martin, St. Andrew, four days at Christmas, the Circumcision, the Epiphany, the Purification, the dedication of each church, and the feasts of the martyrs and confessors whose relics are preserved in the diocese or parish.' This last provision contained the germ of a great multiplication of festivals, which naturally ensued as saints of local fame became more generally celebrated, and as their relics were more widely dispersed.*

The Council of Mentz also sanctions the celebration of the Ember-weeks, which was now generally established.

(6.) The superstitions connected with an excess of reverence for saints were continually on the increase. Stories of visions in which saints appeared, and of miracles performed by them, are found in immense profusion-so 'great, indeed, that even some contemporaries began to murmur. Thus we are told by the biographer of Hildulf, abbot of Moyen-Moutier, in the Vosges," who died in 707, that the death of one of his monks named Spinulus was followed by a number of miracles. Three mineral springs burst

e Hær. lxxviii. 11.

f Giesel. II. i. 157-160. Gregory of Tours is supposed to be the oldest authority for the Assumption (De Gloria Martyrum, i. 4; Augusti, iii. 113). Arculf, a pilgrim to Jerusalem in the end of the seventh century, says that the Virgin was buried in the valley of Jehoshaphat, but that how or by whom her body was removed, and in what place she awaits the resurrection, no man knoweth (Adamnan de Locis sanctis, 13; Patrol. lxxxviii.). In the eighth century Willibald, an English pilgrim (or his biographer), says that she died in Jerusalem, and that angels carried her away out of the hands of the apostles to Paradise (Willib. Peregrinatio, c. 8, ap. Canis. ii. 112; cf. Andr. Cretens. in Dormitionem S. Mar. Patrol. Gr. xcvii. 1057; Bernardi Monachi Itinerarium, A.D. 870, Patrol. Lat. cxxi. 572). The term assumptio is used

of the death of saints, without implying anything miraculous. See Ducange,

S. V.

"Interrogandum relinquimus." Ansegis. Capitul. i. 158, ed. Baluze, i. 732. The date is probably 809 (Piper, Karls des Grossen Kalendarium,' 70, Berlin, 1858). The Assumption is in Charlemagne's Calendar of 781, ib. 27.

h C. 36.

i "Parochia." See an English list in Alfred's Laws, c. 43 (Thorpe, 40-1). There is much information on these matters in Piper's pamphlet, cited above. k Schröckh, xx. 140. m C. 34.

n In a life composed in the eleventh century (c. 3, Patrol. cli.), and in a chronicle in D'Achery's Spicilegium (ii. 607), he is said, but untruly, to have held the archbishoprick of Trèves before retiring to this monastery (c. 3, Patrol. cli.; Rettb. ii. 467-9, 523).

forth in the abbey garden, and crowds of people were attracted to the place. Hildulf understood the advantages which his house was likely to derive from the offerings of pilgrims; but he feared that the monks might be drawn away from their proper work to attend to earthly business: he therefore knelt down at the tomb of Spinulus, and, after having thanked God for the assurance of his brother's beatification, charged the deceased monk, by the obedience which he had owed him while alive, to save the society from the threatened danger. Spinulus complied; the springs dried up, and the miracles ceased. Other stories might be produced, which show that some persons felt the general craving after miracles to be unwholesome in its effects, even where they did not venture to question the reality of the wonders which were reported.P

The passion for relics was more and more developed. The second Council of Nicæa orders that no church should be consecrated without some relics, and imputes a disregard of them to the opponents of images; but these, as we have seen, were anxious to relieve themselves of the odium. Relics of our Lord and of his Virgin mother, the most precious class of all, were multiplied. The seamless coat and the napkin which had bound the Saviour's head in the sepulchre were each supposed to be preserved in more than one place. Among the treasures of the abbey of Centulles, under Angilbert, who died in 801, were fragments of the manger in which our Lord was laid, of the candle lighted at his birth, of his vesture and sandals, of the rock on which He sat when He fed the five thousand, of the wood of the three tabernacles, of the bread which He gave to his disciples, of the cross, and of the sponge; with portions of the Blessed Virgin's milk, of her hair, her dress, and her cloak." In honour of the Cross were instituted the festivals of its Invention and Exaltation.*

Other relics also were diligently sought for, and were highly prized. Not only are saints said to have appeared, as in former ages, for the purpose of pointing out the resting-places of their

remains, but it was believed that sometimes, in answer to earnest prayer, relics were sent down from heaven. A great impulse was given to this kind of superstition when, on the approach of the Lombards to Rome, in 761, Pope Paul removed the bodies of saints from their tombs outside the city to churches within the walls. The Frankish records of the time abound in accounts of the translation of relics to various places in France, and of the solemnities with which they were received. The very connexion with Rome was supposed to confer a sanctity and a miraculous power. Thus it is related that Odo, duke of Aquitaine, a contemporary of Charles Martel, having got possession of three sponges which had been used in wiping the pope's table, divided them into little morsels, which he caused his soldiers to swallow before a battle; that no one of those who had partaken was wounded, and that while 375,000 Saracens were slain in one day, the duke's losses throughout the war amounted only to 1500 men. Charlemagne repeatedly condemns some ecclesiastical superstitions, as well as those of the heathens whom he subdued. forbids the veneration of fictitious saints and doubtful martyrs ;" the invocation or worship of any but such as the Church had sanctioned, or the erection of memorials to them by the way-side;

In answer to the archchaplain Fulrad, who had asked for the body of a saint, Pope Adrian says that he had been deterred by revelations from disturbing any more bodies, but informs him where one which had formerly been granted might perhaps be obtained (Bouquet, v. 560). Among Einhard's works (ii. 176-377, ed. Teulet) is a tract on the translation of two saints named Marcellinus and Peter (A.D. 829), which gives a very curious view of the practices of relic-hunters and of the superstitions connected with the veneration of relics. Einhard's agents stole the bodies by night from a church at Rome-an act which appears to have been regarded as quite lawful in such cases. (See vol. i.

He

e

p. 354.) Of the miracles which followed, one specimen may be given. A deacon, who was charged to convey a portion of the relics as a present from Einhard to a monastery, stopped to feed his horses in a meadow. Forthwith the occupier of the land appeared-a hunchback, whose face was swollen by violent toothache-armed with a pitchfork, and beside himself with rage on account of the trespass. In answer to his outcries, the deacon told him that he would do better to kneel down before the relics, and pray for the cure of his toothache. The man laid down his pitchfork, and obeyed; and when he rose up, after a few minutes, his face was reduced to its natural size, and he was freed not only from his toothache but from his deformity (pp. 328-330). St. Willibrord dealt more severely with a churl who remonstrated against a similar trespass. He deprived him of the power of drinking, and the man suffered horribly until the Saint, on revisiting the place after a year, released him. Vita S. Willibr. (Mabill. iii. 612-3).

the circulation of apocryphal or questionable narratives; the introduction of new names of angels, in addition to those for which there is authority-Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael. The council of Mentz forbids the translation of the bodies of saints, unless with permission from the sovereign and the bishops.h

Legendary lives of saints were now produced in wonderful abundance, and were the most popular literature of the times. In addition to their falsehoodi (which, where consciously introduced, may have been held excusable by the writers for the sake of the expected good effects), and to their enforcement of all the errors which had grown upon the Church, they carried the minds of men to look for visible prosperity and chastisement according to individual desert in the ordinary government of the world. Yet the evil of such legends was not without a large compensation of good. They set forth the power of religion, not only in miracles but in self-denial and renunciation of earthly things. In contrast with the rudeness and selfishness which generally prevailed, they presented examples which taught a spirit of gentleness and self-sacrifice, of purity, of patience, of love to God and man, of disinterested toil, of forgiveness of enemies, of kindness to the poor and the oppressed. The concluding part of the legend exhibited the saint triumphant after his earthly troubles, yet still interested in his brethren who were engaged in the struggle of life, and manifesting his interest by interpositions in their behalf. And above all there was the continual inculcation of a Providence watching over all the affairs of men, and ready to protect the innocent, or to recompense and avenge their sufferings.m

f Capit. A.D. 789, c. 77.

Ib. c. 16. This professes to be from a canon of Laodicea (A.D. 372 ?), c. 35, which, however, prohibits all invocation of angels. The new turn given to the prohibition may have been intended against such teachers as Adelbert. (See above, p. 112.) Among other superstitions which are forbidden were the baptising of bells (Cap. A.D. 789, c. 69), the practices of divination and sortilege (ib. c. 68), and the employment of charms against sickness in men or in cattle. Conc. Turon. A.D. 813, c. 42.

Alfred Maury, in his Essai sur les Légendes Pieuses du Moyen-Age' (Paris, 1843)—an able and learned book, but written on the principles of Strauss -traces the fictions of the hagiologists to three causes-(1.) The attempt to assimilate the lives of their subjects to that of our Lord or to those of Scripture saints. (2.) The mistake of understanding literally things which were said in a figurative sense-e. g., where a spiritual was represented as a bodily cure. (3.) The invention of stories in order to explain symbols of which the real meaning had been lost. As to this last, see also Döllinger, Hippolytus u. Kallistus,' 63.

k Fleury, Disc. ii. 3.

m Guizot, Lecture 17; Löbell, ' Gregor v. Tours,' 388; Ampère, ii. 360; Stephen's Lectures, i. 142.