Coptic calendars of a later date are still richer in names, but are full of legends and absurdities which show the steady decline of culture among the sect under Mahometan rule. This is especially the case with the _Synaxarium_ or collection of legends compiled from ancient sources by Bishop Amba Michael of Atriba and Malidsch at the end of the fourteenth century.[795] The basis of the collection is an older work of the same kind composed sometime about the year 1090 (see 3rd Athyr).[796] Information concerning the saints who lived in monasteries was taken by Bishop Michael from a so-called “Guide,” used by both the Egyptian Copts and Melchites.[797] A “Guide” of this kind had been written especially for Alexandria by Bishop Amba John of Kift. Michael refers in his work to the years 1382 and 1387 (see 7th Bermahat and 19th Bermuda), and so must have lived in the fourteenth century. As the work contains much information drawn from the ecclesiastical histories of the Copts and Abyssinians, it has been translated and much used in spite of its faulty character. It affords many useful particulars concerning the traditions and feasts of the Egyptian Church, and on this account Stephen Assemani undertook to make an abstract of the whole work which is printed in the fourth volume of Mai’s _Nova Collectio_. F. Wüstenfeld made a translation of the first part containing the first half of the Egyptian year, from September to February; the second half, from March to August including the intercalary days, is unfortunately still untranslated. 7. _The Menology of Constantinople (Eighth Century)_ The Eastern Church possesses a calendar of Saints belonging to the eighth century, which occupies an intermediate position between a merely Eastern Calendar, and one that is universal. Its title runs, Calendar of the Gospels for Festivals (μηνολόγιον τῶν εὐαγγελίων ἑορταστικῶν), for it gives the passage from the Gospels to be read on each day; it contains a considerable number of saints belonging to the East, though the days are far from being all occupied. March and April have remarkably few feasts; this is owing to the ancient, but even then obsolete injunction of the Trullan Council that the feasts of no martyrs were to be kept in Lent. Several circumstances prove that Constantinople was the locality where this document originated and was in use. Certain quarters of the city, as for example, Blachernæ and Chalcoprateia, are mentioned; the 11th May is mentioned as the day of the city’s foundation; so too is the earthquake which threw down the city walls on the 24th September 557. A large number of the patriarchs of Constantinople are included, twenty-nine in all, beginning with Metrophanes (4th June 305-325) and ending with Paul who was patriarch from September 686 to the 2nd September 693. The absence of the twenty-one reputed bishops from St Andrew to Metrophanes suggests the thought that when this document was drawn up this invention had not been accepted.