The ceremony of washing the feet of poor persons on the day before Good Friday was instituted in commemoration of Christ's washing the apostles' feet at the Last Supper, and of his injunction that his disciples should in like manner wash one another's feet (John xiii. 14). The words ‘A new commandment (mandatum novum) give I unto you, that ye love one another’ (ibid. 34) from the discourse which followed the washing of the apostles' feet, were adopted as the first antiphon sung at the commemorative observance, which hence acquired the name of mandatum. (Hence OHG. mandât, in Otfrid's paraphrase of John xiii. 11-14.) In later use, perh. owing to the currency of dies mandati (lit. ‘day of the commandment’) as a name for the day before Good Friday, mandatum frequently denoted the Last Supper itself.]