MARTYROLOGY, called also calendar of the saints, the acts of the saints, menology, anology, synaxary, a list of martyrs and other saints, in which was sometimes noted the char acter of their lives, and in the case of a martyr the place and date of his martyrdom and the nature of the sufferings which he underwent. Baronius, an ecclesiastical historian of the 16th century, attributes to Saint Clement of Rome, almost contemporary with the apostles, the first idea of collecting the acts of the martyrs. In the time of Gregory the Great (end of the 6th century) the Church possessed a general martyrology, the author of which is said to have been Saint Jerome, who made use of ma terials collected by Eusebius of Caesarea. The only part of it now extant is a catalogue of the martyrs who suffered in Palestine during the last eight years of the persecution of Diocletian. There is a martyrology attributed to Bede (be ginning of 8th century), hut if not altogether spurious it is at least interpolated. Numerous martyrologies were produced in the next cen tury and subsequently. In 1586, under the
auspices of Sixtus V, a martyrology was printed at Rome, with notes by Baronius, with the title of