TITLE X.--THE TRANSLATION OF FEASTS.

When several offices fall on the same day, only one office, the one of
highest rank or most important, is said. The others are transferred or
commemorated. The last section dealt with commemorations, and now we
come to the difficult question of the translation of feasts. Title X. of
the general rubrics must be read in connection with the Apostolic
Constitution, _Divino Afflatu_ (1911) and with the _Abhinc duos
Annos_ (1913).

Translation of a feast may mean the removal of a feast from an impeded
day to a day which is free. Thus a feast of higher rank may fall on a
feast day of a saint whose feast is of lower rank; the latter may then
be transferred. Transference is either perpetual or accidental and
temporary. The former applies to feasts which are always impeded by the
meeting with a feast of higher rite on their fixed days. A feast which
would fall on 6th January would suffer perpetual translation. This
translation bears different names in rubrics, decrees and liturgical
writings--_translatio ad diem, fixam, translatio ad diem assignatam,
mutatio, etc._ Accidental translation means occasional transference, a
transfer in one year and not in another.

Title II., section i, of the _Divino Afflatu_ gives the characters of
preferential rank which are to be considered in occurrence, concurrence
or translation of feasts, _Ritus altior, ratio primarii aut secundarii,
Dignitas Personalis, solemnitas externa_.

Although in the General Rubrics of the Breviary, the title _De Festorum
praestantia_ is not found, the four principles, (1)gradation of rite,
(2)classification as a primary or secondary feast, (3)personal dignity,