HISTOKY
OF
THE ROMAN BREVIARY
HISTOBY
OF THE
EOMAN BEEVIAEY
BY PIEEEE BATIFFOL, LITT.D.
TRANSLATED BY
ATWELL M. Y. BAYLAY, M.A.
VICAR OF THUBGABTON, NOTTS
WITH A NEW PREFACE BY THE AUTHOR
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO,
39 PATEKNOSTER ROW, LONDON
NEW YORK AND BOMBAY
1898
<
A.11 rights reserved
FEB 6 195?
PEE FACE
DE
L EDITION ANGLAISE
NOTKE Histoire du Breviaire romam, que le zele si soigneux
et si eclaire" de M. Baylay a pris la peine de traduire en
anglais, a paru en frangais dans les premiers jours de 1893,
et six mois plus tard une seconde Edition en fut donne"e
par nous, qui differait de la premiere en ce que les pages
193-208 avaient ete inte"gralement refondues. C est cette
seconde edition qui est actuellement encore dans le com
merce, et que la pre"sente Edition anglaise reproduit.
Toutefois, depuis 1893, des critiques qui m ont ete
adresse"s, des recherches que j ai pu faire, des travaux
d autrui qui ont 6te" publics, il y avait quelque fruit a re-
tirer dont la prsente Edition anglaise 6tait en droit de
profiter. Sur mes indications M. Baylay a bien voulu
corriger un certain nombre d erreurs materielles, et je dois
a son acribie de m en avoir signal^ plusieurs qui m avaient
echappe 1 . La Geschichte des Breviers de Dom Baumer,
VI HISTOKY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
parue en 1895, m a fourni peu de chose : la raison en est
que cet ouvrage avait paru pour une bonne part en articles
de revues ante"rieurs a mon livre meme, articles que je
connaissais quand j e crivis mon Histoire du Breviaire
romain ; pour une autre part la Geschichte des Breviers
depend de mon propre livre ; pour une troisieme part elle
le contredit et le critique. Mon intention ne saurait etre
de transformer cette histoire en controverse, surtout en
controverse contre un religieux dont je m honore d avoir
ete 1 ami, et dont la mort pr6maturee m a et6 un deuil
sensible. II me suffira de dire que sur les points capitaux
ou mon opinion differe de celle de 1 erudit Ben6dictin de
Beuron, sur ceux-la surtout ou il qualifie mon sentiment
de neue Theorie, ses raisons ne m ont nullement con-
verti au sentiment qu il defend. Pour la presente Edition
anglaise, j emprunterai a la Geschichte des Breviers
quelques indications concernant les reformes du XVI e
siecle, indications que Dom Baumer a et6 le premier a
produire. Je crois que pour la periode qui va du concile
de Trente a Benoit XIV 1 histoire du breviaire est main-
tenant bien connue. Pour le moyen age, je salue avec joie
la publication de M. Ehrensperger, Libri liturgici Biblio-
thecae Apostolicae Vaticanae manuscripti (Fribourg-B,
1897), comme le commencement de cette inventaire
critique des manuscrits liturgiques, qui sera le travail pre-
paratoire indispensable a mener a bon terme avant de
pouvoir entreprendre une histoire definitive de la liturgie
romaine de 1 onice divin. Je salue aussi la grande ceuvre
scientifique que nos Ben6dictins fra^ais de Solesmes pour-
PEEFACE DE L EDITION ANGLAISE Vll
suivent avec tant de zele, leur Paleographie Musicale ;
on y voit que I arch6ologie musicale est encore a sa pre
miere pe"riode, la pe"riode des fouilles et des coups de
pioche, comme les Be"ne"dictins le disent eux-memes ;
mais deja que d indications heureuses et de trouvailles de
detail ! Je salue enfin la promesse que nous font les
memes Be"nedictins de nous donner bientot un Auctarmm,
ou nous trouverons e dite^s en une se"rie complete les anciens
livres liturgiques, a commencer par les livres milanais.
Ce sont la autant d entreprises de bon augure, et qui per-
mettent d espe"rer bien des progres pour les historiens qui
reprendront dans quelque vingt ans 1 histoire des sources
du br6viaire remain.
Puisse mon livre, provisoire comme il est sur tant de
points, faire du moms aimer notre antique liturgie romaine.
Et puisqu il est traduit en anglais en cette memorable
annee ou d un cceur e"galement e"mu catholiques anglicans
et catholiques romains nous ce le brons le centenaire de la
venue de Saint Augustin en Angleterre,le centenaire aussi
de 1 initiation de 1 Angleterre a la liturgie de Saint-Pierre,
puisse-t-il porter avec lui 1 ^cho de cette unanimite" des
anciens jours, et contribuer dans son humble mesure a
I int6grale restauration d un passe" qui nous est si cher.
P. B.
PARIS, 25 dtcembre, 1897.
TRANSLATOR S NOTE
IT has been my effort, throughout this translation, without
any straining after literalness, to give the author s mean
ing fully and faithfully, and, in so far as I have failed, I
can only beg forgiveness both of him and of my readers.
I have not felt it my business to put forward my own
opinions on any part of the subject.
As will have been seen in the foregoing Preface, this
translation is no mere reproduction of the second French
edition : it incorporates, in fact, a great deal, both in the
way of recasting and expansion, newly contributed by
M. BATIFFOL, of whose kindness, not only in so willingly
giving permission for the publication of an English trans
lation of his work, but in manifesting the warmest and
most unwearied interest in its progress, I cannot speak too
gratefully.
The references and notes are M. BATIFFOL s, except a
few marked A. B. I have ventured to add English ver
sions of the principal Latin passages quoted, as I hope
the book will be read with interest by many of my
X HISTOKY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
countrymen who are not better acquainted with Latin than
with French.
My best thanks are due to the Eevs. E. G. WOOD and
C. F. G. TURNER for many valuable hints, and to my
old friend Mr. LACEY for allowing me to avail myself
throughout of his well-known learning and acumen.
I hope that some of my readers, not hitherto familiar
with the Breviary, will be led to desire its better acquain
tance : I am sure that those who know and love it already
will love it all the more.
PREFACE
TO
THE FIEST FEENCH EDITION
THE author of this Manual, while calling it a History of
the Roman Breviary, has been far from supposing that so
great a subject could be exhaustively treated in so few
pages. His object has been to summarise, and on some
points to state more precisely, and with all possible clear
ness, the results reached or led up to by such learned
writers as Cardinal Bona, Cardinal Tommasi, Thomassin,
Dom Gueranger, and Monsignor de Eoskovany. In sum
marising these results, he has in every case verified them
by reference to their original sources, being determined
that, though his work was to popularise the subject, it
should be work at first hand, and give direct information.
He has even been led to revise them, not considering him
self forbidden to make researches on his own account, to
classify in accordance with his personal observation, and
to draw conclusions on his own responsibility and at his
Xll HISTOKY OF THE EOMAN BEEVIARY
own risk. But in thus treating this vast subject it has not
been possible for him to avoid seeing how many unex
plored countries are still to be found in that ancient con
tinent. We are still without a critical edition of the Liber
Responsalis of the Boman Church ; we have no collection
or scientific classification of the most ancient Ordines
Romani ; no catalogue of the Eoman liturgical books from
the eighth to the thirteenth century ; no catalogue or
classification of monastic breviaries of dates anterior to
the thirteenth century, or of breviaries, whether Eoman or
non-Eoman, from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century ;
we have not even a descriptive account of printed Eoman
breviaries ! Not to speak of documents which might be
published relating to the various reforms of the Eoman
Breviary in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth
centuries. A man might gladly devote years to such re
searches, but then, the book he would write would not be
a Manual : a collection such as the Analecta Liturgica of
Mr. Weale would be none too large. So one must needs
restrain oneself, and be content simply to strive to keep in
the right track, and guide others along it.
The author has endeavoured to avoid those practical
questions of ritual which depend either on moral theology
or on the decisions of the Congregation of Eites ; and still
more to keep clear of the prejudices which, in France at
least, have too long embittered such questions. His aim
has been to treat the subject from the standpoint of
Christian archaeology and the history of Christian litera
ture. More fortunate than some liturgical writers of the
PREFACE TO THE FIRST FRENCH EDITION Xlii
last generation, we are now able to speak of liturgy
without being influenced by external considerations ; we
can criticise and we can admire without reference to any
other matter ; taking for the guiding principle of our ap
preciation those admirable words, worthy of S. Gregory,
though they are not his, non pro locis res, sed pro rebus
loca nobis amanda sunt. 1
Newman, while still an Anglican, could write this re
markable passage :
1 There is so much of excellence and beauty in the services of the
Breviary, that, were it skilfully set before the Protestant by Roman
controversialists as the book of devotions received in their Commu
nion, it would undoubtedly raise a prejudice in their favour, if he
were ignorant of the circumstances of the case, and but ordinarily
candid and unprejudiced. 2
It is this excellence and beauty of the Eoman office
which I have endeavoured to express, just as I have my
self been sensible of it. And as to the circumstances of
the case, alluded to by Newman, I have considered it
my duty to analyse them just as they are, without
attempting to minimise them, being well convinced that
they would not tend to diminish the general impression
of esteem and admiration which the Eoman Breviary must
produce, whether considered as regards its contents or the
sources from which they are drawn. It is the impression
1 [ We are not to love things for the sake of the place where we
find them, but places for the sake of the good things we find there.
S. Gregory s letter to S. Augustine, as given by Bede, i. 27. A.B.]
2 Tracts for the Times, No. 75, On the Roman Breviary, p. 1.
xiv HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
I have experienced in tracing back from the sixteenth
century to the thirteenth, from the thirteenth to the
seventh, the traditions of the Roman Liturgy ; in studying
in their authentic text the most ancient cursus of the
Eoman basilicas, and of the Vatican basilica above all ; in
transplanting myself, as it were, into ancient times, and
becoming like ono of those Anglo-Saxon clerks of the
seventh century, who came on pilgrimage to the tomb of
the Prince of the Apostles, and who, at once influenced by
the authority and enthralled by the mystic beauty of the
Or do Eomanus and the Gregorian chant, asked of S. Peter
that he would teach them to pray, themselves repeating
to him the Doce nos orare of the Gospel. May the Eoman
Church pardon me if my predilection for these ancient
forms of her liturgy has made me too severe or less judi
cious a critic of those which are more modern, or if that
predilection has sometimes betrayed itself in what I have
written.
PARIS : November 11, 1892.
CONTENTS
PAGK
PREFACE DE L EDITION ANQLAISE . v
TRANSLATOR S NOTE ix
PREFACE TO THE FIRST FRENCH EDITION xi
CHAP.
I. THE GENESIS OF THE CANONICAL HOURS .... 1
II. THE SOURCES OF THE KOMAN ORDO PSALLENDI . . . 39
III. THE EOMAN CANONICAL OFFICE IN THE TIME OF CHARLE
MAGNE 90
IV. THE MODERNUM OPFICIUM AND THE BREVIARIES OF THE
CURIA 158
V. THE BREVIARY OF THE COUNCIL OF TRENT . . . 229
VI. THE PROJECTS OF BENEDICT XIV 289
CONCLUSION ... . 351
xvi HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIAEY
APPENDICES
PAGE
A. EXTRACTS FROM THE ORDO OF MONTPELLIER . . . 357
B. EXTRACTS FROM THE ORDO OF S. AMAND . . , . 360
C. EXTRACTS FROM THE ANONYMOUS LITURGICAL WORK PRINTED
BY GERBERT 365
D. TRANSLATION OF SOME PASSAGES IN THE EXTRACTS . . 377
E. LIST OF M. BATIFFOL S OTHER CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE HIS
TORY OF THE BREVIARY . .384
INDEX . . . 385
HISTORY
OF THE
BOMAN BEEVIAET
CHAPTER I
THE GENESIS OP THE CANONICAL HOUES
THE Roman canonical Office, of which the Roman Breviary
is an adaptation, dates from the end of the seventh cen
tury or the beginning of the eighth. But this Roman
canonical Office is not by any means a creation, formed in
all its parts at a given date, by some Pope whose name is
unknown to us. It is a composite work : various ages
have contributed to it ; some of the materials which find a
place in it have come from far : it is like the basilica of
St. Peter in the days of Pope Adrian the First.
In the second chapter we shall have to analyse the
materials furnished by Rome herself to this work of her
canonical Office, but we have in the first place to deal
with those which it owes to the common tradition of all
the Churches. To Rome belong its Kalendar, its appa
ratus of antiphons and responds, its chant, and the actual
order of its psalmody ; to Catholic usage belongs the pre
scription of the various hours of prayer : that is to say, the
B
2 HISTOKY OF THE EOMAN BKEVIARY
principle of the Office itself, a principle whose origin and
primitive developments it is important to determine, in
order to be in a better position for understanding the in
dependent application which was made of that principle
by tl}e Roman Church.
I
The principal element in the Divine Office may be, at
all events conjecturally, regarded as being connected with
one of the very earliest Christian ideas.
Our Saviour Jesus Christ died forsaken by His own
disciples, condemned by the Jews, crucified between two
thieves. He rose again the third day, He ascended into
Heaven ; but was that the whole of the triumph which
the prophets had foretold for the Messiah, the Son of
David ? No ! and what had been wanting to Him in His
passage through this world, that royal glory of the Con
queror, so clearly promised by so many prophets, was yet
to be realised in a return which was near at hand, and
which would, in fact, he His accession to His Kingdom.
Christ was going to return in triumph to judge the
world ; the first generation would not pass before His
glory and His royal justice would manifest themselves
in the Holy City and to the whole world ; or rather let us
say, that first generation and many more would pass away
without the loyal children of the new faith losing aught
of their hope and dread of that return, always close at
hand.
Moreover, if the year of His return was uncertain, if
as the Synoptic Gospels testified, its very season was
unknown, the impression was easily formed at an early
date that, as the night of the Holy Saturday which
THE GENESIS OF THE CANONICAL HOUES 3
ushered in the first Easter was that on which the Saviour
came forth alive from the tomb, on such a night also
would He reappear, like the destroying angel who on the
night of the first passover had smitten the first-born of
Egypt and avenged the children of Israel. On that night,
then, it was meet that none should sleep, but watch and
pray till dawn, awaiting the coming of the Lord.
So, from the evening of Holy Saturday to cock-crow on
Easter morning the faithful remained gathered together
in prayer. This explanation of the origin of the vigil of
Easter is very ancient. S. Isidore of Seville (d. 636),
who mentions it, 1 borrowed it from Lactantius 2 (d. 325) ;
S. Jerome alludes to it as an Apostolic tradition. 3 The
1 Etymolog. vi. 17. 2 Divin. Instit. vii. 19.
3 Comment, in Matt. iv. 25 :
Traditio ludaeorum est Chris- The tradition of the Jews is
tuna media nocte venturum in that Christ will come at midnight,
similitudinem Aegyptii temporis, as at the time of the going forth
quando Pasoha celebratum est et from Egypt, when the Passover
exterminator venit, et Dominus was celebrated, and the destroy -
super tabernacula transiit, et san- ing angel came ; when the Lord
guine agni postes nostrarum fron- passed over our dwellings, and
tium consecrati sunt. Unde reor our door-posts were hallowed by
et traditionem apostolicam per- the blood of the lamb. Whence
mansisse ut, in die vigiliarum also I think that the Apostolic
Paschae, ante noctis dimidium tradition has survived, of not
populos dimittere non liceat, allowing the people to be dis-
expectantes adventum Christi. missed before midnight on the
Et postquam illud tempus trans- vigil of Easter, in expectation of
ierit, securitate praesumpta, fes- the coming of Christ. But after
turn cuncti agunt diem. Unde et that hour has passed, all, with
Psalmista dicebat, Media nocte confidence of safety, celebrate the
surgebam ad confitendum Tibi festival. Whence the Psalmist
super indicia iustificationis also said, "At midnight I will
Tuae. rise to give thanks unto Thee,
because of Thy righteous judg
ments " (Ps. cxviii. [cxix.], 62).
B2
4 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
vigil of Easter was, to use S. Augustine s expression, the
mother of all the holy vigils. l
The Paschal observance being the prototype of the
observance of the Sunday, just in the same way as
Easter had its great night vigil, each Sunday had its night
vigil. The institution of this vigil is as old as the insti
tution of the Sunday itself. It has been remarked that
it already makes its appearance in the letter of Pliny
about the Christians, where we read : The Christians
affirm that their crime or their error consists in nothing
more than this, that they are accustomed to meet together
on certain fixed days before sunrise ; to sing together a
hymn to Christ as God ; . . . which being done, they
separate, and meet again afterwards to take a repast in
common. 2 This meeting before sunrise on a fixed day,
a meeting distinct from the Eucharistic assembly, and
devoted to the singing of a liymn to Christ, can be
nothing else, so it is conjectured, but the Sunday vigil.
In strictness, the Sunday vigil, like that of Easter,
ought to have lasted all night, and hence came its ancient
Greek name of Travvvx^- But, as a general rule, the Sunday
vigil only began at cock-crow, an hour varying with the
season, but always after midnight. In order, however, to
remain faithful to the primitive idea of the vigil, Christians
devoted to prayer the beginning of the night, the time
just after sunset, when the first lamps were lighted. This
hour was called in Greek XV^VLKOV, in Latin lucernare,
or, as S. Ambrose somewhere says, liora incensi, the
hour of incense. So what we call Vespers was, in its
origin, the first part of the night vigil. It is true, this
1 Scrm. ccxix. 2 Plin. Epist. x. 97.
THE GENESIS OF THE CANONICAL HOURS 5
idea of its original oneness with the night vigil was early
lost. But Methodius (d. 311) is mindful of it, when he
(Compares the life of virgins to a vigil, which, like all vigils,
tiad three periods : the evening watch, the second watch,
and the third watch (vigilia vesper tina, secunda, tertia),
representing youth, middle age, and old age. 1 So John
Cassian, at the beginning of the fifth century, preserves
the same tradition when he includes the office of Vespers
and that of the cock-crowing under the one> title of night-
office. 2 This, then, is my idea of the origin ; of the liturgy
of prayer. Is there any need for me to call attention to
the fact that everything so far is of necessity uncertain ?
Let us pass on rapidly to firmer ground.
The programme of the vigil office comprised three
different exercises : the psalmody, the reading of Holy
Scripture, and the prayers or collects. Tertullian, when
speaking of the Sunday observances, distinguishes these
three constituent parts : in ecclesia, inter Dominica
solemnia . . . psalmi canuntur . . . scripturae leguntur
. . . petitiones delegantur. Psalms, lessons, prayers :
such is the composition of the vigil office. 3
1 Sympos, v. 2. 2 Coenob. Institut. iii. 8.
y
1 Speaking of a prophetess of his sect, the Montanists (D
Anima, 9) :
Est hodie soror apud nos We have now among us a
revelationum charismata sortita, sister gifted with revelations,
quas in ecclesia inter dominica which she receives in spirit, in
solemnia per ecstasin in spiritu an ecstasy, while the Sunday
patitur. . . . lamvero prout observances in church are pro-
Scripturae leguntur, aut psalmi needing. For according as, the
canuntur, aut adlocutiones pro- Scriptures are being read, fi Uie
feruntur, aut petitiones delegan- Psalms sung, or addresses, de-
tur, ita inde materiae visionibus livered, or prayers offered up,
subministrantur. so from each is matter for her
visions supplied to her.
6 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
The number of those who knew how to read was
small, and books were scarce : the psalmody was not
executed by all the congregation together, but as a solo,
by a cleric (whether deacon or reader), or by a chanter,
styled hypoboleus or modulator, \vho Was not a cleric.
He chanted the psalm to a musical phrase, sometimes
simple, like a recitative, sometimes more ornate. Custom
was divided, in different places, between these two modes
of rendering the psalmody. At Alexandria, as also at
Carthage and at Eome, the simple chant was preferred to
the more ornate. S. Athanasius ordered that the reader
of the psalms should use such slight inflexions of the
voice that he might seem rather to say than to chant them :
Tarn modico flexu vocis faciebat sonare lectorem psalmi
ut pronuncianti vicinior esset quam canentiJ 1 Meanwhile
the congregation listened in silence to the soloist as he
proceeded with the chant of the psalm. But the psalm
always ended with a fixed- phrase set to a well-known
chant, which the congregation sang all together. Such,
for instance, is the origin of the doxology Gloria Patri.
Even in the course of the psalm they interpolated similar
fixed phrases, which the congregation were to chant all
together, after each verse or pair of verses. Such a formula
was called aKpocpri xiov. 2 The chant of the Invitatory
as still used with the Venite, or the refrain of the hymn
Gloria laus et honor, will give some idea of the psalmody
then called Psalmus Eesponsorius. Sozomen, relating the
translation of the body of S. Babylas at Antioch in the
time of Julian the Apostate, speaks of chanters singing
psalms to which the multitude responded Confounded
1 S. August. Confess, x. 33. 2 Constit. Apost. ii. 57.
THE GENESIS OF THE CANONICAL HOURS 7
be all they that worship carved images (Ps. xcvi.
[xcvii.], 7). 1 So again : I took my place on the throne/
writes S. Athanasius, and ordered a deacon to say a
psalm, and the congregation to respond " For his mercy
endureth forever." 2 And S. Augustine : Evodius took
the psalter, and began to chant a psalm, to which we
responded all together " My song shall be of mercy and
judgment : unto Thee, O Lord, will I sing (Ps. c.
[ci.], I). 3 This simple form of psalmody had been
borrowed by the Christians from the custom of the Jews
(Euseb. H. E. ii. 17, 22).
We are assured by John Cassian that the monastic
communities of Egypt at the end of the fourth century
remained faithful to this severe and ancient form of
psalmody. The office of the evening and that of the night,
the two portions of the night office, as Cassian calls them,
were each taken up with the recitation of twelve psalms.
And this number appears to have been fixed at a very
early period, for the Egyptians loved to assert that it
dated back to S. Mark, their first bishop: These twelve
psalms were executed as a solo by a reader^ or rather by
four readers who relieved each other > each of them having
to recite only three psalms in succession; If the psalm
was long, a short pause was made after every ten or
twelve verses. There was no Doxology at the end of the
psalm, but simply a prayer, and at the end of the twelfth
psalm an Alleluya. Then they went on to the reading of
the Scriptures, which comprised two lessons, one being
from the Old Testament and the other from the New, on
every day but Saturday and Sunday, when both were
1 Soz. v. 19. 2 Apol. de Fuga, 24. s Con/, ix. 12.
8 HISTOKY OF THE BOMAN BREVIARY
from the New Testament. During the whole time occu
pied by the psalmody and lessons the monks remained in
absolute silence : they were forbidden to spit, to cough, or
even to sigh in an audible manner ; nothing was to be
heard but one voice ; there seemed to be as it were but
one soul, so rapt was the attention of the congregation.
The two lessons being ended, the congregation, who had
hitherto been seated, knelt down to thank God in silence.
Then, all standing up, the officiant recited a prayer aloud. 1
In the Syrian churches, during the first half of the
fourth century, the vigil offices presented an aspect in
which one easily recognises the same features as in
Egypt, with some important differences. The vigil had
already ceased to be composed, as it was in Egypt, of
two offices of equal length, the evening and the night
office, and consisted of three unequal offices, the evening,
the night, and the morning. In the evening the bishop
assembled the faithful in the church ; the psalms of the
vesper office having been said, the deacon recited a
prayer for catechumens, for the possessed, and for peni
tents. Then, these classes of persons having been dis
missed, he said, Let us, the faithful, pray, and the
congregation, standing up, asked of God silently a quiet
night without sin. The bishop, in his turn, rose, recited
a prayer, and blessed the faithful, after which the deacon
dismissed the congregation. The night office, which was
concluded in the same way, 2 was in itself much what it
was in Egypt : they rose for it at midnight ; there was a
psalmody of a fixed number of psalms with a prayer
after each ; every group of three psalms was followed by
1 Cassian, Coenob. Instit. ii. 4-12 2 Constit. Apost. ii. 59.
THE GENESIS OF THE CANONICAL HOUES 9
an Alleluya ; after the psalmody came the lessons. But,
as soon as the sun appeared, an office was recited, com
posed, like the vesper offices after this time, of invariable
psalms, known as the psalms of the dawn (opOpivoi) viz.
the Deus Deus meus, ad te de luce vigilo (Ps. Ixii. [Ixiii.]), the
Benedicite, and the Gloria in excelsis. 1 Thus to the night
office was added a morning psalmody, corresponding to
that of the evening; it is the origin of what we call
Lauds. But, everything being considered, the trilogy of
Vespers, Nocturns, and Lauds was by no means a develop
ment foreign to the idea of the primitive vigil ; it formed,
on the contrary, its harmonious expression, and recalled
the three periods which Methodius in his definition
distinguished as entering into the .composition of every
vigil.
We have just seen that in Syria, in the first half of
the fourth century, the ,Gloria in .excelsis was reckoned as
one of the psalms of th,e morning .office. In the same
way they reckoned among the vesper psalms the fol
lowing little hymn ;
We praise Thee, we hymn Thee, we bless Thee for Thy great
glory, Lord our King. Father of Christ the Lamb that
was slain and hath tak,en away the sin of the world, to Thee
be praise, to Thee the hymn, to Thee the glory, to Thee Who art
God, even the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Ghost, for
ever and ever. Amen. 2
These are two curiosities of euchology. They are
what used to be called private psalms (psalmi idiotici).
This sort of Christian psalm had been, in the second and
1 Pseud. -Athanas. De Virginitate, 20.
2 Conslit. Apost. vii. 47.
10 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
third centuries, in great favour both With Catholics and
heretics. In a fragment of an anonymous Eoman treatise,
Against the Heresy of Artemon, quoted by Eusebius,
the controversialist opposes to the unitarian innovations
of that heresiarch of the end of the second century the
authority of the Popes Victor and Zephyrimls, who had
condemned him, as also of S. Justin Martyr, S> Clement,
S. Irenaeus, and Melito, who had so clearly affirmed
the Divinity of Christ . . . . and so great a number of
Christian psalms and hymns, compb sed by the faithful
from the very beginning of the Church, wherein they cele
brate Christ, the Word of God, proclaiming Him to be God
Himself. l Paul of Samosataj who was Bishop of Antioch
from 260 to 270, had suppressed the psalms which
were chanted there in honour of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Such is the expression used by the bishops in giving
sentence of deposition against Paul. And what pretext
had the latter alleged in justification of this suppression ?
These psalms, he had said, were not the ancient
psalms of David : they were new, and the work of new
men. 2
The names of sOme authors of neW psalms of this
sort are known; S. Basil mentions Athenogenes, a
martyr of the time of Septimius Severus, as the author of
a psalm, still famous in the fourth century for the
remarkable expression of the dogma of the Trinity which
it is said to have contained. 3 The fragment of Muratori
testifies that Marcidn, in the second half of the second
century, put in circulation a book of psalms of his own
1 Euseb. H. E. v. 28, 5, 2 tb. vii. 30, 10.
3 Basil, De Spiritu Sancto, 73.
THE GENESIS OF THE CANONICAL HOUES 11
way of thinking, S. Dionysius of Alexandria (d. 265)
speaks in praise of the numerous psalms, so dear to a
vast number of the faithful, composed by Nepos, an
Egyptian bishop of the first half of the third century. 1
"Valentine* the great Eoman Gnostic of the time of Anto
ninus (138-161), had also composed psalms, which were
known to Tertullian. 2 Bardesanes, one of his disciples
(A.D. 223), was the author of a collection of 150 psalms,
which were widely used in Syriac-speaking churches ; it
was an entire psalter, and a Gnostic one. 3 More than one
specimen of these psalms has come down to us, especially
in the apocryphal Acts of the Apostles, which are in great
part Gnostic works of the second half of the second
century or the first half of the third ; and we find these
anonymous works distinguished sometimes by a lofty
style of poetry. Such are the Gnostic hymns in the Ada
lohannis and the Acta Thomae. Here is a hymn of the
kind, of Catholic origin, composed in the time of Clement
of Alexandria. 4
EVENING HYMN
Jesu Christ, joyful Light of the holy glory of the Immortal
Father, the Heavenly, the Holy, the Blessed : now being come
unto the setting of the sun, and beholding the light of evening,
we bless the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit of God.
Worthy art Thou at all times to be praised with holy voices,
Son of God that givest Life.
Therefore doth all the world glorify Thee.
1 Euseb. H. E. vii. 24, 4.
2 De Carne Christi, 17 ; cf . Philosophum. vi. 37.
3 Soz. iii. 16.
. 4 Wilh. Christ and M. Paranikas, Anthologia Graeca Carminum
Christianorum, Leipzig, 1871, p. 40 ; cf. Clem. Alex. Paedag. iii. 12
(Christ and Par. op. cit, p. 37). [Routh, Bel. Sacr. torn, iii, 515.]
12 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
Thus in the second and third centuries an original
Christian lyric poetry was developed. It was its misfor
tune to be made all too easily the medium of Gnostic and
Marcionite ideas, and it became, later on, an instrument
in the hands of worse heretics. In the fourth century
the Donatists and Arians made use of similar psalms to
propagate their doctrines. Arius composed to new
melodies songs for sailors and songs for travellers/
which insinuated his pernicious teachings into simple
hearts through the charm of their music. 1 It was quite
enough to discourage the Catholic Church from the use
of such psalms. The metrical hymns of S. Gregory
Nazianzen were never honoured with a place in the
liturgy. By that time, the second half of the fourth
century, the psalmi idiotici had been banished from
Catholic liturgical use. Yet they have not entirely
perished. The beautiful evening psalm quoted above
still forms part of the canonical Office of the Greek
Church. The morning psalm, Gloria in excelsis, banished
from the office of Lauds, found, before the sixth century,
a place in the Eoman Ordo Missae. And the Te Deum,
still sung at the end of Nocturns, is nothing else than a
psalmus idioticus.
The vigil omce, which originally was peculiar to the
observance of Sunday, was early introduced into the
observance of the festivals of martyrs. Each such anni
versary, or natale, as it was called, was observed, like
the Lord s Day, with a Eucharistic assembly preceded by
a vigil (coetus antelucanus). The antiquity of these anni-
1 Philostorg. ii. 2 ; Socrat. vi. 8.
THE GENESIS OF THE CANONICAL HOUES 13
yersaries is attested by a document of the year 155 :
I mean the encyclical letter of the faithful at Smyrna,
announcing the martyrdom of S. Polycarp. It mentions,
as an already established custom, the idea of celebrating
the natale of a martyr by the assembly of the faithful at
the place where his body reposes. 1 It is the same custom
to which allusion is made in the Passion of S. Cyprian,
when it is mentioned as a providential circumstance that
the people of Carthage were celebrating a vigil on the
night which preceded the martyrdom of their bishop :
Concessit ei tune Divina bonitas . . . ut Deipopulus etiam
in sacerdotis passione vigilaret 2 : as if God had caused
the natale of the saint to be celebrated even before his
death. And the author of the Passion of S. Saturninus
of Toulouse has described this custom in excellent
terms, writing thus : The anniversaries of the days on
which the martyrs were crowned in Heaven we celebrate
by vigils and by a Mass. 3 These vigils of martyrs were
not celebrated in city churches, but outside the walls, in
the cemetery where the martyr was buried. Assemble
yourselves, say the Apostolic Constitutions in the
fourth century, in the cemeteries, to read the Holy
Scriptures and sing psalms over the bodies of the martyrs
who sleep there, and to offer there the Eucharistic
sacrifice. 4
1 Martyrium Polyc. 18.
2 Euinart, Acta Sincera, p. 186 : The divine bounty granted to
him that the people of God were keeping vigil at the very time of the
passion of their Priest.
3 Ib. p. 109 : Illos dies, quibus in Dominici nominis confessione
luctantes, beatoque obitu regnis caelestibus renascentes . . . coronan-
tur, vigiliis, hymnis, ac sacramentis etiam solemnibus honoramus.
4 Const. Apost. vi. 30.
14 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
Moreover, the Sundays and the anniversaries of the
martyrs were not the only solemnities which in the early
Church had their vigils nocturnae ccmvocatiiones, as
Tertullian calls them. 1 The station days were added
to them at an early date. Just as the Jews iasted twice
in the week, so did the Christians. The Teaching of
the Apostles, at the end of the first century, mentions
these two fasting days. The * Shepherd x of Hernias, at
the beginning of the second century, also speaks of them,
and gives them for the first time the name of stations.*
In the third century the stations on Wednesday and
Friday were a matter of Catholic custom. And every
station involved a vigil. Die sMtioni s, node mgiliae
meminerimmS writes TertuHianu 2
Sunday vigils, station vigils,, vigils in cemeteries, each
comprising a triple office evening,. night, and morning.
The literature of the first three centuries affords no trace
of any other assemblies for prayer than these. It is not
until we come to the fourth century that we see the service
of public prayer undergoing modification, and it does so
under the influence of new causes.
The fourth century witnessed the birth of Christian
ecclesiastical architecture. The poor and narrow limits
within which Christian worship was so long confined,
owing to the smallness of the earliest churches, such as
those of Mount Syon at Jerusalem, or the old churches
of S. Theonas at Alexandria and S. Theophilus at
1 Ad Uxorem, ii. 4.
2 De Orat. 29 : On the station day let us not fail to keep vigil
by night.
THE GENESIS OF THE CANONICAL HOUES 15
Antioch, were suddenly expanded in accordance with the
magnificence of the basilicas of the age of Constantine,
such as the Basilica Aurea of S. John Lateran, the
Dominicum of Alexandria, the Anastasis of Jerusalem,
the Church of the Holy Apostles at Constantinople, and
many others. What religious joy must these beautiful
buildings have inspired in the hearts of the faithful ! At
Alexandria they were so impatient to begin their assemblies
in the Dominicum that, in the midst of Lent, A.D. 354, they
implored their bishop, S. Athanasius, to open it for wor
ship, though it was not yet consecrated, or even completed ;
nor was the saint able to withstand their entreaties. 1
And was it only at rare intervals that they were to
assemble in such a beautiful house of the Lord ? Were
its grand and holy aisles to stand silent and prayerless for
hours and days together? Were there not pious souls
ready to carry on there a never-ceasing service of prayer ?
True, one could no longer reckon upon the whole body
of the faithful. With increased numbers the Christian
community had been far from growing more fervent.
They were beginning to neglect even the Eucharistic
assembly on the Sunday, to the great grief of their
pastors. 2 But, just in proportion as the Church in
extending itself had grown colder, there had taken place
within its bosom a drawing together of those souls which
were possessed with the greatest zeal and fervour. These
consisted of men and women alike, living in the world
and without severing themselves from the ties and obliga
tions of ordinary life, yet binding themselves by private
1 S. Athan. Apol. ad Constant. 14.
2 Chrysost. Homil. IV. in Annam, 1 ; Homil. de Bapt. Chr. et
de Epiph. 1 ; S. August. Serm. Append, ix.
16 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
vow or public profession to live in chastity all their life,
to fast all the week, to spend their days in prayer. They
were called in Syria monazontes and parthenae ascetics
and virgins. They formed, as it were, a third order a
confraternity without a hierarchy and without organisa
tion ; a connecting link between clergy and laity, the
ascetics not having any of the powers of the clergy, but
only duties more strict thair those of the laity. The
religious life properly so called was in fact only a
development of this secular institution. In the first half
of the fourth century we find these associations of
ascetics and virgins established in all the great Churches
of the East at Alexandria, Jerusalem, Antioch, Edessa.
Well then, their rule of life imposed on these ascetics
and virgins the duty of daily prayer. They were not to
be contented with the appointed vigils of the Church, but
were to celebrate privately daily vigils. Their life was, in
fact, to be a perpetual vigil. In the treatise De Virgini-
tate which has been ascribed to S. Athanasius, but which
is in reality a hyperascetic and perhaps Cappadocian work
of about the year 370, virgins are told to rise every night
for prayer, an office entirely private, but which is nothing
else than the vigil office made a daily exercise. 1 A
similar exercise is recommended by Clement of Alexandria
to his Gnostic. 2 Soon this exercise became public.
S. John Chrysostom, speaking of the ascetics of Antioch,
writes : Scarcely has the cock crowed when they rise.
Scarcely have they risen when they chant the Psalms of
David ; and with what sweet harmony ! Neither harp
1 Pseud.-Athan. De Virginitate, 20 ; cf . Romische Quartalschrift,
torn. vii. (1893), p. 286.
* Clem. Alex. Paedag. ii. 9.
THE GENESIS OF THE CANONICAL HOUES 17
nor flute nor any other instrument of music can utter a
melody comparable to that which is heard to rise, in the
silence of that lone hour, from the lips of these holy
men. And so with the angels with the angels, I say,
they sing " praise the Lord of Heaven," while we men
of the world are still asleep, or, it may be, half awake,
and even then thinking of nothing but our own
miserable affairs. Not until daybreak do they take any
repose, and scarcely has the sun appeared when they
once more betake themselves to prayer, and perform their
morning service of praise. l
S. John Chrysostom and the author of the treatise
De Virginitate both go on to say that, not only every
morning at cock-crow and at the hour of dawn do the
ascetics and virgins devote themselves to united psalmody,
but yet again, every day, at the third, sixth, and ninth
hour. So ancient a custom is it for Christians to conse
crate by prayer the times we call Terce, Sext, and None.
The faithful took delight in associating the commemora
tion of Christian mysteries with these three points of time,
which divided the day into three stages : at the third
hour (9 A.M.), the commemoration of the condemnation of
the Saviour ; at the sixth hour (noon), of His crucifixion ;
at the ninth (3 P.M.), of His death. 2 And each of these
hours, as it sounded, w T as to recall to the faithful their
obligation, not to allow their hearts to lose their hold on
the mysteries of the faith ; as says Tertullian 3 : Tres
1 Chrysost. Horn, in I Tim. XIV. 4.
2 Const. Apost. vii. 34.
3 De Iciun. 10 : Just as these three hours are reckoned as more
important in the affairs of this world, since they are publicly sounded
and divide the day into its parts, so let us understand that they are
more especially to be observed with prayer to God.
C
18 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
istas horas ut insigniores in rebus humanis, quae diem dis-
tribuunt, quae negotia distinguunt, quae publice resonant,
itaetsolemnioresfuisseinoratiombus divinis[intellegamus].
But what was for the faithful of the third century nothing
more than a counsel l had become for the ascetics and
virgins of the fourth century a rule. They prayed at Terce
and Sext and None, and they united in psalmody at each
of these hours, just a s they united at the cock-crowing
or at the hour of the lucernarium. 2
One step yet remained to be taken ; namely, that the
Church should offer the hospitality o| its aisles to these
ascetics and virgins, and that the clergy should undertake
the direction of these exercises, which had been originally
voluntary and private. This step was taken towards the
middle of the fourth century. AH the passages that we
see quoted from authors previous to. the fourth century
mentioning the daily observance of exercises of commcii
prayer morning and evening, or at Terce, Sext, and None,
testify to the existence of voluntary and private exercises,
and nothing more. The first occasion on which we meet
with the mention of the daily observance of a public
exercise of common prayer and even then nothing more
is mentioned than the morning office at the cockrcrowing
and the evening office at sunset is to be found in a docu
ment of the middle of the fourth century, and of Syrian
origin, the second book of the Apostolic Constitutions.
There we see the faithful urged by the bishop to come to
the church on the Sunday and Saturday praecipue die
Sabbati et die Dominica studiosius ad ecclesiam accurrite
1 Clem. Alex. Strom, vii. 7. .
2 Chrysost., see note 1, p. 17 ; and Pseud.-Athan., see note 1,
p. 16.
THE GENESIS OF THE CANONICAL HOUES 19
-but the point is the sanctification of the Saturday, which
was still a liturgical innovation towards the end of the
fourth century l ; and, moreover, whether as regards
Saturday or Sunday, the passage so far does not allude to
anything beyond the Eiicharistic assembly. However, the
bishop is also, to the utmost of his power, to encourage
the faithful to come to the church every day, morning
and evening, to take part in the psalmody and prayer
conducted by the clergy : singulis diebus congregemini
mane et vespere psallentes et or antes, in aedibus Dominicis. 2
And in fact we find a Syrian bishop, Zeno of Maiuma,
who died, a hundred years old, just at the end of the
fourth century, praised for having made a point of never
failing to be present at the morning and evening service. 3
This custom of throwing open the church every
morning and evening to the more zealous among the
faithful, in order that they might there, under the
direction of the clergy, celebrate their devotional exercises
that is, the daily vigils had been inaugurated at
Antioch in the time of the semi-Arian bishop Leontius
(344-357), a charitable but inconsistent prelate, very un
fortunate in finding himself at the head of a Church
where the partisans of the Nicene faith were numerous
and zealous. The ascetics of the place formed the main
body of the Nicene party, which had for its heads two
laymen of high rank, Flavian and Diodorus. The potent
influence which an association led by such men was able
to bring to bear on Leontius induced him to make con
cessions. In 350 he banished the Arian Aetius, a man
whom he himself had had the weakness to ordain deacon
1 Funk, Apost. Konst. (1891), p. 93. 2 Const. Apost. ii. 59.
3 Soz. vii. 28.
c2
20 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
and receive into the Church of Antioch. He did more.
Just as the guest-houses (xenodochia) were administered
by lay prefects appointed by the bishop, so he decided that
the brotherhoods (asketeria) should be governed by
prefects of his choosing, and he advanced Diodorus to
that office. This event must be dated between 350 and
357, and most likely nearer to 350, the year when Aetius
was banished. And it is with this appointment that the
introduction of the daily office into the Church service is
connected. For Leontius had no intention that the con
fraternities should meet without the clergy, or in irregular
sanctuaries : their meetings were to take place in the
principal basilica of Antioch.
In twenty years time the reform carried out at Antioch
under the episcopate of Leontius established itself in all
the Greek-speaking Churches of the East. S. Basil
introduced it at Caesaraea (A.D. 375), in spite of the
opposition of a party among the clergy, disturbed in their
customs by this liturgical innovation. 1 At Constantinople
S. John Chrysostom imposed it on his clergy, and an old
author tells us that they were very much put out at not
being allowed to sleep all the night as had been their
wont. 2 At Milan, S. Ambrose, a personal friend of
S. Basil, having become bishop in 374, introduced the
Oriental custom of daily vigils. At this time, writes
Paulinus, his biographer, the vigils first began to be
celebrated in the Church of Milan. 3 At Jerusalem,
where the ascetics and virgins were more numerous than
anywhere else, this daily public office assumed a still
greater solemnity.
1 S. Basil. Epistul. ccvii. 2-4. 2 Pallacl. Dial Hist. 5.
3 Paulin. Vita Ambr. 13.
THE GENESIS OF THE CANONICAL HOUES 21
S. Silvia, a Gallo-Eoman lady, who visited the Holy
Places about A.D. 385-388, and whose travelling- journal
has come down to us l a hundred pages of very queer
Latin, forming one of the most precious jewels of early
Christian literature has given us a detailed description
of the daily service of prayer in the Anastasis, the
cathedral church of Jerusalem.
Here is her account of the vesper office :
At the tenth hour the hour which they call here
licnicon, and which we call lucernare the people crowd
into the Anastasis. All the candles are lit, and the
illumination is brilliant. Then they chant the evening
psalms (psalmi lucernares), psalms with long antiphons. 2
At the appointed moment word is sent to the bishop.
He comes into the church, and seats himself on his lofty
throne, with the priests in their places round him. When
the chanting of the psalms and antiphons is finished, the
bishop rises, and stands in front of the balustrade of the
sanctuary, 3 while a deacon reads out the names of all
those who are to be prayed for, and the pisinni, or
children, of whom there are great numbers, respond at
each name, " Kyrie eleison" You hear as it were* the sound
of innumerable voices. The deacon having finished the
list, the bishop recites a prayer. It is the prayer for all
the congregation, and all, both the faithful and the
catechumens, bow their heads. Then the bishop recites
the prayer for the catechumens, and these alone bow
their heads. Lastly the bishop says the prayer for the
1 S. Silviae Peregrinatio ad Loca Sancta, Rome, 1887, p. 76 sqq. ;
cf. Dom Cabrol, Les tglises de Jerusalem (1895), p. 31 sqq.
2 [ Dicuntur etiam psalmi lucernares, sed et antiphonae diutius. 1
-A.B.]
8 [ Stat ante cancellum, id est, ante speluncam." 1 A.B.]
22 HISTOEY OF THE KOMAN BREVIAKY
faithful, who, in their turn, bow down themselves for the
episcopal benediction. So ends the office : everyone
departs, after kissing the bishop s hand. It is already
dark night.
Next we have the description of Nocturns and Lauds :
* Every day, before cock-crow, the doors of the
Anastasis are opened, and forthwith the monazontes and
the parthenae come in ; nor only these, but lay folk
besides, men and women, who desire to keep vigil. 1
From that time to sunrise they sing psalms. 2 At the
end of each psalm a prayer is recited. These prayers
pre said by priests and deacons, who are appointed for
each day, to the number of two or three, to come and
conduct the office of the monazontes. (Nothing is said
about any lessons.) But at the moment when the day
dawns they begin singing the morning psalms (matutinos
ymnos). At this time the bishop arrives with his clergy,
and, standing within the balustrade, 3 he says the prayers,
" for all," for catechumens, and for the faithful. He
then retires, everyone having gone up to kiss his hand
and receive his benediction. It being now daylight (iam
luce), the congregation is dismissed.
Then for Sext and None :
At the sixth hour the faithful again assemble in the
same manner at the Anastasis. The psalms and anti-
phons are said. This being duly signified to the bishop,
he comes, and, without sitting down, remaining standing
within the balustrade, as in the morning, he recites the
1 [ Qui volunt maturius vigilant." 1 A.B.]
2 [ Psalmi respondunturS A.B.]
3 [ Ingreditur intro spehmcam, et de Intro cancellos primum
died? &c. A.B.]
THE GENESIS OF THE CANONICAL HOURS 23
prayers as before. He then retires, everyone having
gone up to kiss his hand. At the ninth hour the same
office is performed as at the sixth. S. Silvia says nothing
of any assembly for psalmody at the third hour.
Such was the daily office when introduced, along with
the ascetics and virgins, into the public service o the
basilicas. Do we wish to see how it was combined there
with the ancient observance of the Sunday vigil? S.
Silvia shall tell us :
On Sunday, before cock-crow, a multitude, as
numerous as if it were faster (not merely the ascetics
and a certain number of devoutly disposed laity), as
sembles at the Anastasis, in front of the church, by the
light of certain lanterns. The faithful begin coming
even long before the time, fearing to arrive after the hour
of cock-crowing. They sit down, and psalms and anti-
phons are sung, each psalm being followed by a prayer
said by a priest or deacon, for there are always priests
and deacons present. It is the custom that the doors of
the basilica should not be opened before the first cock-
cro\ving. But as soon as this is heard, the bishop comes,
the doors are thrown open, the crowd enters ; the basilica
sparkles with a thousand lights ; the Sunday vigil properly
so called is about to begin. When the people have come
in, a priest says a psalm, to which the congregation
respond ; after the psalm, a prayer. Then a deacon says
a second psalm, followed by a prayer. Then some cleric
says a third psalm, followed by a third prayer. Then
follows the commemoration of those to be prayed for
with the three prayers, just as before at Vespers. These
being ended, the censers are brought in ; the basilica is
.filled with their perfume. At this point the bishop takes
24 HISTOKY OF THE ROMAN BREVIAEY
the Gospel-book and reads from it l ; after which he
blesses the faithful, and the office is over. The bishop
retires ; the faithful go home to rest. But the monazontes
remain in the basilica until daybreak, to sing psalms and
antiphons, each psalm being followed by a prayer said by
some priest or deacon. Some of the laity also remain,
whoever may wish to do so, whether men or women.
In this full and graphic description one sees clearly the
superposition of one liturgy on another : first, that which
belonged to the whole body of the faithful, the Sunday vigil
at cock-crow, then the liturgy of the ascetics and virgins,
or daily vigil, from cock-crow to sunrise ; the first com
prising a fixed number of psalms and collects, with a
lesson, the second an indeterminate number of psalms
and collects, without any lesson. And these two liturgies
succeed one another on Sunday in such wise that the first
is of obligation, attended by the whole clergy and all the
faithful, while the second,, though it follows immediately,
remains optional, and is attended only by the more
fervent among the laity, and a few of the clergy, who
preside over it. 2 Such was the liturgical custom at
1 [ Et tune, ubi stat episcopus intro cancellos, prendet Evangelium,
et accedet ad liostium et leget Eesurrectionem dominus episcopus ipse.
. . . Lecto ergo evangelic exit episcopus, et ducitur cum ymnis ad
Crucem, et omnis populus cum illo. Ibi denuo dicitur unus psalmus,
et fit oratio. Item benedicit fideles et fit missa. . . . Mox autem
recipit se episcopus in domum suam. Etiam in ilia hora revertuntur
omnes monazontes ad Anastasim, et psalmi dicuntur et antiphonae
usque ad lucem. A.B.]
2 Compare with the account given by S. Silvia that presented in
the Life of S. Melania (Analecta Holland. 1889, p. 29), which relates
to the custom at Jerusalem thirty years later than the pilgrimage of
Silvia ; also S. Jerome, Tract, de Ps. cxix., ap. Morin, Anecdota
Maredsolana, torn. iii. pt. ii. p. 229.
THE GENESIS OF THE CANONICAL HOUES 25
Jerusalem, and setting aside the public observance of
Sext and None, which I have not found to be general at
this period, and remembering to add the anniversary
commemorations of local martyrs, which at Jerusalem
seem to have been exceptionally little regarded one may
say that such was then also the liturgical custom of all
the Greek-speaking Churches of the East, and in all parts
of Gaul as well. As the biographer of S. Ambrose says,
Cuius celebritatis devotio . . . non sokim in eadem
ecclesia [Mediolanensi] verum per omnes pene Occidentis
provincias manet L
The daily observance of vigils was not the only
innovation due to the ascetics and virgins of Syria. To
them the Church owed also a thorough transformation of
her psalmody.
We have already seen what the early chant of the
psalms was like the chant of the psalmus responsorim ;
and one cannot bear in mind too carefully the description
of it given by S. Augustine when speaking of S.
Athanasius : He caused the reader to use such slight
inflexions, that he seemed to say the psalms rather than
to sing them. But if a chant of this kind sufficed to fix
the attention of a congregation of limited numbers,
closely packed together, and to fill a small church, it
could not be the case when there was a great crowd of
people in a vast basilica. Under such conditions the
slender voice of a single reader was unable to make
itself heard above the confused murmur of the people.
A bishop of the fourth century observes what difficulty
1 Paulin. Vita Amb. 13.
26 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
there was in procuring due silence when the lessons were
being read. 1 In congregations which the same author
compares to a tossing and murmuring sea, there was
need for a chant of greater power powerful itself as the
noise of mighty waters. And so, for the psalm said as a
solo was substituted psalmody rendered by a choir.
Antiphony, writes S. Isidore, means the chant of
two choirs which respond to one another not one re
peating what has been sung by the other, but taking up
successive verses (in antiplionis versibus alternant chori)?
No more solos ; all the congregation takes part in the
chanting, being divided into two choirs or systems, one
of which sings the first verse of the psalm, the other the
second, and so on. S. Isidore adds that this kind of
psalmody came from the Greeks, and this is fully borne
out by other testimonies, which with one consent agree
in attributing to Diodorus the first introduction of anti-
phonal chanting in the Church of Antioch.
If we may believe Theodore of Mopsuestia, who was
well placed for knowing accurately how things were at
Antioch, having passed his youth in the brotherhoods
presided over by Diodorus, antiphonal chanting was
borrowed by the latter from the Syriac-speaking Churches.
S. Basil confirms this testimony, writing that, in his
time (A.D. 375) the Churches of the Euphrates valley
performed their psalmody in two choirs, like the Greek
Churches of Palestine and Syria. 3 At Antioch, somewhat
later, they desired to make out a more native and a
1 S. Amb. In Ps. i. Enarr. 9 : Quantuiit laboratur in ecclesia ut
fiat silentium cum lectioncs Icguntur ; si Units loquatur obstrepunt
universi.
2 S. Isid. Etymol. vi. 19. J S. Basil. Epistul ccvii. 3.
THE GENESIS OF THE CANONICAL HOUES 27
more glorious origin : they said that antiphonal chanting
dated back to S. Ignatius, who, having seen in vision the
angels chanting in this fashion the praises of the Holy
Trinity, realised the heavenly vision in his church at
Antioch. This legend is related by the historian Socrates,
who is usually more circumspect. 1
Being thus introduced at Antioch at the same time as
the daily observance of the divine office, the antiphonal
chanting of the psalms soon established itself in all the
great Churches of the East. S. Basil, in the same letter
which we have already repeatedly quoted, defends him
self against the criticism of certain of the clergy, who
charged him with having introduced a singularity of his
own devising in the Church of Caesaraea by establishing
there this mode of chanting. This new psalmody, he
writes, has nothing singular about it, for at this very
day [A.D. 375] it is practised in all the Churches of God.
The clergy who are disposed to break with me on this
ground, must on the same account break with the
Churches of Egypt, Palestine, Syria, and the Euphrates
valley. We find antiphonal chanting established at
Constantinople in the time of S. John Chrysostom, at
Jerusalem in the time of S. Silvia, at Milan in the time
of S. Ambrose and by his means, at Toledo from the
year 400. 2
More than this, the antiphonal chant, which, in its
original simplicity had been nothing more than a suffi
ciently monotonous musical phrase, became all at once a
melody as varied as it was expressive. Thus the psalm-
chant, having begun by being a simple recitative, assumed
1 Socrat. vi. 8. 2 Mansi, torn. iii. p. 1000.
28 HISTOEY OF THE KOMAN BREVIARY
the form of an elaborate piece of music like a gradual.
In 387, when Flavian, bishop of Antioch, went to Con
stantinople to beg for mercy for the inhabitants of his
city, who were threatened with the anger of Theodosius,
in order the more effectually to touch the heart of the
Emperor, he asked the young singers who were wont to
furnish music at the royal table to sing the psalmody of
supplication used at Antioch apparently some kind of
litany. Theodosius was overcome by the expressive
character of this religious music, which was new to him ;
tears of emotion fell into the cup which he was holding
in his hand. 1 When S. John Chrysostom became Bishop
of Constantinople he introduced this music into his
Church, giving the direction of the choirs into the hands
of a eunuch of the Empress s household, the chief
singer at her court. 2
Antiphonal chanting took a similar development at
Milan to that which we have remarked at Antioch.
S. Ambrose, in order to increase the attraction of the
daily vigils in his Church, caused the psalms to be
executed there after the Eastern fashion (secundum morem
oricntalium partium). And the innovation spread rapidly
to almost all the Churches of the West. How have I
wept, writes S. Augustine not long after, at the sound
of this psalmody, moved by the voices that rang so
sweetly through the church ! 3 Yet the same Augustine
is inclined to consider this elaborate musical rendering
of the psalmody as a disturbing invasion of Art into the
ancient and severe simplicity of worship. Yes/ he
1 Soz. vii. 23. 2 Ib. viii. 8.
3 Quantum flevi . . . suave sonantis ecclesiae tuae vocibus com-
motus acriter.
THE GENESIS OF THE CANONICAL HOUES 29
continues, I have wept at the sound of those voices, and
I have found sweetness in my tears. But pardon my
severity if it is a fault I have often wished I could
banish from my ears, and from the ears of the Church
itself, all the sweet melody of those chants with which
the psalms of David are now performed. And it is in
this connection that he recalls the direction of S. Athana-
sius, that the reader should make use of such moderate
inflexions as to seem to say the psalms rather than
to chant them, adding that it is safer to follow Athan-
asius. 1
It is no part of my design to enter on any inquiries
as to what this musical rendering of the psalmody may
have been like, whether at Antioch or at Milan. But we
cannot help noticing the mistake into which even a mind
so great as S. Augustine s fell. He regretted the primi
tive simplicity of psalmody, forgetting, it would seem,
that such simplicity was no longer suited to the pomp of
Christian worship in its triumph. Christian art of every
sort was budding forth : architecture, painting, cere
monial. For these multitudes of the faithful, assembled
under the marble arches and sparkling mosaics of the
Anastasis or the Church of the Holy Apostles ; for these
long trains of clergy vested in robes of dazzling white,
there was needed the attraction and the prestige of a
powerful and ornate choral music, on a level with the
eloquence of S. John Chrysostom or S. Ambrose. It is
not desirable that the arts, when they put themselves at
the service of the Church, should be cut off from par
ticipation in the advance of culture and taste. Most of
1 S. Aug. Con/, ix. 6-7, x. 33.
30 HISTOKY OF THE EOMAN BKEVIAKY
all is this true of music, which is an art so eminently
living and progressive. S. Augustine was in the wrong
as against S. Ambrose and S. John Chrysostom, just as
in our days plain-chantists would be wrong if they were
to desire to impose on us the chant of the seventh
century as the final expression of Christian music, saying
in their turn, Safer to follow S. Ambrose, or Safer to
follow S. Gregory.
Ill
The liturgical work of the fourth century is accom
plished. It has consisted in the organisation of a double
service of psalmody for every day ; on the one hand, the
nocturnal cursus, comprising Vespers, the night office at
cock-crow, and Lauds in the early morning ; on the other,
the diurnal course, comprising psalmody at the three
hours of Terce, Sext, and None, these two courses being
celebrated in church by confraternities of virgins and
ascetics under the direction of the clergy, and celebrated,
as regards music, with a quite new degree of pomp and
dignity antiphonarum protelatos melodiis et adiunctione
quarumdam modulationum - as says John Cassian. 1 This
liturgical revolution has been carried out under the
influence, we might almost say under the pressure,
exerted by these confraternities.
But now, dating from the reign of Theodosius and
the time when Catholicism became the social religion
of the Boman world, comes the moment when a deep
cleavage in religious society manifests itself. These
ascetics and virgins, who till now have lived mingled
1 Coenob. Institut. ii. 2 : Long drawn out with antiphonal chant
and added melodies.
THE GENESIS OF THE CANONICAL HOUES 31
with the common body of the faithful, abandon the world
and go forth into the wilderness. The coenobitic life,
mere attempts at which have hitherto been seen, esta
blishes itself as a distinct Christian society by the side
of, and one might even say outside, the Catholic body.
The Church of the multitude is no longer a sufficiently
holy city for these pure ones ; they go forth to build in
the deserts the Jerusalem for which they crave.
Henceforth we shall find a double Or do psallendi .
that of the monastic communities, and that of the
churches under the immediate direction of the bishops.
And in no such church shall we find the Office as it
was celebrated in th,e Anastasis at Jerusalem in the
time of S. Silvia ; Terce, Sext, and None will for a long
time to come form no part of the public office of the
clergy. We (desire/ says a constitution of Justinian,
dated 529, that the whole clergy established in each
church do themselves sing Vespers, Nocturns, and
Lauds. For, adds the Emperor, it is absurd that the
clergy, on whom rests the duty of executing the psalmody
should hire people to sing in their stead ; and that
the large number of lay folk, who for the good of their
souls show diligence in coming to church to take part in
that psalmody, should be in a position to see that the
clergy who are specially appointed for that office do not
fulfil it. And the Constitution accordingly enacts that
the clergy of each church shall be required by the bishop
of the place and the defensor (or treasurer) of the
particular church to take part in the psalmody : those
who show themselves negligent of this service are to be
expelled from the clerical body. 1 Thus we see that in the
1 Cod. lustin. i. 3, 4.
32 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
Greek-speaking East, at the beginning of the sixth cen
tury, each church had its nocturnal course : viz. the
offices of evening, night, and early morning at which
the faithful still loved to assist, and over which it was
the duty of the clergy to preside but no public diurnal
course.
The custom in all parts of Gaul was similar, the rule
for the office to be performed by the clergy not differing
from that which the Constitution of Justinian cited above
lays down for the Greek-speaking East. We ordain, says
the second Council of Braga in 561, that there shall be
but one and the same ordo psallendi for the evening and
morning offices : and we reject the monastic uses, which
it is sought to mingle with those which according to
rule obtain in our churches. l It would be impossible
more strongly to express the distinction between the
monastic and clerical offices. And we find the Spanish
custom to be the same as in Gaul : We ordain, says
the fourth Council of Toledo in 633, that there shall be but
one ordo psallendi for Spain and Gaul in the evening and
morning offices. 2 Such was the mind of the Council of
Agde in 506, when it pronounces that there shall be in
the Narbonnaise, just as everywhere else (sicut ubique
fit), an office chanted every day in the morning, and also
an office chanted every evening, at which the clergy are
to assist, with the bishop at their head. 3 All these
1 Mansi, torn. ix. p. 777 ; Placuit omnibus communi consensu
ut unus aiqiie id em psallendi ordo in matutinis vel vespertinis officiis
teneatur et non diversae et privatae, neque monastcriorum consuetu-
clines cum ecclesiastica regula sint permixtaeS
2 Mansi, torn. x. p. G10.
3 Mansi, torn. viii. p. 329.
THE GENESIS OF THE CANONICAL HOUES 33
passages agree in making the canonical Office of the
clergy consist of two exercises, 1 that of the evening, or
Vespers, and that of the dawn, or Mattins, this last corre
sponding to the two offices of Nocturns and Lauds. And
if in some churches as, for instance, at Aries, in the time
of S. Caesarius mention is made of the performance in
the cathedral of a diurnal course (Terce, Sext and None),
we are at the same time duly informed that this monastic
exercise exists only for the benefit of penitents, or those
of the faithful who are distinguished by an extraordinary
degree of fervour. 2
Such was the ordo psallendi of the clergy in the sixth
century.
As to the anniversaries of martyrs, to which were now
added the anniversaries of translations of martyrs, of
1 A canon of the Council of Tours in 567 gives us some instruc
tion as to the composition of this double office. At Vespers, which
the clergy of S. Martin s call the twelfth hour, twelve psalms are
invariably recited, without any other antiphon than Alleluya. At
Mattins the number of psalms varies with the season : from Easter
to September (i.e. in summer), twelve psalms are sung, with an anti
phon to every two six antiphons altogether ; in September, fourteen
psalms, seven antiphons ; in October, twenty-four psalms, but only
eight antiphons one to every three psalms ; in November, twenty-
seven psalms, nine antiphons ; from November to Easter, thirty
psalms, ten antiphons. If anyone has leisure to sing more psalms,
he is to be by all means encouraged to do so ; but one who at times
may not be able to go through so long a psalmody at Mattins is to do
as much as he can (ut possibilitas habct), it being understood that
he must never recite at Mattins less than twelve psalms, on pain
of being condemned, as a penance, to fast until evening, and even
then to take no other refreshment than bread and water (Mansi,
torn. ix. p. 796). Compare with this canon the indications given in
the De Cursu Stellarum of Gregory of Tours. (Mon. Germ. Scrip-
tores Rerum Merov. torn. i. p. 870-872.)
2 Holland. Acta Sanct. August, torn. vi. p. 67 : Vita S. Caesar.
i. 13.
34 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
saints other than martyrs, and of dedications of churches,
it would be an error to suppose, with respect to
any such anniversary, that because it is found in
martyrologies it was therefore observed throughout
the Catholic world : the number of such Catholic
festivals, the fixed feasts of our Lord, or the festivals of
Apostles, is as yet very small. They would seem to
consist of Christmas, Epiphany, and the festivals of
S. Stephen, S. James, S. John, S. Peter, and S. Paul. 1
As a general rule, it was only at the place where was the
confession of a saint (i.e. his tomb), or where some relic
of a saint was enshrined, that his natale was observed ;
and so the festival had always some connection with a
certain place, just as it had with the time when it was
originally celebrated in the actual cemetery. Hence it is
that the monastic communities, such as John Cassian
describes, kept no festivals of saints ; and it was a new
feature in the Benedictine rule 2 that it introduced into
the monastic liturgy the natalitia sanctorum, which had
hitherto been the peculiar privilege of the ancient
Christian Churches, rich in local martyrs, or enriched
with relics brought from elsewhere. At Tours, the natale
of S. John Evangelist was celebrated in the basilica of
S. Martin ; that of SS. Peter and Paul in the basilica of
those saints ; those of S. Martin, S. Brice, S. Hilary, all
in the basilica of S. Martin ; of S. Litorius, in his own
basilica ; and the festival of Christmas was kept in the
cathedral. 3
Meanwhile, at the same period, the or do psallendi
of the monks had reached its full development. The
1 S. Greg. Nyss. In Laudem Frat. Basilii, 1 ; cf. Jaffe, 255.
3 Bened. Reg. 14. 3 Greg. Turon. Hist. Franc, x. 31, 6.
THE GENESIS OF THE CANONICAL HOURS 35
monks of Palestine had in this matter exercised a pre
ponderating influence. As for those of Egypt, at all
events, in the time of John Cassian, their only common
exercise was the night office, and that in the archaic
form we have already described. They had no diurnal
course : when once the antelucanae orationes, as Cassian
in old-fashioned phrase somewhere calls them, were
finished, the Egyptian coenobites went off to their manual
labour, and whatever prayers they said in the course of
the day were the freewill offering of each individual
(voluntarium munus). 1 Their practice also was an
archaic form of Christian euchology. But the monks of
Palestine, on their part, had preserved the office in the
form in which it was practised by the ascetics and virgins
at Jerusalem in the time of S. Silvia : the night course,
comprising Vespers (vespertina solemnitas) at sunset ;
Nocturns (nocturna solemnitas) and Lauds in the early
morning ; and the diurnal course, comprising Terce,
Sext, and None. 2 Moreover, these customs of the
Palestinian monks before long established themselves in
Egypt as well. 3
However, the monks of Palestine, or, to speak more
precisely, those of Bethlehem, had added one more office
to the diurnal course. The institution of it was not of
early date, since John Cassian witnessed its introduction
at the time of his stay at Bethlehem (390-403). The
monks of Palestine, like those of Egypt, originally did
not take any repose when the office of Nocturns and
Lauds was ended, and this point of their rule appears
exceedingly severe. Accordingly it was thought more
1 Cass. Coenob. Instit. iii. 2. 2 76. iii. 3.
8 Vita S. Eupraxiae, 18 ; Bolland. Acta Sanct. Mart, torn ii. 730.
36 HISTORY OF THE EOMAN BREVIARY
humane to allow the monks to take some rest after
Nocturns and Lauds ; but as the day of a man of God
could only begin with prayer, the monks of Bethlehem,
on rising, assembled for the purpose of singing an office
of three psalms similar, therefore, to the office at the
other three day hours. It was called Prime. 1
Just as the early morning office of Lauds no longer
synchronised with the beginning of the day, so neither
did the office of Vespers coincide with its end. After
Vespers came the evening meal, then bedtime. Could
the day of a man of God finish otherwise than with
prayer ? That is an ancient idea indeed an idea, rather,
whose beginning no one can pretend to date that we
must end the day by thanking God for His mercies, and
commending ourselves to Him for the night on which
we are entering. S. Basil speaks of this last evening
prayer as a thing handed down by tradition. 2 In the
West, S. Benedict was the first, so it is said, to give it a
place in the series of daily offices, giving it at the same
time the name it has ever since retained, of Compline
completorwm, the completion.
And now the cycle of the monastic office was
complete.
Here one might pause to study in detail the de
scription of this office given by S. Benedict in his Eule :
but we will not now linger over it. The Benedictine
Office is a composite work, the result of an adaptation
carried out by one individual. Our intention, says the
saint by way of conclusion, is that, if anyone does not
approve this apportionment of the psalter which we have
made, he should take such order in the matter as he
1 Cass. Coenob. Instit. iii. 4. - S. Basil, De Spiriiu Sancto, 73.
THE GENESIS OF THE CANONICAL HOUKS 37
judges to be more convenient. l He left to his disciples
the same liberty which he himself had exercised. Some
elements of the Benedictine Office came from Eome,
some from Milan. In its entirety, this Office was only to
exercise a remote and long-deferred influence on the
formation of the Eoman Office, of which it may rather be
regarded as an offshoot.
But from the point at which we have arrived, we take
in at one view the whole process in which is found the
genesis of the canonical hours. A Christian idea that
of the return of Christ created the primitive vigil, viz.
the evening, night, and early morning office of Sunday.
The celebration of this office was extended by the Church
to the station days and the anniversaries of the martyrs.
The confraternities of ascetics and virgins caused it to
become of daily observance. The disposition on the
part of the more devout to do more than they were
bound to, suggested and produced the offices of Terce,
Sext, and None offices which throughout the whole of
Christian antiquity remained peculiar to the monks, who
from mere private devotions had made their observance
part of the liturgy. Of more recent date are the offices
of Prime and Compline, originating in the conditions of
monastic life, and destined to continue for a longer time
than the rest peculiar to the rites observed in monasteries .
We recognise in these broad features of the canonical
Office the parts respectively due to the primitive Church
and to monasticism parts which remained separate
until the sixth century.
It remains for the seventh and eighth centuries to
fuse together these differing elements, and to effect that
1 Bened. Beg. 18.
38 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
liturgical incorporation of them which is represented by
the canonical Office of the time of Charlemagne. But
even in the very mention of liturgical incorporation we
touch upon what was peculiarly the work of the Eoman
Church, and the moment has come for us to enter on the
study to which all that precedes has conducted us.
39
CHA2TEB II
THE SOURCES OF THE ROMAN ORDO PSALLENDI
WE have seen how it was in the Catholic Church that
the liturgy of the hours of prayer was originated and
developed. We have studied its formation and develop
ment outside the Eoman Church, in order to be in a
better position for distinguishing, in the customs in use
within that Church, that which is due to local tradition
from that which is derived from Catholic tradition.
Henceforth our work lies at Borne. By the help of the
documents anterior to the eighth century with which
Eoman literature supplies us, we have to describe the
development of the liturgy of the hours of prayer at
Eome, the successive stages through which it passed
before becoming fixed in that Ordo psallendi, partly
original, partly borrowed from elsewhere, which formed
the canonical Eoman Office of the time of Charlemagne.
The special interior organisation of the Eoman Church
conditions the w r hole history of the Divine Office in that
Church. Four sorts of churches are found at Eome.
First, those which were subsequently known as patriarchal
churches the Constantinian basilica of the Lateran,
which takes rank by itself; the Liberian basilica, or
40 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
S. Mary the Greater ; the Sessorian l basilica, or Holy
Cross in Jerusalem ; the Constantinian basilicas of the
Vatican, of S. Paul without the Walls, and of S. Lawrence
without the Walls; and lastly, the latest in date, the
basilica of S. Sebastian ad catacumbas. All these are
churches of exceptional importance, some of which
(viz. those within the city, like the Lateran, the Liberian,
and the Sessorian) were to Eome what the great
churches were to Alexandria, Antioch, and Carthage,
while the others (those in the suburbs) were the re
nowned and venerated temples which enshrined and
commemorated the great Eoman martyrs. Secondly,
the titles (tituli) : of these there were twenty-seven
in the sixth century, and this number, which seems to
have remained stationary since the fourth century, rises
eventually to twenty-eight, but only by the eleventh
century. These titles, scattered over the whole space
enclosed within the warlls of Eome, were like parish
churches quasi-dioeceses, as the Liber Pontificalis
says : they maintained the service of God as regarded
Holy Baptism, the dealing with penitents, and the burial
of the faithful. Each title had a priest over it, who in
time came to be called a Cardinal Priest, and this priest
had under his orders a hierarchy of inferior clergy,
readers, acolytes, exorcists, and interrers of the dead.
Thirdly, there were the deaconries. From the third
century Eome was divided into seven ecclesiastical
districts, each having a deacon over it. These seven
deacons, afterwards called the Cardinal Deacons, were
not originally attached to any church : they ad
ministered, each in his own district, a kind of charitable
[ l On the site of the^s^u^^iV^o ancient law-court. A. B.]
SOURCES OF THE ROMAN OEDO PSALLENDI 41
institution, and their duties included the management of
the hospitals for the poor and for pilgrims, and the dis
tribution of alms. Later that is to say, after the fifth
century, but before the end of the seventh while the
number of districts remained unchanged, the number of
deaconries was gradually extended to sixteen ; under
Pope Adrian I. it reached eighteen. And by this time
each deaconry had a church belonging to it, which bore
the name of the deaconry. These deacons also had
under them a hierarchy of inferior clergy, subdeacons
and acolytes, who formed the body of district clergy.
Finally, a fourth class of churches and oratories con
sisted of the various sanctuaries in the suburban
cemeteries, the serving of which belonged to the clergy
of the titles. 1 Thus the Roman clergy was divided
into two hierarchies, the clergy of the titles and the
clergy of the districts :. hierarchies which are both of
them distinct from that to which at a later time were
entrusted the duties of the Apostolic Chancery, and which
we call the Curia. The execution of the Divine Office
at Rome, at all events from the fourth to the eighth
century, was in the hands of these two hierarchies, and
the distinctive character of the Roman Office is owing to
the part which they took respectively in its performance.
But first we have to go back to the very origin of
this Roman Office.
The document of earliest date which throws any light
upon the liturgical customs of the Roman Church is that
1 Liber Pontificalis (ed. Duchesne), torn. i. pp. 165 and 364 ;
cf. Mabillon, Husaeum Ital. torn. ii. p. xi sqq.
42 HISTORY OF THE EOMAN BREVIARY
collection of thirty-eight canons in Greek, which has
come down to us bearing the name of S. Hippolytus, but
which in reality is rather a Eoman synodical document
contemporary with Pope Victor (190-200). These
Canones Hippolyti bear the following testimony to the
discipline of the Eoman Church in the closing years of
the second century. 1
We observe in them the ancient distinction between
the liturgical assembly, devoted to the celebration of the
sacred mysteries (oblatio), and the euchological assem
blies employed only in praising God (oratio). Whenever
the liturgical assembly is celebrated, the bishop assembles
his deacons and priests, vested in robes of dazzling white,
more beautiful than those of the people. He assembles
also his readers, wearing their festal attire. These take
their place at the ambo, where first one reads and then
another, until the whole congregation is assembled.
Then the bishop recites -a prayer, and proceeds to the
celebration of the Liturgy. Here we have the pro
gramme and the ceremonial surroundings of the Eoman
Mass at the end of the second century : the celebration
of the sacred mysteries, preceded by a series of lessons
and a prayer said by the bishop. 2 The euchological
assemblies have a different programme and ceremonial.
Nothing is said of the presence of the bishop, but only of
his clergy, deacons, and readers. Nor is anything said
about festal vestments. The euchological assembly is
celebrated at cock-crow, and in church ; but it is not
a matter of daily observance, for these same canons
provide for days when there is no such morning assembly
1 Cf. Revue Historique, torn, xlvii. (1892), p. 384 sqq.
2 Can. Hipp. (ed. Achelis), 37.
SOURCES OF THE ROMAN ORDO PSALLENDI 43
at the church, on which the faithful are to supply its
place by private exercises of devotion, each one for
himself : Quocunque die in ecclesia non orant, sumas
Scripturam ut legas in ea : sol conspiciat matutino tempore
Scripturam super genua tua. l
On certain days, then, but not daily, they assemble at
the church at the hour of cock-crow. This assembly is
of obligation for the clergy. The cleric who absents
himself without grave reason is to be excommunicated :
De clew autem qui convenire negligunt, neque morbo neque
itinere impediti, separentur. 2 And this assembly at cock
crow is devoted to three exercises, the psalmody, the
reading of the Holy Scriptures, and the prayers :
. . . . vacentque psalmis et lectioni Scripturarum cum
orationibus. 3
If we compare these passages with those which we
have quoted in the preceding chapter, especially with
those from Tertullian, it is easy to recognise, in these
euchological assemblies prescribed on certain days at
cock-crow, the vigils of the Sundays and the station days.
But, further, we remark that nothing is said about the
vesper office. At Kome, at the end of the second
century, the vigil begins at cock-crow ; the public vesper
office, celebrated by the Churches of the East, is here un
known. And unknown it will remain for many years yet
to come. Finally, if the Canons of Hippolytus prescribe
prayer at Terce, Sext, and None, and at Sunset, because
1 Can. Hipp. 27 : On each day when there is no prayer in church,
take the Scripture and read in it : let sunrise find the Scripture spread
open upon your knees.
2 As for the clergy who neglect to attend, not being hindered by
sickness or absence from home, let them be put apart. 3 Ib. 21.
44 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
that is the end of the day, ] such prayer is put exactly on
a level with those private and individual exercises by
which, in the early morning, a Christian was to compen
sate for the absence of the solemn assembly at the
church. And while the canons put apart the cleric
who without grave reason fails to assist at the vigils in
church, indicating thereby that those are matters of
precept and not of mere counsel, no canonical obliga
tion attaches to the observance of Terce, Sext, and
None, any more than of private prayer, morning and
evening.
It was still the same at the end of the fourth century
With S. Jerome the observance of Terce, Sext, None, and
Vespers is, in the case of a Eoman lady like Paula
Eustochium, or Laeta, a private and individual exercise
At precisely the same date at Jerusalem, on the one
hand, S. Silvia was attending the basilica of the Ana-
stasis, to take part in the solemn and public daily
celebration of Tierce, Sext, None, and Vespers ; while at
Eome, on the other, it was in the solitary seclusion of
her mother s house that the daughter of Laeta had tc
practise these devotional exercises along with her virgc
veterana (her governess, as we might call her), who was
always with her : Assuescat .... mane hymnos canere,
tertia, sexta, nona hora stare in acie quasi bellatricem
Christi, accensaque lucernula redder e sacrificium vesper-
tinum. 2 In fact, beside Mass, there was no other public
1 Can. Hipp. 27.
2 Accustom her to sing hymns every morning ; to stand in the
ranks of Christ as a faithful warrior at the third, sixth, and ninth
hour, and to offer her evening sacrifice at the time when the lamp
is lit. S. Hier. Epistul. xxii. 37, and cvii. 9 ; cf. Pelag. Epist. ad
Dcmetriadem, 23.
SOUECES OF THE KOMAN ORDO PSALLENDI 45
office at which she had to assist, except the vigils. But
at these solemn vigils, both of the Sunday and of the
stations, which were celebrated in this or that church,
and in which the Eoman clergy took part, all the faithful
attended. The crowd was considerable, the attraction
very great, and sometimes there was deplorable disorder. 1
S. Jerome advises Laeta not to allow her daughter to go
without her ; he tells her to keep her close by her side
when there : Vigiliarum dies et solemnes pernoctationes
sic virguncula nostra celebret, ui ne transverse* quidem
ungue a matre discedat. 2 And he thus lets us see that it
was not without some ground that Vigilantius demanded
the suppression of the nocturnal office of the vigils, on
account of the scandals that arose from it. But that
would have been to make a very foolish concession to
the perversity of a few libertines (culpa iuvenum vilissi-
marumque mulierum), and so the Eoman Church con
demned Vigilantius, thus showing how great a value she
put upon these solemn nocturnal vigils.
Yet we must not suppose that at the end of the fourth
century these solemn vigils at Borne, however well
attended they were, possessed the same attractions as the
vigils which were celebrated daily in other places, as, for
instance, at Constantinople in the time of S. John Chry-
sostom, or at Milan in the time of S. Ambrose. The
Greek style of music (canendi mos orientalium partium),
as S. Augustine called it when speaking of the Ambrosian
1 S. Hier. Contra Vigilant. 9.
- EpistuL cvii. 9 : Let our young damsel keep the days of the
vigils with their solemn night-services ; but so that she depart not so
much as a finger s breadth from her mother.
46 HISTOEY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
vigils, that melos cantilenarum which gave so thrilling a
charm to the daily nocturnal office of the basilicas at
Milan, was an innovation as yet unknown at Borne.
The psalmody was executed there, as at Alexandria in
the time of S. Athanasius, in solo, and with such simple
inflexions of the voice that the chant was as nearly as
possible the same as that of the lessons : sic cantet
servus Chris ti, ut non vox canentis sed verba placeant quae
leguntur. l In the time of Pope Damasus and S. Jerome
there is no sign of psalmody rendered by two choirs :
nothing, it would seem, more than psalmi responsorii,
psalms executed in the same way as litanies. To the
deacons appertained the duty of thus executing the
psalmody ; and in many instances the epitaphs of deacons
allude to the skill they possessed in this sort of chant.
Thus, that of the deacon Eedemptus, an inscription of the
time of Damasus, in the cemetery of Callixtus :
^
r . . Redemptum
Levitam subito rapuit sibi regia caeli :
Dulcia nectareo promebat mella canore,
Prophetam celebrans placido modulamine senem :
Haee f uit insontis vitae laudata iuventus. 2
The ancient prophet is of course, no other than
David. In the epitaph of another deacon, contemporary
with Eedemptus, we read :
1 S. Hier. Comm. in Eph. v. 19 : So should the servant of Christ
chant, that not the voice of the singer but the words which he recites
may cause delight.
2 De Rossi, Roma Sotterranea, torn. iii. p. 239 : Suddenly did
the Palace of Heaven catch up to itself the Levite Redemptus : with
honeyed accents was he wont to set forth sweetness, in gentle
melody uttering the words of the ancient Prophet : praiseworthy
for innocence of life was his youth.
SOUECES OF THE KOMAN ORDO PSALLENDI 47
Hie levitarum primus in ordine vivens
Davidici cantor carminis iste f uit. *
We see that the chant of the psalms of David was in the
time of Damasus executed as a solo by the Eoman
levites, and that in a style sufficiently severe to be
described as modulo/men placidum. They were still a
long way off choral psalmody rendered antiphonally.
At what date did the canendi mos orientalium partium,
the antiphonal choral psalmody, reach Rome ? It is
impossible to determine this point with precision. The
Liber Pontificalis attributes this innovation to Pope
Coelestine (422-432) : he, we are there told, caused the
hundred and fifty psalms of David to be chanted before
the sacrifice of the Mass, a custom unknown previously.
This is the reading of the most ancient text of the book.
The second edition, which dates from the sixth century,
adds that the chanting instituted by Coelestine was anti-
phonal. 2 So in the sixth century choral psalmody was
regarded at Eome as having been instituted by Pope Coeles
tine. The evidence furnished by the Liber Pontificalis is,
as a matter of fact, very slight, and I attach the less impor
tance to it because this unlucky passage has been found
to lend itself to the most contradictory interpretations.
The establishment at Eome of daily vigils is a matter
of greater interest. With S. Hippolytus, or even with
1 De Rossi, op. cit. p. 242 : Famous was he while he lived, among
the order of Levites, as a chanter of the song of David. Cf . De Waal,
Le Chant liturgique dans les Inscriptions Romaines du IV me au IX me
Sieele, Comptes Bendus du Troisidme Congr&s Scientifique Inter
national des Catholiques, Bruxelles, 1894, f. ii. p. 310 sqq.
* L. P. (Duchesne), torn. i. p. 280 : . . . Constituit ut psalmi
David CL ante sacrificium psalli antephanatim ex omnibus, quod
ante nonfiebat." 1
48 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
S. Jerome at the end of the fourth century, there was no
question of anything more than vigils for Sundays and
station-days (festivae dies). That was the old regime as
regards liturgy. Ordinary days, called in the fifth century
privatae dies, private days, w r ere not, up to that time,
furnished with vigils. It is only in the course of the
fifth century that they began to have them at Eome.
The most ancient mention to be found of daily vigils at
Borne is in the Rule of S. Benedict. Having to settle
the programme of the vigils for private days, S. Benedict
ordains that at these one of the canticles of the Old
Testament shall be chanted every day, as does the
Eoman Church, [privatis] diebiis canticumunumquemque
die suo ex prophetis, sicut psallit ecclesia Romana,
dicantur. l Here we observe that at the end of the fifth
century the Eoman Church had a daily canonical Office,
or, in other words, vigils for private days. The Eoman
Church was late in falling in with the regime adopted a
century before at Jerusalem, Antioch, Constantinople, and
Milan. But the innovation adapted itself, nevertheless,
without difficulty to the previously existing Eoman
customs.
The vigils of the station-days were arranged in connec
tion with the Mass of the station ; with it they were
celebrated in a specified basilica, the whole Church being
supposed to take part in the celebration, the Pope, the
clergy of the seven ecclesiastical districts or the particular
district specified for the occasion, and the general body of
the faithful. 2 The daily vigils, on the other hand, stood
in a similar relation to the private Mass celebrated daily
1 Bened. Reg. 13. 2 S. Leo, Epist. IX., 2.
SOUECES OF THE ROMAN OEDO PSALLENDI 49
in each presbyteral title ; and just as this private Mass
was celebrated by the priest of the title, assisted only by
his acolytes, and with no other than a voluntary congrega
tion some of the faithful of the neighbourhood and
perchance some pilgrims so the daily vigils were cele
brated in each presbyteral title only by the clergy
attached to that title, and the congregation was composed
of such of the layfolk of the neighbourhood as might be
disposed to attend.
These daily vigils, inaugurated in the fifth century,
were destined for a long time to form the chief part of
the office of the Eoman clergy. Let us proceed to follow
up such few traces as they have left in history and canon
law.
The Liber Pontificalis furnishes us with some
interesting information when it relates that Pope
Hormisdas (514-523) composuit clerum et psalmis eru-
divit. If this had meant that he instructed the clergy
in the knowledge of Holy Scripture, mention would not
have been made of the Psalms alone. The reference is
to chanting the psalms. Here, then, this chanting of the
psalms is spoken of as a duty in which it was necessary
to instruct, or to the performance of which it was even
necessary to compel, the clergy : erudivit . . . composuit.
We may, in fact, see in these efforts of Pope Hormisdaa
the same intention which the Emperor Justinian expressed
at about the same date in his Constitution of A.D. 529,
when he recalled the clergy to the duty of chanting the
psalms at the daily vigils of the churches to which they
were attached.
1 L. P. (Duchesne), torn. i. p. 269 : He set in order the clergy,
and instructed them in psalms.
E
50 HISTORY OF THE EOMAN BREVIARY
A much more definite expression of the same duty
appears in a fragment of a Decretal incorporated in the
work of Gratian. It bears in the manuscripts sometimes
the name of Pope Gelasius, sometimes of a Pope Pelagius.
One cannot be certain to whom it ought really to be
assigned, but we may certainly see in it an authentic
document of the second half of the sixth century at
latest. And what do we read in it ? A suburbicarian l
bishop had given a pledge to the Holy See that he would
cause the office of the daily vigils to be performed by
his clergy. But the latter, deeming the obligation too
onerous, have not responded to the call of their bishop,
who therefore refers the matter to the Pope, and the
Pope replies that the bishop is to recall his clergy by
every means in his power to their liturgical duty, which
he thus defines ; ut cottidianis diebus vigiliae celebrentur
in ecclesia. 2
One would like to know what was the programme of
these daily vigils, which thus in the fifth and sixth
centuries formed the entire office recited by the Boman
clergy. Well, a document closely connected with the
fragment of Decretal which I have just quoted will tell
us. Here is a form taken from the Liber Diurnus the
actual form of that pledge which the suburbicarian
bishops gave to the Pope on receiving consecration from
him. This form describes the liturgical office to which
these bishops bound themselves in their own name and
[ 1 The suburbicarian Churches, says Canon Bright, were probably
those of Picenum Suburbicarium, Campania, Tuscia and Umbria,
Apulia and Calabria, Bruttii and Lucania, Valeria, Sicily, Sardinia
and Corsica. A. B.]
2 Friedberg, torn. i. p. 316.
SOURCES OF THE ROMAN OEDO PSALLENDI 51
that of their clergy. It is the most ancient Ordo of the
Roman Office which we possess :
Illud etiam prae omnibus spondeo atque promitto, me omni
tempore per singulos dies, a primo gallo usque mane, cum omni
ordine clericorum meorum vigilias in ecclesia celebrare, ita ut
minoris quidem noctis, id est a Pascha usque ad Aequinoctium
XXIV a die mensis Septembris, tres lectiones et tres antiphonae
atque tres responsorii dicantur ; ab hoc vero Aequinoctio usque
ad aliud vernale Aequinoctium et usque ad Pascha, quatuor lec
tiones cum responsoriis et antiphonis suis dicantur ; Dominico
autem in omni tempore novem lectiones cum antiphonis et
responsoriis suis persolvere Deo profitemur. l
Thus, at all times of the year, every day, from the
first cock-crowing to sunrise, the whole clergy, with the
bishop at their head, assembled at the church to celebrate
the vigils. On every Sunday in the year these vigils
comprised psalmody with antiphons, nine lessons and
their responds. Daily there was psalmody with anti
phons, lessons and responds, varying in number accord
ing to the season : three lessons from Easter to September
the 24th, four lessons from then to Easter. Let us
study the passage point by point.
(1) Each day there is a vigil office. The anonymous
Decretal quoted by Gratian told us this, but the Liber
Diurnus is more precise : it shows us that this office is
to be performed on every day in the year, at whatever
season ; that it begins at the first cock-crowing ; and that
it is obligatory for the whole body of clergy. Such was
also the state of things contemplated by the Spanish and
Frankish councils of the sixth century.
(2) This vigil office is distinct from the early morning
1 Liber Diurnus, iii. 7.
52 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
office which we call Lauds. The vigil office is celebrated
a primo gallo usque mane, from the first cock-crowing to
sunrise ; the office of Lauds at sunrise, i.e. just after the
vigil office properly so called. It is true that the Liber
Diurnus does not mention this office of Lauds, but
S. Benedict (who, in accordance with monastic custom
both in the Greek- and Latin-speaking Churches, pre
scribes the observance of Lauds at sunrise, at the end
of the nocturnal vigil office) gives us to understand that
such was also the^custom of the Eoman Church.
(3) On the other hand, the Liber Diurnus says not
one word about the office of Vespers. Nor does the
Decretal quoted by Gratian. We are thus led to recall
the fact that, while the Spanish and Frankish councils of
the sixth century, in common with Byzantine law at the
same period, distinguish clearly between the evening
and morning offices the missae vespertinae and the missae
matutinae there was at Eome at the same date no such
distinction ; at Eome nothing but a nocturnal vigil.
(4) The vigil office from Easter to September 24,
when the nights are shortest, comprises three lessons,
three responds, three antiphons ; from September 24 to
Easter, when the nights are longest, it has four lessons ;
but on all Sundays, without exception, nine lessons. It
appears that the number of antiphons in the three
specifications above is meant to correspond with the
number of lessons, just as is the case with the responds ;
but what relation has the number of antiphons with the
number of psalms ? In other words, how many psalms
were chanted at an office of three, of four, or of nine
lessons respectively ? I am unable to say.
(5) The lessons, whether three or four or nine in
SOUKCES OF THE EOMAN OEDO PSALLENDI 53
number, will all have been from Holy Scripture. It is,
however, certain that, in the time of S. Gregory (590-604)
they were also taken from other than canonical writings.
It has been reported to me, he writes, that our very
reverend brother and fellow-bishop Marinianus uses our
commentary on Job for reading at the vigils. I am not
pleased at this, for that work is not composed for the
people. . . . Tell him to substitute for it our commentary
on the Psalms (commenta psalmorum legi ad vigilias facial),
as that is more suited for the instruction of the minds
of the laity in right conduct (Epistul. xii. 24).
In fact, we find that this Ordo, the most ancient we
possess of the Eoman Office, is not very explicit. It
nevertheless furnishes us with some precious materials
for the purpose of comparison, sufficient to enable us to
show by-and-by how that which was to be definitively the
canonical Koman Office was eventually formed, on a
different plan, after the opening of the seventh century.
We have said that the vigils of the private days
the ferial vigils were the province of the priest and
clergy attached to each title or parish church. Among
these inferior clergy we must assign a special place to
the readers. They belonged to the titles, not to the
districts. Inscriptions of the fourth century mention
a lector tituli Pallacinae (S. Mark s), a lector tituli Fasciolae
(SS. Nereus and Achilles ), a lector de Pudentiana. In an
inscription of the seventh century we find mention of a
lector tituli Sanctae Caeciliae. 1 There is one important
detail to be remarked here, viz. that in the fourth century
1 De Rossi, Bullettino, 1883, p. 20.
54 HISTOKY OF THE KOMAN BKEVIAEY
the readers of Eome were not only grown-up men, but of
ripe age : the reader of the basilica of Pudentiana is
twenty-four years old ; he of the basilica of Fasciola is
forty- six. But in the seventh century, on the contrary,
the readers are children : the reader of the basilica of
S. Caecilia is twelve years old. Thus between the
fourth and seventh centuries the condition of the Eoman
readers was completely changed, and that because the
Eoman chant itself was completely changed. They had
broken with that ancient and severe style of chanting the
psalms which an inscription of the time of Damasus, as
we have seen, characterised as modulamen placidum.
Choral psalmody had at last gained its foothold in the
Eoman city. That is why these clerks, with their grave
and manly tones, had given way to choirs of children
with flexible young voices, as had already been the case
elsewhere for a considerable time : in Africa, for example,
where we come across the twelve little clerks of Carthage
infantuli clerici, . . . strenui atque apti modulis canti-
lenae whose touching martyrdom is related by Victor
Vitensis. 1 To children now belonged the principal part in
the liturgical chant. The epitaph of Pope Deusdedit
(615-618) records that he started on his clerical career as
a reader :
Hie vir ab exortu Petri est nutritus ovili,
and that his duty as reader was to chant at the vigils :
Excubians Chris ti cantibus hymnisonis*
1 Viet. Vit. De Persecut. Vand. v. 10.
2 De Rossi, Inscrip. Christ, torn. ii. p. 127 : He from his birth
was nourished up in the fold of Peter . . . keeping watch by night
in hymns of praise to Christ.
SOUKCES OF THE ROMAN OEDO PSALLENDI 55
In the same way it is recorded of Pope Leo II.
(682-683), that in early youth he had been instructed in
the science of psalmody and chanting (cantilena ac
psalmodia praaecipuus) ; of Pope Benedict II. (684-685),
that he had distinguished himself from his childhood in
chanting (in cantilena a puerili aetate) ; of Pope Sergius
(687-701), that when quite young he had been entrusted
to the prior of the chanters for instruction, because he
was industrious and had a talent for chanting (quia
studiosus eratet capax in officio cantilenae priori cantorum
pro doctrina est traditus). 1 Thus we see appear in the
seventh century the Eoman chant, and straightway with
the chant comes forth a school for chanters.
Each title had its readers. It was thought good that
the two great basilicas of Eome, those of the Vatican and
the Lateran, should have their readers gathered together
in a sort of college, like those Scholae Lectorum which
already existed at Milan, at Lyons, at Eheims, at Con
stantinople. 2 The two colleges of readers thus founded,
and destined to bear in common the name at first of
Orphanotropliaeum? afterwards of the Schola Cantorum,
formed two distinct establishments : the one built in front
of the great staircase of S. Peter s, the other situated on
the groundfloor of the palace of the Lateran. At all
events, such was the case in the ninth century 4 under
John VIII. (872-882), at the time when John the Deacon
wrote the Life of S. Gregory, to whom he attributes the
foundation of the Schola Cantorum.
1 L. P. (Duchesne), torn. i. pp. 350, 363, 371.
2 De Rossi, Bullettino, 1883, p. 19.
3 L. P. (Duchesne), torn. ii. p. 92.
4 16. torn. ii. p. 86 ; cf. p. 102, note 18.
56 HISTOEY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
One cannot but be struck with this fact : the simul
taneous appearance at Eome of the chant and the school
for chanters dates back to the age of S. Gregory. Yet
I cannot believe that in reality the Schola Cantorum,
such as we find it in the ninth century, was instituted by
that great Pope. John the Deacon, it is true, positively
affirms it.
Like a wise Solomon, knowing the compunction which is
inspired by the sweetness of the music in the house of the
Lord, S. Gregory compiled for the advantage of the chanters
the collection which we call the Antiphonary, which is of so
great utility. So also he instituted the school for chanters, whose
members still execute sacred song in the holy Roman Church
according to the instructions received from him. To this school
he assigned property, and built for it two dwelling-houses, one
at the foot of the steps of the basilica of the Apostle S. Peter,
the other close by the buildings of the patriarchal palace of the
Lateran. They still show there the couch on which he rested
while giving his lessons in chanting ; and the rod with which
he threatened the children of the choir is still preserved there,
and venerated as a relic, as is also his original Antiphonary.
By a clause inserted in the act of donation, he directed under
pain of anathema that the property given by him should be
divided between the two parts of the Schola as a remuneration
for their daily service. 1
But the testimony of John the Deacon merely repre
sents the opinion of the ninth century, by which time the
name of S. Gregory was too glorious for an institution
such as the Schola not to be somewhat tempted to
appropriate it. And his assertion is not corroborated by
any other author of the same or any earlier date. The
Liber Pontificalis, whose notice of S. Gregory is of the
seventh century, says not a word of this alleged founda
tion of the Schola Cantorum. More than that, we have
1 loann. Diac. ii. 6.
SOUECES OF THE KOMAN ORDO PSALLENDI 57
the constitutions of a council held at Eome by S. Gregory
in 595, which have been inserted by Gratian in his
Decretum : and what is the substance of what we read
there ? In the holy Bom an Church there is a custom of
old standing, but most reprehensible, of having the
chanting done by deacons and other persons who are
engaged in the ministry of the holy altar : whence it
comes about that, iri advancing persons to the order of
deacon, less attention is often paid to their conduct than
to the quality of their voices : a grare abuse, for which a
speedy remedy is to be found by forbidding the deacons
to act as chanters, and confining their duties to those of
the sacred ministry ; as for the chanting, it is to be
performed by the subdeacons, or, if necessity requires, by
those in minor orders (Psalmos vero ac reliquas lectiones
censeo per subdiaconos vel si necessitous fuerit peT minores
ordines cxhiberi). 1 Observe the si necessitous f^lerit ; the
psalms and lessons are in the holy Roman Church the
province of the subdeacons by right, and only by way of
exception belong to the readers, when no other arrange
ment can be made. It is certainly a singular settlement
of the question which this regulation of S. Gregory s
proposes, and its effect does not seem to have been lasting ;
but so far as it goes the regulation is quite against the
hypothesis of the foundation by S. Gregory of a college of
readers, or even of simple chanters, intended to undertake
the very office which he here regards as reserved gene
rally for the subdeacons.
If the idea of the institution by S. Gregory of the
Schola Cantorum is a tradition of late origin, to which we
1 Migne, Pair. Lat. torn. Ixxvii. p. 1335.
58 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
find no testimony earlier than the very end of the eighth
century, and which is traversed by documents of the
seventh, what are we to say to the tradition which
attributes to this pontiff the creation of the Eoman chant
in other words, of the actual music of the antiphons and
responds of the Divine Office ? Fervent partisans of the
theory of the Gregorian origin of plain-chant have
laboured to collect together all the passages which make
S. Gregory the author of this music, 1 and in them I see
one thing very clearly, viz. that, just as the Ordo of the
Mass was attributed to S. Gregory, so the authorship of
the pieces of music which found a place in that Ordo was
assigned to him ; the authenticity of the Gregorian
Sacramentary suggested that of the Antiphonary. Such
was the view taken by Egbert, Bishop of York (732-766),
the earliest author who witnesses to the Gregorian origin
of the Antiphonary. Speaking of the Embertide fast, he
says : It is S. Gregory who in his Antiphonary and his
Missal has marked the Week which follows Pentecost as
that in which the Church of England ought to observe
this fast ; it is not only our Antiphonaries which attest
this, but also those which, with the Missals which belong
to them, we have consulted in the basilicas of the holy
Apostles Peter and Paul (Nostra testantur antiphonaria,
sed et ipsa quae cum missalibus suis conspeximus apud
Apostolorum Petri et Pauli limi?ia). 2 Whatever authority
there is for assigning the Sacramentary to S. Gregory, the
same there is for attributing to him the Antiphonary, and
1 Dom Morin, Les vAritables Origincs du Chant Gr&gorien,
Maredsous, 1890, pp. 7-33 (cf. Gevaert, Les Origines du Chant
liturgique de VEglise Latine, Ghent, 1890).
2 Morin, p. 28.
SOURCES OF THE KOMAN ORDO PSALLENDI 59
no more : and everybody knows what a limited right the
Sacramentary has to be called Gregorian, { being in fact
partly more ancient, partly more modern, than the time
of S. Gregory. And even were the Sacramentary abso
lutely Gregorian, and the Antiphonary no less so, we
should still have no right to say that the composition of
the antiphons and responds of the Divine Office is due to
S. Gregory. For, in fact, in the language of the eighth
century, the word Antiphonary designates the collection
of music sung at Mass what we now call the Gradual,
Liber Gradualis and not that sung in the Divine Office,
the Liber Responsalis. And therefore the whole question
of the authorship of this collection of antiphons and
responds, this Liber Responsalis, stands entirely apart
from the question of the origin of the Gregorian Anti
phonary.
Much better founded was the opinion of that anony
mous liturgical author of the end of the seventh century,
an earlier writer, therefore, than John the Deacon or
Egbert of York, and more familiar also, it would seem,
with the traditions and usages of the Vatican basilica,
who attributes the creation of the Koman chant of the
antiphons and responds, not to any one pontiff, but to
many: S. Leo (440-461), Gelasius (492-496), Symma-
chus (498-514), John I. (523-526), Boniface II. (530-533),
and only finally to S, Gregory. Nor was it at the hands
of S. Gregory that it received its full development : the
work went on being perfected by the labours of Pope
Martin I. (649-653), and by others after him, unknown
to fame, whose names are recorded for us by this same
1 Duchesne, Origines, p. 117.
60 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
author, men of the latter part of the seventh century,
Catalenus, Maurianus, and others. 1 And thus what was
called in the seventh century the Eoman chant has no
right to bear distinctively the name of S. Gregory.
II
We have seen that each presbyteral title had a
daily vigil office, celebrated by the clergy who served the
title, 2 a custom inaugurated in the fifth century, and,
as we have seen, flourishing in the sixth, Now while
the office connected with the station-days was not
destined to undergo any development, this of the daily
vigils, on the contrary, was going to lend itself to
changes full of influence on the future : and it is here
that for the first time in the history of the Eoman
liturgy monastic influence makes itself apparent. It
seems to have been a tradition with the Eoman clergy in
the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries to evince a perse
vering ill-will towards monastic institutions. We all
know what sort of reception they gave S. Jerome, the
first who undertook the advocacy of monachism at
Eome : he has taken good care to let us hear of it, and,
indeed, to give his adversaries as good as they gave,
Less well known are certain prefaces of the Leonine
Sacramentary, 3 which M. Duchesne believes may be dated
back to the latter part of the fourth century, and which
on no supposition can be later than the first half of the
sixth, in which Eoman priests do not shrink from ex
pressing their grievances even in the Liturgy. They are
1 Anon. ap. Gerbert, v. 6 ; see App. C. 2 See above, p. 48.
3 Migne, Pair. Lat. torn. Iv. pp. 28, 64, 65, 74.
SOURCES OF THE ROMAN OEDO PSALLENDI 61
regular diatribes against the monks. . . . The attention
of the Almighty is called to the fact that nowadays His
Church contains false confessors mingled among the true ;
much is said about enemies, calumniators, proud ones
who deem themselves better than others and tear them
in pieces who present an outward appearance of piety,
but who are set on doing harm. The need of guarding
against them is asserted. 1
If such utterances as these are to be understood of
the monks (as has been conjectured, though perhaps on
insufficient grounds), and if they are to be considered as
expressing the feeling of at least one section of the
Eoman clergy, we are not saying too much when we
speak of the animosity against itself which was excited
at Eome by monachism. And perhaps with this state of
animosity was connected the lost Constitution of Pope
Innocent (401-417) De regulis monasteriorum.* In spite
of all this, monachism took root in Eome and endured.
For one moment, in fact, there seemed reason to believe
that it would become a power, a political force to be
reckoned with ; in 556 the election of Pope Pelagius was
held in check by the opposition of the Eoman monks.
Under S. Gregory the favour shown to them was
extreme. But this flourishing state of Eoman mona
chism towards the end of the sixth century was of short
duration ; the favour which it had met with, and which
it owed particularly to the protection of S. Gregory,
ceased immediately after the death of that Pope in 604 :
a sensible reaction followed, and the clerks who edit this
1 Duchesne, Origines, p. 135.
2 L. P. (Duchesne), torn. i. p. 220 ; cf. Jaffe, 494 and 496, where
the severity of S. Leo towards monks is set forth.
62 HISTOEY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
part of the Liber Pontificalis betray in more than one
passage the feeling of joy, not entirely disinterested, which
was inspired in them by this change of feeling. We find
them commending Pope Sabinian (604-606) for having,
in his short pontificate, and evidently in contradiction to
his predecessor, S. Gregory, filled the Church with clerks,
and Pope Deusdedit (615-618) for having restored to
them the offices and revenues they had formerly
possessed a great mark of affection for the clergy. 1
What had happened at the election of Pelagius did not
occur again after the close of the sixth century. But, on
the other hand, if there was need of missionaries for the
wildest and most remote countries of the West, or of
men to serve the most forlorn and neglected sanctuaries
in the outskirts of Borne, it was to monachism that the
Bishops of Eome looked to supply the want. The Eoman
idea was that the monks should render an unacknow
ledged and unrewarded, though devoted, service, and to
this state of things the. Eoman monks resigned them
selves with all submission. Their establishments at
Eome, far from resembling some of the monasteries at
Constantinople, for instance, were those of communities
which possessed an existence almost always obscure and
precarious, and for the most part quite ephemeral.
There was but one occupation which proved for them a
lasting one, and in which they unmistakably made their
mark. No one, perhaps, would have dreamt, in the sixth
century and the early part of the seventh, of entrusting
to monks the daily vigil office of the presbyteral titles at
Eome. But there was in other localities a custom, already
1 L. P. (Duchesne), torn. i. pp. 303, 312, 315, 319.
SOURCES OF THE ROMAN ORDO PSALLENDI 63
ancient, of honouring the tombs of the martyrs and
certain rich sanctuaries by the perpetual chanting of
psalms, and of entrusting this service to monastic com
munities. 1 This custom had been introduced at Eome
itself in the fifth century, under Sixtus III. (432-440),
who entrusted to certain monks the care of the cemetery
Ad Catacumbas on the Appian Way, the place where the
basilica of S. Sebastian was afterwards erected. 2 His
exact object it is not easy to discover : was it to secure
the serving of the sanctuary as regards liturgy, or merely
the proper care of it ? One cannot say. On the other
hand, the idea of S. Leo (440-461), his immediate suc
cessor, is more easy to determine. He established a
monastery at S. Peter s. 3 It is not permissible to say that
these monks were put there to attend to the catechumens
and the penitents, for such service belonged to the priests
of the district. Nor can we suppose that their office was
to take care of the basilica, and more especially of the
Confession of the Prince of the Apostles, for that had
been entrusted by a Constitution of S. Leo himself to
clerks of a particular sort, the ciibicularii. The monks,
then, were set there for the carrying on of public
worship i.e. probably the office of the daily vigils and
their monastery, supposed to be identical with that of
SS. John and Paul at the Vatican, was a manecanterie-
a song-school as was also that founded by Pope Hilary
(461-468) at S. Laurence without the Walls. 4
The three monasteries mentioned above are all
1 Greg. Turon. Hist. Franc, iii. 5, Glor, Mart. 74, Vit. Pair.
vii. 2 ; Sozomen, viii. 17.
2 L. P. (Duchesne), torn. i. p. 234. 3 Ib. p. 239. 
