The same is true of the Decollation of the Forerunner (Aug. 29), because of ‘the murder of him who is greater than all the prophets.’ When it is remembered that all Wednesdays as well as Fridays are fasting days, it will not be a surprise to be told that the fasting days of the Greek Church amount in each year to some 190 in number. The Armenians on fast-days abstain from flesh, milk, butter, eggs, and oil. Every day in Lent except Sundays is kept as a fast. Among peculiar observances is (1) the Fast of Nineveh, for two weeks commencing in the week before our Septuagesima. It is called by the Armenians _Aratschavor-atz_, meaning, it is said, ‘preceding abstinence,’ and this term has taken shape among the Greeks as ‘Artziburion.’ In the frequent controversies between the Greeks and Armenians the former denounce this fast as execrable and satanic. (2) The Armenians also observe as a fast the week after Pentecost. It has been maintained that in early times this fast was observed in the week before Pentecost, and that afterwards, in compliance with the general rule that the days between Easter and Pentecost should not be observed as fasts, a change was made. [Illustration: Kalendar of Worcester Book (October) (_Portiforium S. Oswaldi._) Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (MS. 391). _Circa_ A.D. 1064.] CHAPTER VIII WESTERN MEDIAEVAL KALENDARS: MARTYROLOGIES The word _Martyrology_ has been sometimes applied to mere records of names placed opposite days of the month, like the document which goes under the name of Liberius (see p. 14), as well as to the fuller and more elaborate accounts of saints and martyrs, with often something of biographical detail, and notices of time and place, and (in the case of martyrs) the manner of the passions, such as are to be found, for example, in the Martyrology of Bede, and more particularly in the additions of Florus, and the Martyrologies of Ado and Usuard. The study of the Martyrologies is surrounded by many difficulties. They were again and again copied, and re-handled. It demands much knowledge and critical acumen to sever from the documents as they have come down to us later additions, so that we may get at what may reasonably be regarded as the original texts. Such work is always attended with considerable uncertainty, and scholars are often divided in opinion as to the results[133].