The ecclesiastical calendars and martyrologies come next under consideration. As regards the former, the service-books of which we have been speaking were on the whole drawn up in accordance with the local calendar and added both the movable and immovable feasts as best they could. In proportion as the number of feasts increased the calendars were regarded as independent catalogues of festivals, and are found both as separate documents, or bound up with the other liturgical books; in the latter case, they are usually placed at the beginning of the volume. While the calendars give merely the names of the saints or the date of their feasts, the martyrologies or _Synaxaria_ contain more detailed notices, giving the place, time, and circumstances of the saints’ death, rank, etc., according as the compiler had more or less material at his disposal; in many instances these notices have grown into considerable historical narratives, and on this account, the character of the different martyrologies varies greatly. As to their employment for historical purposes, the shorter the contents the higher the value and trustworthiness of a calendar. The martyrologies were usually compiled by private individuals, even when intended for ecclesiastical use, but the calendars shared in the official character of the liturgical books of which they formed part, since alterations could not be made in them without the knowledge and consent of the authorities of the church or corporation to which they belonged.[743] Manuscript calendars belonging to earlier centuries exist in large numbers, for all missals and breviaries were provided with them. Their value for historical research depends upon their age, and also upon our knowledge of the locality for which they were drawn up, the best data for discovering this latter point being afforded by the names of local saints contained in the calendar itself. No calendar can be set aside as altogether useless, for in case of need all can throw light upon the history of at least their own locality. For this reason, and for others as well, an increasing amount of attention has been given to them in recent times, and a large number of them have been printed (see sect. 10 of this part). The days marked in the calendars are those of the saints’ deaths (_vid._ _ante_, p. 213); but the days on which their relics were translated to some particular church are also marked as festivals in the calendar of the church in question. When in different calendars different days are given to the same saint, the date in the calendar belonging to the church where he died is usually to be regarded as the day of his death; the others are days on which his relics were translated.[744]