Feasts - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition feasts

Definition :

Feasts, anniversary days of rejoining, either on a civil or religious occasion; opposed to fasts. Our feasts are either (1) immovable, such as Christmas-day, the Circumcision, Epiphany, Candlemas-day, Lady-day, All Saints, and All Souls, besides the days of the several apostles, St. Peter, St. Thomas, etc.: these are always celebrated on the same day of the year; or (2) movable, such as Easter,

which fixes all the rest, as Palm Sunday, Good Friday, Ash Wednesday, Sexagesima, Ascension-day, Pentecost, Trinity Sunday, etc. The four principal immovable feasts of the year, which are commonly assigned in England for the payment of rents on leases, are the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, or Lady-day, being the 25th of March; the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, held on the 24th of June; the feast of St. Michael on the 29th of September; and Christmas-day on the 25th of December.

A still unrepealed Act of 1551-2 (5 & 6 Edw. 6, c. 3), directs certain days therein mentioned (being all Sundays, and the Saints' Days printed in black letter in the Calendar scheduled to the (English) Calendar (New Style) Act, 1750 (24 Geo. 2, c. 23); 'to be kepte hollie days and none other,' and the Calendar (New Style) Act by s. 3 directs the obser-vation of such Saints' Days as altered by such Calendar. The Calendar prefixed to the First Prayer Book of Edw. 6 (which derived statutory authority from the (English) First Act of Uniformity [2 & 3 Edw. 6, c. 1)] also marks such Saints' Days, and no others except St. Mary Magdalen's Day (July 22nd); but the Calendar scheduled to the Calendar (New Style) Act and printed in the Prayer Book now in force, additionally to, and in different type from such Saints' Days, marks other days, including Invention of Cross Day (May 3rd), Bishop Swithin's Day (July 15th), St. Mary Magdalen's Day (July 22nd), Holy Cross Day (September 14th), and O Sapientia Day (December 16th). Consult Phillimore, Ecc. Law, ch. XII.