In process of time, the day before the feast (_dies profestus_) assumed the name of vigil, and was in the West commonly, though not universally, associated with a fast. Mediaeval ritualists, such as Honorius of Autun (who died a little after A.D. 1130), connect the change with the popular abuses of the nocturnal vigils. There is an interesting letter of Innocent III (about A.D. 1213), laying down the rule in the Roman Church, which still prevails. The vigils of the Apostles are to be observed as fasts, with the exception of St John the Evangelist and St Philip and St James, the former occurring in the season of Christmas, and the latter in that of Easter[109]. Beside the vigils of the Apostles, the vigils of Christmas and the Assumption are fasts _de jure_, and by custom the vigils of Pentecost, the Nativity of the Baptist, St Lawrence, and All Saints. These rules were often locally modified by papal indults. CHAPTER VII SEASONS OF PREPARATION AND PENITENCE ADVENT Advent, as the term is now employed, signifies a season, regarded as preparatory to the Festival of the Nativity of the Lord, including four Sundays and a variable number of days, as affected by the day of the week upon which December 25 falls. As no evidence has been adduced for an established celebration of the Feast of the Nativity before the fourth century, so it is obvious that we cannot expect to find the appointment of a season of preparation before that date. As a matter of fact, it would seem that the earliest distinct notice of such a season, prescribed for general use, belongs to the latter part of the sixth century; and that the practice originated in Gaul. In a small council held at Tours about A.D. 567 there is vaguely indicated a fast _for monks_ in December, to be kept every day ‘usque ad natale domini’ (can. 17). A few years later, in the south of Gaul, we find what seems a canon of general application, but less exacting in regard to the number of days on which the fast was to be observed. In the ninth canon of the Council of Mâcon (A.D. 581) it is enjoined that from the festival of St Martin (Nov. 11) the second, fourth and sixth days of the week should be fasting days, that the sacrifices should be celebrated in the quadragesimal order, and that on these days the canons (probably meaning the canons of this synod) should be read, so that no one could plead that he erred through ignorance. We have here something that at once reminds us of the pre-paschal season, as observed in some Churches. The season came to be known as _Quadragesima S. Martini_. But the length of this season (as was also true of Lent) seems to have varied much. The six Sundays which it covered, as we may infer from the canon of Mâcon referred to above, we find indicated probably by the six _missae_ of Sundays of Advent in the Ambrosian and Mozarabic rites. Yet the oldest Gallican Sacramentary records only three Sundays, and the Gothic-Gallican only two[110].