it will be well, therefore, before proceeding further to ask to what extent does this Calendar represent the earlier ones to which reference has just been made. For the purposes of comparison we will take the Calendar prefixed to a Salisbury Missal, printed in 1514, and preserved in Bishop Cosin's Library, Durham. This date is sufficiently near that of the Reformation to ensure us against any alterations having been made in the interim.

An examination of this and the various Calendars referred to above shows at once, that each Calendar has its own peculiarities; thus (to take one or two instances among many) in the Durham Calendar we find the names of Carileph, Boisil, the preceptor of S. Cuthbert, and others whose names we fail to trace elsewhere. Yet, in spite of these peculiarities and in spite of the length of time covered by these various Calendars, amounting to about 500 years, it is striking to see how fully the Sarum Missal at the time of the Reformation represented them all. A very careful collation of the seven Calendars, with that of Salisbury in 1514, gives the following results:1

First; we may take into account the festivals dedicated to our LORD, the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Apostles, and others immediately associated with JESUS CHRIST, and we shall find that with very few exceptions all the Calendars agree with regard to these great leading festivals. The exceptions may briefly be stated to be as follows:

F and G do not mention the Feast of the Circumcision either under that name or as the Octave of the Nativity; they simply indicate January 1 as New Year's Day. They enter Epiphany as Twelfth Day. The three Feasts of the Holy SAVIOUR, Name of JESUS, and the Transfiguration, are peculiar to the Salisbury Calendar.

In the Festivals of the Blessed Virgin, D omits the Annunciation; C and D the Conception; and the Visitation is peculiar to the Salisbury Calendar. The names of SS. Mary Magdalen, Thomas, and Matthias are omitted in B, D, and E respectively; the Conversion of S. Paul in A; S. Anne in B, C, and D. S. Michael in Monte Tumbâ is to be found only in Sarum, D and G, while the feasts of the Conception of John the Baptist and of S. Joseph the husband of the Virgin are peculiar to A. On all other points with regard to the festivals of our LORD, the Apostles, &c., the eight Calendars are at one. In addition, however, to these greater festivals, the eight Calendars altogether comprise the names of 320 minor saints. Of these 196, or very nearly two-thirds of the whole

1 Every precaution has been used to make this collation accurate. Hampson in A has distinguished by Italics some additions to the original Calendar by a later hand, these have been omitted in collating A. In D, in like manner, some additions have been introduced by the editor from a Durham Calendar of the fourteenth century, these have been passed over in the collation. A and D are thus retained in their original forms as representatives of tenth and twelfth century Calendars respectively.

number are retained in the Sarum Calendar.

may be thus classified :—

These 196 names

48 of them are to be found in all the eight Calendars, 39 in seven of the number,

29 in six,

32 in five,

20 in four,

9 in three,

6 in two,

while 13 are peculiar to the Sarum Calendar.

An analysis of the remaining 124 names, which are absent from the Salisbury Missal, and their distribution amongst the various Calendars cited above, brings out still more strongly the claims of the Sarum Calendar to be a fair representative in the main of the earlier documents.

We find, on examination of these 124 names, that they may be classified as below:

1 name is to be found in seven of the Calendars,

2 names in six,

4 in five,

12 in four,

22 in three,

29 in two,

54 in one only.

That is, the vast majority of these rejected names are to be found in only one or two, or at most, in three of the Calendars under consideration. In fact, nearly one half of the names not to be found in the Sarum are peculiar to some one Calendar, while 105 out of the 124, or about five sixths of the whole are to be met with at the most but in three. We may, therefore, take the Salisbury Calendar of 1514 as a fair exponent of the earlier and diverse Calendars of the Church of England before the Reformation.

Careful and patient research has shown that the Salisbury Use is the foundation of our English Prayer Book, the rock out of which it has been quarried. Now and then, it is true, other uses have been consulted, notably in the Litany; but still it is to the service-books of the Salisbury Use that we are indebted for the greater part of our Book of Common Prayer. This being the case, it is but natural that our Calendar should also be drawn from the same source. But before examining it as it at present stands, let us see in what state the Calendar was in the earlier versions of our Prayer Book. The first Book of Common Prayer appeared in 1549. Its Calendar was of a most meagre description: in it were noted simply festivals of our LORD, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the Apostles. The festivals connected with our LORD retained

in this book were the Circumcision, the Epiphany, and the Nativity; the festivals of the Virgin were the Purification and Annunciation. S. Michael, the Holy Innocents, SS. Stephen and John the Baptist, the Twelve Apostles, SS. Luke, Mark, Barnabas, Paul, Mary Magdalen, Matthias, had all days devoted to them; All Saints' day was also marked. It is singular that the list should have been so limited, when there was in Henry VIII.'s Primer of 1545 a precedent for a Calendar very closely resembling, in extent at any rate, that now to be found in our Prayer Books.

In 1552 but small alteration was made: the names of S. Mary Magdalen and S. Barnabas were omitted, the latter omission being probably unintentional, and simply an error of the printer, as the Collect, Epistle, and Gospel for the day were still retained. The names of S. Clement, Bishop of Rome, S. George, and S. Laurence were added, and August 1 was marked, as it had been in many old Calendars, (e.g. F and G,) as Lammas day. In 1559 the change from the Calendar of 1552 was slight, the name of S. Clement being dropped, and that of S. Barnabas restored. In 1551 a Latin version of the Prayer Book of 1549 appeared, printed at Leipsic, and the work of Alexander Ales: in this the Calendar was simply a translation of that of the first Prayer Book. Another Latin translation, however, appeared in 1560, the work of Walter Haddon this was published "cum privilegio Regiæ Majestatis," and instead of presenting as its Calendar a translation of that of the Prayer Book of 1559, we find one in which nearly every day is marked with a saint: in fact the Calendar is precisely the same as that prefixed to Queen Elizabeth's Orarium of 1560, and differs but in very few respects from the Calendars found in all Latin editions of the Primer, and which are all derived from the Enchiridion ad Usum Sarum.1

Probably the appearance, in connection with the Prayer Book, of this Calendar,-which erred on the side of too great copiousness, in fact was much more crowded with names than that of the Sarum Missal, as far as previous Prayer Book. Calendars had in the other direction-called attention to the propriety of the drawing up of a Calendar, which, while it should not be too scanty, should yet not be overcrowded with names which had ceased in course of time to be of much interest. Accordingly, in 1561, the Calendar was, by order of the Queen, reviewed, and brought very nearly into its present state. Two additions only were made at the revision in 1661, viz., S. Alban, the protomartyr of England; the Venerable Bede, the historian of her early Church.

1 See the Calendar prefixed to a Paris edition, 1530, reprinted by Maskell, Mon. Rit. ii. pp. 204-215.

2 The commissioners appointed for this purpose were the Archbishop of Canter bury, the Bishop of London, Dr. Bill, and Walter Haddon. The presence of Haddon's name is interesting in connection with the remarks made above.

The question now remains as to the process of elimination by which the concise Calendar of our Prayer Book was formed from the more diffuse one prefixed to the Sarum Missal, and from which we have supposed it, in harmony with the rest of the book, to be derived.

In order to this question we shall find it convenient to arrange the festivals and commemorative days retained by our Church under some general heads. First we may take those days which are devoted to our SAVIOUR, His blessed Mother, and His immediate followers, the Apostles and others. We at once see that the whole of the festivals which would come under this head in the Sarum Missal have been, with very few omissions, retained in our Prayer Book. The only exception in the case of festivals of our LORD is the omission of the Feast of the Holy SAVIOUR-a day, by the way, not to be found in any of the seven Calendars cited above. Among the festivals of the Blessed Virgin, the only one excluded from our Calendar is that of the Assumption. All days commemorative of the Apostles and others personally connected with the Gospel history hold their place, with the exception of the Commemoration of S. Paul (June 30,) S. Peter's Chair, S. Peter's Chains,2 and the Invention of S. Stephen. The feast of S. Michael and All Angels is retained; that of S. Michael in Monte Tumbâ rejected.

But when we come to see how the case stands with the Minor Saints' days, we at once find a difficulty, and one which is only partially met by observing, that nearly all the days retained in our Calendar were red letter days in that of the Sarum Missal. To this rule there are but twelve exceptions, which will be noticed as we proceed.

In the Salisbury Calendar there are sixty red letter days devoted to minor saints; of these forty have been transferred to our Prayer Book, twenty have been omitted from it. That is, exactly onethird of the whole have been left out in the process of selection. If we carefully examine these red letter days, we shall at once be struck with the large preponderance of names connected with our own Church of England. Now in the revision the object seems to have been to retain this distinctive national characteristic, and at the same time to witness to the catholicity of our Church, by finding a place for martyrs in the ages of persecution, for some saints belonging to the Church of France, anciently closely connected with our own, and also for some few great names of those who, though not martyrs or English saints, had done good service to the Church of CHRIST at large.

1 For this distribution of the saints' days under various heads see the Annotated Book of Common Prayer, p. [37.

2 The ancient Saxon name for this day, (hlaf-mæsse, or loaf mass,) Lammas Day is substituted in our Prayer Book for S. Peter's Chains.

In order to attain this end, while at the same time simplifying the Calendar, it became necessary to make some selection amongst the saints connected with England. There is no record as to the principle which guided the men entrusted with the revision of the Calendar in the selection of some names and the rejection of others: some traces of method are, however, not wanting. Thus we find that, while exactly one half of the days belonging to saints specially connected with England were retained, the other half were not admitted into the new Calendar. The following table gives, in the left hand column, the eighteen days retained, while the right hand shows the eighteen that were rejected.

S. David.
S. Chad.
S. Gregory.
S. Edward.
S. Benedict.
S. Richard.
S. George.
S. Dunstan.
S. Augustine.

S. Edward, King and M.,
Trans. of.

S. Swithin, Trans. of.

S. Edward, King and Conf.,
Trans. of.

S. Etheldreda.
S. Hugh.

S. Edmund, King and M.
S. Machutus.

S. Nicholas.

S. Patrick.

S. Cuthbert.
S. Erkenwald.
S. John of Beverley.

S. Aldhelm.

S. Edmund, Trans. of.
S. Alban.

S. Thomas of Canterbury,
Trans. of.

S. Benedict, Trans. of.
S. Edith.

S. Thomas of Hereford.
S. Wulfran.

S. Frideswide.

S. Winifred.

S. Edmund, Archbishop.
S. Osmund.

S. Thomas of Canterbury.

If we look through the names in the right hand column, we are surprised to see amongst them some which we should have expected to find on the other side. Such are those of SS. Alban, Patrick, Cuthbert, and Osmund. The omission of the name of S. Alban, the protomartyr of England, seems altogether unaccountable: it was not till 1661 that this saint found a place in our Calendar; and even then, by some strange mischance, his name appears, not at June 22, the day devoted to him in all early English Calendars, but on the 17th of that month.

S. Osmund, as the compiler of the Salisbury Use, certainly seems to claim a place in a book which is so largely indebted to his labours. The omission of S. Cuthbert's name may possibly have arisen from the stoutness with which the North had stood out against the Reformation, the opposition amounting at one time, in 1536, to actual rebellion. S. Patrick, as patron saint of Ireland, would probably be regarded with but small favour at a time when