With regard to the spread of Ember Days in the West, they made their way slowly and seemed to have been earliest adopted by the Anglo-Saxons, who at their conversion accepted the Roman ritual as a whole. They are ordered to be observed by the Council of Cloveshoe (can. 18) in 747. Neither Chrodegang nor Theodulf speak of Ember Days in their writings, though they seem to have been introduced by St Boniface into Germany and France. Even if the so-called statutes of St Boniface are not in all points contemporary with the saint, Ember Days were certainly enjoined in the Frankish Empire by the Capitulary of Charlemagne in 769, where up till then they had not been observed.[417] The circumstance, too, that their observance had to be repeatedly enjoined by the Councils of the ninth century, e.g. the Council of Aix-la-Chapelle in 813, and later ones, proves that they had not yet won their way as a popular observance in northern countries.[418]
Moreover, it still remained uncertain in which week of the months in question the Ember Days should come. In Rome they came in the first week of the month. Elsewhere doubts arose as to what ought to be done when the Ember Days in June came in Whitsun Week, and as to whether one ought to fast when the 1st March fell on a Thursday or Friday, the Wednesday falling on the last day of February.[419] Gregory VII. put an end to these variations by establishing the present usage.[420]
2. Litanies or Rogations
Litaniæ is the name given to solemn processions of clergy and people accompanied by prayer at which sacred pictures and emblems are carried. It was impossible to perform such devotions in the days before Constantine. But when Christianity became a recognised religion they were quickly adopted, and all the more so as the heathens had similar practices which they performed frequently and at stated times.
Litanies were especially frequent in Rome. There, during Lent, the Pope was wont to set out with his assistants with great solemnity from his residence to celebrate Mass in the various churches of the city. Each day he went to a different church, where the halt or station was made. A survival of this remains in the word Statio, which appears so often in the missal. This custom was abandoned in course of time.
Still some of these litaniæ found their way into the regular worship of the Church, and have their place in the ecclesiastical year, i.e. the procession on the 25th April, St Mark’s day, called litania major, and those on the three days before the Ascension, called litania minor. The names are remarkable, for the minor lasts three days and the major only one, but it is explained by the history of their institution.
The Christian processions are a continuation of the heathen processions which they have replaced. This is especially clear with regard to the litania major which was performed on a stated day, the 25th April. It has nothing to do with St Mark, whose feast was only much later introduced in the Roman Church.
The ancient Romans had their processions which took place both within and without the city, the latter corresponding to our rogation processions; the former were called amburbalia from urbs, and the latter ambarvalia from arva.[421] They served as supplications either for blessings from the gods on the fruits of the earth, and were observed yearly on stated days, or to avert calamities and were appointed as need required.[422]
The better known of these processions of ancient Rome, the ambarvalia, took place on vii. a. Kal. Maias (25th April). The procession passed along the Via Flaminia, the present Corso, and went as far as the fifth milestone, i.e. as far as the Milvian Bridge, where, the entrails of a dog and of a sheep were offered to the god Robigus.[423] As the procession was primarily intended to ward off blight (robigo) from the crops the day was called “Robigalia” in the Calendar. When Rome became a great city, agriculture and its festivals fell unto the back ground, and both in the Calendar of the fourth century and in that of Polemius Silvius the Robigalia is no longer mentioned on this day. There was another great procession in heathen Rome, the Argea, which took place on the 16th and 17th March, and Bishop Vigilius of Trent, speaks of a rural festival of the same character.[424]
As to Christian Rome, Rupert of Deutz is of opinion that processions had been performed there since Constantine’s days, and Beleth names Liberius as their originator. Although it is not impossible these writers may have gained their information from ancient sources, still one cannot draw any certain conclusion from their remarks.