Thus abstinence from flesh meat (_i.e._ abstinence in the strict sense) was combined with the diminution of the quantity of food taken. It was also voluntarily practised by itself, without being accompanied by fasting (_jejunium a carne et sanguine_), by pious persons and ascetics, and was prescribed as a duty on certain days in monasteries and other religious communities, as, for instance, among the Canons of Chrodegang. Throughout the early ages, abstinence was merely a pious custom. It was not until a later date that it was enjoined by law, as, for instance, by the fifty-sixth Trullan Canon, the Decree of Nicholas I. for the Bulgarians, the fourth and eighth councils of Toledo, the seventh canon of the council of Quedlinburg (1085), and the decretal of Gratian.[225] The custom of abstinence was then recognised and prescribed by ecclesiastical law for the whole of Lent, for all Fridays and Saturdays throughout the year, for the Ember Day, and a number of vigils.[226] No authentic document of antiquity is forthcoming to show that abstinence by itself, without an accompanying fast, had been prescribed by the Church.[227] 7. _The Season of Preparation as an Integral Part of the Church’s Year_ The division of this season of preparation into two parts, with special names for the Sundays, does not appear in the sermons of Augustine or Leo the Great. But in the ancient Gallic sacramentary—the _missale Gothico-Gallicanum_—five Masses, entitled simply _missa jejunii_ or _in quadragesima_, are found assigned to the five Sundays before Palm Sunday. The names _sexagesima_ and _quinquagesima_ appear already in the canons of the fourth council of Orleans (541), but, as generally recognised titles for the Sundays before Easter, they begin to appear in service-books dating from the eighth century and onwards. The Gregorian Sacramentary is familiar with the names for the Sundays from Septuagesima to Quinquagesima, and then numbers five Sundays in Quadragesima until Palm Sunday. In the ancient Spanish Mozarabic Sacramentary, the names Septuagesima, etc., do not yet appear, but the Sundays after Epiphany are numbered from one to eight, although the entire number was not always required, according as Easter fell early or late. After them follows the _Dominica ante diem Cineris_, then the five Sundays in Lent, and, finally, the _Dominica in Ramis Palmarum_. The recently published Lectionary of Silos, belonging to the ancient rite of Toledo and compiled about 650, represents a much simpler form of the Church’s year. It enumerates neither the Sundays after Epiphany nor those after Pentecost, but merely those in Lent, and then is satisfied with twenty-four Masses for the remaining Sundays of the year.