749 



AUGUST. 



AUGUSTINE (ST.), CANONS OF THE ORDER OF. 750 



of the augur was required to mark out the different allotments. Among 

 the patricians, the presence of an augur was necessary to render valid 

 many of the proceedings of private life, as marriage and adoption ; and 

 the same political body found in the auspices a powerful argument 

 against the rising claims of the plebeians. The auspices, they said, 

 were their peculiar privilege, and as the leading magistrates could 

 not fulfil their duties without such divine assistance, there was an 

 insuperable bar to the election of plebeians. Of the three comitia, 

 or legislative assemblies, that of the curies, being the special as- 

 sembly of the patricians, was of course subject to the auspices ; the 

 same was the case with the mixed assembly of the centuries ; but that 

 of the tribes was free from such control. Of the two last (for the 

 comitia curiata became obsolete) the assembly of the centuries was the 

 most important, as possessing the election of the leading magistrate ; 

 and so complete was the veto of an augur in this assembly, that if he 

 but heard a clap of thunder, nay, if he but said he had heard one, and 

 that falsely, the proceedings of the assembly were void. Such was the 

 power of the augural office ; and it was strengthened by the law that 

 a man once created an augur was an augur for life, no matter what 

 crimes he might commit. (Plin., ' Ep.' iv. 8 ; Plutarch, ' Romaica,' 97.) 

 On the pecuniary advantages of the office there are no very definite 

 statements. That they received money hi some shape from the public 

 treasury is indeed positively stated (Dionys. ii. 6) ; and the poet Attius 

 has made a bad pun at their expense, charging them with extracting 

 durum (gold) from the aura (ears) of those who believed in them ; 

 and the public money may perhaps be traced in the dinners given 

 by the augurs on their election, which were celebrated in the annals 

 of Roman gastronomy. (Cic., ' ad Fam." vii. 16 ; Varro, ' R. R.' iii. 6 ; 

 Plin., ' H. N.' x. 23.) In the latters years of the republic many of the 

 duties of the augurs were performed in the most lax manner. At the 

 inauguration of a magistrate, says Dionysius (ii. 6), speaking of his 

 own time, the ceremony is a mere shadow of what it was. The candi- 

 date takes his seat, rises, repeats a set prayer in the open air, an augur 

 then declares he hears thunder on the left, when in fact there was 

 none, and the candidate forthwith enters upon his magistracy. 



AUGUST. The month of August was originally called Sextilis, 

 being the sixth month in the Allan or Latin calendar ; and this name, 

 as is stated, it retained in the calendars of Romulus, Nurna Pompilitis, 

 and Julius Caesar. Since Numa's reform, however, it has held only 

 the eighth place in the series of months. In the Alban calendar, 

 Sextilis consisted of twenty-eight days : in that of Romulus of thirty ; 

 Numa reduced the number to twenty-nine ; Julius Caesar restored it to 

 thirty ; and Augustus Caesar, from whom it derived its new name of 

 August, extended the number of days to thirty-one, which has con- 

 tinued ever since. 



It was originally proposed that September should bear the name of 

 Augustus, from the emperor having been born in that month ; but he 

 preferred Sextilis, not only as it stood next to July, which had been 

 recently named after his predecessor Julius, but for the same reasons 

 which influenced the decree of the Senate detailed by Macrobius, in his 

 ' Saturnalia ' (edit. Bipont. i. 261), viz., that since it was in this month 

 that the Emperor Caesar Augustus had entered upon his first consul- 

 ship had celebrated three triumphs In the city had received the 

 allegiance of the soldiers who occupied the Janiculum had subdued 

 Egypt, and put an end to civil war it appeared that it was, and had 

 been, propitious to the empire ; and the Senate therefore ordained that 

 Sextilis should thenceforward bear the name of Augustus. 



Gassendi (' Kalend. Romanum,' apud Grsov. viii. col. 164) says that 

 Commodus wished to have had the month Sextilis called by his own 

 name. 



The Flemings and Germans have adopted the word August for 

 Harvest; Oogit maand is the harvest-month. (Hadr. Junius ' de Annis 

 et Mensibus,' apud Grsev. Thesaur. viii. col. 217.) So the German 

 Augit-icagen, a harvest-waggon (Wachter ' Glossar. German.') ; and the 

 Dutch Ooytten, to reap or gather corn from the field (Sewel's ' Dutch 

 Diction.'). The Spaniards also have the verb Agottdr, to gather in 

 harvest; and both French and Spaniards have phrases for making 

 harvest, faire VA oust t and hazfr * A uyusto. 



Our Anglo-Saxon ancestors named August peob mona'5, the weed- 

 month, as abounding in noxious and useless herbs. (' Saxon Menolog.,' 

 Lye's ' Saxon Diet.' in voce, and Bosworth's ' Anglo-Saxon and English 

 Dictionary.') 



Lammas Day, the first of the month, is also .called the Gule of 

 August (Brand's ' Popular Antiq.' i. 275), probably from the Gothic 

 HIOL or I PL, a wheel, indicating that revolution of season which brought 

 the return of harvest. This day, called by our Anglo-Saxon ancestors 

 Hlaji-masj-re, that is, loaf mass, was the feast of thanksgiving for the 

 first fruits of the corn. 



(Compare Pitisci ' Lexicon Antiq., Grsec. et Roman.,' v. Augustus ; 

 the different treatises printed in Gravius's ' Collection ; ' and Brady's 

 ' Claris Calendaria,' i. 76.) 



AUGUSTINE (ST.), CANONS OF THE ORDER OF, usually called 

 AUSTIN CANONS. Regular Canons, says Bishop Tanner (Pref. to 

 ' Notit. Monast.'), were such as lived under some rule ; they were a 

 less strict sort of religious than the monks, but lived together under 

 one roof, had a common dormitory and refectory, and were obliged to 

 observe the statutes of their order. 



The chief rule for these canons was that of St. Augustine, who was 



made Bishop of Hippo, A.D. 395. But they were little known till the 

 10th or llth century, were not brought into England till after the 

 Conquest, and appear not to have obtained the name of Augustine or 

 Austin Canona till some years after. (Bingham, ' Antiq. of the Christ. 

 Church,' b. vii. c. 2. s. 9.) 



Bale ('Script.' cent. xiii. 4) and Sir Robert Atkyns ('Antiq. of 

 Glouc.') say, that these canons were brought into England by St. 

 Birinus in the beginning of the 7th century; A.D. 630 or 640, as 

 Fuller, quoting the ' Chronicon Augustin ' of Joseph Pamphilus, 

 states in his ' Church History (b. vi.) ; but those were certainly secular 

 canons whom he placed at Dorchester in Oxfordshire ; and all other 

 historians agree that we had no regular canons here till the llth, or 

 probably till the 12th century. For though they differ about the 

 place of their first settlement, yet the general opinion is, that they 

 came in after king Henry I. began his reign. Jos. Pamphilus, accord- 

 ing to Fuller (' Ch. Hist.' ut supr.), says they were seated in London, 

 in 1059 ; but this is not believed. Somuer says that St. Gregory's in 

 Canterbury, which was built by archbishop Lanfrane in 1084, was their 

 first house (' Antiq. Canterb.') ; but Leland's saying (' Collectan.' vol. i.) 

 that Archbishop Lanfrane placed secular canons at St. Gregory's, and 

 that Archbishop Corboyl changed them into regulars, makes the 

 authority of that judicious antiquary in this case doubtful. Reyner 

 says (' Apostol. Benedict.' tr. i.) that they were first brought into 

 England by Athelwulphus or Adulphus, confessor to king Henry I., 

 and had then- first house at Nostell in Yorkshire ; but they seem not to 

 have been settled there till Thurstan was archbishop of York, and that 

 was not till 1114. Thurstan was elected in 1114, but not consecrated 

 till 1119. (Willis's 'Cathedrals,' vol. i.) Stow ('Surv. of London') 

 mentions that a gift of lands was made to Norman, the prior, and to 

 the canons of the Holy Trinity, or Christ Church within Aldgate, 

 London, in 1115, but he does not say that it was the first establish- 

 ment of the order, and that house was not built till R. Beaumeis was 

 bishop of London ; whereas the house of these canons at Colchester 

 was founded before the death of Bishop Maurice his predecessor, 

 which happened Sept. 26, 1107. (Godwin ' de Prsesul ;' Newc. 'Rep. 

 Eccl.' vol. i.) And therefore Bishop Tanner thinks that John Rosse 

 ('Mon. Angl.' vol. vi.) and Pope Paschal II. (Ibid.) are right in 

 placing them first at Colchester, though it could not be in Rosse's 

 year, 1109, but was rather in 1105, in which Fuller (' Ch. Hist.' b. vi., 

 s. i., c. 6.) places the coming of these canons into England. 



Stevens tells us, in his Continuation of Dugdale (vol. ii.), that 

 though there were regular canons who embraced the rule of St. Austin, 

 taken from his 109th epistle, in the llth century (as particularly at the 

 Abbey of St. Denis, at Rheims, about 1067), yet the regular canons 

 did not make solemn vows till the 1 2th century ; and did not, in general, 

 take the name of " regular canons of St. Austin " till Pope Innocent II. 

 ordained, in the Lateran Council, in 1139, that all regular canons 

 should submit to that rule of St. Austin in his 109th epistle. So that 

 these regular canons certainly fall short of the time of their pretended 

 founder ; and therefore when black or regular canons are mentioned 

 before 1105, the reader must thereby understand secular canons; for it 

 was usual in those days to call the secular canons of cathedral and 

 collegiate churches " canonici regulares," to distinguish them from the 

 common parochial clergy, though probably many of those societies 

 might become Austin canons afterwards. In 1244, the rules were 

 sanctioned by a bull from Pope Innocent IV., and in 1532 the ' Bare- 

 footed Augustines,' a sort of reformed order, was established. 



Their habit was a long black cassock, with a white rochet over it, 

 and over that a black cloak and hood. The monks were always shaved, 

 but these canons wore beards, and caps on their heads. 



The nuns of the order were probably the elder of the two, as there 

 certainly was a society of females who lived apart under the spiritual 

 direction of the Bishop of Hippo himself ; and a cloister was founded at 

 Venice in 1177 by Pope Alexander III. ; these wore black garments, 

 which in 1632 were changed to violet. 



Tanner says he found above 175 houses of these canons and canon- 

 esses in England and Wales. 



By the rules of the order, among many other ordinances, the vows of 

 chastity and poverty were to be taken by all persons joining the order, 

 to which all property whatever was to be relinquished by the indivi- 

 dual ; alms might be solicited ; on any business requiring members of 

 the fraternity out of the house, two were always to be sent together ; 

 concord and implicit obedience were inculcated; and talking was 

 forbidden. Of tie habit, it was only directed that it should not be 

 conspicuous. 



The separate societies in England and on the Continent were 

 extremely numerous, and many, no doubt, were marked by some pecu- 

 liarity; but the four great branches which sprung from the parent 

 root were the Praemonstratensians, Trinitarians, Dominicans, and the 

 Knights Hospitallers, with more or less of variation according to 

 circumstances. 



Copies of the rule of the Augustine order will be found among the 

 Harleian manuscripts in the British Museum, Numbers 2939, 3392, 

 3995, and 4053. Wilkins, in his ' Concilia," vol. ii., and Spelman, 

 ' Concil.' vol. ii., have given the Constitutions of Pope Boniface XII. 

 for the reformation of this order in 1339 ; and the Cottouian Manu- 

 script, Vespasian D. I. contains, 1. The proceedings at various general 

 and provincial chapters of the Order, held within the province of 



