2 February: Candlemas
March 23: Spring Equinox: Lady Day/Annunciation (considered the start of the year: one of four Quarter Days)
Easter/Passiontide (30 March in 1483) 1 May: May Day
24 June: Midsummer/St John's Eve/Feast of St John the Baptist (one of four Quarter Days)
1 (or 6) August: Lammas. Christian name for the holiday, which means ‘loaf-mass’, since this was the day on which loaves of bread were baked from the first grain harvest and laid on the church altars as offerings. It was a day representative of ‘first fruits’ and early harvest.
25 September: Michaelmas (one of four Quarter Days)
1 November: All Hallows
December 25: Christmas (one of four Quarter Days)
MEDIEVAL TIMES OF PRAYER – THE HOURS
The day was another liturgical cycle. Church bells rang the hours of Divine Office. The hours begin with Vigils or Matins in the middle of the night (split into three parts, at 9 p.m., midnight, and 3 a.m.), Lauds at daybreak, then the four ‘little hours’: Prime (around 6 a.m.), Tierce (around 9 a.m.), Sext (around noon) and Nones (around 3 p.m.), then the evening Vespers (around 5–6 p.m.), and the final office of Compline (around 7–8 p.m.). For the monastic the true work of God (opus dei) was to ‘pray without ceasing’. The desire to benefit from this endless prayer was what made the monasteries rich, as the nobility provided for the future welfare of their own souls by donating property to religious foundations so as to give them revenue to sustain this spiritual work.