[528] The change from the 9th Dec., the date of the festival among the Greeks, to the 8th, is probably to be explained by the fact that in the Roman Calendar vi., Idus Dec. corresponds to the vi. Idus Sept., the date of our Lady’s Nativity, while the 9th Dec. is written v. Idus Dec.
[529] [The feast was, however, observed in England before the Norman Conquest. The evidence for this is given by Mr Edmund Bishop in his tract, On the Origins of the Feast of the Conception of the Bl. V. M., London, Burns & Oates, 1904. From this the following is taken: (1) Calendar contained in Cotton MS. Titus D., xxvii., has the entry in the original hand at 8th Dec: “Conceptio sancte Dei genitricis Mariæ.” This MS. was written in the New Minster, Winchester, under Abbot Aelfwin (1034-57). (2) Calendar of the Old Minster, Winchester (Cotton MS., Vitellius E., xviii.), has the same entry. The MS. is attributed by Hicks to or about 1030. (3) Add. MS., 28, 188, a pontifical and benedictional of the eleventh century probably written for Bp. Leofric (1046-72), and “distinctly pre-Norman.” In this, fol. 161, is a “Benedictio in Conceptione Sancte Mariæ.” (4) Harl. MS. 2892, also a pontifical and benedictional written for Canterbury in the first half of the eleventh century (to judge from the handwriting); a similar benediction occurs, ff. 189-90. (5) To these, in a letter to the translator, Mr Bishop adds: I. In the Leofric Missal, among the Masses added to the book by Bp. Leofric, is a Mass for the feast of the Conception (p. 268); II. In a Worcester Calendar of about 1064, and written therefore under St Wulstan and before the conquest, the feast of the Conception is entered at 8th Dec. Trans.]
[530] See [Appendix x].
[531] Two accounts of Elsinus are found among the spurious writings of St Anselm (Migne, Patr. Lat., clix. 319-326). Three others have recently been published by Thurston & Slater, Eadmeri Mon. Cant. Tractatus de Conceptione S. Mariæ, 88-98. Another by Lechler, Mittelalterl. Kirchenfeste, 92 et seq.
[532] E.g. in the Roman Breviary of 1473 (Univ. Bibl., Freiburg i. Br.), in the Breviary of Sitten of 1493, National Mus., Zurich, and in that of Constance of 1509.
[533] Gerberon in the introduction to Anselm’s works. Migne, Patr. Lat., clviii. 43 et seq.
[534] Osbert’s letters were first published along with those of Herbert de Losinga by Robt. Anstruther (Brussels, 1846), unfortunately very imperfectly. Lately they are given by Thurston and Slater, op. cit., 53 et seq.
[535] Osbert de Clara in Thurston and Slater, App. B. 60 et seq.
[536] [Mr Bishop, op. cit., 30, 31, says the Normans probably treated the celebration of this feast by the English with contempt, as “a product of insular simplicity and ignorance.” Its public celebration was discontinued most probably at Winchester and Canterbury, but “it did not die out of the hearts of individuals.”—Trans.]
[537] Osbert, Epist. i. op. cit. 55. “Et in hoc regno et in transmarinis partibus a nonnullis episcopis et abbatibus in ecclesiis Dei instituta est illius diei recordatio.” That the feast was introduced “in hoc regno,” i.e. England, by abbots but not by bishops, is clear from Osbert’s second letter, and from other evidence; and, therefore, his remark is true only of Normandy. Of the one English bishop whom he names as in favour of the feast, he can only say he was “de his sufficienter instructus” (op. cit. 58). Osbert has no knowledge of his having introduced the feast. By “transmarinæ partes,” British chroniclers of that period always mean Normandy and Brittany.