COLLATION, the bringing together of things for the pur pose of comparison, and thus the critical examination of the texts of documents or mss. (Lat. collatio from con f erre, to bring together or compare) ; also used in printing and bookbinding for the register of the "signatures," the number of quires and leaves in each quire of a book or ms. In Roman and Scots law "colla tion" answers to the English law term "hotch-pot" (q.v.). From another meaning of the Latin word, a consultation or conference, and so a treatise, comes the title of a work of Johannes Cassianus (q.v.), the Conferences of the Fathers (Collationes Patrum). Readings from such works were customary in monasteries. By the rule of St. Benedict it is ordered that after supper collationes, passages from the lives of the Fathers, etc., should be read. On fast days it was usual in monasteries to have a light meal after the Collatio, hence the meal itself came to be called "collation," a term now used of any light repast.