Post by Pacelli on Mar 21, 2018 12:33:27 GMT -5
(The following is research on Medieval Lenten rules done by Dr. Taylor Marshall and posted on his blog. I post this to remind Catholics of how easy we have it today, with the rules under Pope Pius XII, as compared to the laws of the Church in the medieval times. I made a couple of modifications to Dr. Marshall’s work to keep it G rated. After reading this, no one should ever think the Lenten laws of today are hard.
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Rules for Medieval Quadragesima or “Lent”:
Nota bene: I’m using the standards of the Roman Church. The Eastern Churches have had various disciplines by jurisdiction. For this article, we are focusing only on the Roman rules. Perhaps we’ll study the Eastern fasting rules in a future post.
1. Duration? 46 days. 40 Days plus 6 Sundays in the Roman Church.
2. Fasting rules? Medieval Lenten rules (as described Saint Thomas Aquinas) were as follows:
1. Ash Wednesday and Good Friday were black fasts: no food at all.
2. No food from waking until 3pm (the hour when Christ died). This practice of fasting till 3pm goes back to the 5th century (see Socrates’ Church History V.22).
3. No animal meat or fats (no lard).
4. Fish was allowed. Click here to understand the theology of why fish was is allowed, but not meat.
5. No eggs.
6. No lacticinia or “dairy products”: milk, cheese, cream, and butter. However, Catholics of the British Isles before the arrival of Saint Augustine of Canterbury were still consuming dairy products and perhaps eggs during Lent. Roman influence brought this to an end.
7. Wine and beer were allowed.
8. Medieval Europeans during Lent subsisted on bread, vegetables, and salt.
9. No relations between spouses.
10. No Sundays off. All these rules apply for 46 days. The 6 Sundays in Lent were relaxed liturgically (less penitential), but the fasting and abstinence were not relaxed on Sundays.
11. For the Good Friday black fast, many would begin fast from Maundy Thursday night till about noon on Saturday. The Easter Vigil was usually celebrated about noon on Saturday and this ended the Lenten fasting officially.
Was it Changed?
1. Breaking the no food fast before 3pm began to creep in as early as AD 800. The reason we English speakers call 12pm “noon” is because the liturgical recitation of nones (“ninth hour” or 3pm in Latin) was moved up by hungry monks more and more until nones (3pm) was celebrated as early as 12pm so that they could break fast and eat lunch!)
2. In Germany, dispensations were given for consuming lacticinia or dairy products based on payment or performing good deeds. In honesty, wealthy people simply paid a fee to the diocese, and were allowed to serve and eat dairy in their homes during Lent. It was a popular “fundraising technique” by (German!) bishops.
3. Dinner snacks were allowed at the time of reading Cassians book Collationes and so this snack became known as a “collation” – the term we still use today for a snack during fasting.
4. With the advent of tea and coffee, it became allowable to have tea or coffee in the morning and this was considered as not violating the fast before nones.
(I removed the Paul VI laws as they are not relevant.)
———————————
Rules for Medieval Quadragesima or “Lent”:
Nota bene: I’m using the standards of the Roman Church. The Eastern Churches have had various disciplines by jurisdiction. For this article, we are focusing only on the Roman rules. Perhaps we’ll study the Eastern fasting rules in a future post.
1. Duration? 46 days. 40 Days plus 6 Sundays in the Roman Church.
2. Fasting rules? Medieval Lenten rules (as described Saint Thomas Aquinas) were as follows:
1. Ash Wednesday and Good Friday were black fasts: no food at all.
2. No food from waking until 3pm (the hour when Christ died). This practice of fasting till 3pm goes back to the 5th century (see Socrates’ Church History V.22).
3. No animal meat or fats (no lard).
4. Fish was allowed. Click here to understand the theology of why fish was is allowed, but not meat.
5. No eggs.
6. No lacticinia or “dairy products”: milk, cheese, cream, and butter. However, Catholics of the British Isles before the arrival of Saint Augustine of Canterbury were still consuming dairy products and perhaps eggs during Lent. Roman influence brought this to an end.
7. Wine and beer were allowed.
8. Medieval Europeans during Lent subsisted on bread, vegetables, and salt.
9. No relations between spouses.
10. No Sundays off. All these rules apply for 46 days. The 6 Sundays in Lent were relaxed liturgically (less penitential), but the fasting and abstinence were not relaxed on Sundays.
11. For the Good Friday black fast, many would begin fast from Maundy Thursday night till about noon on Saturday. The Easter Vigil was usually celebrated about noon on Saturday and this ended the Lenten fasting officially.
Was it Changed?
1. Breaking the no food fast before 3pm began to creep in as early as AD 800. The reason we English speakers call 12pm “noon” is because the liturgical recitation of nones (“ninth hour” or 3pm in Latin) was moved up by hungry monks more and more until nones (3pm) was celebrated as early as 12pm so that they could break fast and eat lunch!)
2. In Germany, dispensations were given for consuming lacticinia or dairy products based on payment or performing good deeds. In honesty, wealthy people simply paid a fee to the diocese, and were allowed to serve and eat dairy in their homes during Lent. It was a popular “fundraising technique” by (German!) bishops.
3. Dinner snacks were allowed at the time of reading Cassians book Collationes and so this snack became known as a “collation” – the term we still use today for a snack during fasting.
4. With the advent of tea and coffee, it became allowable to have tea or coffee in the morning and this was considered as not violating the fast before nones.
(I removed the Paul VI laws as they are not relevant.)