The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1895-04-12
LENT OF THE MIDDLE AGES.
1t Differed in Kind and Degree from that
of the Present Day.

of the Present Day.
(From the Chicago Record.) ss.
From forty hours Constantine the Great
made the Lenten period last seven weeks.
although fasting was not compulsory on
Thursdays and Sundays in the Latin
Church and on Thursday, Saturday and
Sunday in the Greek Church. There
were various fluctuations in the length
of time after this until the Council of
Toledo in 653 decreed that one 1.-THE of
each year-thirty- days-should be
dedicated to God, thus going back 10 the
Bible regulation. How and why the four
days were added which fill out our forty
days is question. Some writers aHribe
it to Gregory II. and some to his Wede-
cessor, Gregory the Great. It was al this
time that dry food became the proper
Lenten diet, and the eighth Council of
Toledo strictly forbade the use of flesh
meat in GAG. In the Greek Church 1t WAS
expressly stated that no wine, OF or
animal food should be used, and in the
Western Church in the eleventh century
the good fathers went still further and
and wine. Afterward flesh was exempt
ed from the list, but only for a time did
the monks enjoy this most generous fare.
Some old manuscripts of the thirteenth
century state pathetically that on fast
days during Lent it was decreed that
cold luncheon might be served at mid
day, but even that was denied them
later.
BY the modern law of the Roman
Catholic Church one meal is allowed Oh
fast days and in addition only ounces
can be eaten in the morning and ounces
in the evening.
During the time of the crusades against
the Moors, the Spanish kings, III order
to encourage the wars, allowed all
Cruaders the privilege of eating any food
on fast avs. The Irerogative was called
"cruzada," and it was afterward sold
to any one who paid the trifiing sum of
money required.
The old books of the Middle Ages are
filled with quaint references to Lenten
fare. In one of them, which is called
Quadrigesimale Spirituale," occurs the
following passage: After the sailed we.
eat fried beans, by which we understand
confession. When we would have beanes
well sodden, we lay them in steep, for
otherwise they will never seethe kindly.
Therefore, ii we propose to mend our
faults it is not sufficient barely to con-
TESS them at all adventure, but we must
let our confession be in steep, in the
water of meditation" That was written
by godly French priest in 1865.
That the English did not take SO kindly
to beanes" is shown by few lines from
Skeletons "CoIin Clout":
In holy Lenten season
Ye will neither beanes or peason,
But We look to be let loose
To pigge or goose.
The name of the Lenten season in the
Latin Church Of early times was jejun-
ium quadrisimal, meaning folty days
fast. Ash Wednesday was called caput
jejuni, beginning of fast. The word in
use to-day comes from an Anglo-Saxon
word, iencten; German, lenzand, means
spring.
The Lent of our time differs in kind as
well as in degree from the same period
in medieval times. Then there were
pill grimages to the shrines of different
saints. ard penitents were expected to
fast with exceeding rigor. At one period
when Theodosius the Great ruled, cor
poral punishment and imprison
were forbidden by royal edict, and later
the Council of Clermont, at the close of
the seventh century, decreed that there
should be observed peace of God from
Ash Wednesday to Whitsuntide. Some
of the noblest passages Of the literature
of the Middle Ages describe the pilgrim
ages and penitential procession of Lenten
time, and one of the favored books of
this day, John Inglesant," devotes its
finest imagery and word painting to the
description of Lenten procession in
Rome in the seventeenth century. The
fourth Sunday in Lent, called Passion
Sunday now, was then given the name
of Carl Sunday" from custom Of eat
ing and giving away peas and beans
Alled carlings"-on that day.