I will refer to each of the festivals and their changes of date.
February 4.
Before the movable Easter the February festival had been transformed into Ash Wednesday (February 4). The eve of the festival was Shrove Tuesday, and it is quite possible that the ashes used by the priests on Wednesday were connected with the bonfires of the previous night.
It would seem that initially the festival, with its accompanying bonfire, was transferred to the first Sunday in Lent, February 8.
I quote the following from Hazlitt[26]:—
“Durandus, in his ‘Rationale,’ tells us, Lent was counted to begin on that which is now the first Sunday in Lent, and to end on Easter Eve; which time, saith he, containing forty-two days, if you take out of them the six Sundays (on which it was counted not lawful at any time of the year to fast), then there will remain only thirty-six days: and, therefore, that the number of days which Christ fasted might be perfected, Pope Gregory added to Lent four days of the week before-going, viz., that which we now call Ash Wednesday, and the three days following it. So that we see the first observation of Lent began from a superstitious, unwarrantable, and indeed profane, conceit of imitating Our Saviour’s miraculous abstinence. Lent is so called from the time of the year wherein it is observed: Lent in the Saxon language signifying Spring.”
Whether this be the origin of the lenten fast or not it is certain that the connection thus established between an old pagan feast and a new Christian one is very ingenious: 24 days in February plus 22 days in March (March 22 being originally the fixed date for Easter) gives us 46 days (6 × 7) + 4, and from the point of view of priestcraft the result was eminently satisfactory, for thousands of people still light fires on Shrove Tuesday or on the first Sunday of Lent, whether those days occur in February or March. They are under the impression that they are doing homage to a church festival, and the pagan origin is entirely forgotten not only by them but even by those who chronicle the practices as “Lent customs.”[27]
Finally, after the introduction of the movable Easter, the priests at Rome, instead of using the “pagan” ashes produced on the eve of the first Sunday in Lent or Ash Wednesday in each year, utilised those derived from the burning of the palms used on Palm Sunday of the year before.
Further steps were taken to conceal from future generations the origin of the “pagan” custom due on February 4. February 3 was dedicated to St. “Blaze.” How well this answered is shown by the following quotation from Percy.[28] “The anniversary of St. Blazeus is the 3rd February, when it is still the custom in many parts of England to light up fires on the hills on St. Blayse night: a custom antiently taken up perhaps for no better reason than the jingling resemblance of his name to the word Blaze.”
This even did not suffice. A great candle church festival was established on February 2. This was called “Candlemas,” and Candlemas is still the common name of the beginning of the Scotch legal year. In the Cathedral of Durham when Cosens was bishop he “busied himself from two of the clocke in the afternoone till foure, in climbing long ladders to stick up wax candles in the said Cathedral Church; the number of all the candles burnt that evening was 220, besides 16 torches; 60 of those burning tapers and torches standing upon and near the high altar.”[29]