In the West the worship of the saints exerted a much stronger influence on the liturgy than in the East. The Roman and kindred rites provided special Masses for saints’ days, while in the East the worship of saints as far as it effected the liturgy continued to be limited to the canonical hours. At first the lections used at the Psalmody were drawn from the Holy Scriptures alone, but from the sixth century, passages from the passiones martyrum were admitted.[805] In course of time, these became more numerous, and in this way the martyrologies obtained an ever increasing importance. As regards the Mass, in the earliest Gallican Masses published by Mone, we find one for the feast of St Germanus,[806] and several in the Sacramentarium Leoninum, and for many centuries the Masses for saints’ days remained considerably less numerous than the Masses de tempore. Later on, however, they became so numerous that they were finally indicated in a special calendar bound up with the sacramentary, such as is now prefixed to the massal as one of its integral parts. Equally important with the sacramentaries in this connection are the service-books, containing the epistles and gospels, called lectionaries. We shall examine these first, and then those of the martyrologies specially bearing upon the subject we are investigating, and afterwards we shall utilise whatever we find in the sacramentaries in connection with saints’ days.
The lectionaries of Luxenil and Silos show very plainly that in the seventh century the worship of the saints had as yet very slightly affected the liturgy. The saints’ days are somewhat more numerous in the Leoninum and in the Missale Gothico-Gallicanum edited by Mabillon and belonging to the end of the same century.
In both the other Roman sacramentaries the increase of saints’ days is noticeable. The Gelasianum was originally drawn up especially for the city of Rome, but the recension in which it has come down to us was obviously compiled at the request of some other church; at any rate it contains a number of saints who do not belong to the city of Rome. For instance, on the 7th August we have the Confessor Donatus who belongs to Imola, on the 19th a martyr called Magnus who can only be assigned to Cæsarea in Cappadocia, and on the 27th a martyr Rufus belonging to Capua; the appearance of the legendary family of martyrs Marius, Martha, Audifax, and Ambacum or Habacuc is curious, and in addition to these, there is also a number of saints whose names one would search for in vain in the better and older recensions of the Gregorianum, e.g. Soter, Vitalis, Felicula, Juliana, Euphemia, Juvenal, Nereus and Achilleus, Cyrinus, Nabor, Nazarius, and Vitus. Of these many were certainly venerated in Rome, yet had hitherto received no recognition in the calendars attached to the service-books.
For the Gregorian Sacramentary, the edition most frequently employed is that of Menard printed in Migne. According to the introduction, it is taken from a codex S. Eligii and a somewhat later codex Rodradi, which, in Menard’s opinion, was written about 853, but even the earlier codex has additions belonging to a later period, e.g. Projectus (25th January)[807] and Leo (28th June), as a comparison with the Mainz codex of St Alban shows. This codex (i.e. of St Eligius) according to the received opinion, was written between 834 and 847, and consists of three different parts, proceeding indeed from the same hand, but clearly distinguished from one another. The first part contains the Gregorianum (fol. 1-129) to which have been added as an appendix the Masses of St Alban, SS. Sergius and Bacchus, All Saints’, and St Augustine, which the transcriber did not find in the original. In the second part (Collectio ii., fol. 165-183) the expressions contestatio and ad complendum are used which show it to be of Frankish origin, and like the first part it contains the ecclesiastical year, beginning with Christmas. The third part (fol. 183-204) contains a few additions consisting of prayers and Masses for special occasions.
It is to be observed that the first part still has the obsolete feast of the 13th May, Dedicatio S. Mariæ ad Martyrs, and only the Natalis S. Cæsarii on the 1st November, the Mass for All Saints’ being placed at the end, and not in its proper place (fol. 131). This recalls the circumstance that Gregory IV. (827-844) transferred the feast of the 13th May to the 1st November. This change was also introduced into the Frankish empire in 835. The original document was then certainly written before 835, or indeed earlier, for the litania minor, introduced into the Roman rite by Leo III. about 801, is not given; nevertheless the three chief feasts of our Lady are already inserted in their proper places. In the following period until the fifteenth century only a limited number of new saints’ days were added to the Roman Missal. A missal written in 1374—Ordo Missalis secundum Consuetudinem Romanæ Curiæ—belonging to the Public Library of Munich, shows an increase of only twenty-five Masses for saints’ days over the Gregorianum after more than five hundred years.
Fronteau, chancellor of the University of Paris, published a lectionary which has important bearings on the study of liturgies; he took it from a codex written in gold characters belonging to the Church of St Geneviève in Paris.[808] The editor correctly described it as appertaining to the city of Rome, because the Roman station churches are given, and the saints mentioned almost all belong to the city of Rome. The omission of the festival of St Petronilla (the 31st May) is of importance in fixing the date of this document, for Gregory III. was the first to add the Church of the Cœmeterium S. Petronillæ to the other station churches.[809] Petronilla had already been regarded as a saint in the city of Rome, but her festival had not made its way into the liturgy because no statio was held in her Church or in her Cœmeterium. The Litania Minor on the three days before the Ascension, introduced into the Roman rite by Leo III., is also not to be found here. The editor, however, deduces that the Lectionary of St Geneviève is later than Gregory II. from the fact that the Thursdays in Lent are provided with an officium of their own, an addition introduced first by this pope.[810]
Accordingly this lectionary was composed under Gregory II., between 714 and 731, and it is of great importance for the liturgical student. Its manner of naming the Sundays after Pentecost deserves especially to be noticed, the feasts of our Lady of the 15th August and the 8th September do not fall on these days, but on the 14th August and the 9th September, and the beheading of St John the Baptist on the 30th August. The only Greek saint mentioned is Mennas and the only non-Italian, St Cyprian. The Cathedra Petri, Exaltatio Crucis (3rd May), and Joannes ante Portam Lat. (6th May), are not yet known, and on the 28th June, where Leo II. Papa et Confessor now stands, we have a Translatio corporis S. Leonis. Fronteau points out that this cannot refer to Leo II.[811]