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{{Short description|Days of prayer and fasting in Western Christianity}}
{{Redirect|Rogation}}
{{Infobox holiday
|holiday_name  = Rogation days
|type          = christian
|image         = The Ancient Custom of Blessing the Fields on Rogation Sunday at Hever, Kent - geograph.org.uk - 556094.jpg
|imagesize     = 
|caption       = Blessing the Fields on Rogation Sunday at [[Hever, Kent]] in 1967
|official_name =
|nickname      =
|observedby    = Christians
|litcolor      = Violet
|longtype      =
|significance  =
|begins        = 
|ends          =
|date          = 25 April (Major) <br />Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday preceding Ascension Thursday (Minor)
|scheduling    = same day each year and the 37 to 39 days of Easter (Monday to Wednesday)
|duration      = 4 days (non-consecutive)
|frequency     = annual
<!-- Use next three if holiday is the same day of the same week every year -->
|week_ordinal  = <!-- "first", "second", "last", etc. -->
|weekday       = "Monday", "Tuesday", "Wednesday"
|month         = <!-- "April", "May", "June", etc. -->
<!-- Use next three if the date changes in an unusual pattern each year -->
|date2023      = 25 April; 15–17 May
|date2024      = 25 April; 6–8 May
|date2025      = 25 April; 26–28 May
|celebrations  =
|observances   = Fasting and processions
|relatedto     = [[Ascension Thursday]]
}}

'''Rogation days''' are days of prayer and fasting in [[Western Christianity]]. They are observed with processions and the [[Litany of the Saints]]. The so-called ''major'' rogation is held on 25 April;{{efn|In the rare circumstance of [[Easter|Easter Sunday]] falling on 25 April, the major rogation is transferred to the Tuesday after Easter (cf. [[Code of Rubrics]] of 1960, no. 80); this will next occur in 2038.}} the ''minor'' rogations are held on Monday to Wednesday preceding [[Feast of the Ascension|Ascension Thursday]].<ref name="Plague">{{cite book | last = Reff | first = Daniel T. | title = Plagues, Priests, and Demons: Sacred Narratives and the Rise of Christianity in the Old World and the New | publisher = Cambridge University Press | date = 2005 | pages = 100 | isbn = 9781139442787 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=x9rgtwhqJLsC&q=Robigalia&pg=PA100
}}</ref> In the [[Ambrosian Rite]] minor rogations were celebrated on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday after Ascension, preparing to celebrate Pentecost. The word ''rogation'' comes from the [[Latin]] verb {{Lang|la|rogare}}, meaning "to ask", which reflects the beseeching of God for the appeasement of his anger and for protection from calamities.<ref name="Customs"/>{{sfn|Mershman|1912}}

'''Rogation Sunday''' is celebrated on the 5th Sunday after Easter (also known as the 6th Sunday of Easter) in the [[Anglicanism|Anglican]] tradition.<ref>[https://anglicancompass.com/rogation-days-a-rookie-anglican-guide/ Rogation Days: A Rookie Anglican Guide]</ref><ref>[https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2017-10/9-table-moveable-feasts.pdf A Table of the Movaeble Feasts, www.churchofengland.org]</ref> This day is also known in the [[Lutheranism|Lutheran]] tradition as Rogate Sunday.<ref>Sutton, J., [https://www.ielcth.org/what-is-rogate-sunday/ What is Rogate Sunday?], ''Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church, Terre Haute'', published 5 May 2018, accessed 24 September 2023</ref>

== Christian beginnings ==
The Christian major rogation replaced a pagan [[Roman Empire|Roman]] procession known as [[Robigalia]], at which a dog was sacrificed to propitiate [[Robigus]], the deity of agricultural disease.<ref name="magic">{{cite journal | last = Burriss | first = Eli Edward | title = Some Survivals of Magic in Roman Religion | journal = The Classical Journal | volume = 24 | issue = 2 | pages = 112–123 | publisher = The Classical Association of the Middle West and South | date = 1928 | jstor = 3289524 }}</ref><ref name="Customs">{{cite book | last = Dues | first = Greg | title = Catholic Customs & Traditions: A Popular Guide | publisher = Twenty-Third Publications | date = 1993 | pages = [https://archive.org/details/catholiccustomst00dues/page/39 39] | url = https://archive.org/details/catholiccustomst00dues| url-access = registration | quote = Robigalia. | isbn = 9780896225152 }}</ref> The practitioners observing Robigalia asked Robigus for protection of their crops from [[Wheat leaf rust|wheat rust]].<ref name="Customs"/>

The minor Rogation days were introduced around AD 470 by [[Mamertus]], [[bishop of Vienne]], and eventually adopted elsewhere. Their observance was ordered by the [[First Council of Orléans|Council of Orleans]] in 511, and though the practice was spreading in [[Gaul]] during the 7th century, it was not officially adopted into the [[Roman rite]] until the reign of [[Pope Leo III]] (died 816).<ref>{{cite journal | last = Cook | first = Albert Stanburrough | title =  Augustine's Journey from Rome to Richborough | journal = Speculum | volume = 1 | issue = 4 | pages = 375–397 | date = 1926 | jstor = 2847160 | doi=10.2307/2847160| s2cid = 162451684 }}</ref>

The faithful typically observed the Rogation days by [[Fasting and abstinence in the Roman Catholic Church|fasting and abstinence]] in preparation to celebrate the [[Ascension of Jesus Christ|Ascension]], and farmers often had their crops blessed by a priest at this time.<ref>{{cite book | last = Shepherd | first = John | title = A critical and practical elucidation of the Book of common prayer, and administration of the sacraments, and other rites and ceremonies of the Church | publisher = Oxford University | date = 1801 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=z88HAAAAQAAJ&q=%22rogation%20days%22&pg=PA119}}</ref>  Violet [[vestments]] are worn at the rogation litany and its associated Mass, regardless of what colour is worn at the ordinary liturgies of the day.<ref name="Customs"/>

A common feature of Rogation days in former times was the ceremony of [[beating the bounds]], in which a procession of parishioners, led by the minister, [[churchwarden]], and [[choirboy]]s, would proceed around the boundary of their [[parish]] and pray for its protection in the forthcoming year. This was also known in the northern parts of England as '[[Gangdays|Gang-day]]' or 'gan week', after the old English name for going or walking.<ref name="painful"/> This was also a feature of the original Roman festival, when revellers would walk to a grove five miles from the city to perform their rites.<ref name="magic"/> [[Thomas Johnson (botanist)|Thomas Johnson]] (1633), speaking of the birch tree, mentions another name: Cross-week: "It serveth well to the decking up of houses and banquetting-rooms, for places of pleasure, and for beautifying of streets in the Crosse or Gang Week, and such like."{{sfn|Brand|Ellis|Hazlitt|1905|p=}}

==In the British Isles==

[[File:The order of the procession on the day of the ascent of the Lord before the garrison of the mass.jpg|thumb|alt=Original picture from the Catholic Church regarding the order of the procession for Rogation days in the South of England. From around the 13th to 15th centuries.|Woodcut illustration of Pre-Reformation processional order, c. early 16th century]]

The Rogation Day ceremonies are thought to have arrived in the [[British Isles]] in the 7th century.

The oldest known [[Sarum Rite|Sarum]] text regarding Rogation Days is dated from around 1173 to 1220.<ref name ="painful">{{cite journal | last = Houseman | first = Michael | title = Painful Places: Ritual Encounters with One's Homelands | journal = The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute | volume = 4 | issue = 3 | pages = 447–467 | date = 1998 | jstor = 3034156 | doi=10.2307/3034156| url = https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00119425/file/Painful_Places.pdf }}</ref> In it, celebrations in the south of England are described, in which processions were led by members of the congregation carrying banners which represented various biblical characters. At the head of the procession was the dragon, representing [[Pontius Pilate]], which would be followed by a lion, representing [[Christ]]. After this there would be images of saints carried by the rest of the congregation.<ref name="dragon">{{cite journal | last = Liszka | first = Thomas R. | title = The Dragon in the "South English Legendary": Judas, Pilate, and the "A(1)" Redaction | journal = Modern Philology | volume = 100 | issue = 1 | pages = 50–59 | date = 2002 | jstor = 1215582 | doi=10.1086/493149| s2cid = 161491639 }}</ref> Many torches were present at each procession, weighing between 42&nbsp;lb (19&nbsp;kg) and 27&nbsp;lbs (12&nbsp;kg), which were bought by the church and parishioners jointly.<ref>{{cite journal | last = Pearson | first = Charles Buchanan | title = Some Account of Ancient Churchwarden Accounts of St. Michael's, Bath | journal = Transactions of the Royal Historical Society | volume = 7 | pages = 309–329 | date = 1878 | jstor = 3677891 | doi=10.2307/3677891| url = https://zenodo.org/record/1449751 }}</ref>

[[Salisbury Cathedral|Sarum]] texts from the 13th and 15th centuries show that the dragon was eventually moved to the rear of the procession on the vigil of the Ascension, with the lion taking the place at the front. Illustrations of the procession from the early 16th century show that the arrangements had been changed yet again, this time also showing bearers of [[reliquary|reliquaries]] and [[incense]].<ref name="dragon"/>

During the reign of King [[Henry VIII]], Rogation processions were used as a way to assist crop yields, with a notable number of the celebrations taking place in 1543 when there were prolonged rains.

During the reign of [[Edward VI|King Edward VI]], the Crown having taken much of the [[Church of England|Church]]'s holdings within the country, liturgical ceremonies were not officially condoned or recognized as an official part of worship. However, in the reign of Queen [[Elizabeth I]] the celebrations were explicitly mentioned in the [[Elizabethan Religious Settlement|royal reformation]], allowing them to resume as public processions.<ref name="Elizabethan">{{cite journal | last = Davenport | first = Edwin | title = Elizabethan England's Other Reformation of Manners | journal = ELH | volume = 63 | issue = 2 | pages = 255–278 | date = 1996 | jstor = 30030221 | doi=10.1353/elh.1996.0015| s2cid = 162365937 }}</ref>

Rogation processions continued in the post-Reformation [[Church of England]] much as they had before, and [[Anglican]] priests were encouraged to bring their congregations together for inter-parish processions. At specific intervals, clerics were to remind their congregations to be thankful for their harvests. [[Psalms]] 103 and 104 were sung, and people were reminded of the curses the Bible ascribed to those who violated agricultural boundaries. The processions were not mandatory, but were at the discretion of the local minister, and were also ascribed more importance when a public right of way needed to be protected from agricultural or other expansion.<ref name="Elizabethan"/>

The marches would follow prescribed routes, with York and Coventry being unique in their following [[Royal Entry|royal entries]].<ref>{{cite journal | last = Reynolds | first = Roger E. | title = The Drama of Medieval Liturgical Processions | journal = Revue de Musicologie | volume = 86 | issue = 1 | pages = 127–142 | date = 2000 | jstor = 947285 | doi=10.2307/947285}}</ref> On other routes, altars were erected at certain locations where [[antiphon]]s were sung.<ref>{{cite journal | last = Zika | first = Charles | title = Hosts, Processions and Pilgrimages: Controlling the Sacred in Fifteenth-Century Germany | journal = Past & Present | issue = 118 | pages = 25–64 | date = 1988 | jstor = 650830 | doi=10.1093/past/118.1.25}}</ref>

Any [[Roman Catholic]] imagery or icons were banned from the processions. The then Archdeacon of Essex, [[Edmund Grindal|Grindal of London]], besought the church explicitly to label the tradition as a perambulation of the parish boundaries ([[beating the bounds]]), further to distance it from the Catholic liturgy. In the book ''Second Tome of Homelys'', a volume containing officially sanctioned homilies of the Elizabethan church, it was made clear that the English Rogation was to remember town and other communal boundaries in a social and historical context, with extra emphasis on the stability gained from lawful boundary lines.<ref name="Elizabethan"/>

For years after Rogation Days were recognized, the manner in which they were observed in reality was very different from the official decree. Even before religious sensibilities turned towards the [[puritans|puritanical]], there were concerns about the lack of piety at such events.<ref name="henry">{{cite journal | last = Stilgoe | first = John R. | title = Jack·o'·lanterns to Surveyors: The Secularization of Landscape Boundaries | journal = Environmental Review | volume = 1 | issue = 1 | pages = 14–16 and 18–30 | publisher = Forest History Society and American Society for Environmental History | date = 1976 | doi = 10.2307/3984295 | jstor = 3984295 | s2cid = 147330346 }}</ref> While it was officially ordered that the entire congregation attend, bishops began urging their priests to invite only older and more pious men. This, they believed, would stop the drunken revelry. Royal Injunctions concerning the practice were reinterpreted to restrict and regulate participants of the festivities.<ref name="Elizabethan"/> [[Robert Herrick (poet)|Robert Herrick]] penned a piece to capture the mood of the celebrations before their repression:

{{poemquote|Dearest, bury me
Under that Holy-oak, or Gospel Tree
Where (though thou see'st not) thou may'st think upon
Me, when you yearly go'st Procession.{{citation needed|date=February 2021}}}}

In London, Rogation Days, just like [[Easter]] or [[Hocktide]], were times when begging was "legitimate" for the period of celebration.<ref>{{cite journal | last = Hitchcock | first = Tim | title = Begging on the Streets of Eighteenth-Century London | journal = Journal of British Studies | volume = 44 | issue = 3 | pages = 478–498 | date = 2005 | jstor = 429704 | doi=10.1086/429704| hdl = 2299/33 | url = http://uhra.herts.ac.uk/bitstream/2299/33/1/100205.pdf | hdl-access = free }}</ref> Though not widely celebrated in the modern [[Church of England]], the holiday is still observed in some areas.<ref name="pope"/>

==In the Americas==
===Catholic===
The reform of the Liturgical Calendar for Roman Catholics in 1969 delegated the establishment of Rogation Days, along with [[Ember Days]], to the [[episcopal conference]]s.<ref>{{citation|author=Pope Paul VI|author-link=Pope Paul VI|title=General Norms for the Liturgical Year and Calendar|page=11|url=https://www.liturgyoffice.org.uk/Resources/GIRM/Documents/GNLY.pdf}}</ref> Their observance in the Latin Church subsequently declined, but the observance has revived somewhat since Pope John Paul II allowed Rogation days as a permitted, but not mandated, observance.<ref name="pope">{{cite book | last = Melton | first = J. Gordon | title = Religious Celebrations: An Encyclopedia of Holidays, Festivals, Solemn Observances, and Spiritual Commemorations | volume = 1 | pages = 749 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=KDU30Ae4S4cC&q=%22Pope%20John%20Paul%20II%22%20%22Rogation%20days%22&pg=PA749 | isbn =9781598842050| date = 2011-09-13 | publisher = Abc-Clio }}</ref> For those Catholics who continue to celebrate Mass according to the [[General Roman Calendar of 1960]] or earlier, the Rogation Days are still kept, unless a higher ranking feast would occur on the day.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Liturgical Calendar|url=http://www.fsspolgs.org/liturgical-aids/liturgical-calendar/|access-date=2021-05-12|website=Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary|language=en-US}}</ref>

===Anglican===
The new, Protestant version of the Rogation days became such a fixture in Church life that the tradition was carried over to the English churches across the British Empire, including to the Americas by British colonists in Bermuda, [[Jamaica]], [[Barbados]], Virginia and [[South Carolina]].<ref>{{cite journal | last = Beasley | first = Nicholas M. | title = Ritual Time in British Plantation Colonies, 1650-1780 | journal = Church History | volume = 76 | issue = 3 | pages = 541–568 | publisher = Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Society of Church History | date = 2007 | doi = 10.1017/S0009640700500572 | jstor = 27645033 | s2cid = 164181942 }}</ref> Rogation days continue as an optional observance in the [[Episcopal Church (United States)|Episcopal Church]],<ref>[https://www.bcponline.org/ Book of Common Prayer (Online), p.18]</ref> and in Anglican Provinces around the world. Although early Rogation celebrations were associated with rural life, agriculture and fishing, the [[Book of Common Prayer]] in many jurisdictions has been expanded to include [[Proper (liturgy)|propers]] for commerce and industry and the stewardship of creation, as well as a fruitful season, and rubrics were added for their use.<ref>[https://www.episcopalchurch.org/glossary/rogation-days/ "Rogation Days", The Episcopal Church]</ref>

== See also ==
{{Portal|Christianity}}
* [[Ember days]]
* [[Triduum]]

==Notes==
{{notelist}}

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

===Sources===
{{refbegin|indent=yes}}
*{{cite book|title=Brand's popular antiquities of Great Britain|editor1-last= Brand|editor1-first= John|editor2-last=Ellis|editor2-first= Henry |editor3-last=Hazlitt|editor3-first= William Carew|date=1905|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=djTYAAAAMAAJ}}
*{{Cite CE1913|wstitle=Rogation Days|first=Francis |last=Mershman|volume=13}}
{{refend}}

==Further reading==
{{refbegin|indent=yes}}
* {{in lang|it}} Vito Pallabazzer: ''Lingua e cultura ladina'',  [[Belluno]] 1985, p.&nbsp;502 (about the rogation days in [[Ladin language|Ladin tradition]])
{{refend}}

== External links ==
* [http://www.liturgies.net/Rogation/RogationDays.htm Rogation Days] at liturgies.net
* [http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13110b.htm Catholic Encyclopedia article]

{{Liturgical year of the Catholic Church}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Eastertide]]
[[Category:Latin Church]]