With regard to the Roman rite in particular, there are no special masses for the Sundays after Easter and Pentecost in the Leonine sacramentary. A further development appears in the Gelasian sacramentary, where the Sundays in Lent and those between Easter and Pentecost alone have a clearly defined liturgical character, and keep their special place in the Calendar. For the remaining Sundays of the year, there was a choice of only sixteen masses, which are not in the first book of the Gelasian sacramentary containing the course for the year (_anni circulus_, i.e., _Proprium de tempore_), but at the commencement of the third book. Along with the masses for week-days and masses for special occasions, they form the contents of this volume. The masses for Advent, however, strange to say, are contained in the second book, thus out of chronological order. In the Gregorian sacramentary, at the end of the eighth century, the Church’s year has the same form as at the present day, with the sole exception that the Sundays in Advent come at the end, instead of, as at the present time, at the beginning of the Missal. This is due to the fact that Christmas was then usually regarded as the commencement of the year. In the construction of the ecclesiastical year, the Gallic and Spanish Churches followed the Roman. The Mozarabic breviary has five Sundays in Advent, but they stand at the beginning. They are in the same position in the _Liber Responsalis sive Antiphonarius_, contained in a Codex of Compiègne belonging to the ninth century, and falsely attributed to Gregory the Great.[397] The Gregorian sacramentary simply numbers the Sundays consecutively after Pentecost, but in the Frankish lectionaries there are signs of an attempt to separate the Sundays after Pentecost into groups—Sundays after SS. Peter and Paul, Sundays after St Lawrence, etc.—but the custom was afterwards abandoned. In France, this division of the Sundays after Pentecost seems to have been general in the eighth century. The _Homilarium_ of Charlemagne divides them as follows:— { Four Sundays after Epiphany. { Three Sundays after Pentecost. { Seven Sundays after SS. Peter and Paul (Post Natale Apostolorum). 22 { Five Sundays after St Lawrence. { The September Ember Week (Feria iv., vi., et sabb. et Dominica). { Six Sundays after St Michael, 29th Sept. (Post S. Angeli). The _Kalendarium Frontonis_ divides them thus:— { Two Sundays after Pentecost. { Six Sundays after SS. Peter and Paul (Post Natale Apostolorum). 19 { Four Sundays after St Lawrence. { Seven Sundays after St Cyprian (Post S. Cypriani). This gives only nineteen after Pentecost, and so the _Kalendarium Frontonis_ has ten Sundays after Epiphany until Septuagesima, which must clearly have helped to fill up, when necessary, what was wanting at the end of the year. The _Comes Albini_ in Ranke (App. iv.) gives:—