ROGATION DAYS (

Lat. rogatio, from rogare, to beseech; the

See also:

• EQUIVALENT

equivalent of Gr. )  .araveta, litany), in the Calendar of the Christian Church, the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday before Ascension Day, so called because long associated with the chanting of litanies in procession (rogationes) . The week in which they occur is sometimes called Rogation Week . In 511 the first Council of Orleans ordered that the three days pre-ceding Ascension Day should be celebrated as rogation days with fasting and rogationes . All work was to be suspended that all might join in the processions . Leo III . (pope 795—816) introduced rogation days, but without the fasting, at Rome . St Augustine had earlier introduced the custom into the English Church, learning i t on his way through Gaul . The Council of Clovesho in 747 confirmed Augustine's injunction, and ordered that the rogation days be kept up " according to the way of our fathers." The place-name " Gospel Oak," which occurs in London and elsewhere, is a relic of these rogation processions, the gospel of the day being read at the foot of the finest oak the parish boasted . After the Reformation the processions gradually ceased to be ecclesiastical in England, and are now practically secularized into the perambulation of the parish boundaries on or about Ascension Day . See also PROCESSION and LITANY .