In the Roman Breviary the feast was only a semi-double (in other breviaries a minor double) up to the time of Pius V, who, in his new Breviary (1568), raised it to a double of the second class with an octave (G. Schober, "Expl. rit. brev. rom.", 1891, p. 38). He also introduced the two hymns "Salvete flores martyrum" and "Audit tyrannus anxius", which are fragments of the Epiphany hymn of Prudentius. Before Pius V the Church of Rome sang the Christmas hymns on the feast of the Holy Innocents. The proper preface of the Gelasian Sacramentary for this feast is still found in the Ambrosian Missal. We possess a lengthy hymn in honour of the Holy Innocents from the pen of the Venerable Bede, "Hymnum canentes martyrum" (Dreves, "Analecta hymnica") and a sequence composed by Notker, "Laus tibi Christe", but most Churches at Mass used the "Clesa pueri concrepant melodia" (Kehrein, "Sequenzen", 1873, p. 348). At Bethlehem the feast is a Holy Day of obligation. The liturgical colour of the Roman Church is purple, not red, because these children were martyred at a time when they could not attain the beatific vision. But of compassion, as it were, towards the weeping mothers of Bethlehem, the Church omits at Mass both the Gloria and Alleluia; this custom, however, was unknown in the Churches of France and Germany. On the octave day, and also when the feast falls on a Sunday, the Roman Liturgy, prescribes the red colour, the Gloria, and the Alleluia. In England the feast was called "Childermas".