CONCLUSION
All estates of men in the Church have had their share in the formation of the ecclesiastical year, for the growth of the Church’s festivals has continued without interruption from the beginning until now, and has extended over all the countries of Christendom. Having wended our way through the centuries and arrived at the conclusion of our work, it is a pleasure to render our tribute of thanks and praise to the men who have in the past made this sphere of study their own.
The few writers of the Middle Ages who treated the Church’s year and the festivals of the saints in a comprehensive manner were entirely occupied with contributing to the correct performance of ecclesiastical ceremonies, and with explaining why each ceremony must be done in one way and not in another. They not infrequently brought allegorical and symbolical considerations to bear on the question.
In more modern times, Cornelius Schulting, a native of Steenwijk in North Holland, and afterwards professor of theology at Cologne and canon of St Andrew’s († 1604) undertook a full exposition of the matter; his object was mainly practical, and his work can only be regarded as a first attempt. The keen controversialist, Jacobus Gretser S.J. († 1625), is more occupied with his polemic against the Calvinists than with lucid demonstration. More in harmony with modern requirements, is the French oratorian Louis Thomassin, a native of Aix in Provence, and a partisan of Port Royal, who died in 1695; he wrote a small compendium which may be used with profit at the present day.
The study of the ecclesiastical year was considerably advanced by the labours of Adrien Baillet, born in 1649, in the diocese of Beauvais († 1706), parish priest of a small country living at Baumont and librarian to M. de Lamoignon; he was entirely devoted to the pursuit of knowledge, and scarcely ever allowed himself any relaxation. He composed a great work worthy of ranking alongside the labours of Tillemont, to whom he is closely related in spirit. The course of his historical treatment of the subject is considerably obscured by the superabundance of biographical matter. Two valuable monographs were published by Prosper Lambertini (Pope Benedict XIV.) when bishop of Bologna, which treat in a masterly manner of the feasts of our Lord and of our Lady respectively.
Finally, the learned priest of Bilk, near Düsseldorf, Fr. Ant. Binterim († 1855) dealt with this subject in one volume of his Denkwürdigkeiten. He treats in the first place of the observance of Sunday, then of the Sundays of the Church’s year in general, and finally of the movable and immovable feasts. Of these he naturally deals only with the most important, following the order of the calendar, by which arrangement Christmas comes last.
The author of this book commenced his researches by a comparative study of the martyrologies, calendars, annals, and works dealing with the computation of time, and then set to work upon the historical and liturgical material which he had before him from the point of vantage thus obtained. The fortunate circumstance that the most of the works required for this branch of study are contained in Migne’s collection, renders the labour of comparison possible, and frequently brings remarkable parallels to light.