This Mass was of a festal character, and, in many places, in primitive times, two Masses were celebrated, one at the usual hour in the morning, and the other towards evening at the time of vespers. In other places, on the contrary, there was only one Mass, at which all the faithful communicated.[145] These different customs in course of time became a cause of astonishment and offence, and so Bishop Januarius enquired of St Augustine what ought to be done. The reply was, that each ought to follow the custom of his own diocese. In Rome also, at the period when the Gelasian sacramentary was in use, two Masses were still celebrated, for the sacramentary gives a _Missa ad Vesperum_.[146] The same authority notices only the reconciliation of penitents and the consecration of the Holy Oils among the other ceremonies performed on Maundy Thursday. The Gregorian sacramentary gives only the latter, as also does Ordo I., the earliest of the sixteen ancient Roman ordos.[147] In liturgical writings relating to our subject which belong to the Middle Ages, especially in the pseudo-Alcuin, the consecration of the Holy Oils is given at considerable length.[148] St Cyprian had already spoken of the consecration of oil required for ritual purposes without saying on what day it took place.[149] At the conclusion of the Mass, the altar was washed by the bishop or officiating priest, and, in the afternoon, the washing of the feet was performed, at which the Superior washed the feet of his subjects, or the bishop the feet of twelve old men representing the twelve apostles. In the Middle Ages, the usual name for this ceremony was _Mandatum_.[150] The washing of the altar and the consecration of the Chrism is spoken of by Isidore of Seville.[151] In the later Middle Ages, to these ceremonies was added the reading of the Bull in _Cœna Domini_, containing a list of errors condemned by the Church under pain of excommunication. The reading of this Bull continued from the fourteenth to the end of the eighteenth century. Finally, in some countries, the public ceremonial recitation of the Creed by the catechumens (_redditio symboli_) was prescribed for Maundy Thursday, as by the forty-sixth canon of the Synod of Laodicea, and by the sixty-eighth Trullan canon. This, however, in Rome, was done on Holy Saturday by each person in turn from some conspicuous place in the church.[152] GOOD FRIDAY The day of our Lord’s Passion was universally regarded as a day of mourning—“_dies amaritudinis_,” St Ambrose calls it, “on which we fast.”[153] A fast day, on liturgical principles, can never be a festival, though, _vice versâ_, a festival can fall on a fixed day of fasting or abstinence, as, for example, the Annunciation.