II. The Eastern Syrian (Chaldean, Assyrian, Nestorian) Church. The Kalendar, Lectionary, and a list of days of Martyrs and others for which no special lessons are appointed will be found in Bishop A. J. Maclean’s East Syrian Daily Offices. One of the most interesting features is the frequency with which Friday is observed as a commemoration of saints; and sometimes the Friday commemoration is related in history or in thought with the event commemorated on the preceding Sunday or great festival. Thus St John Baptist is commemorated on the Friday after the Epiphany (Jan. 6), of which festival the baptism of the Lord is the dominant thought. The festival is popularly called at Urmi ‘The New waters.’ For details see Maclean.
III. The Coptic (Egyptian) and Abyssinian Churches, both Monophysite. The Copts compute their years according to ‘the era of the martyrs’ (of Diocletian), commencing A.D. 284. The year begins on the first of the month Tout, a day corresponding to Sept. 10. Each month consists of 30 days; and the five (or in leap-year six) days necessary to complete the solar year are called ‘the little month.’ There are fourteen principal feasts. The most peculiar features are commemorations of the Four-and-twenty Elders, and of the Four Beasts, of the Revelation.
The Ethiopic Kalendar runs on broadly similar lines; but it is a peculiar feature of this Kalendar that there are monthly celebrations of the Lord’s Nativity (except that the Lord’s Conception is substituted on March 25), as well as of St Mary, of St Michael, and of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Pontius Pilate is commemorated on June 25. See Neale’s Eastern Church (II. 805-815).
APPENDIX III
NOTE ON THE HISTORY OF THE KALENDAR OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND SINCE THE REFORMATION
As early as 1532 we find a Petition of the Commons (really emanating from the Court) to Henry VIII that, with the advice of his most honourable council, prelates, and ordinaries, holy days, ‘and specially such as fall in the harvest,’ may be ‘made fewer in number.’ To this the ordinaries answered, objecting to change, and, with reference to holy days in harvest, stating that ‘there be in August but St Lawrence, the Assumption of our Blessed Lady, St Bartholomew, and in September the Nativity of our Lady, the Exaltation of the Cross, and St Matthew the Apostle, before which days harvest is commonly ended[175].’ The reference both in the Petition and the answer is obviously to holy days carrying with them a cessation of labour.
In 1536 Convocation passed an ordinance abrogating superfluous holy days. It was ordained that in term time no holy days should be kept except Ascension Day, the Nativity of the Baptist, Allhallen, and Candlemas, nor in harvest except feasts of the Apostles and our Lady. St George was to continue to be celebrated. The feast of the patron of each church was to be abolished; and the feast of every church’s dedication was to be observed on the first Sunday in October. By this ordinance the great festival of St Thomas Becket, the translation of his relics (July 7), fell, as occurring in the season of harvest. Two years later by a royal proclamation the festival of his martyrdom (Dec. 29) met the same fate.
The Kalendar of the First Prayer Book of Edward VI (1549) exhibits a clean sweep of all festivals except the red-letter days still observed, together with ‘Magdalen’ (July 22), for which a collect, epistle, and gospel are supplied. St Matthias is placed at Feb. 24.
The Kalendar of the Second Prayer Book of Edward VI (1552) differs from that of the First Prayer Book, by omitting St Mary Magdalene and St Barnabas (June 11): but this latter would seem to have been omitted only per incuriam, as the collect, epistle, and gospel are found in the body of the book; and by the insertion of the following black-letter days, St George (April 23), Lammas (Aug. 1), St Lawrence (Aug. 10), St Clement (Nov. 23), together with Term days, ‘Dog days,’ ‘Equinoctium’ (March 10) and the days of the entrance of the sun into the several signs of the zodiac. It is an interesting problem how in the Prayer Book, which represents emphatically the action of the more thorough-going of the Protestant party, these black-letter days came to be inserted.