After the adoption of the fast of forty days, attempts were made, in the West, to further regulate fasting, but these were confined to certain districts and in course of time ceased. For example, Bishop Perpetuus of Tours introduced a special practice into his diocese, which lasted until on in the sixth century, _i.e._ from Whitsunday to St John, and also from 1st September to St Martin, two fast-days were observed in each week; from then until Christmas, three; from St Hilary’s Day (14th January) until the middle of February two again. The second canon of the fourth council of Orleans (A.D. 541) opposed the attempts of some bishops to extend the fast over fifty, or even sixty days. Amalarius mentions other divergences from the Roman custom, such as keeping three Lents in the year, one before Christmas, the second before Easter, and the third before Whitsunday, and, again, fasting on the days before the Ascension.[217] In Germany, too, there were peculiarities in the discipline observed with regard to fasting during the eighth and ninth centuries.[218] The essence of fasting consists in abstinence from meat and drink during a specified time. This in itself is not sufficient, for fasting entails moreover that the food taken after the lapse of this time be of a plainer kind, _i.e._ abstinence from the better sorts of food and drink, which is now called abstinence in the strict sense. The prohibition of certain meats in the Old Testament must be regarded as of a disciplinary nature, and not as a merely dietary regulation. In ecclesiastical antiquity, along with abstinence from the usual daily meals, we find certain viands also forbidden—flesh and wine. To this period belong the _xerophagiæ_ spoken of by Tertullian,[219] at which people abstained not only from flesh and wine but from liquid food and fruit as well. These, however, seem to have gone beyond the abstinence then usual throughout the Church. The Montanists held these _xerophagiæ_ twice a year for fourteen days.[220] Among Catholics also abstinence was pushed to great lengths. The canons of Hippolytus[221] prescribe for Holy Week only bread and salt. The Apostolic Constitutions will only permit bread, vegetables, salt and water, in Lent, flesh and wine being forbidden; and, on the last two days of Holy Week, nothing whatsoever is to be eaten.[222] The ascetics, whose acquaintance the Gallic pilgrim made in Jerusalem, never touched bread in Lent, but lived on flour and water.[223] Only a few could keep so strict a fast, and generally speaking people were satisfied with abstaining from flesh and wine. But this lasted throughout the entire Lent, and Chrysostom[224] tells us that in Antioch no flesh was eaten during the whole of Lent. Abstinence from milk and eggs (the so-called _lacticinia_) was also the general rule.