Heortology : $b A history of the Christian festivals from their origin to the present dayKellner, K. A. Heinrich (Karl Adam Heinrich)
Religion
Heortology : $b A history of the Christian festivals from their origin to the present day
Kellner, K. A. Heinrich (Karl Adam Heinrich)
Church year; Fasts and feasts
The former when Archbishop of Mainz completed a martyrology which he
had compiled from secondary sources; it is dedicated to Abbot Radleich
of Seligenstadt, who died in 853-54, and whose epitaph was composed by
Rabanus,[827] but the composition of the martyrology must be dated a few
years earlier, about 850, though the exact date cannot be discovered.
As sources, he drew upon the Acts of the martyrs which he found ready
to hand, and also the _Hieronymianum_, Bede, and Florus; the treatment
of the material is very unequal, sometimes a long account being given,
sometimes nothing more than the name; legends and historical errors are
frequent.
The same is true of the martyrology of Notker Balbulus who was a monk
at St Gall from 840 to 912, and composed his work under Pope Formosus
(891-896). He knew and used the _Hieronymianum_, as, for example, for
the 9th August, _V. Id. Aug._ First class sources were beyond his reach,
a loss of which he was himself conscious.[828]
All these martyrologies of which we have spoken, were private
compilations without anything of an official character about them. The
existence of so many following upon the _Hieronymianum_ shows that it did
not satisfy liturgical requirements and was little used. On this account,
martyrologies were drawn up at a later date containing full descriptions
of the lives and sufferings of the saints for each day of the year, which
would serve as edifying and entertaining reading for religious, priests
and other pious persons. However even the best of them were no longer
practicable in the sixteenth century, and Gregory XIII. conceived the
purpose of putting out one better adapted for use in divine service. A
further step was taken in 1580 when he commissioned the learned Cardinal
Sirleto to compare the martyrology used in Rome with the oldest and best
MSS. and to correct the errors which had crept into it in course of
time.[829] Sirleto associated ten other learned men with himself among
whom were Cæsar Baronius and Aloysius Lilius, the astronomer. Baronius
was the soul of the undertaking, and, after three years’ labour, the
_Martyrologium Romanum Gregorii XIII._ was completed, and a papal brief
of the 14th January 1584, prescribed the exclusive use of this work in
choir at the canonical hours. Baronius based his labours on Usuardus,
correcting and enlarging his martyrology by means of the materials then
forthcoming; could he have used the materials discovered later, or those
which we now possess, his work would naturally have been much better;
many, too, of the earlier mistakes remain uncorrected. The editors
were far from claiming freedom from errors for their work, and made
improvements in later editions, beginning with that of 1586. It is not
necessary to regard all the individuals named in the Roman martyrology as
saints in the liturgical sense of the word, and their admission there,
according to the expression of Benedict XIV. is in no wise equal to
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