Eastertide
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Eastertide is the archaic English term for what is now called the Easter Season. Eastertide began on Easter Sunday and continued until Pentecost in the Christian liturgical calendar, thus spanning a total of seven weeks. Some denominations — most notably the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican churches — formerly included the succeeding two weeks as well. The first eight days of the Eastertide are commonly referred to as the Octave of Easter.
Until 1970, the Roman Catholic calendar labelled the Sundays following Easter Sunday as "Sundays After Easter," the first such Sunday often being called Low Sunday, the next Sunday the Second Sunday After Easter, the Sunday after that the Third Sunday After Easter, and so on. The fifth Sunday after Easter was sometimes called Rogation Sunday, or "the Sunday before the Rogation days". On the Thursday after the aforementioned Sunday, forty days after Easter Sunday, is the feast of the Ascension, and the Sunday falling three days after this was known as the "Sunday After Ascension" and not the "Sixth Sunday After Easter." Pentecost is the next Sunday, followed by Trinity Sunday, and four days after the latter, the feast of Corpus Christi. The calendar week (Sunday through Saturday) beginning on Trinity Sunday was deemed the last week of the Easter season, which thus encompassed nine weeks.
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