Tomorrow is Rogation Day. The name and the event are not as well-known in modern times as they once were, but the day remains on some liturgical calendars throughout the Christian world. Rogation comes from the Latin word, “rogare,” which means “to ask,” and the day is one of asking the Lord to bless the fields and the harvests of the newly planted crops.
In medieval and early modern times in England, the event was celebrated with great exuberance, including processions and blessings of the fields. Extant engravings depict the scenes in farming villages with large numbers of people joining in the procession. The day was considered to be the beginning of the growing season, and indeed of spring, even though coming a month after the vernal equinox, which occurs about March 21.
Before scientific advances explained the nature of agricultural diseases, wheat rust was a major threat to crop production and in pagan times people had used this occasion to offer sacrifice to the Roman god, Robigus, and the celebration was called Robigalia.
Robigus was the deity of agricultural disease, thus the offerings and festivities were designed to placate him, lest he visit their crops with wheat rust. The morbid aspect of the event was the sacrificing of a dog to pay homage to Robigus.
With the coming of Christianity,the practice assumed a new turn, devoid of its pagan practices. The Roman historian, Pliny, wrote that April 25 had been chosen as the Rogation Day because that was the date when wheat was seen as being most vulnerable to rust.
In the Christian era the day remained one of supplication, part of which included fasting and abstinence from meat, which also would be in preparation for the coming of Ascension Thursday. As such, the occasion heralded a brief return to Lenten observances between the two great feasts of Easter and the Ascension. Christians observed April 25 as the Major Rogation, with the three days before the feast of the Ascension as Minor Rogation Days.
Along with the Rogation Days, early Christians also instituted Ember Days. These commemorations occurred four times a year, signifying the four seasons. They included fasting and abstinence, again with the aim of offering supplication for the change of seasons. The name probably references the Latin term, “quatuor tempora,” which means “four times.”
Each Ember Day commemoration lasted three days, with the purpose of giving thanks to the Lord for the bounties of the land, to ask guidance in using them productively, and to give assistance to those in need, thus the events were early attempts to practice what in our time we call sustainability.
In the Middle Ages, English Christians called the times “ymber days,” and they developed special recipes for the occasion every three months, the highlight of which was the ymber tart, a concoction that offered minimal nutrition for a day of fasting. Modern researchers have found recipes for the tarts, which some eateries have revived and put on menus.
As with the Rogation Days, Ember Days originally were associated with agricultural happenings, but gradually they came to focus chiefly on the fall observance, which was in tandem with Michelmas, September 29, the feast of Saint Michael the Archangel. At that time, as farmers were preparing to reap their harvests, they sought blessing on their efforts.
Rogation Days and Ember Days do not receive the attention in the modern world that they did in earlier times, but ironically despite scientific advances in agricultural production and disease control, the purposes of those commemorations have not been lost.
Happy Rogation Day!
