1. All Saints’ Day. 2. All Souls’ Day. 11. St. Martin. Martinmas. 16. St. Edmund. 21. Presentation of the Blessed Virgin. 22. St. Cecilia. 25. St. Catherine. 30. St. Andrew, Apostle. _December._ 6. St. Nicholas. 8. The Conception of the Blessed Virgin. 13. St. Lucy. 21. St. Thomas, Apostle. 25. The Nativity of our Blessed Lord. Christmas. 26. St. Stephen. 27. St. John, Evangelist and Apostle. 28. The Holy Innocents. 29. St. Thomas à Beckett. The saints’ days were brought before the people in many ways--in the village feasts, or the dedication of churches, in the mural paintings which covered the church walls, and in the Christian names given at baptism. In the old rolls the date of the month is never mentioned, the principal feast-day nearest to it being used instead. Saints’ days, as holidays, were probably the most convenient days for assembling together for business. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER VII. MONASTIC CHARTERS. Every abbey of any importance kept a chartulary--in other words, a catalogue of its possessions in the copies of grants of land all collected within one or more volumes--a carefully compiled work, giving all the benefactions and privileges of the foundation, entered by the scribe or secretary of the establishment, who must have spent many hours of his life over the work, for these books are rarely found to be the work of more than one, or at most two, men--one handwriting continuing on until replaced by another. Great care and neatness was used in the formation of each black letter--even and perfect as the most exact printing ever done by machinery. Each charter was emphasized with an elaborate capital letter, and the index or headings to them were filled in after the writing was finished, as is proved by the fact that these were sometimes never completed. The probability is that they were the work of another artist or illuminator, and appear to have been sketched in with a brush or hair pencil, the writing having been executed with a quill pen. Colour is sometimes employed to embellish and ornament the work, but in the oldest chartularies colour, usually red, is only used to mark special passages, or, as in Domesday Book, to point out names of persons or places. The largest work on English monasteries was compiled by Sir William Dugdale; but in so extensive a work as the ‘Monasticon’ too much was undertaken; it was impossible to search deeply enough into existing records for information concerning every religious house throughout England. Therefore, although a valuable foundation to start with, much more may still be ascertained from manuscripts, public and private, particularly with regard to the lesser religious houses or cells to foreign abbeys.