In the East there is nothing corresponding to the Rogation Days; and the ordinary fast of Wednesday is on the Wednesday before Ascension Day relaxed by a dispensation for oil, wine, and fish; for in the East the _dies profestus_ commonly possesses something of a festal character, anticipatory of the morrow. In the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle the term ‘gang-days’ is used more than once for the Rogation days; and in the Laws of Athelstan we find ‘gang-days’ and ‘gang-week.’ The name originated in the walking in procession on these days. =The Fasts of the Four Seasons= (_jejunia quatuor temporum_). The earliest distinct reference to these fasts is to be found in the Sermons of Pope Leo I (A.D. 440-461), who speaks of the spring fast being in Lent, the summer fast ‘in Pentecost,’ the autumn fast in the seventh, and the winter fast in the tenth month. From St Leo we also learn that the fast was on Wednesday and Friday, and that on the Saturday a vigil was observed at St Peter’s[128]. The observance is characteristically Roman, and is found at first only at Rome, and in Churches in immediate dependence on Rome. Duchesne holds that the weeks in which these fasts occurred differed from other weeks mainly in the rigour of the fast, _i.e._ ‘the substitution of a real fast for the half-fast of the ordinary stations.’ And he adds the suggestion that on the Wednesday of the Four Seasons, if not on the Friday, the Eucharist was from the outset celebrated[129]. In England the Council of Cloveshoe (A.D. 747) enjoins that no one should neglect ‘the fasts of the fourth, seventh, and tenth month.’ The omission of any notice of the Ember days in Lent will be noticed later on. In the Churches of Gaul we do not find the Ember days established long before the time of Charlemagne. At first we find no trace of a connexion between the Ember seasons and the holding of ordinations; and, as is observed by Dr Sinker, ‘everything points to the conclusion that the solemnity attaching to the seasons led to their being chosen as fitting times for the rite[130].’ The Sacramentary that is known as St Leo’s exhibits ‘propers’ for masses of the fasts in the fourth, seventh, and tenth months, _i.e._ June, September and December[131]; and from these we can gather that on ‘the festival of the fasts’ assemblies and processions had been made on the Wednesdays and Fridays, and a vigil (with the Eucharist) held on the Saturdays. In these there is not only no reference to ordinations of the clergy, but also no reference that would suggest the special intention and significance of these days of fasting. The conjecture is not unreasonable that there was the desire to dedicate in penitence the year in its four several parts to the service of God; but neither the history nor the literature of the early Church is decisive in confirming the conjecture.