EMBER DAYS and EMBER WEEKS, the four seasons set apart by the Western Church for special prayer and fasting, and the ordination of clergy, known in the mediaeval Church as quatuor tempora, or ieiunia quatuor temporum. The Ember weeks are the complete weeks next following Holy Cross day (Sep tember 14), St. Lucy's day (December 13), the first Sunday in Lent and Whit Sunday. The Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays of these weeks are the Ember days distinctively, the following Sundays being the days of ordination. The derivation of the word from Anglo-Saxon ymb-ren, a circuit or revolution, is confirmed by the use of the word imbren in the acts of the Council of Aenham, A.D. I009 ("ieiunia quatuor tempora quae imbren vocant"). It corresponds also with Pope Leo the Great's definition, "ieiunia ecclesiastics per totius anni circulum distributa." The observance of the Ember days is confined to the Western Church, and had its origin as an ecclesiastical ordinance in Rome. They were probably at first merely the fasts preparatory to the three great festivals of Christmas, Easter and Pentecost. A fourth was subsequently added, for the sake of symmetry, to make them correspond with the four seasons, and they became known as the ieiunium vernuen, aestivum, autumnale and hiemale. From Rome the Ember days gradually spread throughout Western Christen dom, but neither in Gaul nor Spain do they seem to have been generally recognized much before the 8th century. Their intro duction into Britain appears to have been earlier, dating from Augustine, A.D. 597, acting under the authority of Gregory the Great. Lack of uniformity led to the rule now observed being laid down under Pope Urban II. in A.D. 1095.
The present rule which fixes the ordination of clergy in the Ember weeks cannot be traced farther back than the time of Pope Gelasius, A.D. 492-496.
Dissert. de ieiun. quat. temp., c. vii., anecdot. torn. ii. p. 262 ; Bingham, Antiq. of the Christ. Church, bk. iv. ch. vi. § 6, bk. xxi. ch. ii. §§ 1-7; Binterin, Denkwdrdigkeiten, vol. v. part 2, pp. 133 ff.; Augusti, Handbuch der christlich. Archdol. vol. i. p. 465, iii. p. 486.