thus raising the question whether the 'intercessionibus' on fol. 88 be referable to the plural commemoration or be a proper variant1. However this may be, the 'adiuuemur' instead of 'liberemur' is inadmissible when coupled, as on our Feast of SS. Alexander, Euentius and Theodulus, with 'a cunctis malis imminentibus.' The word must have been borrowed, one would suppose, by clerical error from the analogous prayer 'Da q. o. d.' &c., which differs from this by the absence of the words 'a cunctis malis imminentibus'; or, if not borrowed, then retained by clerical error after their introduction.

The question, then, for us to answer is, Did the Roman Church in St Gregory's day keep a festum in honour of SS. Alexander, Eventius and Theodulus ?

Bearing in mind that the Alexander of the third of May claims to be a pope, let us examine the records.

The Martyrologium Hieronymianum mentions an Alexander under date of V. Non. Mai., but neither styles him bishop nor gives him a place of honour:-'Romae uia Nomentana miliario vii natale sanctorum Iuvenalis, Hebenti, Alexandri, Theodoli.' The Bucherian calendar and the Verona codex know nothing of any festum in honour whether of Alexander or of Alexander and the other two; nor is there any record of them in the Monza papyri. That a visitor to Rome in the seventh century might have learnt where to find their tombs, there is no reason whatever to doubt; but the manner of their mention in the Salzburg and in the Malmesbury lists is not suggestive of the existence of a festum in their honour. Nor is it easy to believe that, if the people of Rome had been minded to take a double journey of seven miles year after year to the place where they lay interred, they would have fixed the anniversary at so unfavourable a season as is the torrid May of Central Italy. It seems probable, therefore, that the anniversary in honour of the three saints was instituted in memory of their translation to the Church of St Sabina by Pope Eugenius II. (A.D. 824-827), an event commemorated by an inscription to be found in the Bollandists:

'Summa papatus Eugenius arce locatus

Corpus Alexandri praesulis egregii

Necnon Theodoli simul et te, martyr Euenti,
Iuxta Sabinam Serapiamque piam

Aede sub hac posuit.'

1 Cf. the 'confessionibus gloriosis' on fol. 130, lin. 18.

2 Aa. Ss. XL. 497.

Here, then, I close the present chapter, convinced that such instances of bad or faulty diction as occur in the Proprium Sanctorum of the Corpus MS. are confined to masses which had no place in the libri missales of St Augustine and his companions, and that the instances peculiar to it of a converse character occur mainly, if not exclusively, in masses of St Gregory's cognizance.

Our attention must now be turned to other subjects.

THE TERMINUS AD QUEM OF THE PRIMITIVE BOOK.

Assuming, then, the existence at St Augustine's Abbey at Canterbury of a primitive and parent book characterized, as to such of its masses as were of Gregorian redaction, by a singular purity of verbal text and by an unbroken consistency of rubrication, the question at once arises, Was this primitive and parent book old enough to have been brought to Canterbury in the year 597 ?

Two problems lie before us, that of a terminus ad quem, and that of a terminus a quo. As to the former, the case may be stated thus, Does the primitive book revealed to us by the Corpus MS. yield evidence consistent with the theory of so early a date as the year 596? As to the latter, we must remember that if our mass for St Caecilia was indeed part and parcel of the primitive book, then each of the claims which I have advanced for the primitive book is vitiated, both that of pure verbal text and that of consistent titulation; and the case must be stated as follows, Does the primitive book revealed to us by the Corpus MS. yield evidence of a date so late in the pontificate of St Gregory as that the sepulchral chamber of St Caecilia had already been closed, her festum suspended, and the mass in her honour eliminated from the Sacramentary?

The present chapter is concerned with the first named of these two problems.

Two conditions more stringent than a pure verbal text and a faultless technique could not be laid down in respect of a missal fresh issued from the papal scriptorium. And, if it be true that the primitive and parent book possessed the faultless technique and the pure text, before what year must it have been completed?

I. As regards lapses of style, the record collected in the preceding chapter is by no means a slight one; but the earliest mass in which an offending word is to be found is that of SS. Primus and Felician (fol.

93 v.), a mass which seems to have had no existence before the pontificate of Theodore (A.D. 642–649)'. The terminus ad quem for the completion of the primitive book may thus be set slightly before the middle of the seventh century. It is from that date forward that we encounter that series of verbal errors which we have found to contrast so strangely with the textual purity of such of the masses of the Corpus MS. as are known to be of Gregorian redaction.

II. The earliest instance of inconsistent titulation is 'De sancto Valentino' (fol. 80). This cannot reasonably be assigned to an earlier date than the year 626o.

III. The monks of St Augustine's, Canterbury, seem to have recognized and perpetuated from a very early date that diverse titulation of the primary and secondary of two concurring masses which we note in such cases of concurrence as are to be found in Roman masses old enough to have been edited by St Gregory; and the difference is the more remarkable from the fact that titles relating to saints who had no official connexion with the monastery are always cast in the ablative case. None, that is to say, of our national saints have masses with genitive-case titles save (1) archbishops of Canterbury, in regard of whom the owners of the book claimed it as a right that they should bury them within their precinct, (2) abbots of their own house, and (3) abbesses of St Mildred's, a monastery for women, the counterpart of their own.

Our book assigns masses to seven of the first ten primates, Archbishops of Canterbury buried at St Augustine's: thus,—

fol. 92. 'In uigilia festiuitatis sancti Augustini Anglorum apostoli.' In die.' (+605).

fol. 92 v.

In festiuitate sancti Melliti archiepiscopi.' (+624).
'In festiuitate sancti Iusti archiepiscopi.'

fol. 78 v. fol. 86.

'De sancto Laurentio pontifice.' (+619).

fol. 130v.

(+635).

fol. 123 v.

'De sancto Honorio archiepiscopo.' (+653).

fol. 102 v.

In festiuitate sancti Deusdedit archiepiscopi.' (+ 664). fol. 120. 'Sancti Theodori archiepiscopi.' (+690).

How is it, then, that the names of two out of these seven are in the ablative case? Unquestionably, because the anniversary of one of them, St Laurence, concurred with the feast of the Purification, and that of the other, St Honorius, with a solemnity to which I must now call the attention of my readers. Archbishop Honorius died on the thirtieth of September in the year 653.

1 See above, p. cii. 2 See above, pp. xxvii.-xxix. 3 See above, pp. xxi., xxii. M. R.

0

As early as the middle of the fifth century, and, possibly enough, at a yet remoter date, there stood on the Salarian Way, and within seven miles of Rome, a basilica dedicated to the archangel Michael. At the extreme close of the fifth, or in the early years of the sixth, century, Pope Symmachus enlarged the building'; the middle of the seventh century witnessed the mention of it found in the 'De locis sanctis martyrum '-' ecclesiam sancti Michaelis vii. milliario ab Urbe ''; and in the pontificate of Leo III. (A.D. 795-816) the 'basilica beati Archangeli quae ponitur in septimo' was still standing3.

Now, at some unascertained date between the pontificate of the great Gregory and that of Honorius I., whose name has already been mentioned in connexion with the church of St Valentine on the Flaminian Way-that is to say, between the years 606 and 624, for the name of the consecrating Pope was Boniface-another church was erected to St Michael. This new structure would seem from the very day of its consecration to have superseded and eclipsed the old one; the mass which had been said year by year in the basilica in Salaria six miles from Rome being now said, not there, but in the basilica inter nubes in or close to the city". Nor was the scene of St Michael's annual feast the only thing changed; the day for its celebration was shifted from the thirtieth to the twenty-ninth of September, and henceforth the title borne by the mass appropriated to it in the sacramentaries was to be, not a direct devotional tribute to the glory of the archangel, but a record of the consecration of a church that bore his name.

So effectually, indeed, was the old anniversary superseded by the new, that, of all the sacramentaries and calendars on which the Bollandists have worked, there would seem to be none in which even a record of its date (the thirtieth of September) was to be found, and only one that presented even an indistinct record of the ancient basilica on the Salarian Way:-'Corbeiense breuius,' says their editor, 'ab omnibus diuersum est. Sic enim habet, Romae milliario sexto dedicatio basilicae angeli Michaelis; uel in monte qui dicitur Garganus". Failing, however, by a very strange oblivion, to identify the basilica thus hinted at in the words 'milliario sexto' with the church of St Michael, which, on the very

1 Bianchini's Anastasius, § 80. 2 Migne, CI. 1365 A. 3 Bianchini's Anastasius, § 388. • Three Popes of the same name succeeded to the pontifical throne during this interval, Boniface III. (A.D. 606), Boniface IV. (A.D. 607-614), and Boniface V. (A.D. 618-624); the second and the last being separated by Deusdedit.

The list of urban churches appended to the 'De locis sanctis martyrum' makes mention of the new basilica as the 'De locis' itself does of the old.

next page, he tells us, upon the authority of the 'De locis sanctis martyrum,' stood 'septimo milliario ab urbe,' he makes the following marvellous comment,—' Verum illud, Romae milliario sexto, mendosum uidetur, cum apud Florentinium sit, Romae milites 6, et horum mentio in aliis quoque habeatur. Itaque priora illa uerba alio spectant et corrupta sunt'.'

Meanwhile, however, and while the memory of the thing had been only not completely blotted out of the martyrologies, there were two documents in which the annual solemnity proper to the old basilica, the more ancient anniversary of the thirtieth of September, stood recorded.

One of them was the Verona manuscript (XXVI.), which, under the heading, 'Pridie Kalendas Octobris. Natale basilicae angeli in Salaria, gives us four masses in honour of St Michael and one in honour of the angels. The most singular feature in these is the frequent recurrence of the words 'uenerari' and 'ueneratio'; thus,-'pro ueneratione eius oblata qui,' 'cum illa sit digna uenerari,' 'in angelicae ueneratione substantiae,' 'ubi quos ueneramur assistunt,' 'pia semper ueneratione laetetur?' Although, therefore, ' ueneratio' has no place in the Verona title, there can be no question that the dominant idea of the annual solemnity on the Salarian Way was that of the veneration of the angels, as distinguished from the festive commemoration of the saints.

The other document was that which formed the basis of the Corpus MS. The title of the mass as there preserved to us is, not 'Dedicatio basilicae sancti Michaelis,' but 'In ueneratione sancti Michaelis archangeli,' and thus absolutely distinguishes and separates the santaugustinian celebration from that of the printed texts, which agree in making their feast the anniversary of the finding, or the consecration, of a church. The further fact that the mass had been assigned, not to the twenty-ninth, but to the thirtieth of September, is indicated, as we have seen, by the ablative-case title of the mass for St Honorius.

I doubt if, with the sole exception of the Corpus MS., any sacramentary or missal claiming the name of Gregorian be in existence which retains a record of the old 'Veneratio' of St Michael, to the exclusion of the superseding feast. Be that as it may, its presence in the Corpus MS. 1 Aa. Ss. XLVIII. 5, B. See also Domenico Giorgi, 'Martyrologium Adonis' (Rome, 1745), pp. 503-505. For a case of millia' for 'milites' see Le Prevost's Orderic, III. 521.

2 Migne's reprint of the Ballerini has in the Preface of the last mass 'quae in beati archangeli Michaelis festiuitate contemplamur affectu,' the italicized 'festiuitate' being, I presume, an editorial guess at a lost or illegible word. I should venture to suggest ' ueneratione' in analogy with the five instances I have quoted.