cycles
already completed. Thus, the _indictio sexta_ meant the sixth year of a
cycle and not the sixth cycle or period of fifteen years. Hence, to know
the year of indiction is useless for determining the date in old
documents of State. Indiction was instituted by Constantine in 313 for
fiscal purposes. In papal and imperial documents the name of Pope or
emperor was generally given and the regnal years noted.

_Movable Feasts_. In virtue of the decree of the Council of Nice, in
325, Easter, on which all other movable feasts depend, must be
celebrated on the Sunday which follows immediately the fourteenth day of
the moon of the first month (in the Hebrew year), our March. Easter,
then, is the first Sunday after the Paschal full moon (i.e., the full
moon which happens upon or next after March 21st). If full moon happens
on a Sunday, Easter Sunday is the Sunday after the full moon. The matter
of the arrangement of Easter was for long a subject of very bitter
contention in the Irish and in the English Church. The Irish, clinging
tenaciously to the calendar of St. Patrick, carried it everywhere in
their missionary labours, so that the controversy was not confined to
Ireland and England. It was long and bitter, until at last the Irish
Church agreed to follow the reform. (See Healy, _Ireland's Schools and
Scholars_, p. 592; Moran, _Irish Saints in Great Britain_, "The
Conference at Whitby in 664," pp. 255-261).

Calendar study is interesting, and many valuable contributions on this
matter have been given to us by Father Thurston, S.J., and other English
and Irish scholars.

GENERAL RUBRICS OF THE BREVIARY.

The next document in the Breviary, Part I., has the title "Rubricae
Generates Breviarii," the general rubrics of the Breviary. They are
called _general_, as they apply to every part of the Breviary and are to
be distinguished from the rubrics dealing with the proper (_proprium_)
of the Breviary, the proper of time or of the saints. The word "rubrics"
was originally applied to the red marking lines used by carpenters on
wood, later it referred to the titles used by jurisconsults in
announcing laws, which were written in red colours. The word appears in
Church literature to refer to signs and directions as early at least as
the fourteenth century (_Cath. Encyclopedia_--word "rubrics").

The general rubrics are divided into thirty-seven Titles. Attention will
be given to each; of these Titles, some of which must be