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.
4 L. P. (Duchesne), torn. i. p. 245.
64 HISTOKY OF THE EOMAN BREVIARY
attached to basilicas extra muros S. Sebastian s, S. Peter s,
S. Laurence s. Within the walls of Eome, the clergy
still sufficed for the maintenance of the vigil office in
their titles. After this, if we go by the information
supplied by the Liber Pontificalis, these basilican
monasteries of the fifth century seem to have been very
little further developed in the two centuries that followed,
even if it be granted that they did not cease to carry on
their functions. In the time of S. Gregory one hears for
the first time of a monastery at the Lateran. 1 Are we to
suppose that this monastery, attached to a basilica
within the walls, continued to exist under S. Gregory s
successors? Who can say? Only at the end of the
seventh century, and still more during the eighth, do we
see these basilican communities develop themselves, and
become a really important factor in the service of the
Eoman Church.
Outside the walls, the basilica of S. Pancras has its
monastery, Monasterium S. Victoris, restored by Pope
Adrian I. (772-795), mentioned in the time of Leo III.
(795-816). 2 S. Laurence s now has two : S. Stephen s,
mentioned above as being founded by Pope Hilary, and
S. Cassian s, of more recent date ; both mentioned as
existing under Leo III. 3 S. Paul s has two : S. Caesarius
and S. Stephen s, both ancient, for Pope Gregory II.
(715-731) did no more than restore them. 4 Both these
are mentioned under Leo III., and were destined to last
on into the middle ages.
Within the walls, the basilica of the Holy Apostles
1 S. Greg. Dial II. Prolog.
2 L. P. (Duchesne), torn. i. p. 508 ; torn. ii. p. 23.
3 Ib. torn. ii. p. 23. 4 Ib. torn. i. p. 397.
SOURCES OF THE ROMAN ORDO PSALLENDI 65
possesses the monastery of S. Andrew, the existence of
which is attested in the time of Leo III., and again
under Stephen V. (885-891). l Attached to the basilica
of S. Peter s Chains is the monastery of S. Agapitus, of
the time of Leo III. and his successor Stephen IV. (816-
817). 2 S. Pudentiana s has the monastery of S. Euphemia.
S. Prisca s has the monastery of S. Donatus. S. Bibiana s
has a Monasterium S. Vivianae. The three preceding
monasteries are all mentioned under Leo III. 3 The
basilica of S. Caecilia is furnished by Pope Paschal (817-
824) with a monastery * SS. Agathae et Caeciliae. 4 The
basilica of S. Praxedis also receives from the same Pope
a monastery, which is given to a community of Greek
monks. 5 Gregory III. (731-741) founds the monastery
1 SS. Stephani, Laurentii, et Chrysogoni, attached to the
basilica of S. Chrysogonus, and this establishment is also
mentioned under Leo III. 6 Not one, but three monas
teries are found grouped round S. Mary s the Greater.
Of these, S. Andrew s, called Cata Barbara Patricia, or
In Massa Juliana, is a foundation of date anterior to
Gregory III., to whom is due its restoration. It is
mentioned under Leo III., 7 as is also the monastery of
S. Adrian s, at the same basilica ; while the third,
SS. Cosmas and Damian, which in the time of Gregory II.
(715-731) had been nothing more than an almshouse
for aged men, is by this time a monastery. 8 Three
monasteries, again, are attached to the Lateran.
1 L. P. (Duchesne), torn. ii. pp. 23, 195. 2 Ib. pp. 12, 24, 49.
8 Ib. p. 24. 4 Ib. p. 57. 5 Ib. pp. 55, 57.
6 Ib. torn. i. p. 418, ii. 23.
? Ib. torn. i. p. 397, ii. 23.
8 Ib. torn. ii. p. 23 ; cf. torn. i. p. 397.
P
66 HISTOKY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
(1) S. Stephen s, which does not appear to have been in
existence in the days of Adrian I., is spoken of under
Leo III. as juxta Lateranis, and is said to be close to
the papal palace. 1 (2) S. Pancras , of earlier foundation
than the time of Gregory III., was restored by him, and
supported by Adrian I. and Leo III. 2 It was situated
exactly where the cloisters of the canons now stand. 3
(3) The Monasterium Honorii (also called the monastery
of SS. Andrew and Bartholomew) was founded, according
to a gloss in the Liber Pontificalis, by Pope Honorius
(625-638) in his own ancestral house, on the site now
occupied by the Hospital of S. John, near the baptistery
of the Lateran ; but having soon fallen into extreme
desolation through the neglect of its inhabitants, it was
reconstructed and reformed by Adrian I. It was still in
existence in the time of Leo III. 4
Finally we come to S. Peter s, where we find, not three
monasteries, as at the Lateran and Liberian basilicas,
but four. (1) S. Stephen s the Less, the latest in date,
was founded by Pope Stephen II. (752-757). It was
built round the oratory of S. Stephen de Agulia that
is to say, on the site of the present sacristy of S. Peter s. 5
(2) S. Martin s, mentioned for the first time under
Gregory III., was close to the apse of the basilica.
Between 847 and 855, S. Martin s, being in danger of
crumbling under the weight of years (longo senio casurum),
1 L. P. (Duchesne), torn. i. p. 506, ii. p. 22.
2 Ib. torn. i. pp. 419, 506, ii. p. 22.
3 On the conjectural identification of this establishment with the
Lateranense Monasterium mentioned in the Dialogues of S. Gregory
(ii. Prolog.), see Mabillon, Annales 0. S. B. torn. i. p. 177.
4 L. P. torn. i. p. 506, ii. p. 22.
6 Ib. torn. i. p. 451 ; de Agulia i.e. of the Obelisk ; see p. 163.
SOURCES OF THE ROMAN ORDO PSALLENDI 67
was restored by Leo IV., out of affection to the
monastery where he had passed his childhood. 1 (3) S.
Stephen s the Greater was situated on the site of the
present College of San Stefano de Copti, by the apse of
the basilica. This monastery, reformed by Adrian I.
and rebuilt by Leo III., bore also the name of Cata
Barbara Patricia, or Cata Galla Patricia. It seems to
have been originally a convent of women, and as such
may have existed from the time of S. Gregory. 2 (4) The
monastery of SS. John and Paul was situated where now
stands the Sistine chapel. Its foundation, as we have
already remarked, dates back to the pontificate of S. Leo.
Summing up the information given above, we observe
that the principal part in the foundation and development
of these monasteries within the city belongs to Gregory II.,
Gregory III., and so forth, the Popes of the first half of
the eighth century ; and further, that among the whole
body of monasteries, whether within or without the walls,
there is one group which takes rank by itself, both for its
antiquity and for its importance in the eighth century-
the four monasteries of the Vatican. 3
It would be a mistake to suppose that these basilican
monasteries of the eighth century were similar in
character to monasteries in the strict sense of the word,
such as those of the Benedictines. Monastery, at Rome,
implied simply a body who lived in community. When,
in the seventh century, the deaconries are spoken of, the
documents mention a monasterium diaconiae attached to
1 L. P. (Duchesne), torn. i. p. 417, ii. pp. 106, 130, 133.
2 Ib. torn. ii. p. 28, i. p. 501.
3 See the Acta of the Roman Synod of 732, in Duchesne, L.P.
torn. i. pp. 422-423.
r2
68 HISTOKY OF THE KOMAN BREVIARY
each ; these monasteries are charged with the per
formance of various charitable offices which used to
belong to the deacon of the district and his clergy. Each
such establishment has at its head a Eector, who bears
the title of Dispensator or Pater, and who has priests
under his command. 1 One can see from these features
how far such a monasterium diaconiae resembled a
monastery on the Benedictine plan ! It is much the
same with the monasteries attached to basilicas. In an
independent monastery the community governs itself,
elects its abbot, administers its goods, and we find such
monasteries at Eome at the period we are speaking of 2 ;
but with the basilican monasteries it is quite otherwise.
No doubt the basilican monastery is exempt from the
authority of the priest of the title to which it has been
attached, 3 but the appointment of the Eector or Pater
belongs to the Pope ; the community accepts him without
having elected him. More than that, this abbot nominated
by the Pope is not a professed monk, but as it were a
prelate of the carriera. During the last years of the
eighth century, under Leo III., the office of abbot of the
monastery of S. Stephen the Greater, one of the four
monasteries attached to S. Peter s, having become vacant,
whom does the Pope nominate to it ? A clerk educated
in the Lateran, in the papal palace, the priest Paschal,
destined to succeed Pope Stephen IV. in 817. 4
1 L. P. (Duchesne), torn. i. p. 365.
- Jaffe, n. 2346 (speaking of the Monastery of SS. Stephen and
Sylvester, founded by Paul I. in 761).
3 L. P. torn. i. p. 418 : [Monasterium] segregatum a iure poles
tatis presbiteri praedicti Tituli 1 (speaking of the basilican Monastery
of SS. Stephen, Laurence, and Chrysogonus, founded by Gregory
HI.). 4 Ib. torn. ii. p. 52.
SOUECES OF THE ROMAN ORDO PSALLENDI 69
And these monks themselves monks under the
government of a secular abbot are not monks in the
strict sense of the word. Stephen III. (768-772), having
come from Sicily to Eome quite young, was placed by
Pope Gregory III. in his monastery attached to the
basilica of S. Chrysogonus, where he became clerk and
monk (illicque clericus atque monachus est effectus) ; and
while being a monk there is no doubt as to his being in
Holy Orders as well, for we find Pope Zachary (741-752)
taking him from his monastery and attaching him to the
service of the Camera (in Lateranensis patriarchii cubiculo
esse praecepit), after which he becomes priest of the
title of S. Caecilia. 1 S. Chrodegang founded his Canons
Eegular (clerici canonici) at Metz on exactly the same
footing, taking as his model, so Paul the Deacon assures
us, the state of things he had seen in practice at Eome. 2
And now, what is the office of these Eoman basilican
monks of the eighth century ? To instruct young clerks
in the ecclesiastical way of life and the knowledge re
quired in it, in co-operation with the vestiarium of the
pontifical palace ? To lodge the pilgrims who come to
1 L. P. (Duchesne), torn. i. p. 468, ii. p. 52.
2 Paul. Diac. Gesta Episc. Met. (Migne, Pair. Lat. torn, xcv.),
p. 709 : Hie [Chrodegangus] clerum adunavit, et ad instar coenobii,
intra claustrorum septa conversari fecit. . . . Ipsumque clerum,
abundanter lege Divina Romanaque imbutum cantilena, morem
atque ordinem Romanae ecclesiae servare praecepitS Chrodegang
collected the clergy together, and caused them to live within the
enclosure of their cloister as in a monastery. And having thoroughly
instructed them in the law of God and the Roman chant, he com
manded them to observe the use and order of the Roman Church.
In the Life of Pope Gregory IV. (827-844) the title of monachi
canonici is given to the Roman basilican monks (L. P. [Duchesne],
lorn. ii. p. 78).
70 HISTOKY OF THE ROMAN BEEVIAEY
visit the Apostolic sanctuaries? No doubt. But the
principal office of these monks is to sing the Divine
Service. And, being both clerks and monks, this office
of theirs is a double one. As clerks, they take part in
the daily office of the clergy I mean the vigils. As
monks, they add to these the diurnal office peculiar to
monks : Terce, Sext, and None. Speaking of the re-
founding by Gregory II. (715-731) of the monasteries
attached to S. Paul s without the Walls, the editor of the
Pontifical Archives writes :
Monasteria que secus basilicam S. Pauli Apostoli erant
ad solitudinem deducta innovavit ; atque ordinatis servis Dei
monachis, congregationem post longum tempus constituens, ut
tribus per diem vicibus et noctu matutinos dicerent, &c.
And again, as if afraid we might not ascribe to these
words their full meaning, he repeats them soon after,
indicating still more clearly the canonical character of
the office :
Monasterium iuxta [ecclesiam S. Dei Genetricis ad Praesepe]
positum S. Andreae, ... ad nimiam deductus desertionem, in
quibus ne unus habebatur monachus, restaurans, monachos
faciens, ordinavit, ut tertiam sextam et nonam vel matutinos in
eadem ecclesia S. Dei Genetricis cotidianis agerent diebus ; et
manet nunc usque pia eius ordinatio. 2
In other words, the monks at S. Paul s and S. Mary s
the Greater sing in their basilicas by night the vigil office
1 L. P. (Duchesne), torn. i. pp. 397, 398. The two passages
quoted may be Englished as follows : He restored the monasteries
belonging to the basilica of S. Paul, which had been brought to
desolation, setting there, after a long interval, a congregation of
monks, servants of God, that they might say their office three times
a day, as well as the Mattins by night. Restoring the monastery
of St. Andrew by the Church of the Holy Mother of God at the
Praesepe, which had been brought to the utmost desolation, so that
SOURCES OF THE ROMAN ORDO PSALLENDI 71
(noctu matutinos) and besides this, by day, Terce, Sext,
and None (tribus per diem vicibus). This is early in
the eighth century : a few years later, and it is no
longer a question of Terce, Sext, and None only, but of
Prime and Vespers as well. This is how the Liber
Pontificalia speaks of Pope Adrian I., towards the end
of the eighth century :
Hie . . . dum per almissima exquisitione sua repperuisset
monasterium quondam Honorii papae in nimia desolatione per
quandam neglegentiam evenire, divina inspiratione motus, a
noviter eum aedificavit atque ditavit ; et abbatem cum ceteros
monachos regulariter ibidem vita degentes ordinavit. Et con-
stituit eos in basilica Salvatoris, quae et Constantiniana, iuxta
Lateranense patriarchio posita, officio celebrari, hoc est, matutino,
ora prima et tertia, sexta seu nona, etiam et vespertina, ab uno
choro qui dudum singulariter in utrosque psallebant, monachi
monasterii S. Pancratii ibidem positi, et ab alter o choro monachi
iarnfati monasterii SS. Andreae et Bartholomei, qui appellatur
Honorii papae, quatenus piis laudibus naviterque psallentes,
hymniferis choris Deique letis resonent cantibus. . . .
not a single monk remained there, and setting monks in it, he
ordained that they should say in the same church every day Terce,
Sext, None, and also Mattins ; and this his pious foundation yet
remains.
1 L. P. (Duchesne), torn. i. p. 506: He, finding by benevolent
inquiry that the monastery of Pope Honorius had through negligence
come to great desolation, being moved by God, rebuilt and enriched
it ; and set there an abbot and monks to live duly according to rule.
And he appointed them to celebrate the Divine Office in the basilica
of the Saviour, which is that founded by Constantine, by the palace
of the Lateran : that is to say, Mattins, the First, Third, Sixth, and
Ninth hours, and also Vespers; the same to be performed by one
choir which hitherto had sung the offices alone, viz. the monks of the
monastery of S. Pancras, founded at that basilica, and by a second
choir composed of the monks of the above-named monastery of SS.
Andrew and Bartholomew, which is also called that of Pope Honorius,
so that rendering devout praise with all assiduity, they might with
hymning choirs make joyful songs resound to God.
72 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
The passage specifies that the monks of these two
monasteries attached to the Lateran are to chant the
office in choir in the basilica, the same comprising the;
nocturnal office of the vigils and the day office of Terce,
Sext, and None, to which, now and henceforth, we find
added Prime and Vespers. 1
We detect in these passages some indication of the
process of liturgical evolution which took place at Rome
between the end of the seventh century and the middle
of the eighth, under monastic influence : I mean the daily
juxtaposition of the traditional vigil office of the clergy
and the monastic hours of prayer. Nay, is there not
something more than this juxtaposition ? Has not the
vigil office of the clergy, as it was set forth in the Liber
Diurnus at the beginning of the seventh century, under
gone a complete transformation ? Was not that arrange
ment of the psalms and lessons in the vigil office at Eome
at the end of the eighth century which we are about to
examine in the next chapter an arrangement so per
ceptibly different from what it had been at the beginning
of the seventh, judging from the Liber Diurnus
brought about by the basilican monks ?
And further, whatever development of the liturgy of
the Roman basilicas took place, it was due to the pre
ponderating influence of the Vatican basilica. It is
certain that in the time of Gregory III. (731-741) the
1 Similarly, of the monks attached to the basilica of S. Mark :
Constituit ut in titulo B. Marci . . . officium fungerent, id est,
tnatutino, liora prima, tertia, et sexta, atqiie nona, seu vespera
psallerenf And of the convent of women belonging to the basilica
of S. Eugenia : Constituit ut iugiter illuc Deo canerent laudes,
videlicet hora prima, tertia, sexta, nona, vespera et matutino,
(L. P. [Duchesne], torn. i. pp. 507, 510.)
SOURCES OF THE ROMAN OEDO PSALLENDI 73
monks of the three monasteries then existing in con
nection with that basilica were already wont to sing
Vespers every day before the Confession of the Prince
of the Apostles. We know this from the following
passage taken from the Constitutions of a Eoman synod
of the year 732 :
Tria ilia monasteria quae secus basilicam Apostoli sunt con-
stituta, SS. loannis et Pauli, S. Stephani, et S. Martini, id est,
eorum congregatio, omnibus diebus, dum vesperas expleverint
ante Confessionem . . . *
And the same Pope, when founding the monastery
attached to the basilica of S. Chrysogonus, which has
been already mentioned several times, specifies that the
monks of the said monastery are to sing the praises of
God in the basilica, not only by night, but also by day,
according to the custom of the basilica of S. Peter :
Constituens monachorum congregationem, ad persolvendas
Dei laudes in eundem titulum diurnis atque nocturnis tem-
poribus ordinatam, secundum instar officiorum ecclesiae B. Petri
Apostoli. 2
So also he restores and reorganises the monasteries
of the Lateran :
Congregationem monachorum . . . constituit ad persolvenda
cotidie sacra officia laudis Divinae in basilica Salvatoris . . .
diurnis nocturnisque temporibus ordinata, iuxta instar officiorum
ecclesiae B. Petri Apostoli. 3
S. Peter s, the site of the Confession of the Prince of
the Apostles ! It was the sanctuary pre-eminent in
1 The Constitution in question, made at a synod of the clergy of
Rome, was engraved on marble tablets in the basilica of S. Peter,
and these tablets are still partly preserved. See the whole passage
in M. Duchesne s edition of the Liber Pontificalis, torn. i. pp. 422-
424.
2 L. P. (Duchesne), torn. i. p. 418. 8 Ib. p. 419.
74 HISTOKY OF THE ROMAN BKEVIAEY
holiness, and the liturgy used at S. Peter s could not but
form the model of all liturgy. The monasteries which
served this basilica were also the most ancient in Borne,
going back to the time of S. Leo : their customs con
stituted a tradition which, even in Eome itself, possessed
an exceptional authority. Their abbots or rectors, who
were, as we have seen, clerks, added to their functions as
abbots the still more important office of chief chanters of
S. Peter s ; they were the leading authorities on liturgy
for the Eoman Church. The anonymous Frankish
writer on liturgy whom I have already mentioned, and
of whom I shall have more to say anon, has preserved
for us the names of three of these rectors, whom he
places after the Popes Leo, Gelasius, Symmachus, John,
Boniface, Gregory, and Martin, as the masters of liturgy
and ecclesiastical music in the Eoman Church who were
in his time the most recent in date and of the greatest
authority :
Post istos quoque Catalenus abba, ibi deserviens ad sepul-
crum S. Petri, et ipse quidein anni circuli cantum diligentissime
edidit.
Post hunc quoque Maurianus abba, ipsius S. Petri Apostoli
serviens, annalem suum cantum et ipse nobile ordinavit.
Post hunc vero domnus Virbonus abba et omnem cantum
anni circuli magnifice ordinavit. *
Nor was it only at Eome that this authority was
recognised and followed. S. Peter s was pre-eminently
the sanctuary venerated by the whole of Latin Catholicism,
and the tomb of the Apostle the corner-stone of the
Western Church. The eyes of all were turned towards
that august Confession. Pilgrims came thither every
1 Anon. ap. Gerbert. v. 6 ; see App. C.
SOURCES OF THE ROMAN ORDO PSALLENDI 75
day from the furthest corners of Britain, just as much as
from the valleys of the Loire and the Ehine. And these
regarded in an especial degree the liturgy in use at
S. Peter s as the absolute canon of what liturgy should be.
Benedict Biscop, the famous abbot of Wearmouth, the
teacher of Bede (628-690), was one of these pilgrims of
the seventh century, so full of devotion to the tomb of the
Prince of the Apostles : five times did he make the
pilgrimage from England to Eome. It was at Eome that
he asked as to the plan of his abbey at Wearmouth. In
memory of Eome he determined that it should bear the
name of S. Peter. At Eome he bought the books for his
monks. From Eome he derived the office and the chant
they were to use. Finally he asked Pope Agatho
(678-681) to supply him with some Eoman clerks, who
might come to Wearmouth to instruct the Anglo-Saxon
monks in the customs of the monks at Eome. And, in
granting his request, to whom did the Pope entrust this
commission ? To the venerable John, chief chanter of
the Church of the Apostle S. Peter, and abbot of the
Monastery of S. Martin, one of the four Vatican
monasteries. And Benedict Biscop brought the said
Abbot John into Britain, in order that he might teach
the monks in his monastery to sing the office as it was
sung at S. Peter s at Eome. l
1 Bed. Hist. Anglor. iv. 18 : Accepit et praefatum loannem
abbatem Britanniam perducendum, quatenus in monasterio suo
cursum canendi annuum, sicut ad S. Petrum Romae agebatur,
edoceret ; egitque abba loannes ut iussionem acceperat pontificis,
et ordinem videlicet ritumque canendi ac legendi viva voce praefati
monasterii cantores edocendo, et ea quae totius anni circulus in cele-
bratione dierum f estorum poscebat etiam litteris mandando : quae hac-
tenus in eodem monasterio servata, et a multis iam sunt circumqua-
76 HISTOKY OF THE EOMAN BREVIARY
It is a fact full of instruction, and not hitherto suffi
ciently dwelt on, that the basilica of S. Peter with its
corporation of monks as chanters, its Schola Cantorum,
and its chief chanters, was in the strictest sense the
fountain-head of the Eoman canonical Office. This state
of things came about in the third quarter of the seventh
century, thanks to that irresistible movement of devotion
and admiration which induced monks from beyond
mountains and seas no longer to look upon as truly
Eoman anything but the clerico-monastic office used at
S. Peter s ; and to borrow from that office the distribution
of the psalter, the order of the lectionary, the words of
the antiphons and responds, and the cycle of the feasts
of the Church seasons. Such was the renown and such
the authority of the rule of Divine Service in use in the
basilica of S. Peter, even at a time when it was not yet
definitely fixed, either as regards words or music, for the
Abbot John, we are told, taught it at Wearmouth without
que transcripts. Non solum autem idem loannes ipsius monasterii
fratres docebat, verum de omnibus pene eiusdem provinciae monas-
teriis ad audiendum eum qui cantandi erant periti confluebant, sed
et ipsum per loca, in quibus doceret, multi invitare curabant. And
he took the aforesaid Abbot John and brought him to Britain, that
in his monastery he might teach the annual curszts of singing Divine
Service, as it was observed at S. Peter s at Rome : and Abbot John
did in accordance with the commandment of the Pontiff, both teach
ing the chanters of the monastery aforesaid by word of mouth the
order and rite of singing and saying the service, and writing down
all that was required for the celebration of the festivals throughout
the year ; which writings are yet preserved in the said monastery,
and have been copied by many persons from divers places. More
over, not only did the same John teach the brethren of the said
monastery, but those who were skilful in chanting came together to
hear him, from almost all the monasteries of that province, and
many of them were careful to invite him to come to their own
localities that he might teach there.
SOURCES OF THE ROMAN ORDO PSALLENDI 77
book, by word of mouth, and had to set about writing it
out for the greater convenience of the Anglo-Saxon
monasteries. As soon as the office of S. Peter s was
codified, and those libri responsales and antiphonarii were
published which, though bearing the name of S. Gregory,
were in reality simply the books in use at S. Peter s, they
carried the Roman basilicas by storm, even as very
shortly they were destined to make a conquest of the
Churches of the Franks.
But before considering this success of the Roman
basilican office, we have to explain how it befell, that,
alongside of the Sunday and station-day office of the
clergy, the daily vigil office of the titles, and the diurnal
office of the basilican monasteries, there was formed and
developed the office of the cemetery churches in other
words the Sanctorale of the Roman Church and how, at
a wonderfully late date, and as it were by accident, it
found a place in the office of the Roman basilicas.
Ill
The festivals of the saints, at Rome as in all other
Christian Churches, were originally the anniversaries of
local martyrs. And it is thus that the history of the
Roman saints days is bound up with that of the ceme
teries and cemetery churches in the outskirts of Rome.
The churches within the walls did not at first bear
the names of Saints. The titles or presbyteral churches
were named after the Pope or other Christian at whose
cost they had been founded. Thus, in the fourth and
fifth centuries people spoke of the title of Vestina/ of
Lucina, of Fasciola, of Damasus/ of Pudens, of
78 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
Clement, by way of designating these parish churches. It
was only in the latter part of the sixth century and during
the seventh, that the Churches of the Deaconries were
founded, and received the names of saints ; among these
we find, within the walls, the basilicas of SS. Cosmas and
Damian, S. Adrian, SS. Sergius and Bacchus, S. Lucy, &c.,
and they are thus named in imitation of the suburban
basilicas, which had been built over the actual tombs of
the martyrs and on that account were called by their
names.
It was only in these suburban cemeteries that the
anniversaries of the martyrs were originally celebrated,
just as were those of the departed members of each
family. A passage in the Liber Pontificalis, not particu
larly clear, attributes to Pope Felix (269-274) the institu
tion of Eucharistic assemblies at the tombs of the martyrs ; l
but, as M. Duchesne remarks, this passage in reality
testifies to nothing more than the contemporary custom
at Eome, at the time when this text of the Liber
Pontificalis was edited i.e. the beginning of the sixth
century. Nevertheless, thanks to Prudentius, we know
that such a custom existed at the beginning of the fourth
century : viz. that on the anniversary of the death of a
martyr Mass was celebrated, either at the altar of the
cemetery church which had been built over the tomb, or
at the very spot where the body rested in the catacomb
itself (if that was still in existence), at an altar erected
by the tomb. This Mass ad corpus, with its necessarily
restricted number of worshippers, was, by force of
circumstances, quasi private ; but the other, on the
1 L. P. (Duchesne), torn. i. p. 158.
SOUECES OF THE KOMAN OEDO PSALLENDI 79
contrary, celebrated as it was in a building often of great
size, or even in the open air on the area of the cemetery,
was a public Mass ; l the people could assist at it in
crowds. Speaking of the anniversary of S. Hippolytus
on the Tiburtine Way, Prudentius distinguishes carefully
between the crypt, where the body of the martyr reposes,
and the faithful come every day to pray by themselves
Haud procul extreme culta ad pomoeria vallo
Mersa latebrosis crypta patet foveis. . . .
Ipsa illas animae exuvias quae continet intus
Aedicula argento fulgurat ex solido
and the basilica (in this case that of S. Laurence) erected
on the level of the ground above, whither, on the anni
versary, the people of Eome, and pilgrims from afar,
come in crowds to assist at the Eucharistic solemnities :
lam cum se renovat decursis mensibus annus
Natalemque diem passio festa refert, . . .
Urbs augusta suos vomit effunditque Quirites. . .
Exultat fremitus variarum hinc inde viarum. . . .
Stat sed iuxta aliud quod tanta frequentia templum
Tune adeat, cultu nobile regifico. . . .
Plena laborantes aegre domus accipit undas,
Arctaque confertis aestuat in f oribus. 2
1 De Eossi, Roma Sotterranea, torn. iii. pp. 488-494.
2 Prud. Peristephanon, xi. 153 sqq. : Near where the rampart s
edge touches on the garden spaces which border it, the crypt opens
its mouth amid the dark shadows of deeply excavated pits : the
shrine itself, containing the mortal garment that wrapped the mar
tyr s soul, shines with massive silver. And now, when the months
have fled, and the year come round, bringing back the festal memory
of his glorious death, the imperial city pours forth its citizens ; on
every side the din of numbers rises from the roads. Lo ! nigh at
hand another temple, dight with royal splendour, into which even so
vast a crowd may enter. Yet scarcely can its full halls contain the
struggling waves of people, and its thronged porches overflow with
their numbers. >
80 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
But in these lines, and indeed in the whole poem of
Prudentius, it does not appear that there is any question
of keeping the anniversary feast of S. Hippolytus other
wise than by the celebration of a Mass. On the other
hand, the author of the treatise De Haeresi Praedestina-
torum, who wrote in the fifth century, gives us to under
stand that the cemeteries of the martyrs had their vigils.
He is telling us about the basilica of SS. Processus and
Martinian, at the second milestone on the Aurelian Way,
being recovered out of the hands of the heretic sect of
the Tertullianists, who had established in it their form of
worship (392-394). The latest date that can be assigned
to their expulsion is that of the pontificate of Innocent I.
(401-417). Well, our author uses the following expres
sion : Marty rum suorum Deus excubias Catholicae
festivitati restituit. l Now, excubiae is a recognised
synonym for vigiliae.
If we may be allowed to have recourse to the customs
of lands beyond the Alps for an explanation of Roman
customs, we shall find an excellent commentary on the
above passage in the description given by Sidonius
Apollinaris of the vigils celebrated at Lyons at the
tomb of Justus, on the anniversary of that martyr. We
went, says he, to the tomb of S. Justus before daylight,
to keep his anniversary (processio antelucana, solemnitas
anniversaries). The crowd was enormous, so that the
basilica, and the crypt, and the porches together, could
not contain it. First, the vigils were celebrated, the
psalms being chanted by alternate choirs of monks and
clerks (cultu peracto vigiliarum, quas alternante mulcedine
1 Migne, Patr. Lat. torn. liii. p. 617 : God restored to Catholic
observance the vigils of His martyrs.
SOURCES OF THE ROHAN ORDO PSALLENDI 81
monachi clericique psalmicines concelebraverunt}. After
the vigils, everyone walked about as he pleased, taking
care not to go too far away, for it was necessary to be
back by the hour of Terce for the solemn Mass (ad tertiam
praesto futuri, cum sacerdotibus res divina facienda). It
was, he adds, a delightful moment ; we came panting
out of that basilica crowded to suffocation and blazing
with lights, and found ourselves in the open country, in
the cool of a night which still retained the softness of
summer, but just touched with the refreshing keenness
of an autumn dawn. !
At Eome, in the course of the fourth century, not only
had the historic vaults of the catacombs been arranged
for worship of this nature, but basilicas had been built on
the area of most of the cemeteries. I have mentioned
S. Laurence s on the Tiburtine Way, and many more
might be added ; such as S. Sylvester s in the cemetery
of Priscilla, SS. Nereus and Achilles in the cemetery of
Domitilla. and, above all, S. Peter s at the Vatican and
S. Paul s on the Ostian Way, The care which we see
taken in the most ancient Eoman Kalendars, such as
that of the date A.D. 354, to record the Locus Deposition/is
of each saint whose feast is kept, is a proof that these
feasts were celebrated at the actual place "of sepulture.
1 Sidon. Ap. Epistul. cvii. 9. Compare the very important and
characteristically Eoman passage in the Latin Life of S. Melania
relating to the vigil of S. Laurence, Analecta Bolland. 1889, p. 23 :
Occasio venit ut et dies solemnis et commemoratio B. Martyris
Laurentii ageretur. Beatissima . . . desiderabat ire in S. Martyris
basilicam et pervigilem celebrare noctem ; scd iwn permittitur a
parentibiLsJ &c. It happened that the solemn commemoration
of the Blessed Martyr Laurence was kept. This blessed lady desired
to go to the basilica of the Martyr, and keep the night-long vigil
there ; but her parents did not permit it.
G
82 HISTOEY OF THE ROMAN BREVIAEY
What is called the Leonine Sacramentary, which is the
most ancient Roman Missal we possess it is certainly
anterior to the time of S. Gregory, and some parts may
be as old as the end of the fourth century marks, in the
case of all the festivals of saints included in it, the place
where they are celebrated or the locus depositionis, and it
is always in a suburban cemetery that the meeting place
for the faithful is appointed :
III. non. August!, natale S. Stephani, in cymiterio Callisti,
via Appia.
VIII. id. Augusti, natale S. Xysti, in cymiterio Callisti ; e
Felicissimi et Agapeti, in cymiterio Praetextati, via Appia, &c.
In the later Sacramentaries, the places of observance
are indicated just in the same way, and one may gather
indications to the same effect from the homilies of
S. Gregory ; in fact, setting aside the homilies preached
on station-days, if we find this Pope preaching to the
people on the natale of a martyr, we may be sure it is in
the cemetery basilica belonging to that martyr, i.e. in
some church without the walls. Such was the state of
things at the beginning of the seventh century.
But in ceasing, after the taking of Rome by Alaric
and his Goths in 410, to be the ordinary cemeteries of the
Roman parishes, and so becoming mere places of pilgrim
age, the catacombs lost many of their visitors, and suf
fered a corresponding diminution in the number of those
who attended to them. In the fifth century the grave-
diggers (fossores) disappear from the scene. The custom of
celebrating, in these ancient cities of the dead, private
anniversary Masses for the departed became extinct in
the following century, when we find Pope John III.
(561-574) endeavouring to restore this devotion, and
SOURCES OF THE ROMAN OEDO PSALLENDI 83
obliged to defray himself the moderate expense of keeping
up even a Sunday celebration of the Holy Mysteries
in the ancient cemeteries. Thus, with the sixth century
commenced the period of gradual ruin and neglect. To
this the siege of Borne by the Goths in 537 contributed
more than anything else : 7iam et ecclesiae et corpora
martyrum exterminatae sunt a Gothis, writes the editor of
the Life of Pope Sylverius (536-537). l Nor were the
Lombards, in the seventh and eighth centuries, enemies
at all likely to refrain from such sacrilegious acts.
In the midst of all these panics and disasters, what
was to become of the cultus of the martyrs ? When the
locus depositions was no longer available for worship,
would the festival of the saint cease to be kept ? Was it
not possible for the Cultus Martyrum to migrate into
the interior of the city of Eome, and find a shelter within
her walls ?
This migration coincides with, and is marked by, the
period when the churches of the Roman titles began to
be designated by the names of saints. The churches of
the deaconries, founded in the latter part of the sixth
century and in the course of the seventh, had, as we have
seen, been all along so designated. And about the same
time the presbyteral titles assume the names of martyrs :
the title of Pudens becomes S. Pudentiana s ; the title of
Prisca, S. Prisca s ; the title of Anastasia, S. Anastasia s ;
the title of Clement, S. Clement s. This transformation
of the names of the basilicas was completed in the eighth
century. The same idea which led to the names of
saints foreign to Home being bestowed on the churches
of the deaconries, had, even in the fifth century caused
1 L. P. (Duchesne), torn. i. pp. 305, 291.
G2
84 HISTOEY OP THE EOMAN BEEVIAEY
the consecration of basilicas within the walls of Eome
under the invocation of the Virgin Mary and the Holy
Apostles. The anniversary of the dedication of these
urban churches most often coincided with the date set
down in the martyrologies as the anniversary of the
saint whose name the particular church bore. Thus it
was that the festivals of non-local saints were the first to
establish themselves in the churches within the walls of
Kome. Then, in the seventh century, the relics of
martyrs began to be translated from the suburbs into
the basilicas of the town those of SS. Primus and
Felicianus in 648, from the fifteenth milestone on the
Nomentan Way ; those of SS. Simplicius, Faustinus
and "Viatrix, 1 in 682, from the fifth milestone on the
road to Porto. In the eighth century, after the siege of
Home by Astolphus and the Lombards in 756, the
bodies of the principal martyrs were translated even from
the catacombs themselves to churches within the walls,
and their cultus followed, them thither. 2
"While the festivals of the saints thus ceased to be
observed in the cemeteries, they did not as yet lose their
strictly local character. "Where the relics of the saint
reposed, there was observed his festival ; and now also,
by analogy, to the church which bore the name of any
1 This is the more accurate form of the name ; she appears in the
kalendars as Beatrix.
2 De Eossi, Roma Sotterranea, torn. i. p. 221. In the time of
Gregory III. the anniversaries of the martyrs were still observed
with vigils in the catacombs. See L. P. (Duchesne), torn. i. p. 421 :
Disposuit ut in cimiteriis circumquaque positis Romae, in die
natalitiorum eorum luminaria ad vigilias faciendum . . . depor-
tentur. He provided that lamps should be carried to the ceme
teries on every side of Eome, for the purpose of holding vigils on
the anniversaries of the martyrs.
SOUECES OF THE EOMAN ORDO PSALLENDI 85
saint belonged the keeping of the festival of that saint.
Thus the feasts of the Virgin Mary were kept at
S. Mary s the Greater ; of SS. Cosmas and Damian at
their own basilica ; of SS. Simplicius and Faustinus at
the basilica of S. Bibiana ; and so with others. In the
Eoman Ordo in the library of Montpellier, which is of the
eighth century, occurs the following rubric : the arch
deacon at the pontifical High Mass, before giving the
Communion to the faithful, is to give notice of any ap
proaching station as follows : Such a day is the anni
versary of such a saint, martyr, or confessor, which will
be kept at such or such a place ; which proves that the
festivals of the Sanctorale, even when celebrated within
the walls, remained merely local feasts. There is another
proof of the same fact in the Life of Pope Gregory III.
(731-741), He constructed in the basilica of S. Peter an
oratory in honour of the Saviour, the Virgin Mary, the
Apostles, Martyrs, Confessors, and all the Just ; and
ordained that every day, after Vespers had been said
before the Confession of S. Peter, the monks of the three
monasteries attached to the basilica (SS. John and Paul,
S. Stephen s, and S. Martin s) should proceed to the new
oratory and sing there three psalms, followed by a lesson
taken from the Holy Gospels, in honour of the saints
whose anniversaries fell on that day (quorum natalitia
fuerint). In other words, since the daily office did not
make any commemoration of the saints whose festivals
were marked in the Koman Kalendar, Pope Gregory III.
established a commemorative office by itself, in order that
these saints, whose festivals were kept elsewhere, should
not be forgotten in the basilica of S. Peter. 1
1 L. P. (Duchesne), torn. i. p. 422.
86 HISTOKY OF THE KOMAN BKEVIAKY
Commenting on this passage in the Life of
Gregory III., M. Duchesne observes : This liturgical
foundation of Gregory III. is not mentioned in the Lives
of the Popes who succeed him, nor in any other passage,
so far as I know. Probably the monks soon shook
themselves free from a somewhat burdensome service. 1
May it not rather be the case that this foundation or
ordinance of Gregory III. was transformed into another,
whose existence was more lasting? And what would
this be but the extension to all the urban basilicas of the
custom of celebrating the anniversaries of all the martyrs
and confessors in the Eoman Kalendar ? ]
In the absence of more direct proof, the coincidence
of dates is striking. In 741 the anniversaries of martyrs
are still localised at the locus depositions or locus tituli ;
in 756 comes the siege of Eome by the Lombards, and
then the translation within the walls of the bodies of the
principal martyrs from the catacombs ; in the time of
Pope Adrian I. (772-795) the general Sanctorale finds a
place in. the order of the office at S. Peter s :
Passiones sanctorum vel gesta ipsorum usque Adrian! tem-
pora tantummodo ibi legebantur ubi ecclesia ipsius sancti vel
titulus : ipse vero a tempore suo rennuere iussit, et in ecclesia
S. Petri legendas esse constituit.
Thus we read in the Ordo of the Vallicellan Library
published by Tommasi. 2 This, indeed, amounts to no
1 L. P. (Duchesne), torn. i. p. 423.
2 Tommasi, torn. iv. p. 325 : The passions or mighty deeds of the
saints were, up to the time of Adrian, only read in that place where
was the church or title of each saint : but he ordered that from
henceforth . . . they should be read in the Church of S. Peter also.
[The word rennuere, or renovere, as it is otherwise given in the MS.,
I am not able to explain. A. B.]
SOURCES OF THE ROMAN ORDO PSALLENDI 87
more than a hint : what is more than a hint is the fact that
the Carolingian liturgists, when introducing into France
the Roman canonical Office, are not aware of any other
state of things than that referred to above. The
Sanctomle, after having been so long considered as
something outside of the canonical Office, has become an
integral part of it. 1
For the time came and, another significant co
incidence, it came with the pontificate of the immediate
successors of Gregory III. when the Office used at
S. Peter s was to establish its rule over the Frankish
Churches ; when the same sentiment which at the end of
the previous century had made popular in England the
cursus and the chant of S. Peter s was to lead to the
adoption of the same chant and office by the Frank
bishops ; when there would be no longer only basilicas at
Eome like that of S. Chrysogonus, but distant cathedrals
such as those of Metz and Eouen, where the Divine
Office would be henceforth celebrated iuxta instar
officiorum ecclesiae B. Petri Apostoli. In France, as in
England a hundred years before, this adoption of the
Eoman Office was spontaneous : the Holy See co-operated
in it, but did not suggest it. The Eoman liturgy attracted
affection to itself for the sake of S. Peter, and also by
reason of its own inherent beauty. S. Chrodegang, like
Benedict Biscop, was deeply penetrated by devotion to
the customs of Eome and S. Peter s. On his return from
a pilgrimage to the tomb of the Prince of the Apostles in
754, being desirous of securing the regular performance
of the offices, both nocturnal and diurnal, in the cathedral
1 Amalarius, De Ord. Antiph. 28.
88 HISTOEY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
of Metz, he founded a college of clergy, on the model of
the monastic communities attached to the basilicas at
Eome, and gave them for their observance the Eoman
Ordo of the office, and the Eoman chant. 1 Before
the death of the great Bishop of Metz, his example had
been followed by Eemigius, Archbishop of Eouen : he
also was returning from a pilgrimage to Eome when he
brought to Eouen, in 760, by the permission of Pope
Paul, the second in command the vice-principal, as we
might say of the Schola Cantorum, to initiate his clergy
into the modulations -of the Eoman method of chanting.
Then, this Eoman chanter being obliged within a short
time to return to Eome, Eemigius sent his clerks to
finish their ins-traction at Eome itself, in the Scliola
Cantorum? He wished to have at Eouen, as Chrodegang
had wished to have at Metz, the pure and genuine Ordo
and chant of S. Peter s. Then, in his turn, Pepin extends
to all the Frankish Churches the reform inaugurated at
Metz and Eouen, commanding all the Frank bishops to
give up the Gallican Ordo, to learn the Eoman chant, and
to celebrate the Divine Office henceforth in conformity
with the custom of the Holy See :
Ut cantum Romanum pleniter discant et ordinabiliter per
nocturnale vel gradale officium>peragatur r s6cundum*quodbeatae
memoriae genitor noster Pippinus rex decertavit ut fieret, quando
Gallicanum tulit, ob unanimitatem Apostolicae sedis et sanctae
Dei ecclesiae pacificam concordiam.
Such are the terms used by the Emperor Charlemagne
in remaking, in 789, the decree of Pepin le Brel 3
1 See above, p. 69. 2 Jaffe, No. 2371.
3 See Duchesne, Origines, p. 97 : That they shall fully learn the
Roman chant, and that the offices be performed in due order, by
SOUKCES OF THE KOMAN OBDO PSALLENDI 89
The conclusion, then, which we must draw from all
these important facts is, that by about the middle of the
eighth century the Eoman Office is already codified, and
supplants the old Gallican office. What is called the
Antiphonary or Eesponsoral of S. Gregory in reality the
Antiphonary of S. Peter s is now written down and com
pleted. And, in fact, about the year 760, we have Pope
Paul I. sending to King Pepin a copy of the Liber Be-
sponsalis, or collection of the antiphons and responds of
the Eoman Office. 1 A similar collection had been brought
by S. Chrodegang to Metz in 756, just as, soon after, we
find Wala, Abbot of Corbey, bringing one to his abbey.
It is this liturgical work, thus for the first time
codified or at all events making its appearance in a
codified form in 756, which we have now to describe in
detail, reconstructing, so far as our historical resources
permit, that Eoman Office by which our forefathers, the
pilgrims of the eighth century, were so powerfully
attracted that they did not hesitate to renounce in its
favour the liturgical traditions which belonged to their
own Churches.
means of the books for Divine Service and the Mass respectively,
according to the decree made by our father King Pepin of blessed
memory, when he suppressed the Gallican Ordo with a view to the
maintaining of due agreement with the Apostolic See, and the peace
and concord of the Holy Church of God.
1 Jaffe, No. 235L
90 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
CHAPTER III
THE EOMAN CANONICAL OFFICE IN THE TIME OF
CHARLEMAGNE
WE have now reached the culminating point of the whole
historical development which our subject includes. First
the archaic period, extending over five centuries ; then a
century of more immediate preparation ; then the golden
age, embracing two centuries, the seventh and the eighth,
during which, in the basilica of S. Peter, the cursus took
shape which, in the case of the Anglo-Saxon monks of
the seventh century, triumphed over the Benedictine, and,
in the case of the Carolingian princes, over the Gallican ;
and which eventually became the rule for the whole of
Latin Christianity. It is the supreme moment of its
success and perfection, the moment for studying and
analysing it to the best advantage.
The documents we have to draw upon for this purpose
are numerous and explicit. If, as a matter of fact, we
do not possess any of the Roman Libri Responsales of
the eighth or ninth centuries, we have at all events the
work of the Frankish liturgist Amalarius, 1 born at Metz
in the last quarter of the eighth century, a disciple of
Alcuin, deputed by Charlemagne, at the request of
1 Migne, Pair. Lat. torn. cv. pp. 985 sqq. ; Mabillon, Vetera Ana-
lecta (ed. 1723), pp. 93-100.
EOMAN OFFICE IN THE TIME OF CHABLEMAGNE 91
Leidrad, Archbishop of Lyons, to organise the proper
performance of the canonical Office in that Church in
conformity with the use adopted at the emperor s palace.
It is believed that Amalarius had already visited Borne in
the time of Leo III. (795-816) before his journey thither
as the messenger of Louis le Debonnaire, in the pontificate
of Gregory IV. (827-844). There he applied himself to
the study of liturgical manuscripts, and the observation
of the ceremonial of the basilicas, especially that used
by Archdeacon Theodore and his clergy at S. Peter s.
He even asked the Pope to give him an authentic copy of
the Liber Hesponsalis of the Roman Church, but Gregory,
not being in a position to grant his request, merely
referred him to the copies which Pope Eugenius II. had
given to Wala for the abbey of Corbey. On these re
searches Amalarius founded two works, which are still
extant : first the De Ecclesiasticis Officiis, finished in 823,
secondly the De Ordine Antiphonarii, published between
827 and 834. Between the appearances of these two
works he had published what we may call a standard
edition of the Roman Liber Hesponsalis as used in France,
and it is this edition which he defends and explains in
his De Ordine Antiphonarii.
The information given by Amalarius, and his remarks,
enable us to verify the antiquity of a ceremony or of
some passage in the liturgy. The text itself of the
liturgy must be sought in the manuscripts of it which
exist. Two of these will be of special service to us.
First, the Liber Besponsalis, published as S. Gregory s
by the Benedictine editors of his works (Dom Denis de
S. Marthe and Dom Guillaume Bersin), from a manu
script of the end of the ninth century, which is now in
92 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
the Bibliotheque Nationals at Paris (Ext. 17438). As
the Benedictine editors have observed, this manuscript
gives the text of the Liber Responsalis as adapted to the
use of a particular church, a non-monastic church in
France. In it appear the proper offices of saints of the
north-east of France, such as S. Vedast, S. Medard,
S. Denis, S. Quintin. But setting aside these, we have
undoubtedly before us, in this manuscript, a text dis
tinctly Eoman, and one whose rubrics in many instances
have been very clumsily altered in order that they might
not remain inapplicable to any but the Eoman clergy. 1
Our second manuscript is of more recent date by far,
being of the twelfth century, but it is from a distinctly
Eoman source nay, more than that, it was written for the
use of the basilica of S. Peter s itself, among the archives
of which it is still preserved (B. 79). This text of the
Liber Responsalis was published by Cardinal Tommasi, 2
who observes that both as regards its texts and its
rubrics it agrees with what Amalarius tells us of the
text and rubrics of the Eoman Office in the ninth cen
tury. 3
In the next place, we are able to draw a further body
of information from the Ordines Romani, at all events
from those which are the most ancient, and most purely
Eoman, such as the Ordo of S. Amand, or that of
1 This Liber Responsalis of S. Cornelius is reprinted in Migne,
Pair. Lat. torn. Ixxviii. pp. 726-850.
2 J. M. Thomasii Opera Omnia (Romae, 1749), torn. iv. pp. 1-169.
3 Ib. p. xxxii.: 4 Ilia propemodum omnia, eoque fere ordine digesta,
in eo reperiuntUT t qiiae de Romano antiphonario tradidit Amalarius,
unde cuique constare potest nostri antiphonarii ritus saeculo XII.
usurpatos ab illis non distare qui in moribus Romanorum erant
saeculo
EOMAN OFFICE IN THE TIME OF CHAKLEMAGNE 93
Einsiedeln, which have been published of late years, 1 or
the Ordo Primus of Mabillon in its original portions, 2 or
lastly, the Ordo published by Dom Gerbert, so necessary
for a right acquaintance with the monastic uses founded
on that of S. Peter s. 3
From these sources, then, we proceed to draw the
materials for that reconstruction of the Eoman Office in
the time of Pepin and of Charlemagne, which we propose
to make.
We have first to consider the ordinary Office of the
Season, and we start with the nocturnal course, which
comprises Vespers, Nocturns (properly so called), and
Lauds.
The office of Vespers begins with the versicle Deus
in adiutorium (O God, make speed), intoned by the
officiant and its response and then follows Gloria
Patri. Lauds begin in the same way, as do also the
hours of the diurnal course, and this uniform commence
ment is prescribed as early as the Eule of S. Benedict.
The psalmody of Vespers has invariably five psalms :
the Eule of S. Benedict only prescribed four. The
psalms allotted to Vespers are the Gradual Psalms
(cxix.-cxxxiii. [i.e. cxx.-cxxxiv. in Book of Common
Prayer] ). But as these fifteen psalms were insufficient,
other short psalms not allotted to the other hours were
1 De Kossi, Inscriptiones Christianae, torn. ii. pp. 34, 35 ; Duchesne
Origines, pp. 439-463.
2 Mabillon, Musaeum Italicum, torn. ii. pp. 9-40.
3 Gerbert, Monumenta Veteris Liturgiae Alcmannicae (1777-79),
torn. ii. pp. 168-185.
94 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
added : the same kind of arrangement is made in the
Rule of S. Benedict, to which the Roman vesper office
owes much, Vespers being at Rome a late introduction
borrowed from monastic custom. Quotidianus usus
noster tenet ut quinque psalmos cantemus in vespertinali
synaxi . . . hos quinque psalmos antiphonatim cantare
solemus, says Amalarius : L the psalmody at Vespers is
antiphonal. But antiphonal psalmody at Rome in the
eighth century does not mean what is implied by the
same term in the language of S. Ambrose and S. Augus
tine. Antiphony, as far as Amalarius is concerned,
means the intercalation, after every verse or pair of
verses of the psalm, of a short phrase, unconnected with
the general course of the psalm. By an easy transition,
this short phrase itself receives the name of antiphon.
It has its musical notation, and in accordance with the
Mode in which the music of the antiphon is composed
the whole psalm is chanted. Antiphona inchoatur ab
uno unius chori ; et ad ems symphoniam psalmus cantatur
per duos choros . . . Cantores alternatim ex utraque parte
antiphonas levant. 2 It is not absolutely stated in this
passage of Amalarius that the antiphon is to be repeated
after each verse of the psalm, but it is nevertheless most
probable that such was the genuine Roman custom in
early times. In Frank countries the traces of this are
few, as of a custom which was on the point of disappear
ing ; but at the end of the ninth century the canons of
1 Amal. De EccL Off. iv. 7, De Ord. Antiph. 6.
2 Amal. De EccL Off. iv. 7 : The antiphon is begun by one
chanter on one side of the choir, and in accordance with its Mode
the psalm is sung by the two sides of the choir alternately. The
antiphons for successive psalms are begun by chanters on the two
sides alternately.
EOMAN OFFICE IN THE TIME OF CHAKLEMAGNE 95
S. Martin s at Tours still repeated the antiphon after
every verse of the psalm : unamquamque antiphonam per
singulos psalmorum versus repetendo canebant, as we read
in the Life of S. Odo of Cluny. 1 On the other hand, at
the beginning of the same century, we find a clerk of
Jlatisbon complaining that his fellows sing the office
without devotion, getting through the psalms as fast as
they can, and, in order to be off to their other concerns
the sooner, leaving out the antiphons sine antiphonis-
forgetting the very raison d etre of these repetitions,
instituted of old by holy doctors for the consolation of
souls :
Nesciunt quia sancti doctores et eruditores Ecclesiae institu-
erunt modulationem in antiphonarum vel responsoriorum re-
petitione honestissima,quatenus hac dulcedine animus ardentius
accenderetur. 2
So the canons of Tours were behind their time ; even
at Borne the custom of suppressing these repetitions soon
prevailed. But the rubrics prescribing them were not
for all that suppressed : in the twelfth century, for
solemn feasts, such as Christmas, we still find the direc
tion that in Nocturns, the antiphons are to be repeated,
at the beginning of the psalm, in the course of the psalm
at the points marked for the purpose, at the end of the
psalm, after the Gloria Patri, and finally after Sicut
erat. 3 This rubric is taken from the Liber Responsalis
of S. Peter s mentioned above. We can see from it the
great importance assigned to the antiphon in the Eoman
psalmody of the eighth century, and how, instead of
being, as it is now, a parasitic prelude to the psalm, it was
1 Migne, Pair. Lat. torn, cxxxiii. p. 48.
2 Jb. torn, cxxix. p. 1399. 3 Tommasi, torn. iv. p. 37.
96 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
the most characteristic element of the chanted psalmody
at Eome. 1
After the five vesper psalms and their antiphons were
finished, the officiant read a short lesson from Holy
Scripture : * Sequitur lectio brevis a pastore prolata. 2
This short lesson was followed by a versicle and response,
such as Vespertina oratio ascendat ad Te, Domine, &c.,
or Dirigatur oratio mea sicut incensum, &c., which,
instead of being chanted, were read, like the lesson.
Immediately after this versicle and response the Magni
ficat with its antiphon was sung. At the end of Vespers
there was no Dominus vobiscum, but Kyrie eleison, said
all together, and as final prayer the Pater noster, which
all said aloud, as is still prescribed by the rubric of the
ferial office. The most solemn place of all was thus
given to the Lord s Prayer, as being the prayer of all
prayers a religious and primitive thought which un
happily was afterwards lost : in fact, even in the eighth
century, the Pater noster. was on festivals, Sundays, and
station-days, supplanted by the collect for the day. This
1 It sometimes even happened that a psalm had, not one, but two
antiphons : Si duae antiphonae notantur sub uno psalmo, prima
antiphona cantatttr in principio et in fine psalmi et post Gloria et
post Sicut erat, secunda antiphona cantatur intra psalmum tantum
ubi invenitur (Tommasi, loc. cit.). The first antiphon served for
the beginning and end, the second was sung at intervals in the
course of the psalm. [A survival of the psalm with antiphon after
every verse is found in the Venite as sung on Epiphany in the third
nocturn ; as also in the Nunc dimittis on Candlemas, in the distri
bution of candles, where the antiphon, as it happens, has the same
melody. For other examples see the Ascension psalm, xlvi. [xlvii.]
and the Assumption psalm, xliv. [xlv.], in Variae Preccs, Solesmes,
1892, pp. 149, 192. The last example has the antiphon after every
pair of verses. A. B.]
a Amal. De Eccl. Off. iv. 7.
ROMAN OFFICE IN THE TIME OF CHARLEMAGNE 97
substitution is later than the time of S. Benedict, who
was unaware of any other custom than the ancient one
of saying the Pater noster at the end of the psalmody.
This vesper psalmody most often ended when it was
getting dark, having been begun at the twelfth hour
(about six p.m.) ; a fact which gives occasion to Amalarius
to remark, with more justice than he is aware of, that
Vespers belong to the night office (vespertinum officium
ad noctem pertinet) . l
To the vesper office as we have just described it and
also to the office of Lauds which we shall describe
presently there was added a short euchological office, 2
the same, in fact, which now bears the name of preces
feriales. These week-day prayers in the form in which
they are still recited in the ferial office, are mentioned by
Amalarius : they were of Eoman monastic prescription.
In them we pray for the faithful who are present and for
ourselves (Ego dixi, Domine miserere mei I said, Lord,
be merciful unto me . . . Fiat misericordia Tua Domine
super nos O Lord, let Thy mercy be shewed upon
us ...): for the whole ecclesiastical state (Sacer dotes
tui induantur iustitiam Let Thy priests be clothed with
righteousness ...): for the community (Memento con-
gregationis Tuae think upon Thy congregation ...):
for the dead (Oremus pro fidelibus defunctis Let us
pray for the faithful departed ...): for those absent
(Pro fratribus nostris absentibus . . .) : for captives and
those in distress (Pro afflictis et captivis . . .) : and
finally, for the common salvation (Exurge Chris te, adiuva
nos Christ, arise, help us . . . ). This series of
1 Amal. ib. 2 Ib. iv. 4.
H
98 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
prayers is spoken of by S. Columbanus in the seventh
century ; it is called by S. Benedict SuppUcatio litaniae,
and it is in reality a litany of a euchological type
sensibly more antique than the Roman Office. 1 In the
eighth century this litany followed not only Lauds and
Vespers, but also Terce, Sext and None. 2
Compline, of which it seems natural to speak in this
place, was no part of the nocturnal office, nor of the
day office either ; it was a purely conventual exercise,
having nothing to do with the liturgy of the basilicas.
It was simply the prayer of the monks at bed-time.
When supper was over, the basilican monks of the
eighth century did not go back from their refectory to the
basilica to sing Compline there : they went straight from
the refectory to the dormitory, and there they said Com
pline : * Canuntur completario ubi dormiunt in dormitorio,
says Gerbert s anonymous liturgical writer in his dog-
Latin. 3 But Compline, in the Liturgy of Amalarius, has
already become a less private and informal office ; and
just as the monastic or dines of the ninth century speak of
Compline as sung in chapter, 4 Amalarius does not indicate
any other place for its recitation than in choir. At the
beginning of Compline he places a short lesson, a feature
not shared by any other office. This short lesson, in
fact, represents the conclusion of the reading or collatio
which had just been carried on in the refectory during
supper : Ante istud officium conveniunt in unum fratres
1 Baumer, Geschichte, pp. 602-614.
2 [It continued to be so prescribed in the Sarum Breviary down
to the Reformation. A. B.]
3 Anon. ap. Gerbert, iv. 2 ; see App. C.
4 Migne, Pair. Lat. torn. Ixvi. p. 941.
ROMAN OFFICE IN THE TIME OF CHARLEMAGNE 99
ad lectionem ; and in another place, In isto consumitur
[i.e. consummatur] esus, potus et collatio. l
The psalmody of Compline is composed of four psalms,
a number not found at any other canonical hour, and
these psalms are invariable, being the same still recited
in this office. Then comes the canticle Nunc dimittis,
followed, without Kyrie eleison, by a collect Tantum-
modo postulatio pro custodia deprecetur. 2 And after
this prayer, Amalarius adds, complete silence follows ; or,
as Gerbert s anonymous writer says : Et tune vadant
cum silentio pausare in lectula sua. 3 Everything, as one
sees, is peculiar in this office of Compline, and this is so
because Compline is the hour of prayer which longest
continued to be of private observance only.
The nocturnal office properly so called began node
media at ordinary times ; for the most solemn occasions
the middle of the night was somewhat anticipated. At
the sound of the bell, 4 all the pious company of clerks
and monks came together to the basilica. The office
began with the versicle and response Domine labia mea
aperies ( Lord, open Thou, &c. ), the officiant saying the
verse ; then followed Gloria Patri. The verse Deus in
adiutorium ( God, make speed ) would have been
regarded as useless repetition along with the Domine
labia mea, and it therefore found no place at the begin
ning of this office.
Immediately after the Gloria Patri came the Invitatory
1 Amal. De Eccl. Off. iv. 8 : Before this office the brethren
assemble for the reading. With this office eating, drinking, and
reading are brought to an end.
- Let nothing more than the prayer for God s protection be said.
3 And then let them go in silence to rest, each one in his bed.
4 On the bell for vigils, see L. P. (Duchesne), torn. i. p. 454.
H2
100 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
psalm Venite exultemus. This beautiful feature of the
liturgy deserves careful attention. It is not, though it
has often been said to be, a remnant of the ancient
method of using what we call antiphons ; l it rather
represents the ancient way of singing the psalmi re-
sponsorii ; and therefore the Frank author of the seventh
century, known by the title of Magister anonymus, to
whom we owe the most ancient commentary on the
Eule of S. Benedict, has very justly given to the Invitatory
psalm the name of Eesponsorium orationis. 2 In it, a
soloist first sings the invitatory verse (which is not really
an antiphon but an acrostichion), and the choir repeat it
all together. After this, it is not the choir that sing the
psalm, but the soloist, while the choir does nothing but
repeat, after every two verses, the acrostichion, as at the
first. Here we have the true primitive ecclesiastical
psalmody.
After the Venite exultemus, the chanting of the psalms
begins. The nocturn comprises twelve psalms, not
furnished with antiphons, like those of Vespers, but sung
continuously (in directum). After every four psalms,
however, a Gloria Patri was inserted. 3 The version of
the psalter in use at Eome was not the same as that
used by the Frankish Churches. The Roman Church
had preserved and we find her continuing to do so
until the fifteenth century her own ancient version, that
of which S. Jerome, in 383, at the request of Pope
[ l The Venite in the third nocturn on Epiphany is such a rem
nant, and may be contrasted with the same psalm as commonly used
with Invitatory. A. B.]
2 Migne, Pair. Lat. torn. Ixxxviii. p. 1006.
3 Amal. De Eccl. Off. iv. 2.
EOMAN OFFICE IN THE TIME OF CHARLEMAGNE 101
Damasus, made a revision in accordance with the
Septuagint, but hasty and incomplete. 1 At Borne the
psalms were sung from this version of 383, while in Gaul,
from the time of Gregory of Tours, there had been
adopted S. Jerome s second version of the psalter, which
we consequently call Gallican, a translation made by him
at Bethlehem, between 387 and 391, with corrections
from the Hebrew and the Hexapla, and now used by the
whole of the Catholic Church. 2
As to the distribution of the psalms of the psalter to
the Nocturns of the different days of the week, that also
was peculiar to Eome. At what date was it fixed ? In
the seventh century, at earliest. A liturgist of the
middle ages gives the following excellent account of it :
We must observe that the psalter has two main parts :
the first, as far as Dixit Dominus, Psalm cix. [ex.], is for
the night office ; the second, starting with Dixit Dominus,
for the day office. S. Ambrose divided the first part into
ten nocturns, decuriae, or diguriae, as the common folk
call them. The first diguria consists of sixteen psalms,
the second of fourteen, the seven following ones of ten
each, the last of eight. These ten diguriae, in the
Ambrosian Office, serve for a fortnight, five being used
each week, for the first five week-days, throughout the
course of the year. As for the Saturday and the Sunday,
1 Hieron. Prc.f. in Lib. Psalm. : Psalterium Romae . . . emend -
aram, et iuxta LXX interpretes licet cursim magna illud ex parte
correxeram.
[ 2 While the Vulgate Old Testament is, generally speaking, a
translation from the Hebrew, the Vulgate Psalms are very evidently
not from the Hebrew, but the Septuagint. S. Jerome, however, in
his second version, added some corrections from the Hebrew ; see his
preface to the Psalms. A, B.J
102 HISTOEY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
in the Ambrosian rite they have their own special canticles.
But at Rome the whole psalter is recited every week, . . .
and the first portion of the psalter, as far as Dixit
Dominus, is divided into seven nocturns, the first, of
eighteen psalms, being for Sunday, the other six, of
twelve psalms each, being for the week-days, while some
few psalms in this first portion of the psalter are reserved
for use in the day hours. 1
The twelve psalms of the nocturn having been chanted,
they passed on to the lessons. The psalmody, at Eome,
was separated from the lessons by the Lord s Prayer and
a capitulum? such as Intercedente B. Principe Aposto-
lorum Petro salvet et custodial nos Dominus. Amalarius
mentions only a versicle in this place. The versicle, the
Lord s Prayer, and the capitulum at a later date main
tained their places side by side. The lessons being now
to be read in the pulpit (analogium), the clerk (or brother
of the community) who is going to read, first asks of the
officiant his blessing, saying lube domne benedicere, to
which the officiant replies by pronouncing a short bene
diction, such as those still used at this service, and the
choir respond Amen. Then the reading begins, the
lessons being taken from the text of the Holy Scriptures
in order. The distribution of the Bible over the seasons
of the Christian year was canonically regulated. Here
is the formula given by Gerbert s anonymous liturgist :
from the first of December to Epiphany, Isaiah, Jeremiah,
Daniel ; from Epiphany to the Ides of February (Feb. 13)
Ezekiel, the Minor Prophets, Job ; in the spring, until
1 Kadulph. De Canon. Observant. 10.
2 [Now called Absolutio t and always having a benedictory cha
racter. A. B.]
KOMAN OFFICE IN THE TIME OF CHARLEMAGNE 103
Holy Week, the Pentateuch, Joshua, Judges ; from
Easter to Pentecost, the Catholic Epistles, Acts, Beve-
lation ; then, for the summer, the four Books of the
Kings, and Chronicles ; from the beginning of autumn
to December 1, the Sapiential Books, l Esther, Judith,
Maccabees, Tobit.
For a long time the custom of reading the Holy
Scriptures after the nocturnal psalmody was confined to
Sundays and station-days ; the ferial Nocturns did not
include any lessons. It was only in the seventh century
that they began to have them, from the time of S. Gregory,
or of Pope Honorius (625-638) : Theodemar, Abbot of
Monte Cassino (777-797), gives this as the reason why
S. Benedict does not prescribe any lessons for the
Nocturns of private days or ferias. 2 The reading went
on for such a time as was convenient, and until the
officiant signed to the reader to stop (quousque praecipiat
ut finiatur). The reader always ended the lesson with
the Tu autem Domine miserere nostri, and the choir
replied with Deo gratias. After each of the three lessons
of the Nocturns was sung a respond.
It would be a mistake to identify these responds used
in the Boman Church with the primitive psalmi responsorii :
of these we have found the analogue in the Invitatory
Psalm, and nothing can be less like the invitatory than a
respond. The respond is in reality a gradual. The lesson
1 Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus.
2 Migne, Pair. Lat. torn. xcv. p. 1584 : . . . Necdum eo tempore
inBomanaecclesia, sicut nunc leguntur, sacras Scripturas legi morem
fuisse ; sed post aliquot tempora hoc institutum esse, sive a B. Papa
Gregorio, sive ut ab aliis affirmatur ab Honorio. Qua de re nostri
maiores instituerunt ut hie . . . tres, cotidianis diebus, . . . lectiones in
codice legantur, ne a S. Romana Ecclesia discrepare viderentur.
104 HISTOKY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
of Scripture read at Mass was followed by a piece of
music sung as a solo and then repeated by the congre
gation : this is what is called the Gradual. The gradual
at Eome is the most ancient form of ecclesiastical chant
in anything like elaborate notation. 1 It is composed of a
text or capitellum, taken indifferently from the psalter or
any other part of Holy Scripture, and thus at once dis
tinguished from the psalmus responsorius, which is by
definition and in fact a psalm from the psalter. Never
theless, at Eome the word responsorium was so far
widely applied that the gradual of the Mass, though not
a psalmus responsorius, was called Eespond, and Amalarius
gives it no other title. 2 Later on, this use of the term
was lost ; people spoke of the gradual of the Mass, the
respond of the Office, and their original identity ceased to
be recognised. 3 It is possible that the respond, both in
1 Duchesne, Origines, p. 107.
2 De Eccl. Off. iii. 11. So also the Ordo of Montpellier : Lecta
lectione . . . de die, sequitur Responsorium et Alleluia (fol. 89).
3 [Though the gradual at Mass and the respond at Nocturns
were once both called Responsorium, and though they both occupy a
similar position, coming after a lection, it does not seem probable
that they were developed from a common germ, but were from the
first different in their structure. This difference appears, (1) as
regards the matter. The gradual is nearly always taken from the
Psalms, though there are some notable exceptions ; and we find a
few not taken from Holy Scripture at all as, for instance, those at
Dedication of a Church, the ordinary votive Mass of our Lady, the
beautiful one in the votive Mass on behalf of women travailing with
child, in the Sarum Missal, and, in the same book, two very curious
metrical graduals in the votive Masses of S. Sebastian and S. Gabriel.
The famous gradual Ecce Sacerdos magnus is rather a reminiscence
of the words of Holy Scripture than an actual quotation from them.
The verse of the gradual is nearly always taken from the same con
text as the text of the gradual itself. On the other hand, the respond
is rarely from the Psalms, and very commonly not from Holy Scrip
ture at all ; while its verse is generally not from the same context as
ROMAN OFFICE IN THE TIME OF CHARLEMAGNE 105
the Mass and in the Office, was a creation of the Eoman
Church, and that it is in this sense that we are to under
stand the saying of S. Isidore of Seville (d. 636) : * Be-
sponsoria ab Italis longo ante tempore sunt reperta. l
S. Benedict prescribes the singing of responds after the
lessons, a fact which supports the longo ante tempore of
S. Isidore. The same writer defines the respond, such
as it was conceived of in the seventh century, thus :
Uno canente chorus consonando respondet. 2 The respond
the text of the respond. (2) The most striking feature of the respond
is the resumption, not from the beginning, but from some point in
the course of the text ; and this must be part of the original design,
from the clever way in which the resumption is made to fit on to
the conclusion of the verse. No such feature occurs in the gradual.
(3) Though the Gloria Patri was not probably a part of any respond
originally, yet it must have been added pretty early, as the Gloria
Patri had not yet got its second verse, Sicut erat, already exten
sively used in the sixth century, and introduced into Gaul in A.D. 544
(Second Council of Vaison, can. 5). But the Gloria Patri finds no
place in the gradual. (4) As regards music: the responds have a
music of their own, so have the graduals ; and these are so distinct
that no plain-chantist can possibly confuse them, or regard them as
variant developments of a common germ. The introit, again, has a
structure of its own, having been originally a psalm, with antiphon
repeated after every verse. The psalm has then been cut down to a
single verse, the antiphon being sung before the verse, after the
verse, and after the Gloria Patri. In modern times the second of
these three repetitions has been dropped. The Gloria Patri was
probably not only not an original feature, but was added here much
later than it was to the respond, as it not only has the Sicut crat,
but the antiphon seems never to have been sung between Gloria
Patri and Sicut erat, as would certainly have been the case had the
addition taken place early (see pp. 94, 95). The introit has also
its own style of music, simpler than those of the gradual and respond,
and in fact nothing more than a festal form of that used in the
psalmody of the Divine Office. Perhaps, after all, these Introit
psalms are what are referred to in that famous passage about Pope
Coelestine and his psalms before Mass ; see chap. ii. p. 47 A. B.]
1 Isid. Hisp. De Eccl Off. i. 9. 2 16.
106 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
was in fact composed of three elements : the responsoriimi
properly so called, the verse, and the doxology. In the
eighth century each of the three responds of the nocturn
had its Gloria Patri, a feature which Amalarius considers
as an innovation made by Popes of recent date. 1 In
fact, S. Benedict only indicated a doxology for the third
respond. All three responds were executed as follows,
which is the ancient method, and, as Amalarius tells us,
the method authorised at Eome. First, the precentor sang
the text of the respond, the responsorium, as a solo, and
the choir repeated it all together ; then the precentor
sang the verse, and the choir once more repeated the
whole responsorium ; then the precentor sang the doxology,
and the choir this time sang the latter part of the re
sponsorium (circa mediam partem intrant in responsorium
et perducunt usque in finem) ; finally, the precentor once
more sang the entire responsorium, and the choir repeated
it entire. The matter of the respond had relation to the
part of Scripture which was in course of reading : there
were responds from the prophets ; there were responds
taken from Genesis (among others the beautiful re-
sponsoria de Joseph) ; there were responsoria Eegum,
responsoria de Sapientia, de lob, de Tobia, de ludith, de
Hester, de Maccabaeis. The responsoria de psalmis went
with the lessons from the New Testament. The col
lection of responds taken from one book of the Bible was
called Historia, 2 and the whole body of such histories which
we possess, text and notation, constitutes a literature, the
special creation of Eome, the critical study of which
has yet to be undertaken.
With the third respond, following the third lesson, the
1 Amal. De Ord. Antiph. 1. 2 Ib. 53
ROMAN OFFICE IN THE TIME OF CHARLEMAGNE 107
nocturn ended. Twelve psalms, three lessons, three re
sponds constituted the nocturn, as well dominical as
ferial. But while this one nocturn was the whole of the
ferial nocturnal office, on Sundays there were added six
more psalms, six lessons, and responds, divided into two
portions or nocturns of three each. In the first of these
two portions, the three psalms had antiphons as at
Vespers ; in the second, the psalms were alleluiaticised :
that is, their antiphons consisted of nothing more than
an Alleluya. At each of these nocturns, as at the first,
the psalmody ended with a versicle or capitulum, on
which followed the lessons. But the lessons in these
two supplementary nocturns of the Sunday office were
not taken from Holy Scripture. They were readings
from the Fathers : Tractatus SS. Hieronymi, Ambrosii,
caeterorumque Patrum, prout or do poscit, leguntur, says
Gerbert s anonymous writer. This custom was, at Eome,
certainly older than the time of S. Gregory, who
mentions it expressly 1 ; it must have been anterior to
S. Benedict himself, since he prescribed it in his Rule.
It seems certain that among these authors the place of
honour was given to the discourses of S. Leo, whose
stately eloquence was peculiarly suitable to the solemnity
of the offices on the principal feasts ; thus these discourses
have more especially come down to us in the Lectionaries.
We possess, in fact, one Lectionary entirely composed of
the sermons of S. Leo, which has served for the use of the
basilica of S. Peter, and another which has belonged to
the basilica of the Holy Apostles. 2
1 S. Greg. Epistul. xii. 24.
2 See the preface of the Ballerini to the edition of S. Leo in
Migne, Pair. Lat. torn. liv. p. 122, De MSS. Lectionariis certe
108 HISTOKY OF THE KOMAN BREVIARY
A copy of the Holy Bible sufficed for the lessons of
the first nocturn, but for those of the other two a whole
library would not have been too much. Accordingly we
find Pope Zachary (741-752) bestowing on the basilica of
S. Peter all the manuscripts he possessed, to serve for
use at the nocturnal office on Sundays and festivals :
Hie in ecclesia Principis Apostolorum omnes codices domui
suae proprios, qui in circulo anni leguntur ad matutinos,
armariorum ope ordinavit. l But in this same eighth
century, the century of liturgical codification, the task of
publishing collections of homilies was undertaken. Hence
those homiliaria and sermonaria, numerous enough in our
libraries, as everyone knows : Omeliae sive tractatus
BB. Ambrosii, Angus tini, Hieronymi, Fulgentii, Leonis,
Maximi, Gregorii, et aliorum catJiolicorum et venerabilium
Patrum, legendae per totius anni circulum, is the title
we read at the beginning of one of these, selected by
hazard ; it is MS. No. 29 of the Montpellier Library, of
ninth century date. Some of these collections have the
name of the compiler. Mention is made of a homiliarium
compiled by a Eoman priest named Agimundus (circa
730), in a manuscript of the eighth century. 2 The name
of Alanus, abbot of Farfa in the second half of the eighth
century (d. 770) is attached to a homiliary compiled by
him, of which several manuscript copies exist, of the
eighth and ninth centuries. Similar collections were made
by Bede (d. 735), and also by Alcuin (d. 804). But the
Romanis. The S. Peter s Lectionary is the MS. 107 and 105 in the
archives of S. Peter s ; that of the basilica of the Holy Apostles is
the MS. 3835-6 (8th century) in the Vatican collection.
1 L. P. (Duchesne), torn. i. p. 432 ; cf. torn. ii. pp. 132, 195.
2 As to Agimundus, see Baumer, Geschichte, p. 286 ; and as to
Alanus, see Migne, Pair. Lat. torn. Ixxxix. p. 1198.
EOMAN OFFICE IN THE TIME OF CHARLEMAGNE 109
name of Paul the Deacon, the most erudite and famous
in his day of the monks of Monte Cassino, and one of
the best-read men in Charlemagne s book factory, ensured
the success of another of these homiliaries, published at
the request of Charlemagne, and with a preface by him :
considered in his time a masterpiece of sound critical
judgment, and the source whence in great measure the
present homiliary of the Eoman Church has been
derived. l
The ninth lesson in the Sunday office was followed by
its respond, just as the others. At Eome, even in the
time of Amalarius, there was no thought of substituting
for this ninth respond the Te Deum, or of adding the
Te Deum after it. On the other hand, S. Benedict, in
whose Rule the nocturnal Sunday office is so different, as
regards the distribution of psalms and lessons, from that
which we are describing as used at Eome in the eighth
century, prescribes the singing of Te Deum after the
respond of the last lesson. The Eoman liturgy in the
time of Amalarius reserved the Te Deum for the nocturnal
office of the festivals of sainted Popes (tantum in natalitiis
pontificum). That is to say this hymn, or, to use the
more antique term, this psalmus idioticus in rhythmical
prose, did not appertain, any more than, as we shall see,
did the Quicunque vult, to the office of the season
according to Eoman tradition. In Gaul the Te Deum
was believed to be the joint production of S. Ambrose
and S. Augustine on the occasion of the baptism
1 Dom Morin, Eevue B6n6d. 1891, p. 270. The text of the
homiliary of Paul the Deacon is to be found in Migne, Pair. Lat.
torn. xcv. pp. 1198 sgg., but this text is to be viewed with caution.
See F. Wiegand, Das Homiliarium Karls des Grossen (Leipzig, 1897).
110 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
of the latter ; but nobody any longer dreams of
assigning to this hymn any such origin. Eecent
researches seem to establish the fact that it is the
work of Nicetas, Bishop of Eemesiana, and that it was
composed about the year 400. 1
There being no Te Deum, the Sunday nocturnal office
at Eome ended with the ninth respond. Before beginning
Lauds, they waited until the sun rose. The interval was
longer or shorter according to the time of year : the
clerks and monks made use of it as an opportunity for
taking breath awhile : Nocturnis finitis, si lux non
statim supervenerit, faciunt modicum intervallum, propter
necessitates fratrum, et iterum ingrediuntur ad matutinis
laudibus complendas, says Gerbert s anonymous author in
his lay brother s Latin. At Eome, so much importance
was attached to beginning Lauds as soon as ever the sun
rose, that if it happened that, at that moment, the
nocturns were not yet finished, they were to be cut short
in order to begin Lauds -at once. 2 Like Vespers, Lauds
began with the versicle Deus in adiutorium and its
response, followed by Gloria Patri ; and the psalmody,
as at Vespers, consisted of five psalms. But of these,
some, as is still the case, were invariable, viz. the Deus,
Deus meus, Ps. Ixii. [Ixiii.], and, united to it, as forming
one psalm, 3 the Deus misereatur, Ps. Ixvi. [Ixvii.], and
the last three psalms of the psalter, Laudate Dominum
de caelis, Cantate Domino, and Laudate Dominum in
1 The researches of Dom Morin, Hiimpel, and Zahn are reviewed
in the Guardian of March 10, 1897, p. 390. See also the Bishop of
Salisbury s article on the Te Deum in the Dictionary of Hymnology,
1892, pp. 1119-1130.
2 Amal. De Ord. AntipTi. 4. 3 16. 2.
EOMAN OFFICE IN THE TIME OF CHAKLEMAGNE 111
sanctis, counted as one psalm. The other three were :
on Sundays, the Dominus regnavit, Ps. xcii. [xciii.]-
replaced on week days by Miserere, Ps. 1. [11.] one other
psalm, and a canticle from the Old Testament. 1 The
programme, therefore, of Lauds, as regards psalmody, is
exactly the same now as it was in the eighth century.
The psalms were furnished with antiphons like those at
Vespers, and the psalmody was followed by a short lesson,
a versicle and response, and then the Benedictus with its
antiphon. The office concluded with Kyrie eleison and
Pater noster. The nocturnal course was now finished,
and the monks could take a little rest, before beginning
the day s work.
For the day there was the diurnal course, i.e. the
three hours of Terce, Sext and None. Each of these
had the same programme : the Deus in adiutorium and its
response, followed by Gloria Patri, and three psalms, or
rather three sections of Ps. cxviiL [cxix.]. These com
prised sixteen verses each, and were without antiphons.
Then came a short lesson, a versicle and response, the
Kyrie eleison, and Pater noster. It will be seen that the
office for these three little day-hours was quite in
dependent of the nocturnal course, and was as invariable
as a rosary.
In speaking of these day-hours we have passed by
the office of Prime, which, like Compline, belonged
neither to the diurnal course nor to the nocturnal, and
was an exercise purely conventual and not basilican. It
was the prayer of the monks on rising, just as Compline
was their prayer at bed-time. In fact, they did not come
from the dormitory, where they had gone to rest awhile
1 Amal. De Eccl. Off. iv. 10 and 12.
112 HISTOEY OF THE EOMAN BEEVIARY
after Lauds, and go into S. Peter s to say Prime : it was
sung in the place where they slept : ista prima ibi
cantatur ubi dormiunt, says Gerbert s anonymous litur-
gist. And, as a confirmation of the day-hours also having
been originally purely conventual, we may remark that,
like them, Prime comprised three psalms, and that one
of these consisted of the first sixteen verses of Ps. cxviii.
[cxix]. Like them, Prime began with Deus in adjutorium
and its response, and the Gloria Patri, and ended with a
verse and response, the Kyrie eleison and the Pater nosier :
but there was no short lesson. 1 So far, Prime was very
similar to the little day-hours ; but what gave it its
special character as an office originally private, just as is
the case with Compline, was the fact of its being
lengthened out by an exercise purely conventual, the
Chapter, or capitulum, so called both by Amalarius and
Gerbert s anonymous author, as well as by the monastic
Ordines which are contemporary with both these two
liturgists. 2 The Chapter .was the meeting together of the
whole community at the beginning of each day. It began
with the recitation of the Apostles Creed. Then the
monks confessed their faults one to another (S. James
v. 16), each in his turn : Donent confessiones suas
vicissim, says the monastic rubric. 3 The Miserere
followed, serving as a profession of contrition for the
past, and right intention for the future. Then came the
1 Amal. De Eccl Off. iv. 3.
2 See the monastic Ordo printed by Migne, Pair. Lat. torn. Ixvi.
pp. 937-942. Of this Ordo MS. copies of the ninth century are
extant.
3 By the eleventh century the Confiteor has made its appearance
both at Prime and Compline. See Joann. Abrin. De Off. Eccl.
p. 30.
BOM AN OFFICE IN THE TIME OF CHARLEMAGNE 113
reading of the Martyrology, followed by the versicle and
response Pretiosa in conspectu Domini : Mors sanctorum
Eius, and the collect Sancta Maria et omnes Sancti, or
some other of the same kind : all of them monastic
observances, which Amalarius does not note as being in
use at Eome in his time, but destined, nevertheless, to
find their way in later. Besides, all this is of secondary
importance just here : the raison d etre of the Chapter
was neither the mutual confession nor the reading of the
Martyrology : it took place thus at the beginning of the
day, for the purpose of assigning to each member of the
community his task, and invoking the blessing of God on
the work undertaken by His servants. Therefore it is
that we find at this point of the office the thrice repeated
verse and response, Deus in adiutorium . . . Domine ad
adjuvandum . . . with Gloria Patri after the third repe
tition, and the versicle Eespice in servos tuos, with its
response, and the lovely collect Dirigere et sanctificare :
an observance constituting the essential feature of the
Chapter, and given in identical terms by Amalarius and
by the monastic Ordines of the seventh century. 1 Are we
now at the end of the Chapter office? Not quite, for
Gerbert s anonymous author informs us that the basilican
monks of Eome did not dismiss the Chapter without
having read some short portion of the Eule of S. Benedict,
that no one might have any excuse for pleading ignorance
of that rule ; after the reading, the abbot dismissed the
Chapter with his blessing : two purely monastic obser
vances, which even in the time of Amalarius had already
become part of the Eoman liturgy, with this difference
only, that the reading of the Eule of S. Benedict was
1 Amal. De Eccl. Off. iv. 2.
I
114 HISTOKY OF THE EOMAN BKEVIARY
replaced by a short lesson from Holy Scripture. Here
again, everything is peculiar in this office of Prime, as we
might expect in an exercise not canonical, but private
and conventual.
Here we finish our description of the ordinary Office
of the Season. Is there any need to remark once more,
as we conclude it, how clearly there is to be distinguished
in it the juxtaposition of different cycles of offices : the
ancient ecclesiastical cycle of the night vigils Vespers,
Nocturns, Lauds; the supererogatory cycle of the day
hours Terce, Sext, None ; the altogether monastic cycle
of conventual exercises Prime and Compline? But
now, these three cycles, once so distinct, blended together
and formed a single cycle, recognised as composing the
canonical Office ; a single euchological poem, of which
the festivals of the Christian year were the episodes.
n
.
The cycle of the festivals of the Christian seasons
begins at Advent. The custom of observing with special
solemnity the four Sundays before the great anniversary
of Christmas, of Gallican origin, but ancient, had been
introduced at Eome before the time of S. Gregory, though
after that of S. Leo. These solemnities took the form of
stations : on the first Sunday, the station was at
S. Mary s the Greater ; on the second, at Holy Cross in
Jerusalem ; on the third, the most solemn of all, the
Sunday Gaudete, at S. Peter s. The fourth Sunday had
no station until the twelfth century. 1 On these Sundays,
the psalmody was that of the ordinary Sunday office :
1 Tommasi, torn. iv. p. 30.
ROMAN OFFICE IN THE TIME OF CHARLEMAGNE 115
the first three lessons were from the Scripture then in
course of reading (Isaiah) ; the next five were expositions
taken from the Fathers ; the ninth was a homily on the
Gospel of the station Mass. The responds were what
gave to the office its special character ; so much is this
the case that the whole office took its name from the
opening words of the first respond : to designate the
office of the first Sunday in Advent, the term used was
the office Aspiciens a longe. Amalarius has no other
name for it. 1
I much regret the fact that I am no musician, so that
I am unable to appreciate the chant of these responds,
and can only judge of them as we judge of the choruses
in the Greek tragedies. But even thus viewed, how much
beauty there is in these responds of the Proper of the
Season, these ingenious and eloquent compositions, which,
by the humble process of piecing together scattered
texts from Holy Scripture, succeed in uttering a language
so striking and dramatic that they seem to revive within
the sanctuaries of Christian basilicas the tones of the
tragic stage of ancient Greece ! Take, for example, that
admirable respond for Advent Sunday, the Aspiciens a
longe, where, assigning to Isaiah a part which recalls a cele
brated scene in the Persae of Aeschylus, the liturgy causes
the precentor to address to the listening choir these
enigmatic words :
Aspiciens a longe, ecce video Dei potentiam venientem, et
nebulam totam ten-am tegentem. Ite obviam ei et dicite :
1 [Thus also were designated other turning-points of the Christian
seasons : the Sunday after the octave of the Epiphany was known
as Domine, ne in ira, and the first Sunday after Trinity as Deus
omnium, from their responds. A. B.]
i2
116 HISTOEY OF THE KOMAN BEEVIAKY
4 Nuntia nobis si tu es ipse qui regnaturus es in populo
Israel. l
And the whole choir, blending in one wave of song
the deep voices of its monks and the clear notes of its
boy readers, repeats, like a reverberating echo of the
prophet s voice :
Aspiciens a longe, ecce video Dei potentiam venientem, et
nebulam totam terrain tegentem.
PKECENTOR
~f. Quique terrigenae et filii hominum, simul in unum, dives
et pauper,
CHOIR
Ite obviam ei et dicite,
PRECENTOR
. Qui regis Israel, intende : qui deducis velut ovem Joseph :
qui sedes super Cherubim,
CHOIR
Nuntia nobis si tu es ipse qui regnaturus es in populo
Israeli
But what need thus to scan the horizon in doubt ?
He Who is coming is known ; He is the Blessed One,
and no triumph can be fair enough to welcome His
advent :
PRECENTOR
f. Tollite portas, principes, vestras, et elevamini portae
aeternales, et introibit
1 Beholding from afar, lo, I see the might of God approaching,
and a cloud covering the whole earth. Go ye forth to meet Him,
and say, " Tell us if Thou art He that is to be Kuler over the people
of Israel."
2 All ye inhabiters of the world and children of men, rich and
poor, one with another, Go ye forth to meet Him, and say, Hear,
O Thou Shepherd of Israel, Thou that leadest Joseph like a sheep,
Thou that sittest upon the cherubims, Tell us, &c.
EOMAN OFFICE IN THE TIME OF CHAKLEMAGKE 117
CHOIR
Qui regnaturus es in populo Israel. l
PKECENTOB
Gloria Patri et Filio et Spiritui Sancto.
And then the whole of the opening text is repeated in
chorus :
Aspiciens a longe, <fec.
Amalarius comments on this respond of Advent
Sunday with just admiration, for it is one of the most
perfect models of this sort of composition which I know.
And undoubtedly there are many other responds the
inspiration of which is far from being so grand or so
brilliant. Moreover, by the end of the eighth century
it would seem that the taste for these chanted compositions
began to be lost : people wished them shorter ; they
were pared down and grudgingly rendered. The respond
Aspiciens a longe has three verses : but already at Eome,
Amalarius tells us, only two of them were sung, 2 and it
became the general rule to assign only one verse to a
respond. Such as they are, however, they have lasted
down to our own times, and, in spite of much opposition,
they have kept their place even in the private recitation
of the office. But our habit of saying over and over
again the most commonplace of them indisposes us to
recognise the beauty of these antique creations, some of
which are in very truth unappreciated masterpieces.
The four Sundays of Advent, which, under the
influence of Frankish monastic customs, were soon to be
1 Lift up your heads, ye gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting
doors, and He shall come in, Who is to be Kuler, &c.
2 Amal. De Ord. Antiph. 8.
118 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
regarded as so many stages in a penitential season,
marked at Eome, on the contrary, in the eighth century,
and even in the twelfth, the progress of a season of
gladness, in which everything took its tone from the
joyful expectation of the coming of the Eedeemer ; and
the third, the Sunday Gaudete, with all the pomp of its
* station at S. Peter s, was the culminating point of this
joyous going up to Bethlehem. The six days before the
24th of December garnished their ferial psalms at Vespers
and Lauds with antiphons which already reflected the
sparkle of the Saviour s star : Rorate caeli , Haurietis
aquas in gaudio ; Constantes estate, videbitis auxilium
Domini ; Consurge, induere fortitudinem ; JElevare, con-
surge, Hierusalem / While the antiphon to Magnificat at
Vespers on these last days of expectation was, as early
as the eighth century, taken from that series which we
call * the great O s : Sapientia ; Adonai ; Radix
lesse ; Clavis David ; Oriens ; Rex gentium ;
virgo virginum, with their lofty and primitive
symbolism. 1 And so at last the 24th was reached, when
the Benedictus at the ferial Lauds had for its antiphon
that which is now transferred to the first Vespers of
Christmas : Dum ortus fuerit sol, videbitis Regem regum
procedentem a matre [sic], tanquam sponsus de thalamo
suo Yet but one more night, and the King of kings
would come forth from His tabernacle.
The Station of Christmas was at S. Mary the Greater,
no doubt ever since the reconstruction of the basilica in
the fifth century under the invocation of the Virgin
Mary, during the pontificate of Sixtus III. (432-440) ;
1 Amal. De Ord. Antiph. 13.
KOMAN OFFICE IN THE TIME OF CHAKLEMAGNE 119
and it derived still greater solemnity from the presence in
the basilica of the famous relic which, since the seventh
century, had gained for it the title of S. Mary s ad
Praesepe. Christmas was a festival observed at Rome
from very early times : it is mentioned as far back as 336
in the Philocalian Kalendar. 1 At Christmas we meet, for
the first time, with an office which is neither dominical
nor ferial: an office of three nocturns, comprising nine
psalms and nine lessons. It appears to me to be merely
a reduced form of the Sunday office, in which the first
nocturn has three psalms with antiphons, instead of
twelve sung in directum. At Christmas, indeed, all the
the psalms, at Vespers, the three Nocturns, and Lauds,
were sung with antiphons repeated after every verse, or
at all events after every short group of verses :
In die Natalis Domini, ad omnes antiphonas vigiliae chorus
choro respondet, et sic omnes antiphonas cantamus ante
psalmos, et infra psalmum ubi inveniuntur, et in fine psalm-
orum, et post Gloria Patri etpost Sicut erat.*
The presence of the Pope added all the distinction of a
stately ceremonial to that of the chant thus embellished.
It was a glorious vigil, which both was and deserved to
be the liturgical model of which all other festivals,
except indeed Easter and Pentecost, were the copies.
Epiphany, more than the rest, was a copy of Christ
mas was it not the Christmas of the Greeks ? It was
1 [Philocalus was a famous engraver of inscriptions, employed by
Pope Damasus A. B.]
2 Tommasi, torn. iv. p. 37 : On the festival of the Lord s Birth
day, in the case of all the antiphons, one choir replies to the other ;
and thus each antiphon is sung at the beginning of its psalm, and in
the course of the psalm at the points marked, and at the end of each
psalm, and after Gloria Patri, and after Sicut erat.
120 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
kept at Eome, as over the West generally, from the fourth
century onwards. The station on this day was at S.
Peter s, and the office was like that of Christmas, of nine
psalms and nine lessons, with antiphons to all the psalms.
These two offices of the 25th of December and the 6th
of January ousted the ferial office of twelve psalms and
three lessons for eight days following ; thus was kept the
Octave both of Christmas and Epiphany.
On thus arriving at the ides of January (January 13),
the date on which Easter would fall was announced ; and
very shortly the process of preparing, by a long season
of penitential mourning, to keep the anniversary of the
Saviour s resurrection, would be beginning. The Eoman
Lent, even in the fourth century, extended over six weeks ;
but the custom of having a station on every day of these
six weeks, even as was the case on the three Sundays in
Quinquagesima, in Sexagesima, and in Septiiagesima,
cannot with certainty be traced back further than about
the seventh century. 1 As for Septuagesima, it was a
Sunday of joy, a last look back upon Bethlehem, on
which antiphons and responds still re-echoed the Alleluias
of Christmas ; and such was its observance at Eome
even down to the time of Alexander II. (1061-1073). 2
But after Septuagesima the Church entered on her period
of sadness : no more Alleluias. And very soon it was a
time of fasting as well. 3 Then, starting with Passion
1 Duchesne, Origines, pp. 234-236. 2 Microlog. 47.
3 Ordo of Montpellier, fol. 96 : Graeci a Sexagesima de came
levant ieiunium; monachi vero et Romani devoti vel boni Christiani
a Quinguagesima ; rustici autem et religuus vulgus a Quadragesima.
Primum autem ieiunium quarto, et sexta feria post Quinquagesimam,
i.e. una ebdomada ante Quadragesimam, apud eos publice agitur.
The Greeks begin to fast from flesh-meat at Sexagesima ; our monks
EOMAN OFFICE IN THE TIME OF CHARLEMAGNE 121
Sunday, came the time when there was not even a Gloria
Patri to the responds. And more sombre still would the
the office become. In the meantime the office of all these
nine Sundays before Easter was the ordinary dominical
one of eighteen psalms and nine lessons. In the same
way the office for the stations (week-days) of Lent was
the ferial one of twelve psalms and three lessons. It
was the responds which gave to these offices their
distinctive character; for besides the responsoria de
Abraham, de loseph, &c., corresponding to the Scripture
then in course of reading, which up to Holy Week was
the Octateuch, 1 the Sundays and stations had a series of
penitential responds Ecce mine tempus acceptabile . . .,
Emendemus in melius. . ., Paradisi portas . . ., which
have all kept their place in the Eoman Breviary, but
which, it must be confessed, are sensibly inferior to most
of those of Advent. On the other hand, the responds of
, Passion-tide form a group of the highest order of merit.
We have still in the Breviary nearly all of these admirable
compositions, of which Amalarius says expressly that they
are the work of the chief liturgists of the Eoman Church :
Composite sunt a magistris S. Romanae ecclesiae : 2
In proximo est tribulatio mea, Domine, et non est qui
adiuvet, ut fodiant manus meas et pedes meos. Libera me de
ore leonis, ut narrem nomen tuum fratribus meis.
Deus, Deus meus, respice in me ; quare me dereliquisti longe
a salute mea ?
and devout Koman people or earnest Christians at Quinquagesima ;
country folk and the rest of the common people at Quadragesima.
However, the first fasts publicly observed by them are on the
Wednesday and Friday after Quinquagesima, i.e. the week before
Quadragesima [first Sunday in Lent].
1 Genesis to Euth inclusive.
2 Amal. De Ord. Antiph. 43.
122 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
Libera me de ore leonis !
In proximo est tribulatio mea, et non est qui adiuvet. 1
Thus they expressed the heart-rending complaint of
Christ in the garden of Gethsemane, forsaken and be
trayed compunctio traditionis Eius, to use the words
of Amalarius.
Then in the background is the conspiracy of His
enemies :
Dixerunt impii, non recte cogitantes : Circumveniamus
iustum, quoniam contrarius est operibus nostris. Promittit se
scientiam Dei habere : Filium Dei se nominat : et gloriatur
patrem se habere Deum. Videamus si sermones illius veri sint.
Et si est verus Fllius Dei, liberet ilium de manibus nostris.
Morte turpissima condemnemus eum !
Haee cogitaverunt, et erraverunt ; excaecavit enim illos
malitia eorum, et nescierunt sacramenta Dei.
Morte turpissima condemnemus eum 1 2
There we have the crowd still undecided, all their
sarcasm, and their pitiless spirit ; the terrible rumbling
of the threats of a blinded people. Then in another
1 Trouble is hard at hand, Lord, and there is none to help
me. They pierced my hands and my feet. Save me from the lion s
mouth, that I may declare Thy Name unto my brethren My God,
my God, look upon me ! Why hast Thou forsaken me, and art so
far from my health ? Save me from the lion s mouth. Trouble is
hard at hand, &c. (Ps. xxi. [xxii.].)
2 The ungodly said, reasoning with themselves, but not aright,
" Let us lie in wait for the righteous, because he is clean contrary to
our doings. He professeth to have the knowledge of God, and he
calleth himself the Child of the Lord. He maketh his boast that
God is his Father. Let us see if his words be true. If he be the Son
of God, He will deliver him out of our hands. Let us condemn him
with a shameful death." Such things they did imagine, and were
deceived, for their own wickedness hath blinded them ; and as for
the mysteries of God, they knew them not. " Let us condemn him
with a shameful death." (Wisdom ii.)
ROMAN OFFICE IN THE TIME OF CHARLEMAGNE 123
respond, the cry of Christ, Hearest Thou not, O
Heavenly Father ? -
Adtende, Domine, ad me, et audi voces adversariorum
meorum. Numquid redditur pro bono malum ? Quia f oderunt
foveam animae meae.
Homo pacis meae in quo sperabam, qui edebat panes meos,
ampliavit adversum me supplantationem.
Numquid redditur pro bono malum ?
Adtende, Domine, ad me, et audi voces adversariorum
meorum. *
So we enter on the Holy Week. The office of the
Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday was simply the
ordinary ferial one : twelve psalms, three lessons. But
on coming to the tridimm, the last three ferias of the
Holy Week, the office assumes the amplitude which
characterises the most solemn anniversaries.
The office of these three days is minutely described
in the purest and most ancient Ordines Romani, such as
that of Einsiedeln and that of S. Amand. It was
undoubtedly a purely Eoman creation. The office com
menced at midnight, and, contrary to the general custom,
neither Deus in adiutorium nor the Invitatory psalm were
said, but the psalmody began at once, without any pre
liminaries. There were three nocturns, each having
three psalms with antiphons. After the third psalm
followed the versicle and response, and the reader stood
up to begin the lessons ; but he neither asked for a
blessing on beginning them nor said the Tu autem,
Domine, at their conclusion. The lessons of the first
1 Give ear to me, Lord, and hear Thou the voice of mine
enemies. Shall evil be rendered for good ? For they have digged a
pit for my soul. Yea, even mine own familiar friend whom I trusted,
who did also eat of my bread, hath laid great wait for me. Shall
evil be rendered for good? Give ear, &c. (Ps. xl. [xli.].)
124 HISTORY OF THE EOMAN BREVIAEY
nocturn were from the Lamentations of Jeremiah on
each of the three days ; those of the second, from
S. Augustine : those of the third, from the Epistles of
S. Paul. Neither the psalms nor the responds had the
Gloria Patri. After the Nocturns came Lauds, with
antiphons to the psalms and Benedictus : but at the
conclusion, no Kyrie eleison as usual, but simply the text
Christus factus est, &c. Christ became obedient for us
unto death, &c. (Phil. ii. 8). Then the congregation
retired in silence. On Maundy Thursday the night office
was celebrated at S. John Lateran, the basilica being lit
up as usual. But on Good Friday, when the office was
at Holy Cross in Jerusalem, all the lights were extin
guished one after another, so that at the end of Benedictus
only one remained alight, which was then hid behind the
altar (reservetur absconsa usque in Sabbato sancto ! ), in
token that the Light of the world was extinguished,
Christ being dead ; and that darkness was upon the face
of all the earth. The night office of Easter Eve was
celebrated in the dark (tantum una lampada accendatur
propter legendum 2 ). Most eloquent was this symbolism !
What are we to say of the Frankish observance which
subsequently took its place, and of which our triangular
stands of unbleached candles are the persistent survival ?
Amalarius was acquainted with this form of the observ
ance, having seen it in use in France in his time ; but
having asked the Archdeacon Theodore at Rome if he
was aware of its having ever been practised on Maundy
Thursday at S. John Lateran, the Roman dignitary was
1 Let it be kept hid until Holy Saturday.
2 Let one lamp only be lit, to read by.
ROMAN OFFICE IN THE TIME OF CHARLEMAGNE 125
able, thank goodness, to assure him that he had never
seen anything of the kind. 1
Indeed, the Eoman Church had not even any need of
this dramatic symbolism to impress the minds of her
faithful people. The whole mystery of the Passion of
the Saviour was set forth in the responds of her office.
All the compassion of the Victim, resigned and forgiving :
Eram quasi agnus innocens; ductus sum ad immolandum,
et nesciebam : consilium fecerunt inimici mei adversum me,
dicentes : Venite, mittamus lignum in panem Eius, et contera-
mus Eum de terra viventium.
Omnes inimici mei adversum me cogitabant mala mini ;
verbum iniquum mandaverunt adversum me.
Venite, mittamus lignum, &c.
Eram quasi agnus, &c. 2
All the emotion of His mother, calling for help to the
Apostles, who have fled :
Vadis propitiatus ad immolandum pro omnibus ! Non Tibi
occurrit Petrus, qui dicebat mori Tecum ? Reliquit Te Thomas,
qui aiebat : Omnes cum Eo moriamur ? Et ne unus ex illis ?
Sed Tu solus duceris, qui castam me confortasti, nlius et Deus
meus !
Promittentes Tecum in carcerem et in mortem ire, relicto
Te fugerunt !
Et ne unus ex illis . . . ?
Vadis propitiatus, &c. 3
1 Amal. De Ord. AntipTi. 44.
2 I was as a lamb without guilt ; brought to the slaughter and
knowing it not ; mine enemies devised devices against me, saying :
" Come, let us make Him taste of the tree, let us cut Him off from the
land of the living." All Mine enemies whisper together against Me ;
even against Me do they imagine this evil. " Come, let us make Him
taste of the tree," &c. (Jer. xi. 19 ; Ps. xl. [xli.].)
3 Thou goest, our Propitiation, to be slain for all ! And doth
not Peter come to Thee, he who said he would die with Thee ?
Hath Thomas left Thee, he who said " Let us die with Him " ?
126 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
All the horror of the conscience of mankind at the
sight of such iniquity :
Barrabas latro dimittitur et innocens Christus occiditur !
Nam et ludas armidoctor sceleris, qui per pacem didicit facere
bellum, osculando tradidit Dominum lesum Christum.
Verax datur fallacibus, pium flagellat impius.
Osculando tradidit, &c.
Barrabas latro dimittitur, &c.
The shuddering of Nature itself, and the witness of
the very fabric which enshrined the Law of God :
Tenebrae factae sunt, &c.
Et velum templi scissum est, &c.
And after this storm of grief, and treachery, and blood,
after this quaking of earth and heaven, the tumult dies
away in the relief of tears :
Recessit pastor noster, &c.
Ecce quomodo moritur lustus, &c.
What, not one of them all ? But Thou art led away to death alone,
Thou Who hast preserved me in chastity, O my Son and my God !
Though they promised that they would go with Thee into prison and
to death, they have forsaken Thee and fled! What, not one of
them? Thou goest, our Propitiation, &c. See Paltographie
Musicale, vol. v. pp. 6 sqq. (Solesmes, 1896), where the singular
history of this respond is given. It was independently adapted for
liturgical use by the Churches of Rome and Milan evidently from an
acrostic Greek poem by the celebrated S. Romanus. The respond in
the two uses has a different verse, as well as other variations. We
may notice the readings propitiator and conservasti (for confortasti)
as being found both in the Milan and in some Roman books.
1 The robber Barabbas is set free, and Christ, the Innocent, is
slain ! For Judas, that very master of the arms of wickedness, who
knew how by means of peace itself to make war, hath betrayed the
Lord Jesus Christ with a kiss. To deceivers is given over the True ;
unholy hands scourge the Holy One. He hath betrayed the Lord
Jesus Christ with a kiss !
ROMAN OFFICE IN THE TIME OF CHAELEMAGNE 127
Domine, post passionem Tuam, et post discipulorum fugam,
Petrus plorabat, dicens : Latro Te confessus est, et ego Te
negavi : mulieres Te praedicaverunt, et ego renui. Putas iam
vocabis me discipulum Tuum ? Aut iterum constitues me
piscatorem mundi ? Sed repoenitentem suscipe me, Domine, et
miserere naei.
Ego dixi in excessu meo, omnis homo mendax.
Putas iam vocabis me discipulum Tuurn ? . . .
Domine, post passionem Tuam, &c. l
Thus the night office of these three days was made,
throughout, one great representation of the sorrowful
mystery of the Passion, death and burial of the Saviour,
and of the unutterable grief of penitent humanity. And
it ended, in the early morning of Easter Eve, amid the
darkness and weeping of Lauds : Sedentes ad monumentum
lamentabantur flentes Domimim. 2
During the rest of the daytime, on Easter Eve, no
further ceremony called for the assembly of the faithful in
the basilica. 3 But at about three o clock in the afternoon
the Paschal vigil would begin. There was no benedic
tion of the new fire or of the Paschal candle, customs
which came from France to Eome after the eighth
1 Lord, after Thy Passion, and the flight of Thy disciples,
Peter lamented, saying, " The thief confessed Thee, and I denied
Thee ; women acknowledged Thee, and I rejected Thee. Thinkest
Thou that Thou canst yet call me Thy disciple ? Canst Thou once
again send me forth a fisher of men ? Yet raise Thou me up again,
O Lord, and have mercy upon me, forasmuch as I repent. I said in
my haste All men are liars. Thinkest Thou that Thou canst yet
call me Thy disciple ? . . ."
2 Sitting over against the sepulchre they wept, and lamented for
their Lord. (Antiphon to Benedictus.}
3 [The late date at which the other hours were added to the
public office of the Triduum is indicated by the fact that while
Nocturns and Lauds have their solemn chant, all the rest, even
Vespers, are without note. A. B.]
128 HISTOKY OF THE KOMAN BKEVIARY
century : but (and this was a matter of ancient usage at
Rome) that long series of lessons and responsoria l which
we still find in the liturgical office of Easter Eve, and
which constitute the best representation we possess of the
original observance of every vigil. Two subdeacons,
carrying torches, placed themselves before the altar at the
foot of the pontifical throne, and gave light to the reader.
So the lessons began, without title or benediction : In
principio creavitDeus caelum et terram, &c. Each lesson
was read first in Greek, then in Latin, and was followed
by Or emus, Flectamus genua, and the collect. After every
three lessons came a responsorium, sung first in Greek,
then in Latin. Altogether six lessons, each read twice
over : Sex lectiones ab antiquis Romanis Graece et Latine
legebantur, says Amalarius. What is this office but a
nocturn shorn of its psalmody in other words, a vigil
on the pattern of those of the fourth century, but without
psalms ? To this vigil office was added the baptism of
the catechumens, which was celebrated in the baptistery
of the Lateran, while in the basilica the people and the
Schola Cantorum sang the litanies, repeating each suffrage
fifteen times ; then, when at last they arrived at the
Agnus Dei of this prolonged litany, the chief of the Schola
said Accendite, and the whole basilica was with all
speed illuminated to welcome the return in procession of
the Pope and his attendants, bringing in the newly-
baptised. And then the Mass, the first Mass of Easter,
1 [These responsoria have no resemblance to the responds at
ordinary Nocturns, nor are they like graduals at Mass. They are, in
fact, as they are now entitled, Tractus, consisting simply of a series
of verses, and set to a simple and striking melody (the same in all),
the cheerful tones of which at once remind us that with this vigil
Easter begins and the last wail of Passion-tide has died away. A. B.]
KOMAN OFFICE IN THE TIME OF CHAKLEMAGNE 129
began, with the triumphal chant of the Gloria in excelsis
and the Alleluya. It must then have been long past
midnight.
One might have thought that this liturgy of the
Paschal night, being nothing else than the ancient vigil,
would have taken the place of the ordinary canonical
nocturn office. But nothing of the kind. As at Jerusalem
in the time of S. Silvia, after the vigil the daily nocturnal
office kept its place. Even in the night of the Besur-
rection/ says the Ordo of S. Amand, we rise after cock
crow, we go into the Church, and, after a prayer, the kiss
of peace is given in silence. Then begins the usual
nocturnal office, the Deus in adiutorium, the invitatory
psalm with its Alleluyas, three psalms with Alleluyas, the
versicle and response, 1 three lessons with their responds.
Then Lauds, with Alleluyas. This canonical nocturn
office was, we see, one of but three psalms, three lessons,
three responds. The reason for this brevity was that,
beginning post gallorum cantum, and not media node, it
would have been impossible to give it the amplitude of
the office of Christmas, for instance, with its nine psalms,
nine lessons, and nine responds. All through the octave
of Easter they repeated this single nocturn of three
psalms and three lessons, following the rule that the
office of the octave must correspond with that of the
feast. And this is how that Paschal office came to be
introduced, the shortest of all, destined so often to be
brought forward as a pattern by clerks devoid of
zeal, ignorant, or pretending to be ignorant, that this
office of three psalms was only short because it was an
1 Here the Ordo of S. Amand inserts the prayer Et orationcm
dat presbyter ^ no doubt the Pater Noster.
130 HISTOEY OF THE EOMAN BREVIAEY
appendage to the long liturgical office of the Paschal
vigil. 1
The octave of Easter, or, as it was then called, the
seven dies baptismales, had an exceptional office. We
have seen that the Ordines Bomani, which furnish us with
such minute particulars as to the liturgy of the last three
days of Holy Week, and as to that of Easter, not only
do not mention the three hours of Terce, Sext, and None,
but say nothing about Vespers either : no public Vespers
were contemplated for Maundy Thursday or Good Friday,
no Vespers of any kind for Easter Eve, 2 The Ordines
are in this respect faithful to the ancient Eoman use,
which did not regard Vespers as a canonical office, but as
being merely monastic and supererogatory. On the other
hand, these same Ordines prescribe Vespers for each of
the dies baptismales. It would be a matter for surprise
if these Paschal Vespers proved to be similar to those
we have already met with in the Common and Proper of
the Season. But nothing-of the kind is the case ; they
have nothing in common with the Vespers of the
ordinary canonical Office beyond the name, which is a
1 Amal. De Eccl. Off. i. 32.
2 The Ordines which are purely Eoman, such as those of
Einsiedeln and S. Amand, make no allusion to any diurnal office
during the Triduum. On the other hand, the Ordo Eomanus Primus
of Mabillon, which, in the case of the Paschal Liturgy, represents
the Koman use as practised elsewhere than at Eome (Duchesne,
Origines, p. 141), mentions the diurnal office : on Maundy Thursday,
Ipsa vero die omne diurnale officium insimul canunt ; on Good
Friday, Vesperam dicit unusquisque privatim; but on Easter eve
nothing (Mabillon, Musaeum Italicum, torn. ii. pp. 19 sqq.). The
Antiphonary of S. Peter s, which testifies to the old Eoman use as it
still existed in the twelfth century, gives this rubric : Primam,
tertiam, sextam et nonam usque ad Pascha secreto dicimus; similiter
vesperum Parasceven (Tommasi, torn. iv. p. 90).
KOMAN OFFICE IN THE TIME OF CHARLEMAGNE 131
fresh proof that at Rome quite another exercise had
originally been known as Vespers than the Benedictine
and Gallican office so named. On the evening of Easter
Day, for instance, when the station was at S. Peter s, the
clergy came in for Vespers in procession, wearing
vestments of silk, preceded by the cross and the incense,
and took up their places in the presbytery round the
high altar. The office began with Kyrie eleison ; then the
Schola Cantorum sang the Dixit Dominus, Ps. cix. [ex.],
the Confitebor, Ps. ex. [cxi.], and the Beatus vir, Ps. cxi.
[cxii.], three psalms with Alleluyas. Between the second
and third of these psalms came a group of versicles and
responses : Dominus regnavit, decor em induit . . ., Parata
sedes tua ex tune . . ., Elevaverunt flumina, Domine . . ., l
all being allusions to the resurrection and triumph of
Christ. After the psalmody there was a prolonged chant
of Alleluya, executed by the Schola, cum melodias simul
cum infantibuSy says the Ordo of S. Amand. Lastly, the
Magnificat, with its antiphon, and by way of conclusion a
collect. Here is an extraordinary programme for Vespers !
And this is not the whole. The procession, in fact, took
up its march again, and the clergy, leaving the presbytery
that is to say, the apse of the basilica went and ranged
themselves in front of the triumphal arch between the
nave and the sanctuary, before the great cross which was
suspended in the centre of the arch. There they sang a
psalm with Alleluyas, the Laudate pueri, Ps. cxii. [cxiii.],
the Magnificat, for the second time, with an antiphon,
and, for the second time also, a collect. There still
1 [ The Lord is King, and hath put on glorious apparel. Ever
since the world began hath Thy seat been prepared. The floods
are risen, Lord, &c. All are from Psalm xcii. (xciii.). A. B.]
K2
132 HISTOKY OF THE BOMAN BKEVIAKY
remained a third vesperal station. The procession now
takes its way to the baptismal font, where was chanted a
fifth psalm, the In exitu Israel, Ps. cxiii. [cxiv. and cxv.],
with Alleluyas ; then, for the third time, the Magnificat
with an antiphon, and a collect. Such are the rubrics
given by Amalarius. 1 The Or do of S. Amand, which
represents a liturgy even more ancient, directs a long
verse in Greek to be sung at the font. On the whole,
these Paschal Vespers are exceedingly different from those
of the canonical Office : it is true they include five psalms,
and these psalms are of those which the canonical Office
reserves for Vespers ; but these three stations, this thrice
repeated Magnificat, these verses in Latin and Greek, are
all features of a Roman liturgy which is sensibly more
ancient, and which belongs to a time when our canonical
Vespers were certainly unknown at Eome.
On Low Sunday (the Sunday in albis depositis), and
thereafter, the exceptional office of Easter Day and the
dies baptismales gave place to the ordinary office, both as
regards Sundays and ferias; the rest of the Paschal
season had nothing proper to itself beyond the antiphons
and responds. The festival of the Ascension of our Lord
was celebrated forty days after Easter; like Christmas
and Epiphany, it was a feast of nine psalms and nine
lessons, with proper antiphons and responds. But, fifty
days after Easter, Pentecost brought back once more the
office of three psalms and three lessons. For Pentecost
-Pascha Pentecosten, as the Antiphonary of S. Peter s
calls it has, like Easter, its liturgical vigil of six lessons,
1 Amal. De Ord. Antiph. 52. [See Wordsworth and Procter s
Sarum Breviary, vol. i. cols, dcccxvij-dcccxxij, for the form of this
beautiful service preserved in England down to the Reformation. A.B.]
ROMAN OFFICE IN THE TIME OF CHAKLEMAGNE 133
read twice over, in Greek and Latin, with their responsoria
and the collects which accompany them ; and this vigil,
like that of Easter, was followed by the baptism of
catechumens : In vigilia Pentecoste sicut in sabbato
sancto ita agendum est, says the Ordo of S. Amand.
The canonical Office, therefore, by analogy would also be
similar to that of Easter, and this abbreviated office
would be repeated throughout the octave. But it would
seem that for some time they hesitated thus to assimilate
the office of Pentecost to that of Easter : while the Anti-
phonary of S. Peter s attests that the office of Pentecost
and its octave is of three psalms and three lessons,
Amalarius, on the contrary, assigns to Whitsun Day itself
an office of eighteen psalms and nine lessons, i.e. the
ordinary Sunday office ; and to the octave one of twelve
psalms and three lessons, the ordinary ferial office. 1 This
may be taken as one proof the more of the absolutely
exceptional character of the Paschal office.
We have now come to the end of the cycle of the
feasts of the Christian year (for the observance of the
feast of the Holy Trinity is long posterior to the eighth
century), and we see the canonical Eoman Office range
itself under four liturgical types :
(1) The ferial office of twelve psalms and three
lessons ;
(2) The Sunday office of eighteen psalms and nine
lessons ;
(3) The festal office of nine psalms and nine lessons ;
(4) The Paschal office of three psalms and three
lessons.
Moreover and it will be of some service to anticipate
1 Amal. De Ord. Antiph. 57.
134 HISTOEY OF THE EOMAN BEEVIAEY
here a question which will come under our notice by-and-
by these four liturgical types are again met with, for
mally set forth in a decree of Gregory VII. (1073-1085) :
(1) Omnibus diebus . . . XII psalmos et III lectiones re-
citamus ;
(2) In Dominicis diebus XVIII psalmos . . . et IX lectiones
celebramus ;
(3) Si festivitas est . . . IX lectiones dicimus ;
(4) In die Eesurrectionis usque in Sabbatum in albis, et in
die Pentecostes usque in Sabbatum eiusdem, III psalmos tantum
ad nocturnos tresque lectiones antique more canimus et legimus.
I have reproduced the exact terms of the decree, 1 and
I conclude from it that the Eoman Office of the eighth
century remained intact at Rome in the eleventh, and
that those liturgists are mistaken who have looked upon this
decree as a reform on the part of Gregory VII., making a
fresh regulation as to the office, when in reality he was
but confirming the custom of the eighth century. I
further conclude to confirm what I advanced before on
the subject of the settlement of the canonical Eoman
Office during the seventh and eighth centuries that these
four liturgical types constitute a system, in regard to the
office, which is sensibly different from that formulated by
the * Liber Diurnus at the beginning of the seventh
century, which may be summed up thus :
(1) A Pascha ad aequinoctium III lectiones ;
(2) Ab aequinoctio ad Pascha IV lectiones ;
(3) Dominico tempore ... IX lectiones. 2
In other words, the settlement of the canonical Office
of the Season in the form we have just described dates
from the seventh and eighth centuries. To these two
centuries, the golden age of the chanted liturgy of Eome,
1 Friedberg, Corpus lur. Can. torn. i. p. 1416.
2 Liber Diurnus, iii. 7 ; quoted above, p. 51.
ROMAN OFFICE IN THE TIME OF CHARLEMAGNE 135
belongs the creation of that admirable office, whose
exquisitely proportioned beauty we have so imperfectly
analysed.
Ill
We have seen in the preceding chapter how, about the
year 750, the office of the saints in the Sanctorale, which
had up to that time been kept separate from the daily
office of the basilicas within the city, and was in this
respect faithful to its tradition as an office belonging to the
cemeteries, at last acquired a place in the office of the
basilicas. That place was at first a humble one, compared
with the great daily office. Far from displacing that office,
whether dominical or ferial, the office of the saints was an
appendage to it : the office of the season having been said,
the office of the saint was added, just as we might add
now to the office of the day the office for the dead. Thus
the office of the saints, admitted at so late a date into
the liturgy of the great urban basilicas, was regarded
as something supplementary and adventitious. But it
speedily blended itself with the great daily office. In the
time of Amalarius, the fusion was already accomplished.
From this time, two degrees came to be distinguished
in the offices of saints. There were lesser and greater
feasts minor es et maiores festi such are the very
terms used in the Ordo of the Vallicellan Library l ; so
Gerbert s anonymous author speaks of sancti principales
by way of distinction from the saints who were not so
considered ; which comes to the same thing.
1 Tommasi, torn. iv. pp. 321-327, has published this curious Ordo
rom the Vallicellan MS. D. 5, of the tenth or eleventh century.
It will be found to furnish us with several important rubrics. But
it is not an Ordo purely Roman ; it is an adaptation of the Roman
136 HISTOEY OF THE EOMAN BEEVIAEY
The lesser feasts corresponded to our simple feasts of
to-day : the ferial office was scarcely modified for them.
Thus, at Vespers, there was the ferial office ; the versicle
and response, and the antiphon to Magnificat, alone were
of the saint. At the nocturn the psalms and responds
were of the f eria ; the invitatory, the versicle and response,
and the three lessons, were of the saint. At Lauds, as at
Vespers, all was of the feria, except the versicle and
response, and the antiphon to Benedictus, which were of
the saint. Had it not been for the proper lessons for the
saint ousting those from the Scripture then in course of
reading, one might say that the lesser feast was scarcely
more than a memorial, and was no infringement on the
ferial office. 1
In principle the greater feasts were not to supersede
the ferial office any more than the lesser ones ; but this
principle was not long maintained. From the second
half of the eighth century we find that on these feasts the
Vespers are no longer of the feria but of the saint : the
five psalms are those of Sunday (psalmi dominicales) ,
with antiphons proper to saints days (antiphonae de
sanctis). It is just the same at Lauds. But at the
Nocturn, the ferial office was better able to maintain its
ancient right of possession.
At first the saint s day had a supplementary nocturn,
distinct from that of the feria ; this nocturn was executed
as a preliminary to the other, coming soon after Vespers.
A second stage in the transformation consisted in making
the ferial nocturn office optional ; in its place might be
Ordo or Capitulare to the customs of some cathedral unknown.
Possibly this editing was done at the extreme end of the eighth
century. J Microlog, 44.
ROMAN OFFICE IN THE TIME OF CHARLEMAGNE 137
said a nocturn de sanctis. Amalarius bears witness to
this transitional state of things liturgical, saying :
Sunt festivitates quarum officia celebrantur nocturnalia circa
vespertinam horam, quae vulgo appellantur propria ; et in pos-
teriore parte noctis canitur alterum officium, sive de propria
feria seu de communibus sanctis. 1
Finally the ferial nocturn was ousted altogether, and
lost even the precarious position which had remained to it :
every vestige of the duality of the office, of the joint cele
bration of the offices of the feria and the saint s day, was
effaced : there was on these greater feasts only one nocturnal
office, and that office was altogether given up to the saint :
In vigiliis omnium apostolorum, vel ceterorum principalium,
. . . ipsa nocte ad vigilias eorum passiones vel gesta leguntur ; ...
psalmi cum eorum passionibus vel gestis cum responsoriis et
antiphonis de ipsis pertinentes canuntur ; ... in novem lec-
cionibus . . . gesta . . . leguntur. Et octabas eorum cum re-
sponsoria vel antiphonas . . . sicut die prima festivitatis eorum
celebrantur.
Such is the rubric given by Gerbert s anonymous
writer. 2 The Carolingian liturgists recognised no other
custom than this, Amalarius, however, writes : * On the
more solemn festivals of saints it is the custom of our
mother the holy Roman Church to celebrate two offices
1 Amal. De Ord* Antiph. 17 : There are some feasts whose
nocturn offices, commonly called their proper offices, are celebrated
some time in the evening ; later in the night there is sung a second
office, which may be that of the feria or of the common of saints.
2 On the vigils of all the Apostles, and other principal saints,
their passions or mighty deeds are read in the night office ; and,
along with their passions or mighty deeds, the psalms, responds, and
antiphona proper to them are sung ; their acts are read in nine
lessons ; and their octaves are kept with these responds and anti-
phons, as on the first day of their festival.
138 HISTOEY OF THE EOMAN BEEVIAEY
during the night. This double office is called "the
vigils." . . . The first is celebrated at the beginning of
the night ; it does not include the invitatory, because the
people generally are not invited to the vigil at this time [?],
but only to the vigil at midnight. Then, indeed, when
the people and clergy together are entering on the second
vigil, the invitatory is sung. 1 No doubt, these double
vigils were not assigned to all the greater feasts without
distinction ; in the ninth century the festivals of SS. Peter
and Paul, S. Andrew, S. Laurence, the Assumption, and
the Nativity of S. John the Baptist were the only ones
which were observed with this special kind of solemnity.
But the solemnity endured, and was a survival of the
ancient observance of such festivals. After the thirteenth
century it vanished even at Eome itself, and nothing
was left of it but the liturgical expression (inexplicable
unless by reference to its true origin) a double office
officium duplex or more precisely, officium duplex warns. 2
What were the festivals of saints kept at Eome ? One
would like to have a Roman Kalendar of the second half
of the eighth century ; but we have none. The Anti-
phonary of St. Peter s, however, furnishes us with a purely
Roman Kalendar of the office in its time, and this
Kalendar of the twelfth century can easily be brought
into the state in which it would have been three centuries
earlier ; it is sufficient for us to compare it with the list
of festivals given in the Sacramentary called by the name
1 Amal. De Ord. Antipli. 59 and 60.
2 The use of the term semidouble " must have originated at a
time when this primary sense of the word double was already ob
solete and forgotten. Durandus (Rat. vii. 1,31) explains such terms
as referring to the number of officiants employed in rendering certain
portions of the chanted service.
ROMAN OFFICE IN THE TIME OF CHARLEMAGNE 139
of S. Gregory, which represents the Eoman Sanctorale of
the time of Pope Adrian I. (772-795), and, as a further
help, with the lists given in the capitularia of the
Carolingian Evangeliaries, such as that of Ada at
Treves, an admirable manuscript of the first years of the
ninth century. Thus we eliminate from the Kalendar of
the Antiphonary of S. Peter the feasts posterior to the
opening of the ninth century, and construct a Kalendar
of the Roman Office in the time of Charlemagne. 1
The following table contains those feasts of the Anti
phonary of S. Peter s which are also marked in the
Gregorian Sacramentary and in the Comes of Ada at
Treves. Those in brackets are given by the latter, but
not by the Gregorian Sacramentary. At the end of each
month we give those which are in the Kalendar of the
Antiphonary, but are neither marked in the Sacramentary
nor in the Comes of Ada.
JANUABY
1. Octave of Nativity. [S. Martina.]
6. Epiphany.
13. Octave of Epiphany.
14. S. Felix, Priest.
16. S. Marcellus, Pope.
18. S. Prisca.
20. S. Fabian, Pope, and S. Sebastian.
21. S. Agnes.
22. [S. Vincent, and] S. Anastasia.
25. Conversion of S. Paul.
28. S. Agnes, for the second time.
1 The Gregorian Sacramentary will be found in Migne, Pair. Lat.
torn. Ixxviii., or in Tommasi, torn. vi. ; the Comes of Ada in Die
Trierer Ada-Handschrift (Leipzig, 1889), pp. 16-27.
140 HISTOEY OF THE KOMAN BREVIARY
Additional, in the Antiphonary only
2. S. Telesphorus.
15. S. Maurus.
17. S. Antony.
18. S. Aquilas.
19. SS. Maris and Martha.
23. S. Emerentiana.
29. SS. Papias and Maurus.
31. SS. Cyrus and John.
FEBRUARY
2. Purification of Mary.
5. S. Agatha.
11. S. Valentine, Priest.
22. S. Peter s Chair. .
24. S. Matthias, apostle.
Additional, in the Antiphonary only
2. S. Simeon.
3. S. Blaise.
10. S. Scholastica.
MARCH
12. S. Gregory, Pope.
25. Annunciation of Mary.
Additional, in the Antiphonary only
10. The Forty Martyrs.
21. S. Benedict.
APRIL
14. SS. Tiburtius, Valerian and Maximus.
23. S. George. .
25. S. Mark, Evangelist.
28. S. Vitalis, Martyr.
Additional, in the Antiphonary only
26. S. Cletus.
EOMAN OFFICE IN THE TIME OF CHARLEMAGNE 141
MAY
1. SS. Philip and Jacob, Apostles.
3. Invention of the Cross.
SS. Alexander and companions.
6. S. John before the Latin Gate.
10. SS. Gordianus and Epimachus.
12. S. Pancras. SS. Nereus and Achilles.
19. S. Pudentiana.
25. S. Urban, Pope.
Additional, in the Antiphonary only
5. Translation of S. Stephen.
8. S. Michael.
14. S. Boniface.
26. S. Eleutherius, Pope.
27. S. John, Pope.
31. S. Petronilla.
JUNE
1. S. Nicomede.
2. SS. Peter and Marcellinus.
9. SS. Primus and Felicianus.
12. SS. Basilides, Cyrinus, Nabor and Nazarius
17. SS. Marcus and Marcellianus.
19. SS. Gervase and Protase.
24. Nativity of S. John Baptist.
26. SS. John and Paul.
28. S. Leo, Pope.
29. SS. Peter and Paul.
30. Commemoration of S. Paul.
Additional, in the Antiphonary only,
2. S. Erasmus.
11. S. Barnabas.
15. SS. Vitus and Modestus.
142 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
JULY
2. SS. Processus and Martinianus.
6. Octave of SS. Peter and Paul.
10. The Seven Brethren.
15. [S. Cyrus.] ! .
21. [S. Praxedis.]
23. [S. Apollinaris.]
25. S. James, Apostle.
29. S. Felix, Pope. [SS. Simplicius, Faustinus and
Beatrix.]
30. SS. Abdon and Sennen.
Additional, in the Antiphonary only
10. S. Rufirms.
12. SS. Nabor and Felix ; S. Pius, Pope.
13. S. Anacletus.
17. S. Alexis.
18. S. Symphorosa.
22. S. Mary Magdalene.
24. S. Christina.
26. S. Pastor.
27. S. Pantaleo.
28. S. Nazarius ; S. Victor, Pope.
AUGUST
1. S. Peter s Chains.
2. S. Stephen, Pope.
6. S. Sixtus, Pope ; SS. Felicissimus and Agapitus.
8. S. Cyriac.
10. S. Laurence.
11. S. Tiburtius.
13. S. Hippolytus.
14. S. Eusebius.
15. Assumption of Mary.
ROMAN OFFICE IN THE TIME OF CHARLEMAGNE 143
18. S. Agapitus.
22. S. Timothy.
25. S. Bartholomew, Apostle.
28. S. Hermes ; S. Augustine, Bishop.
29. Beheading of S. John Baptist ; S. Sabina.
30. SS. Felix and Adauctus.
Additional, in the Antiphonary only
1. The Maccabees.
3. Invention of S. Stephen.
4. S. Justin.
7. S. Donatus.
9. S. Romanus.
12. SS. Euplius and Lucius.
24. S. Aura.
28. S. Balbina.
31. S. Paulinus.
SEPTEMBER
8. Nativity of Mary ; S. Adrian.
11. SS. Protus and Hyacinth.
14. Exaltation of Holy Cross ; SS. Cornelius and
Cyprian.
15. S. Nicomede.
16. S. Euphemia ; SS. Lucy and Geminianus.
21. S. Matthew, Apostle.
27. SS. Cosmas and Damian.
29. S. Michael the Archangel.
Additional, in the Antiphonary only
1. S. Giles.
2. S. Antoninus.
9. S. Gorgonius.
22. S. Maurice,
23. S. Linus, Pope ; S. Thecla.
25. S. Eustace.
30. S. Jerome.
144 HISTOEY OF THE EOMAN BEEVIAEY
OCTOBER
7. S. Marcus, Pope.
14. S. Calixtus, Pope.
18. S. Luke, Evangelist.
25. [SS. Chrysanthus and Darius.]
28. SS. Simon and Jude, Apostles.
Additional, in the Antiphonary only
7. SS. Sergius and Bacchus.
9. SS. Denys, Kusticus, and Eleutherius.
26. S. Evaristus, Pope.
30. S. Germanus of Capua.
31. S. Quintin.
NOVEMBER
1. All Saints ; S. Caesarius.
8. The Four Crowned Martyrs.
9. S. Theodore.
11. S. Martin, Bishop ; S. Mennas.
22. S. Caecilia.
23. S. Clement, Pope ; S. Felicitas.
24. S. Chrysogonus.
29. S. Saturninus.
30. S. Andrew.
Additional, in the Antiphonary only
10. S. Trypho.
12. S. Martin, Pope.
13. S. John Chrysostom.
25. S. Katherine.
DECEMBER
13. S. Lucy.
21. S. Thomas, Apostle.
ROMAN OFFICE IN THE TIME OF CHARLEMAGNE 145
25. The Nativity ; S. Anastasia.
26. S. Stephen.
27. S. John, Evangelist.
28. The Holy Innocents.
31. S. Sylvester, Pope.
Additional, in the Antiphonary only
2. S. Bibiana.
4. SS. Barbara and Juliana.
5. S. Sabas.
6. S. Nicolas.
7. SS. Ambrose and Sabinus.
11. S. Damasus, Pope.
13. S. Eustratus.
23. S. Gregory of Spoleto.
25. S. Eugenia.
Anyone who is familiar with the Eoman topographers of
the seventh and eighth centuries, 1 will at once have recog
nised in this Kalendar the names of many saints which are
also the names of the most celebrated sanctuaries of the
suburban cemeteries : on the Flaminian Way, the basilica
of S. Valentine (February 11) ; on the Aurelian, that of
S. Pancras (May 12) ; and at the second milestone, that
of SS. Processus and Martinianus (July 2) ; at the third,
that of S. Calixtus (October 14), in the cemetery of
Calepodius : on the road to Porto, at the second mile
stone, the basilica of SS. Abdon and Sennen (July 30), ad
ursum pileatum ; at the third, that of S. Felix (July 29),
in the cemetery ad insalatos ; at the fifth, the crypt where
reposed SS. Faustinus, Simplicius, and Viatrix (July 29),
in the cemetery of Generosa : on the road to Ostia, in the
cemetery of Commodilla, the crypt of SS. Adauctus and
Felix (August 30) ; and at the seventh mile-stone, the
1 See especially Urliehs, Codex Romae Topographicus, pp. 82-85.
L
146 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
basilica of SS. Cyriac, Largus, and Smaragdus (August 8) :
on the Ardeatine Way, in the cemetery of Domitilla, the
cemetery basilica of SS. Nereus and Achilles (May 12),
and of S. Petronilla (May 31) ; not far off, the cemetery
of SS. Marcus and Marcellianus (June 17) : on the
Appian Way, the subterranean crypt of S. Caecilia
(November 22), in the cemetery of Calixtus, adjoining
the pontifical crypt where reposed, along with other Popes
of the third century, SS. Fabian (January 20), Stephen [I.]
(August 2), and Sixtus [II.] (August 6) ; on the area of
the same cemetery stood the basilica of S. Cornelius
(September 14) ; and on the area of the cemetery of
Balbina, the basilica of the Pope S. Marcus (October 7) ;
on the area of the cemetery of Praetextatus, the basilica
of SS. Tiburtius, Valerius, and Maximus (April 14), and
underground, the crypt of the Pope S. Urban (May 25),
and that of SS. Felicissimus and Agapitus (August 6) ;
further on, ad catacumbas, stood the basilica of S. Sebastian
(January 20) : on the Latin Way, the basilica of SS. Gor-
dianus and Epimachus (May 10) : on the Labican, ad duas
lauros, the crypt of SS. Peter and Marcellinus (June 2),
and that of S. Tiburtius (August 11) : on the Praenestine,
at the very gates of Praeneste (Palestrina), the basilica of
S. Agapitus (August 18) : on the Tiburtine, the basilica
of S. Laurence (August 10) and the crypt of S. Hippo-
lytus (August 13) : on the Nomentan, the basilica of
S. Agnes (January 21) ; and at the seventh milestone,
that of S. Alexander (May 3) : on the Via Salaria nova,
in the cemetery of Basilla, the crypt of S. Hermes
(August 28), and that of SS. Protus and Hyacinth
(September 11) ; in the cemetery of Maximus, the crypt
of S. Felicitas (November 23), and in the cemetery
jordanorum, that of three of her sons ; further on, the
KOMAN OFFICE IN THE TIME OF CHARLEMAGNE 147
crypt of SS. Chrysanthus and Darius (October 25) ; in
the cemetery of Thrason, the little church of S. Saturninus
(November 29) ; and lastly, on the area of the cemetery
of Priscilla, the basilica of S. Sylvester (December 31),
and in the same cemetery, the crypt of Pope S.
Marcellinus. 1 Add to this list of martyrs SS. John and
Paul (June 26), buried within the walls of Borne, on the
very site of their dwelling : on which spot was erected
the Titulus Pammachii, on the Coelian. If one considers
that all these cemetery basilicas, themselves enough to be
the glory of twenty cities, were nothing in comparison
of the Confession of S. Paul on the Ostian Way and
that of S. Peter at the Vatican, one will be in a better
position for estimating the profound effect which must
have been produced on the minds of pilgrims in the
seventh and eighth centuries by the roll of saints belong
ing to the Eternal City, and for feeling with what truth
we may apply to her the beautiful Liberian distich :
Ecce tui testes uteri tibi praemia portant ;
Sub pedibusque iacet passio quaeque sua. 2
Eome, however, did not consider herself sufficiently
enriched by the glorious memories of the martyrs
enshrined in her cemeteries ; the churches within the city,
whether presbyteral or diaconal, received the names of
saints, and kept the feasts of these their patrons, and
hence arose a second group of festivals of saints, connected
with the basilicas of the city. The Kalendar of feasts kept
1 [Not included in the Kalendar given above, but now commemo
rated on April 26. He died A.D. 304. A. B.]
2 De Kossi, Inscript. Chr. torn. ii. p. 71 :
Lo ! gifts to thee Christ s martyrs, thine own offspring, bring ;
See, at thy feet each one with joy his passion lays.
L 2
148 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
at Eome thus contains a catalogue of these city churches.
Thus S. Martina (January 1) is the name of a church
installed in the old secretarium of the Roman senate, in
the Forum; S. Felix [of Nola] (January 14), of the
ancient private chapel of the Anicii, on the Pincian ;
S. Prisca (January 18) is the name bestowed on the Titulus
Priscae, on the Aventine ; S. Anastasius [of Persia]
(January 22), the name given to the church called Tres
Fontes, ad aqiias Salvias, on the Ostian Way ; S. Agatha
[of Catania] (February 5) is that given to a church in
the Suburra, taken from the Arians by S. Gregory;
S. George (April 23), that favourite saint of the Greek-
speaking Churches of the East, gave his name to the diaconal
church of the district called Velabrum largely inhabited by
Greeks situated in the Forum Boarium (cattle-market) ;
S. Vitalis (April 28), and, before him, SS. Gervase and
Protase (June 19), to the Titulus Vestinae, on the Quirinal ;
S. Pudentiana (May 19), to what had been the Titulus
Pudentis ; S. Praxedis (July 21), to the Titulus Praxedis ;
S. Apollinaris [of Ravenna], to an oratory near the Piazza
Navona ; S. Eusebius (August 14), to the Titulus Eusebii ;
S. Sabina (August 29), an Umbrian martyr, to the Titulus
Sabinae, on the Aventine ; S. Adrian (September 1), to the
ancient Curia Hostilia, the hall where the Roman senate
used to meet, transformed into a church by Pope Honorius
(625-638) ; S. Euphemia [of Chalcedon] (September 16),
to an oratory near S. Pudentiana s ; S. Lucy [of Syracuse]
(December 13), to a diaconal church built by Pope
Honorius on the Palatine ; SS. Cosmas and Damian
(September 27), the two unfee d physicians so popular
throughout the Greek-speaking East, to the diaconal
church installed by Pope Felix IV. (526-530) in the aula
ROMAN OFFICE IN THE TIME OF CHARLEMAGNE 149
anciently devoted to the keeping of the Eoman archives ;
S. Caesarius [of Terracina] (November 1), to the oratory
established, in the time of S. Gregory, in the Imperial
Palace on the Palatine ; the Four Crowned Martyrs
(November 8), to an old church, hitherto unnamed, on
the Caelian ; S. Theodore (November 9), to a diaconal
church near the Forum ; S. Clement (November 23), to
the old Tituhu dementis ; S. Chrysogonus [of Sirmium]
(November 24), to the Titulus Chrysogoni, in the Tras-
tevere ; S. Anastasia [also of Sirmium] (December 25),
to the Titulus Anastasiae, on the Palatine. In addition to
these, there were others among the patrons of churches at
Eome whose names were not marked in her Kalendar,
or were only placed there at a later date than the eighth
century : such as SS. Bibiana (December 2), Sabas
(December 5), Nicolas (December 6),Balbina (August 28),
Eustace (September 25), Sergius and Bacchus (October 7),
Alexis (July 17), Boniface (May 14), Erasmus (June 2),
and Vitus (June 15). And the connection of all such
feasts as these with the Roman Kalendar, though based
on perfectly intelligible grounds, is after all only accidental.
There is a sensible difference between these secondary
feasts of the Sane tor ale and the ancient festivals of the
saints of the Eoman cemeteries.
The remaining festivals of the Eoman Kalendar have
not that local and monumental character in virtue of
which such anniversaries become peculiarly and dis
tinctively Eoman. Of the festivals of the Virgin Mary,
the only one which was really Eoman had already been
erased from the Kalendar. It was that which had been
celebrated on the octave of Christmas, a day which, in
the eighth century, was devoted to the commemoration of
150 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
our Lord s Circumcision. At the beginning of the seventh
century, on the contrary, in the time of Pope Boniface IV.
(608-615), it was kept at the Pantheon, consecrated as a
Christian church by that pontiff under the invocation of
Blessed Mary and All Saints, and the beautiful respond,
Gaude, Maria virgo, cunctas haereses sola interemisti, quae
Gabrielis Archangel! dictis credidisti, dum virgo Deum et
hominem genuisti, et post partum virgo inviolata permansisti -
composed, as it is said, by a blind chanter in the time
of Boniface IV. (608-615) was sung for the first time
at the Pantheon. 1 This station at the Pantheon on
January 1 was the ancient feast-day of the Blessed
Virgin at Rome. Her other festivals found a place in
the Roman Kalendar at a later date : her Nativity
(September 8), Annunciation (March 25), Purification
(February 2), and Repose or Assumption (August 15),
which were all four kept at S. Mary s the Greater, are all
of Byzantine origin, aijd their importation into Rome
cannot be traced further back than the time of Pope
Sergius I. (687-701). 2 The festivals of the Apostles, at
the head of which stands that of S. Andrew, the brother
of S. Peter, and after that those of S. John, SS. Philip and
Jacob, and S. Peter s Chains, were the anniversaries of
the dedication of basilicas in the city, and at Rome dated
back to the sixth century at the earliest.
We have demonstrated the existence of a principle
which, until the middle of the eighth century, did not
permit the keeping of the festival of a saint unless localised
1 Tommasi, torn. iv. p. 212 : Rejoice, Virgin Mary ; thou
alone hast destroyed all heresies, thou who didst believe the word
of Gabriel the Archangel, conceiving, whilst a virgin, Him who was
both God and man, and after His birth remaining still a pure virgin.
2 L. P. (Duchesne), torn. i. p. 381.
ROMAN OFFICE IN THE TIME OF CHARLEMAGNE 151
in some particular basilica, in a cemetery or within the
city. At a later date, when this principle has ceased to
dominate the liturgy as to saints days, and not until then,
appear the feasts which have no such local reference.
The grand traditions of the monastic orders cause the
institution of festivals such as those of S. Benedict,
S. Maur, S. Antony, S. Sabas, S. Scholastica ; legendary
literature leads to the creation of such feasts as those of
S. Nicolas, S. Barbara, S. Katherine, S. Eustace, S.
Maurice, S. Christina, S. Christopher, S. Alexis ; admira
tion and gratitude suggest the commemoration of Christian
writers, such as S. Justin Martyr, S. Paulinus, S. John
Chrysostom, S. Jerome, S. Ambrose, and S. Augustine.
The Sanctorale reaches its autumnal period.
Among all these feasts of the Eoman Kalendar, one
would like to be able to say which were greater/ and
which lesser, but I abandon such researches to those
better qualified to undertake them. A small number of
festivals had octaves. 1
The office for saints days, at least for the greater
ones, was framed on the model of that for Christmas,
Epiphany, and the Ascension ; it was an office of nine
psalms, nine lessons, and nine responds. Amalarius
writes :
Sicut per novenarium numerum qui celebratur in nativitate
Domini, . . . ita per eumdem numerum gratias agimus in fes-
tivitatibus sanctorum.
And elsewhere he says :
[Natalitia sanctorum] recolimus per novenarium numerum. 2
1 Amal. De Eccl. Off. iv. 36.
2 Amal. De Ord. Antiph. 15, De Eccl. Off. iv. 35 : Just as the
number nine is observed in celebrating our Lord s Nativity, so,
152 HISTOKY OF THE EOMAN BREVIAEY
The nine lessons were taken from the Acts of the
saint ; so were the words of the antiphons, responds,
versicles and responses. The nine psalms were not left
undetermined : each class of festivals had its own set,
whether Apostles, Martyrs, Confessors, or Yirgins, under
which four heads the office of the Common of Saints was
classified. The present distribution of psalms in the
Eoman Breviary for such offices is the same as it was
then. The office of the Common, besides its nine psalms,
had antiphons, responds, versicles, and responses proper
for each of the four classes of Apostles, Martyrs, Con
fessors, and Virgins. 1 We may remark that, for a good
part of its antiphons and responses, the office of the
Common is indebted to that of the Proper of Saints : as,
for instance, the office of the Common of Apostles to that
of the feast of S. Peter, and the office for the Common of
Virgins to that of S. Agnes. In fact, the Proper offices
served as models for those of the Common, which
probably do not date from further back than the period
when the Sanctorale was codified, whereas the Proper
offices composed for local feasts ( ad ips^^,m natalitium
pertinentes 2 ) represented severally the tradition of the
various basilicas where these were celebrated. And this
explains the fact of each of these Proper offices having
its own distinctive character.
Thus, the office of SS. Peter and Paul belonged to the
basilica of S. Peter. In this office there is nothing of a
legendary character : the lessons were taken from the
observing that same number, we give thanks on the festivals of the
saints. The anniversaries of the saints, which we celebrate,
observing the number nine. l Tommasi, torn. iv. pp. 150-157.
a Tommasi (Ordo Vallicell,), torn. iv. p. 324.
ROMAN OFFICE IN THE TIME OF CHARLEMAGNE 153
Acts of the Apostles, and from the most classic Fathers,
S. Jerome, S. Augustine, S. Leo. 1 The antiphons and
responds were made up of texts of Scripture (Si diligis
me, Simon Petre : Domine, si Tu es, iube me venire : Tu es
Petrus, et super hanc petram : Beatus es, Simon Petre, &c.),
or were at all events suggested by the words of Holy
Scripture: Tu es pastor ovium, princeps Apostolorum :
tibi tradidit omnia regna mundi, &c. 2 In the chastened
taste displayed in the choice of such matter as this for
liturgical use, we recognise the spirit of the same school
to whom we owe the Eesponsoral of the office of the
Season. There was only one respond in the office for
June 29 which was not Biblical, and it is one which serves,
as it were, for the hall-mark of the basilica for which the
office was composed, the basilica of the Vatican. It is
the respond Qui regni claves which appropriates to itself
the words of the metrical inscription carved over the
entrance to the basilica by Pope Simplicius (468-483) :
Qui regni olaves et ouram tradit ovilis,
Qui caeli terraeque Petro commisit habenas,
Ut reseret clausis, ut sol vat vincla ligatis ;
Simplicio nunc Ipse dedit sacra iura tenere,
Praesule quo cultus venerandae cresoeret aulae. 8
1 Tomruaai (Ordo Vatican,}, torn. iv. pp. 319-20.
2 If thou lovest me, Simon Peter, feed my sheep (S. John xxi.
17). Lord, if it be Thou, bid me come unto Thee on the water (S.
Matt. xiv. 28). Thou art Peter, and on this rock (S. Matt. xvi. 18).
Blessed art thou, Simon (S. Matt, xvi, 17). Thou art the shepherd
of the sheep, the prince of the Apostles ; to thy oare He entrusted all
the kingdoms of the world.
3 De Rossi, Inscript. Chr. torn. ii. p. 55 : He Who bestows the
keys of His kingdom, and the care of His fold, Who committed to
Peter the reins of Heaven and earth, that he might open the prison
154 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
This same respond had for its verse a beautiful distich,
Solve, iubente Deo, terrarum, Petre, catenas :
Qui facis ut pateant caelestia regna beatis,
which in the seventh century appeared in the basilica of
S. Peter, engraved in icona S. Petri. l
The office of SS. Peter and Paul was, like that of
S. John Baptist, one of the few saints day offices which
conformed themselves faithfully to the severe tradition of
the office of the Season. The other proper offices accom
modated themselves to the taste for legends and legendary
literature. The antiphons and responds of the office of
S. Andrew were borrowed from those Acta Andreae which
had been rigorously condemned in the Gelasian catalogue
of apocryphal books ; and so was sung, ever since the
eighth century, the respond bona Crux, which is, it is
true, an admirable composition, which we can admire
without recognising the Gnosticism which certain theolo
gians of our own time have found in it :
bona Crux, quae decorem et pulchritudinem ex membris
Domini suscepisti, accipe me ab hominibus et redde me Magistro
meo, ut per te me recipiat Qui per te me redemit. Salve, Crux,
quae in corpore Christi dedicata es, et ex membris Eius tanquam
margaritis ornata. 2
for the captives and loose the chains of those that are bound, has
now granted to Simplicius to wield that sacred power, that under his
rule reverence for His holy courts might yet more increase.
1 De Rossi, ib. p. 254 : At God s command, Peter, loose the
chains of earth : thou by whose means the heavenly realms are
opened to the blest.
2 Good Cross, which from the limbs of our Lord hast received
glory and beauty, take me from among men and give me up to my
Master, that through thee He may receive me, Who through thee
hath redeemed me. Hail, Cross, consecrated by bearing the Body
of Christ, and adorned with His sacred limbs as with pearls.
ROMAN OFFICE IN THE TIME OF CHARLEMAGNE 155
Thus the Acts of S. Laurence furnished the words of
the antiphons and responds of his office ; and the same was
the case with S. Caecilia, S. Sebastian, S. Agnes, SS. John
and Paul, and many others.
The Virgin Mary was more fortunate in finding at
S. Mary s the Greater almost as severe a school of liturgy as
the Apostles did at S. Peter s. Apocryphal matter for the
office of such feasts as those of the Blessed Virgin it would
not have been hard to find : but the Eoman composers
chose rather to derive from nothing but the Holy Scrip
ture their theme for the praises of Mary. We owe to them
some of the most beautiful passages of the Besponsoral :
Vidi speciosam sicut columbam, ascendentem super rivos
aquarum, cuius inaestimabilis odor erat magnus in vestimentis
eius, et sicut dies verni circumdabant earn flores rosarum et lilia
convallium.
Quae est ista qui ascendit per desertum sicut virgula fumi ex
aromatibus myrrhae et thuris ?
Et sicut dies verni, &c. l
And others less closely inspired by Scripture, but
penetrated with a piety equally marked by tender affection
and grasp of dogmatic truth :
Pulchra facie sed pulchrior fide, beata es, Virgo Maria :
respuens mundum laetaberis cum angelis. Intercede pro omni
bus nobis.
Sancta et immaculata virginitas, quibus te laudibus referam
nescio.
Intercede pro omnibus nobis.
1 I beheld her, beautiful as a dove, rising above the water-
brooks, and her raiment was filled with perfume beyond all price.
Even as the spring-time was she girdled with rosebuds and lilies
of the valley. Who is this that cometh up from the desert, like a
wreath of sweet smoke arising from frankincense and myrrh ? Even
as the spring-time, &c.
156 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
Virgo Maria, semper laetare, quae meruisti Christum portare,
caeli et terrae Conditorem, quia de tuo utero protulisti mundi
Salvatorem.
O quam gloriose migrasti ad Christum, beata et venerabilis
Virgo Maria, cui Abrahae sinus non sumcit, sed Caeli palatia
patent.
I will not enlarge further on the subject of the Roman
Sanctorale of the end of the eighth century. What has
just been said is sufficient to show that the saints day
offices a late addition to the canonical Office of the
basilicas could only find room there by infringing on
and mutilating that ancient office, and moreover that they
sanctioned the introduction into the liturgy of elements
characterised by a style of literature decidedly less pure.
The Sanctorale, in fact, was the first portion of the liturgy
to manifest the symptoms of approaching decadence,
while at the same time its acceptance undermined the
regular and consistent use of the office of the Season.
The Roman Office, such as we have now described,
had reached a pitch of perfection destined not to be
surpassed, nor even adhered to, 2 but undoubtedly
1 Lovely for thy beauty, and yet more lovely for thy faith [S.
Luke i. 45], blessed art thou, O Virgin Mary. Forsaking the world,
thou shalt rejoice with the angels. Pray thou for us all. holy and
spotless virginity, I know not with what praise worthily to extol thee !
Pray thou for us all.
O Virgin Mary, thou who wast counted worthy to bear the Christ,
the Maker of Heaven and earth, rejoice for evermore, in that thou
didst send forth from thy womb the Saviour of the world.
how gloriously didst thou depart to be with Christ, thou
blessed Virgin Mary, worthy of all veneration, for whom the bosom
of Abraham sumceth not, but the palaces of Heaven itself are thrown
open.
2 On the speedy decadence of the Roman Office in France see
Helisachar, Epistul. ad Nedibrium Episc. Narbonen. published by
M. Bishop, Neues Archiv (1886), torn. xi. pp. 566-68; and loann.
Diac. Vita Greg. ii. 7.
ROMAN OFFICE IN THE TIME OF CHARLEMAGNE 157
worthy of the extraordinary acceptance secured to it by
the admiration of the Anglo-Saxon, Frankish and
Germanic Churches. It was the work of many an un
known hand, a work shaped slowly and as it were
unconsciously, but a remarkable work, in which there
lived the very soul of Kome. For Eome had enshrined
there the very best of her literature and her history : her
Psalter, her Bible, her Fathers, her Martyrs. She had
set on it the stamp of her straightforward and simple
piety, more deeply characterised by faithful adherence to
old historic utterances of divine truth than by subtilty
of dogmatic expression. It was marked with her fine
sense of the beautiful, so amply revealed in its broad, sober
and harmonious compositions. It had all the charm of
her language, clear, concise, direct, Biblical in its phrase
ology, with the true ring of S. Jerome about its sentences,
and music in every cadence. Above all, she had endowed
it with her chant, that Gregorian plain-chant, distorted by
the later middle ages, scorned by the Renaissance, no
longer even understood in the seventeenth century under
the yoke of whose tradition we still live but which we
only need to hear executed in its true notation and on its
true principles by the monks of Solesmes or Beuron in
order to recognise and with the added charm of its
delicate archaism that elegance and expressiveness
which thrilled of old the pilgrims to the shrine of S. Peter
and which, while in its principles it inherited the art of
the old classic world, had found in its Christian inspiration
a new well-spring of beauty.
158 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
CHAPTEE IV
THE MODERXUM OFFICIUM AND THE BREVIARIES
OF THE CURIA
WE read in a Bull of June 7, 1241, addressed by
Pope Gregory IX. to the Franciscans : We give you
authority to rest content with the observance of the
modern office, which you have in your Breviaries, carefully
corrected by us, and conformed to the use of the Church
of Borne. 1 These words may serve as a motto for the
present chapter, whose whole object consists in
investigating, first, What- was this use of the Boman
Church down to the thirteenth century ? secondly, What
was this non-Boman Office which the Pope calls
modernum officium? thirdly, What are we to understand
by the expression breviary of this modern office ?
The Boman Office, such as we have seen it to be in the
time of Charlemagne, held its ground at Borne itself in
1 Potthast, No. 11028 : Vestrae itaque precibus devotionis inducti,
ut observantia modern! officii, quod in Breviariis vestris exacta dili-
gentia correctum a nobis ex statuto regulae vestrae, iuxta ecclesiae
Romanae morem excepto psalterio celcbrare debctis, sitis contenti
perpetuo. . . .
THE MODERN OFFICE AND THE BREVIARIES 159
the customs of the basilicas without any sensible modi
fication throughout the tenth and eleventh centuries, and
even down to the close of the twelfth. Of this proposition
I proceed to furnish the entire proof.
There is extant an office book of the basilica of S.
Peter, namely the Antiphonary published by Cardinal
Tominasi. This most important monument of the liturgy
of the Eoman basilicas is of the twelfth century. And in
the previous chapter we have sufficiently established the
conformity of its text and its rubrics with the information
given by Amalarius to warrant us in saying that here we
have a first proof of the substantial identity, as regards
text and rubrics, of the office of the twelfth with that of the
eighth century. A celebrated letter of Abelard, of about
the year 1140, testifies that the basilica of S. Peter was not
alone in its maintenance of the ancient office, since he tells
us that this was equally the case with the Lateran basilica :
Ecclesia . . . Later anensis, quae mater est omnium,
antiquum officium tenet It is true, we hasten to add,
that in this same passage Abelard tells us that the Lateran
stood alone in this observance of the ancient office :
Sola ecclesia Later anensis. . . . But this restriction of
his cannot be upheld in the face of what we find in our
Antiphonary of S. Peter s ; while we here have the fact
recorded, that at the Lateran it was the antiquum
officium that was observed at that date. 1 This, then, is
our first proof.
A second one is furnished to us by the Ordines Eomani
of the twelfth century, which, describing the pontifical
ceremonial, supply on several occasions a full account of
the office at solemn Vespers, Nocturns and Lauds, just
1 Abelard, Epistul. x.
160 HISTOEY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
as much as of the Mass itself. Now this description
accords with an Ordo of the office substantially the same
as that of the eighth century. As witnesses to this fact
we may take two well-known Ordines Eomani of the
twelfth century. 1 One is that of Canon Benedict, a canon
of the basilica of S. Peter : it is called Liber Polypticus,
and was written shortly before 1143 ; it is the Ordo
Eomanus XL of Mabillon. The other, Mabillon s Ordo
Homanus XII., was drawn up by Cencius, the same
man who, as Chancellor of the Eoman Church, edited
in 1192 the Liber Censuum. On the whole, we have
in these two Ordines the consuetudinary of the pontifical
ceremonies under the Popes Coelestine II. (d. 1144),
and Innocent III. (1198-1216). And the ceremonial as
described in them is in accord with the ancient office
described in the preceding chapter, and not with the
modern one which we are now about to take in hand.
Keeping this carefully in mind, let us see what was,
in the twelfth century, the ceremonial of the offices in
which the Pope and the Curia took part.
The Pope and the Curia did not take part, as a body,
in the daily public office at any basilica, but only in the
solemn office on certain festivals, in certain particular
churches. For these festivals the old name of stations
was retained ; and two kinds of stations were distin
guished ; the diurnal, which included nothing more than
the Mass of the station, and the nocturnal or greater
o
1 Mabillon, Mus. Ital. torn. ii. pp. 118 sqq.
THE MODERN OFFICE AND THE BEEVIAEIES 161
stations, which comprised the first Vespers on the evening
before the feast day, the nocturnal office at midnight, and
the solemn Mass in the morning. Of these nocturnal
stations there were but few, which all belonged to the
greatest festivals, viz. the Sunday Gaudete (third Sunday
in Advent), Christmas, Epiphany, Ascension Day, Whit-
sun Day, the Nativity of S. John Baptist, and the feasts
of SS. Peter and Paul, the Assumption, and S. Andrew.
But on these vigils all the pomp of the pontifical
ceremonial was displayed.
The Pope sets out from his palace of the Lateran, the
patriarchium, robed in a white chasuble, having on his
head the crowned tiara or regnum, and mounted on a
horse with scarlet trappings. At the head of the proces
sion walks a subdeacon, carrying the pontifical cross.
Then come twelve clerks carrying banners, followed by
the foreign bishops who happen to be in Eome at the
time. Then the abbots of the monasteries of Eome, and
the cardinals, whether priests or bishops. After these the
scriniarii (papal secretaries) and the advocati (legal
officials) the subdeacons of the diaconal districts and
those of the basilicas, and the Schola Cantorum. Lastly,
two and two, forming a single file on each side of the
Pope, the cardinal deacons. The Prefect of Home, robed
in a rich mantle and wearing buskins, of which one was
gilded and the other red, attended by the judges in their
copes, closed the procession, which was marshalled by the
archdeacon, with a staff in his hand. The maiorentes
(knights of the Papal Court), wearing silk mantles, and
bearing wands, kept order in the streets. 1
1 Cencius, 7 ; Benedict, 21.
M
162 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
Thus the Papal cortege advances towards the basilica
where the station is to be celebrated. On its threshold
stand the canons (who have by this time replaced the
basilican monks of the ninth century) awaiting the arrival
of the Pope. As soon as he has come to the entrance of
the church, he descends from his horse, and lays aside
the tiara. The canons present to him the holy water and
incense. The pontiff puts incense into the censer, and
sprinkles holy water on the multitude. Then they enter
processionally into the basilica, and, after a short prayer,
pass on into the secretarium (sacristy). There, when the
clergy of all orders have put on their vestments, the Pope
gives the kiss of peace to the two bishops who are to
assist him during the office, then to the cardinals, the
Prefect of Eome, and other lay dignitaries. The dean of
the district subdeacons calls over the names of the various
readers and chanters who are to take part in the execu
tion of the office. Then the Pope rises, and taking his
place in the procession between the two assistant bishops,
he re-enters the basilica, wearing his mitre. The cubi-
cularii (chamberlains), holding over his head a mappula
or canopy, accompany him as far as the altar. He takes
his seat on the central throne of the presbytery, and the
office begins the office of Vespers. 1
When Vespers are over, the Pope does not return to
the patriarchium of the Lateran supposing the station to
be S. Peter s. Among the buildings attached to that
basilica there were apartments for the Pope, constructed
by Gregory IV. (827-844), for the express purpose of
providing a place for the Sovereign Pontiff to retire
1 Benedict, 4G, 47.
THE MODEEN OFFICE AND THE BKEVIAEIES 163
to and rest, in the intervals between these solemn
offices :
Fecit etiam . . . pro quietem Pontificis, ubi post orationes
matutinales vel missarum officia eius valeant membra soporari,
hospicium parvum sed honeste constructum, et picturis decora vit
eximiis. 1
The other members of the Curia are lodged in domo
Aguliae in the house by the Obelisk and the master
of this hospice (dominus hospitii) is bound to provide for
them beds with good sheets, and to take care of their
horses in his stables. 2
At midnight the bell is tolled, and everyone gets up.
The Pope and the Curia assemble in the secretarium,
which at S. Peter s was a large chapel at the south-west
corner of the atrium. There they all vest, and the pro
cession is marshalled. A censer is handed to the Pope,
and four torch-bearers take their places before him.
Then the procession starts in silence, by the light of
candles. Having passed through the porch of the basilica
in procession, and entered the church, they come to the
altar of S. Gregory, which the Pope censes. This is the
first halting-place, in the side-aisle on the left. The
second halt is made before the altar of SS. Simon and
Jude, at the bottom of the nave : here is reserved the
Blessed Sacrament, which the Pope censes. Then they
pass on to the altar of S. Veronica, in the side-aisle on
the right, where are enshrined the holy winding-sheet
and lance of our Lord s Passion, which also the Pope
censes ; this is the third halting-place. Then, going up
1 L. P. (Duchesne), torn. ii. p. 81.
- Benedict, 7 ; the obelisk is still called la Guglia di San Pietro
in prints of the seventeenth century.
M 2
164 HISTOEY OF THE EOMAN BEEVIAEY
the nave, the procession arrives at the triumphal arch
at the entrance to the sanctuary, where they make their
fourth halt, before the altar of S. Pastor, which the Pope
censes. So, from altar to altar, they come at last to the
Confession of S. Peter, and go down the steps which lead
to it. The Pope censes the altar set up over the tomb of
the Prince of the Apostles ; then he takes his seat, the
four processional lights being set down before him.
And now, before the Confession of S. Peter, begins
the first vigil that first vigil which we have already
pointed out as being, in the eighth century, a survival of
the original distinction between the office of saints days
and the ferial office, 1 the memory of which has been
preserved in the Frankish liturgy in the term officium
duplex. There is no invitatory psalm at this first vigil :
the chief chanter, or paraphonista with the Schola
Cantorum, begins the office absolutely with the antiphon
of the first psalm of the first nocturn. There are three
nocturns, each of three p&alms and three lessons. The
canons of the basilica chant the lessons, and at the end of
each it is the archdeacon who says the Tu autem, Domine.
The responds are sung by the Schola Cantorum. After
the ninth lesson comes the Te Detmi? and the moment it
is finished one of the district subdeacons brings a
Sacramentary, and one of the two assistant bishops holds
it open before the Pope, who recites the collect for the
day. Then the archdeacon says Benedicamus Domino,
1 See p. 138.
2 The Te Deum, which in the time of Amalarius was confined to
festivals of martyr Popes, was already sung at Eome in the eleventh
century on all feasts of saints, as well as in the Sunday office of the
season, except in Advent and from Septuagesima to Easter. See
Microlog. 46.
THE MODEEN OFFICE AND THE BEEVIARIES 165
and the Apostolic Father blesses the congregation. So
ends the first vigil. 1
Again the procession takes up its march ; the Pontiff
leaves the Confession, goes up to the high altar of the
basilica, and censes it. Then he sits down before the
altar, with the cardinal deacons ranged on each side.
The cardinal bishops and priests take their seats with the
canons in the stalls of the choir or presbyterium. The
four lights stand before the Pope, who himself intones
the Domine, labia mea aperies. The Schola Cantorum
begin the invitatory, followed by the three psalms of the
first nocturn with their antiphons. The lessons and
responds of this nocturn are executed by the canons of
the basilica. In the second and third nocturns, the fourth
lesson is read by one of the scrinicvrii, the fifth by the
senior cardinal bishop, the sixth by the senior cardinal
priest, the seventh by the senior cardinal deacon, the
the eighth by the senior subdeacon, and the ninth by the
Pope himself. Two lights stand on the pulpit. Each
reader, in his turn, pronounces the lube, domne, benedicere,
and the Pope blesses him. The Pope also, when his
turn comes, says lube, domne, benedicere, but no one
blesses him, unless it be the Holy Ghost/ and those
present, after a short pause, respond Amen. After the
ninth respond the Te Deum is sung by the Schola, who
forthwith proceed with the psalms and antiphons of
Lauds, the versicle and response, and the Benedictus, with
its antiphon. After which, the assistant bishop holds the
Sacramentary open before the Pope, who reads from it
the collect, and the office concludes as before. Then, as
Cencius says, Dominus Papa intrat lectum ( our lord
1 Benedict, 8.
166 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
the Pope retires to rest ), as do all the Curia, and return
in the morning to celebrate the solemn Mass. 1
Such is the ceremonial of a statio nocturnalis, such as
would be celebrated, for instance, on the feast of S. Peter.
These long and solemn night vigils are not performed
without plenty of light. Peter Mallius, who, like Benedict,
was a canon of S. Peter s, tells us that on station days
two hundred and fifty lamps are lit in the basilica. In
addition to which, on certain festivals, as on that of
S. Peter, and during the octave, the nets (retia) are lit up,
including the great net (rete magnum], which illuminates
the portico and the front of the church. 2 No doubt these
were large chandeliers and coronae of lights. The Divine
Office, with this brilliant and complicated ceremonial, and
the attendance of so splendid a hierarchy, has certainly
assumed the character of a pageant : but how grand a
pageant ! No wonder the people came together to it in
crowds. They press round the procession as it passes
along the streets, they spread themselves over the steps of
the portico, and in the nave of the basilica. On the
principal nocturnal vigils it must have been a regular
swarm of Eomans, men and women, and of foreigners.
On certain festivals, the seneschal of the Apostolic Palace
threw handfuls of coins on the dense ranks of the crowd,
to disperse them, and so to open up an easier passage for
the Pope and his attendants. The people remained to
the end of the office, for they would not depart until they
had received the benediction of the Pontiff : Dominus
pontifex, we read, benedicit populum fatigatum And
1 Benedict, 14.
2 Mabillon, Mus. Ital. torn. ii. p. 161 ; cf. De Rossi, Inscr.
Christ, torn. ii. pp. 193 sqq.
THE MODERN OFFICE AND THE BREVIARIES 167
in all this grandeur, and in all this pressing and thronging,
they delighted : . . . ut omnis populus cum benedictione
laetus recedat. l
But, to resume the thread of our argument, who can
fail to see that this ceremonial of the twelfth century is
in accord with, and belongs to, an office which is the same
with that of the eighth : the same as regards the number
of psalms, of lessons, of responds ; the same with respect to
the rubrics for beginning and conclusion of the office ; the
same, above all, in the absence of those elements which,
as we shall see, are characteristic of the modern ultra
montane office ? It is a ceremonial which might well be
of the time of Charlemagne. And we are entitled to
infer from this the substantial identity of the basilican
office in the time of the canons Benedict and Cencius with
what it was in the time of Amalarius.
A grave objection has, however, been made to this
identity. Liturgical writers and their opinion on this
point was embraced by Pope Pius V. agree in attributing
to Gregory VII. a reform of the Roman Office. Here is
the account which Dom Gueranger gives of this supposed
reform : The press of important business by which a
Pope in the eleventh century was besieged, the infinitely
numerous details of administration into which he had to
enter, made it impossible to reconcile with duties so
vast and so anxious a constant attendance at the long
offices which had been in use during the preceding
centuries/ and therefore Gregory VII. abridged the
1 Cencius, 37 ; Benedict, 74, 76.
168 HISTOEY OF THE EOMAN BEEVIAEY
offices for the canonical hours of prayers, and simplified
the liturgy, for the use of the Eoman Curia. l
But we shall not find that this theory deserves much
consideration. Was it, then, only in the eleventh century
that the Popes began to be besieged with a press of
business, and had to enter into an infinite number of
details of administration ? Dom Gu^ranger would be the
last man in the world to wish us to think so. It is, besides,
quite certain that in the time .of the immediate prede
cessors of Gregory VII. the Pope and the Curia, faithful
to the obligation of reciting the Bivine Office, without
neglecting the other duties imposed on them by their
station, acquitted themselves of that obligation by a
private recitation of their office. S. Leo IX. (1048-1054)
is praised, in his Life, for having every day fulfilled the
obligation of reciting the entire Psalter, as it was wont
to be called, meaning thereby the diurnal and nocturnal
office ; for having recited it at the proper hours, including
those of the night ; for reciting it in his oratory in
company with a single clerk ; and for never omitting it. 2
Here we see how a Pope of the eleventh ceutury, besieged
as much as any other by a press of important business,
reconciled easily the duties of so busy a life, I do not say
with daily attendance at the long offices of the basilicas (a
thing which it had never been the custom for the Pope to
undertake, even in the preceding centuries), but with the
constant and punctual recitation of the Divine Office in
private. 3
1 Gueranger, Ins tit. Liturg. torn. i. p. 281.
2 Migne, Pair. Lat. torn, cxliii. pp. 501-2.
3 The Ordo Romanus X. in Mabillon, Mus. Ital. torn. ii. pp.
97 sqq., a document of the end of the tenth century, describes the
THE MODERN OFFICE AND THE BREVIAEIES 169
In the second place, it is peculiarly improbable
that S. Gregory VII., of all men, should be the one to
interfere with the old Eoman Or do of the Office. At the
very moment when this same Pope is employed in intro
ducing into Spain nothing more nor less than this ancient
Roman Office ; at the moment when he is congratulating
the kings of Aragon and Castile on the zeal shown by
them in establishing in their realms the Office according to
the Eoman order ( Eomani ordinis officium ), and that,
too, after the ancient use ( ex antique more ), 1 are we to
think of him as himself abridging and simplifying the
Eoman liturgy ?
But, to pass on from these preliminary considerations,
the point is to ascertain precisely what this reform of
Gregory VII. was : here Dom Gueranger cites as his
witness the Micrologus, which, so he assures us, gives us
to understand that it is upon the Office as authorised by
Gregory VII. that its comments are founded. 2
ceremonies in which the Pope took part on the last three days of
Holy Week. The following are some of its rubrics : Antequam
dominus Papa exeat de camera, dicit tertiam. . . . Intrat ecclesiam
S. Thomae et dicit cum capellanis suis nonam. . . . Dominus Papa
cum clero intrat secretarium, et abstracta planeta cum pallio, sedeat
in sede sua, et lotis pedibus ministri calcient eum quotidiana calcia-
menta ; veniens ad faldistorium dicit nonam ; et post paullulum
reindutus planeta et pallio, praeeunte eum cruce et evangelic ad
aitare procedant. . . . Before the Pope leaves his room he says
Terce. . . . He goes into the Church of S. Thomas and says None
with his chaplains. . . . The Pope goes into the sacristy with the
clergy, and, having taken off his chasuble and pall, let him sit down
in his seat, while the attendants wash his feet and put on them such
shoes as he useth to wear ordinarily. Then, coming to the faldstool,
he says None; and after a little while, having put on again his
chasuble and pall, and the cross and gospel-book being borne before
him, let them proceed to the Altar.
1 Jaffe, 4840, 4841. 2 Gueranger, loc. cit.
170 HISTOKY OF THE KOMAN BREVIARY
The Micrologus is a most valuable liturgical com
mentary on the Eoman Ordo, both of the Mass and the
Divine Office. It was long attributed to Ivo of Chartres ;
but it now seems to be clearly proved to be the work not
of a Frenchman but a German, Bernold of Constance
(d. 1100), monk of the abbey of S. Blasian. 1 Now
the question is, on what text did Bernold found his
comments? I find him citing various manuscript
Antiphonaries : omnes authentici antiphonarii . . ., antiqui
antiphonarii. I find him settling points in accordance
with Eoman use : iuxta Bomanam consuetudinem . . .,
iuxta traditionem S. Eomanae ecclesiae . . ., Romano more.
And he certainly calls both the Sacramentary and Anti-
phonary to which he refers Gregorian. In one place he
uses the expression officium Gregorianum. But all this
Gregorian literature of his has relation to S. Gregory the
Great : S. Gregorius Papa, he says, B. Gregorius
Papa . . ., S. Gregorius Papa primus. Whenever he
means Gregory VII., Bernold mentions him in such a
way as to distinguish him quite clearly from Gregory I. :
Gregorius Papa septimus . . ., Gregorius huius nominis
Papa septimus . . ., Reverendae memoriae Gregorius Papa ;
and he never gives him the title of Saint. So Bernold,
when treating of the Ordo of the canonical Office,
attributes the arrangement of it which he describes, not to
Gregory VII., but to S. Gregory I. Thus we find him
saying : Sciendum est quod S. Gregorius ita ecclesiastica
officia ordinavit. 2 And he attributes to his contemporary,
Gregory VII., nothing more than the two decrees given
1 Revue Benedictine, 1891, pp. 385 sqq. ; cf. Neues Archiv, 1893,
torn, x iii. pp. 429-446.
2 Microlog. 61 and 50.
THE MODERN OFFICE AND THE BREVIARIES 171
below, as to which anyone can see how far they affect the
general character of the Roman canonical Office :
First Decree. Gregorius huius nominis papa Septimus,
Apostolicae sedi praesidens, constituit ut SS. omnium Roman-
orum pontificum et martyrum festivitates solemniter ubique
cum pleno officio celebrentur. . . . l
Second Decree. Gregorius papa in Apostolica sede constitu-
tus . . . promulgavit : A die, inquit, Resurrectionis usque in
Sabbatum in Albis, et a die Pentecostes usque in Sabbatum
eiusdem hebdomadae, tres psalmos ad nocturnas, tresque lectiones
antique more cantamus et legimus. Omnibus aliis diebus per
totum annum, si festivitas est, novem psalmos et novem lectiones
et responsoria dicimus ; aliis autem diebus duodecim psalmos et
tres lectiones recitamus ; in diebus Dominicis octodecim psalmos,
excepto die Paschae et die Pentecostes, et novem lectiones dici
mus. Hoc etiam usquequaque iuxta Romanum ordinem ita fieri
statuimus, ut supra notavimus. In octava Paschae historiam
Dignus es Domine et Apocalypsin iuxta ordinem incipimus. 2
By the first of these decrees Gregory VII. merely
extends to all Christendom the obligation of celebrating
the feasts of sainted Popes, whether martyrs or con
fessors ; here, therefore, the Homcan Office is not in
question.
As for the second, it tells us that Gregory VII. decreed
that on Easter Day and the six weekdays in its octave, as
also Whitsun Day and its six weekdays, the nocturnal
office is to have only three psalms, three lessons, and
three responds ; but that, all the rest of the year, this
office is to have, on festivals, nine psalms, nine lessons,
and nine responds, on ordinary weekdays twelve psalms,
three lessons and three responds, and on Sundays
eighteen psalms, nine lessons and nine responds. But is
not this Ordo for the nocturnal offices exactly that which we
1 Microlog. 43. 2 Ib. 54.
172 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
have seen in full vigour at Eome in the time of Amalarius
at the beginning of -the ninth century? And does not
Gregory VII. himself, while enacting these rules, tell us
that he is thereby making no innovation ? Antiquo
more cantamus et legimus, he writes such is the
ancient Eoman custom, and we make no change therein.
He even insists on this point : We ordain that it be
none otherwise done, but that the Ordo Eomanus be
adhered to, which has not ceased to be the canon of our
customs, and which is for us, as we love to repeat, the
antiquus mos. Are these expressions those of a reforming
and innovating Pope ? Are they not rather such as would
be used by one who condemned any attempt to modify
the ancient use ?
As a matter of fact, the text of these decrees as cited by
JBernold is only an imperfect one, while we find them given
in full by Gratian. 1 And in this full text we find that in
the time of Gregory VII. some clergy were tempted by the
H
brevity of the nocturnal office of the octaves of Easter and
Pentecost. Only three psalms and three lessons ! And
so they were introducing the custom of abbreviating after
this pattern the daily ferial oifice, and the office of saints
days as well. 2
1 Friedberg, torn. i. p. 1416.
2 This attempt at shortening the ancient Roman office was, even
at Rome itself, not confined to the ferial office. The office for saints
days was also shortened in conformity with that of Easter week.
S. Peter Damian (?. 1072), speaking of the liturgy as it was
immediately before the pontificate of Gregory VII., relates in one
of his Opuscula a vision vouchsafed to a certain clerk of the
basilica of S. Peter, who one night saw the Prince of the Apostles
officiate in his own basilica : B. Petrus Apostolus ad ecclesiam suam
venit, cui protinus omnium successorum suorum, pontificum scilicet
Romanorum, chorus infulatus ac festivus occurrit : ipse quoque B.
THE MODERN OFFICE AND THE BREVIARIES 173
Et novem lectiones dicimus [celebramus Grat.]. Illi autem
qui in diebus cottidianis tres tantummodo psalmos et tres lec
tiones celebrare volunt, non ex regula SS. patrum, sed ex fastidio
comprobantur hoc facere. 1
In other words, Gregory VII. makes no account of the
reasons which some of the clergy might have for retrench
ing the length of the office or simplifying its arrangement.
Petrus, cum eatenus videretur indutus Hebraicis vestibus, sicut in
picturis ubique conspicitur, tune et Phrygium suscepit in capite et
sicut ceteri sacerdotalibus infulis est indutus in corpore. Tune
responsorium illud quod dicitur Tu es Pastor ovium melodiis atque
mellifluis coeperunt intonare clamoribus, sicque ilium usque ad sacer-
dotalis chori consistorium deduxerunt. Quo perveniens ipse Apostol-
orum Princeps nocturnum est exorsus officium, dicens Domine, labia
mea aperies ; deinde tres psalmos totidemqiie lectiones ac responsoria
quae in Apostolorum natalitiis recensentur canonico more persolvit.
Omnibus itaque per ordinem decursis, matutinis quoque laudibus
consequenter expletis, eiusdem ecclesiae tintinnabulum sonuit et
continuo presbyter qui haec videbat evigilans gomnium terminavit.
(Opusc. xxxiv. p. ii, no. 4.) Blessed Peter the Apostle came to his
church, and forthwith the company of all his successors in the Roman
pontificate met him, robed in festal vestments. Then S. Peter him
self also, who had previously appeared in Hebrew attire, as he is
always represented in pictures, put the tiara on his head and assumed
priestly robes like the rest. Then all, with resounding tones of sur
passing sweetness, began to chant the respond, " Thou art the
shepherd of the sheep," and so conducted their chief to the throne
of the presbytery. And having arrived there, the Prince of the
Apostles himself began the nocturnal office, saying, " Lord, open
Thou," &c. ; and so in due order followed the three psalms, three
lessons, and three responds, which are wont to be said on the feasts
of Apostles. And when all had been duly gone through, and Lauds
also in their turn were finished, the church bell sounded, and imme
diately the priest who witnessed these things awoke, and his vision
was at an end.
1 Also we say nine lessons. But those who on weekdays are not
willing to recite more than three psalms and three lessons are con
victed of acting thus, not in accordance with the rule of the holy
Fathers, but out of their aversion to divine things.
174 HISTOKY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
In all this he only sees a sign of laxity, and he refuses to
deal with it either by tolerating the custom which had
begun to be introduced or himself inaugurating a regular
reform, as the circumstances might have seemed to suggest.
And he concludes :
Nos autem et ordinem Romanum investigantes et antiquum
morem nostrae ecclesiae, imitantes patres, statuimus fieri sicut
superius praenotavimus. 1
The full text, therefore, as given by Gratian is even
stronger than that of Bernold. Gregory VII., as regards
the Divine Office, holds fast to the Ordo Romanus, the old
use of the Eoman Church ; he is determined to remain
faithful to the ancient Fathers. That is how much he is
disposed to innovate.
In saying this, do we mean that in the eleventh
century there were not introduced into some churches at
Home new or strange customs, and that even the
* Romani palatii basilica as Abelard calls the chapel of
the pontifical palace of the* Lateran, had not bowed down
to the spirit of innovation ? That is the question which
is about to come before us. In the meantime, we may
say that neither Bernold of Constance in the Micrologics,
nor Gregory VII. himself in his decrees, says anything of
any reform of the traditional office made at Eome, by the
Popes, in the course of the eleventh century. On the
contrary, they bear witness to the tenacity with which,
at Kome itself, the old Ordo JRomanus of the office was
maintained, that Ordo which we have seen established
there from the end of the eighth century, and which we
1 We, therefore, examining into the Roman Ordo and the ancient
use of our Church, faithfully copying the Fathers, decree that all
shall be so done as we have signified above.
THE MODERN OFFICE AND THE BREVIARIES 175
have found still in full use in the latter part of the
twelfth, both in the daily service of the Lateran and S.
Peter s, and in the pontifical ceremonial.
II
We saw that the expression, modernum officium was
employed by Gregory IX. in the thirteenth century ; a
century earlier we meet with an equivalent expression in
the letter of Abelard already quoted, where we find him
distinguishing between the antiquum officium the term
by which he very justly describes the office used in his
time at the Lateran and another use, observed both by
clerks and monks, a use which is already of long stand
ing and which is still in vogue : consuetudo tarn clericorum
quam monachorum, longe ante habita et nunc quoque
permanens. For anyone who is familiar with the
terminology of canon law, these expressions of Abelard s
amount to saying that there is an ancient canon of the
office, and that there is also a use which has been
introduced since the promulgation of that canon, which is
already of long standing, which is general, and which is
in full vigour. Yet let us not suppose that this more
modern use possessed anything like the unity of the
antiquum officium : Abelard tells us immediately after that
the greatest diversity existed, even among the customs
used by clerks, not to speak of those of the monks :
In Divinis officiis diversas et innumeras Ecclesiae
consiietudines inter ipsos etiam clericos. l Here then we
have a definition of the Modern Office in the twelfth
century as compared with the ancient .Roman Office.
1 Abelard, Epist. x.
176 HISTORY OF THE EOMAN BREVIARY
Let us try and make out the general characteristics of
this office modern, and not Roman.
We possess a little liturgical treatise of the twelfth
century which is for this Modern Office what the writings
of Amalarius and Bernold are for the ancient and purely
Koman Office. It is the Rationale of John Beleth. As
to the author, we cannot tell whether he was of Normandy,
Poitou, Paris, or Amiens. The very dates of his life are
open to doubt, and we only know two things for certain
about him : first, that he wrote his book at Paris, apud
nostram Lutetiam, as he says ; and secondly, that he was,
as again he himself tells us, a contemporary of the Blessed
Elizabeth of Schonau, who died in 1165. l The Rationale
must, in fact, have been written between 1161 and 1165.
It is a book full of learning, and written in a graceful style.
It describes and comments on the Divine Office as used
at Paris towards the middle of the twelfth century. This
gives the author occasion to inform us that the clergy of
his time were far from being as faithfully observant of that
office as duty would demand. No doubt they did not go
so far as to imitate those prelates and clergy of the ninth
century, spoken of in the Benedictio Dei? who sat up at
night drinking until cock-crow, and then got through the
nocturnal office, God only knows how, before going to bed,
while the diurnal office they despatched while they were
dressing. Nor were they guilty of the fault against which
S. Peter Damian cautions the clergy of the eleventh
1 Hist. Litt. de la France, torn. xiv. pp. 218-222. The actual
text of the Rationale, as printed from the sixteenth century onward,
must be viewed with caution.
2 [See Magna BibliotJieca Veterum Patrum, vol. xv. pp. 1029 sqq.
(Cologne, 1618-22) : Commentariolus ... a monacho, ut videtur,
Batisbonensi (Catal. Bodl.). A. B.]
THE MODERN OFFICE AND THE BREVIARIES 177
century, who were tempted to recite the entire office for
the day at one time, in the morning, so as to be free to
go about their secular business. 1 But the absence of zeal
shown by John Beleth s contemporaries was no less
grievous to him as a Churchman. Alas, he writes, the
very purpose and object of the Divine Service is now so
completely lost sight of that scholars rise earlier than the
ministers of the Church, and the sparrows begin to sing
before the priests, so chilled in the heart of men is the
love of God/ And in another passage : How many
among us are found to rise joyfully with the sun to say
the Divine Service ? In this respect we of to-day are like
Penelope s suitors, " nati in medios dormire dies." And
why do I speak of the nocturnal office ? How many are
there who conscientiously recite in due course the hours
of the day ? Few indeed, and very few, if the real truth
be told ! 2
The Modern Office, then and this is the very first
characteristic of it which we recognise had to accommo
date itself to this spirit of laziness on the part of the
clergy, by abbreviation. Long since the antiphons had
got to be only said before and after each psalm, instead
of being repeated after every verse ; long since the responds
were reduced to having but one verse each, and one Gloria
Patri to every three. That was a reform dating from the
very introduction into France of the Eoman Office. As
for the double offices on saints days, still retained by the
Eoman Church in the twelfth century, they had never
gained a footing in the general use of the Frankish
churches. 3 All this was a mere nothing : far more
1 Pet. Dam. Opusc. xxxiv. 5. 2 John Beleth, Rationale, 20.
3 Amal. De Ord. Antiph. 60.
N
178 HISTORY OF "THE ROMAN BREVIARY
sweeping reforms had been attempted. In the eleventh
century, as we have already seen, they wanted to cut down
the nocturnal office of the season and of saints days to three
psalms and three lessons, as was the rule for the octaves
of Easter and Pentecost. But such a practice was too
manifestly contrary to all tradition to succeed : we have
seen in what terms it was condemned by Gregory VII.
But if they could not interfere with the Psalter, they
might with the lectionary. The nocturnal office, beginning
at cock-crow and ending at sunrise, varied in length with
the season ; and since the number both of psalms and
lessons was fixed, and the length of the psalms un
changeable, it was only in the length of the lessons that
any variation was possible. In this matter, then, the
liturgy, in the very nature of things, allowed a certain
latitude, of which the abbreviators took full advantage ;
their attention was principally directed to the lectionary.
If we compare the homiliaries of the ninth century (as,
for instance, that of Paul -the Deacon), with those of the
eleventh and twelfth, we shall see the great difference in
the length of the lessons for the same festival which has
come about in the lapse of two hundred years. One of
the things aimed at in the reforms made by the Abbey of
Cluny in the eleventh century was to re-establish the long
lessons which by this time had fallen into desuetude for
instance, to make only six lessons include the whole
of the Epistle to the Eomans, or to read through Genesis
in choir in one week. The lesson, in fact, was to be long
enough to allow of one of the brethren to go round and
see that nobody in the church was asleep; during the
reading of one lesson he was to have time to make the
round of the whole choir, and the side aisles as we.U.
THE MODERN OFFICE AND THE BREVIARIES 179
But this use of Cluny was looked upon as singular and
exaggerated : Audio lectiones vestras in hieme et in
privatis noctibus multum esse prolixas. 1 The contrary
custom, on the other hand, was general, and John Beleth
gives it the authority of an established rule, saying that
it is necessary to abridge even the narratives of the pas
sions of martyrs. 2
The lectionary underwent also an alteration of another
kind, in regard to the material of the sermons or homilies
from the Fathers which were read. In the eighth century,
the Eoman Church allowed the writings of no authors to
be read in the nocturnal office but such as may be called the
classics of the Catholic Church Catholici et venerabiles
patres. The Modern Office, on the contrary, admitted
readings which were more varied, but of less authority.
The writings of Origen, genuine or spurious, found their
way in by the ninth century, and seem to have been much
in favour. Cassian, the pseudo-Eusebius of Emesa, and
Clement of Alexandria, were admitted to the honour of
being read in the liturgy in smaller quantity, it is true.
More modern authors followed them. Bede abounds, and
we find also Alcuin, Eabanus Maurus, Paschasius Eadbert,
Ambrose Ansbert, Odo of Cluny, Peter Damian, and even
such recent writers as S. Bernard and Yvo of Chartres.
It was natural that the old Eoman Office, introduced
into France with its own Proper of the Season and of
Saints, should in course of time admit new local festivals.
Amalarius recognises the fact that such must needs be
the case, as do liturgists generally, whether regulars or
1 I hear that your lessons in winter and on ferias are enormously
long. Udalric, Consuetudines, i. 1.
2 loann. Beleth, Rationale, 62.
N2
180 HISTOKY OF THE ROMAN BREVIAEY
seculars. 1 Thus such festivals of local saints make their
appearance as those of SS. Maurice, Eemigius, Boniface,
Medard, &c. But other festivals were introduced of more
general interest, such as the Conception of Mary (a
festival of English origin, the first notice of which is found
in the second quarter of the eleventh century, in connection
with the Benedictine Abbey of Canterbury), and the
festival of the Trinity, first established at Liege under
Bishop Stephen (903-920), and, singular to relate, long
disapproved by the Holy See. The following significant
saying is attributed to Pope Alexander II. (1061-1073) :
on being asked if there ought to be a festival of the Holy
Trinity, he replied that he saw no greater reason for it
than for having a festival of the Unity. 2 Then there is the
feast of the Transfiguration of our Lord, first found existing
in Spain in the ninth century, its observance being after
wards adopted and propagated by the Abbey of Cluny,
an abbot of which, Peter the Venerable (d. 1157), is
said to have been the compiler of the office for this
festival.
There is a third characteristic of this Modern Office,
and that the most important. John Beleth, faithful as he
is to Boman use, is obliged, in deference to the customs
of Churches outside Italy, to allow the introduction of
metrical hymns into the canonical Office of the secular
clergy. He does it with a bad grace. At Vespers, says
he, when the five psalms 3 have been sung, a short lesson,
1 Amal. De Ord. Antiph. 28.
2 Microlog. 60 ; loann. Beleth, Rationale, 62.
3 We may note here a difference, as to the Vesper psalms for
festivals, between the Modern Office and the old Roman, as repre
sented by the Antiphonary of S. Peter s. The former employed five
psalms beginning with Lauda or Laudate, Pss. cxii. [cxiii.], cxvi.
THE MODERN OFFICE AND THE BREVIARIES 181
the capitulum, is said, without lube Domne and with
out Tu autem; and after the capitulum comes a
respond. (This is a Koman custom, mentioned in the
Micrologus, and by Amalarius. 1 ) Or, instead of the
respond, a hymn is sung. After that comes the ver-
sicle and response, and the Magnificat preceded by its
antiphon. But as a general rule, the Magnificat, which
is the hymn of the Blessed Virgin Mary, is reckoned as
the hymn, and no other than that is sung (Magnificat
loco hymni ponitur, ut praeterea nullus alius canatur)."*
Thus John Beleth, about 1165, bears witness that metrical
hymns have found their way into the secular canonical
Office, though he flatters himself that this feature, borrowed
from the monastic liturgy, has not acquired the authority
of an indispensable rule. John Beleth is ultra-con
servative. Abelard, who belongs to the opposite party,
in his letter to S. Bernard, about 1140, gives us clearly to
understand that in the secular office of the countries
north of the Alps, hymns held a much more important
position than that which John Beleth would wish to
assign to them, and that the entire monastic hymnal has
been received into the office used by clerks: Ecclesia
pro diver sitate feriarum vel festivitatum diver sis utitur
[cxvii.], cxlv.-cxlvii. [cxlvi-cxlvii.]. The latter made use of the
Sunday psalms, merely changing the last one, as in the present
Roman Breviary.
1 [In the Sarum Breviary the capitulum at Vespers retained its
respond down to the Reformation, and in Flanders in the fifteenth
century Thomas a Kempis alludes to it in a queer little story (Serm.
ad Nov. pt. iii. serm. 8, exempl. 2) : Expectavit . . . horam ves-
pertinam, de S. Agnete solemniter in cJioro decantandam. Cumque
cantor responsorium Pulchra facie altius incepisset, et conventus
cJwri . . . residuum prosequcretur, &c. A. B.]
2 loann. Beleth, Rationale, 52.
182 HISTOEY OF THE ROMAN BREVIAEY
~hymnis* l And in the term the Church/ he means to
include the churches of the secular clergy omnibus
ecclesiis, as he says expressly as well as conventual
churches. It is even possible that in the eleventh century
metrical hymns had been introduced into the office as it
was actually recited in some churches at Rome, but no
rigorous proof of this has yet been given.
How was the hymnal of the Church formed, and
under what influence did it find its way into the Modern
Office ? This is the question which now lies before us.
S. Hilary of Poitiers wrote metrical hymns, and was
the first to write them hymnorum carmine floruit
primus if we may believe Isidore of Seville ; but if we
are to judge of his hymns by the three which survive,
and which M. Gamurrini has only lately discovered, such
learned but awkward compositions, written in an in
volved and obscure style, were not likely to be popular.
Certainly they did not become so, and there is no evidence
that their author wrote them for such a purpose. S.
Ambrose, on the contrary, wrote popular hymns, which
were not the mere verses of a scholar, like the trochaics
and asclepiads of S. Hilary. Ambrose wrote good straight
forward iambic dimeters that is to say, he wrote in the
metre most akin to prose. He wrote hymns full of
instruction in dogma, marked at the same time by sober
elegance and perfect clearness of expression. The hymns
of S. Ambrose were sung all over Milan, and soon spread
themselves throughout Italy and Gaul, as Faustus of
Eiez tells us. The title of Ambrosian was thenceforth
given to all hymns in stanzas composed of iambic dimeters,
1 Abelard, Epistul. x.
THE MODERN OFFICE AND THE BREVIARIES 183
which were produced on all sides on this Christian model,
the creation of S. Ambrose. The amount of authentic
work in the way of hymns by this saint which has come
down to us is but small ; yet we must not any longer
limit it to four hymns only : l the number of Ambrosian
hymns now established as authentic may be extended to
fourteen ; and four others which are probably so raise
the total of our collection of hymns written by S. Ambrose
to eighteen. In the sixth century, the hymns in iambic
dimeters, whether really written by Ambrose or only
supposed to be his, formed a sort of authorised hymnal
which demanded the honour of being employed liturgically
in the Divine Office.
But when we search for documentary evidence of the
introduction of hymns into the office, we must exercise
some caution, owing to the use that for a long time was
made of the word hymnus. In the fourth century this
word was synonymous with psalm, and what we call a
hymn was designated carmen. A passage often quoted
from S. Jerome 2 expresses this use of the word, and one
from the Variae of Cassiodorus 3 shows that even at that
period (507-511), the word hymnus had not yet replaced
carmen as designating what we call a hymn, but was still
used as meaning psalm in the language of Eome, and
the same is the case in the language of Gregory of Tours.
And this is why Canon 30 of the Council of Agde in 506,
in which the word hymnus is used without any precise ex
planation of its meaning, seems to me to be speaking of
1 See Dreves, Aur. Ambros. der Vater des Kirchengesanges, 1893.
2 [Comm. in Ephes. v. 19. He applies the title hymnus to a par
ticular class of psalm A. B.]
3 Ed. Mommsen, p. 71.
184 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
psalms and not of hymns, and I cannot agree with
M. Chevalier l that the said Council of Agde rendered
the use of hymns obligatory at Mattins and Vespers, since
it is not possible to affirm that hymns, properly so called,
are in question in the canon alluded to.
The Eule of S. Aurelian, Bishop of Aries (546-551),
on the contrary, does show that, at least in some of the
monasteries of Aries, the introduction of Ambrosian hymns
into the office was then an accomplished fact. We pos
sess the text of the ordo psallendi set forth under his
auspices, and this text not only mentions a hymn
(hymnus) at the nocturnal vigils, at Lauds, at Prime, at
Terce, at Sext, at None, and at Vespers, but also gives
the first words of ten of these hymns, to which he adds
the Te Deum for Lauds on Saturday, the Gloria in
excelsis for Lauds on Sunday, and ad secundos nocturnos
of the ferial office a hymn entitled Magna et mirabilia.*
But be it observed, first, that these metrical hymns are
introduced into an office Which is not one for clerks, but
for monks, and, secondly, that this hymnal or germ of a
hymnal is composed of pieces unknown to the hymnal of
the Benedictines. Moreover, Aurelian, Bishop of Aries,
does not seem to have been the first author of this intro
duction of hymns into the monastic office : one of his pre
decessors in the see of Aries, S. Caesarius (b. 470, d. 542),
also put forth a Eule for monks in which their ordo
psallendi is described ; and this ordo already includes
hymns, six of them being specified by their first words,
1 Po6sie Liturgique (Tournai, 1894), p. x.
2 I believe that this hymn may be identified with the little prose
composition published by Tommasi, torn. ii. p. 404, Magna et mira-
bilia opera tua sunt, Domine.
THE MODERN OFFICE AND THE BREVIARIES 185
and four out of these six are among the ten enumerated
by Aurelian. It would not be easy to deny that Aurelian
is following Caesarius in this matter. Caesarius himself
in turn is following the customs in use at Lerins :
Ordinem etiam quomodo psallere debeatis, ex maxima parte
secundum regulam monasterii Lyrinensis in hoc libello iudica-
vimus inserendum,
says the text of the Eule of S. Caesarius. 1 We may, then,
assert that the introduction of Ambrosian hymns into the
Divine Office was a monastic custom already received at
Lerins and at Aries in the first half of the sixth century.
Exactly at the same epoch, S. Benedict, when putting
forth the Or do of the office for his monks, assigns a place
in it for the hymni Ambrosiani.
The custom of singing hymns in the office gradually
spread itself in Gaul round Aries and Lerins, but the
progress was slow. A Council held in 567 shows us this
custom seeking to gain a footing in the province of Tours,
and the bishops offering no opposition : Licet hymnos
Ambrosianos habeamus in canone . . . : and not only
the hymns of S. Ambrose, but others also qui digni sunt
forma cantari. These the bishops accept : volumus
libenter amplecti eos pmeterea, provided only that the
names of their authors are known. We cannot say that
the bishops of the province of Tours show any great zeal
for the propagation of the hymnal. And the Council of
Braga, in 563, proscribes it without mercy : . . . extra
psalmos . . . nihilpoetice composition in ecclesiapsallatur.
In the seventh century we remark that, if the use of
the hymnal is spreading, it has not conquered all resist-
1 Potsie Liturgique, p. xi.
186 HISTOKY OF THE KOMAN BEEVIARY
ance. Canon 13 of the fourth Council of Toledo, in 633,
threatens with -excommunication those who dare to reject
hymns, telling us at the same time that there are some
who disapprove of hymns, even those of S. Hilary and
S. Ambrose, on the ground that they are compositions
foreign to the Holy Scriptures and the Apostolic tradition.
The Council does not admit that hymns are to be rejected,
any more than the collects and the Gloria in excelsis, and
it concludes : Hymnos in laudem Dei composites nullus
vestrum ulterius improbet, sed pari modo Gallia His-
paniaque celebret. l One might believe, on the faith of
this council, that Gaul and Spain are at one in decreeing
the introduction of the hymnal into the office, and that
those who refused to conform to this custom are few and
of little account, but such a conclusion can only be
accepted with considerable reservations. The Cursus
Gallicanus (that is to say, the Gallican liturgy) in most
churches did not really include the hymnal. We quoted
just now Canon 23 of the Council of Tours in 567, which
concedes permission to sing hymns by known authors ;
but it is worthy of remark that Canon 18 of the same
Council, which gives the order of the office for the basilica
of S. Martin and the churches of Tours, does not mention
hymns, but only antiphons and psalms. Nor is there any
notice of metrical hymns in the De cursu stellarum of
Gregory of Tours, which includes a curious ordo psallendi.
Here hymnus is still synonymous with psalm. Nor is
there any question of metrical hymns in the works of
S. German of Paris (b. 496, d. 576). At Yienne and at
Lyons we know for certain that they were repudiated.
Would it be too rash a generalisation to say that in the
land of the Franks the office of the secular clergy
1 Po6sie Liturgiqiic, p. xv.
THE MODEKN OFFICE AND THE BREVIAKIES 187
remained closed against the introduction of hymns, while
in the south of Gaul and in Spain they were accepted, in
imitation of the monastic uses ?
This state of things was not modified by the introduc
tion into France of the Eoman Office in the time of
Charlemagne. Leidrad, Archbishop of Lyons (798-814),
writing to Charlemagne, reports to that prince that he has
restored the Divine Office : * in Lugdunensi ecclesia est
ordo psallendi instauratus : that he has done so in con
formity with the liturgy of the Imperial palace, i.e. the
Roman liturgy, secundum ritum sacri palatii : and that
he has instituted schools for chanters : habeo scholas
cantorum ex quibus plerique ita sunt eruditi ut olios etiam
erudire possint. l But did the office thus restored by
Leidrad include metrical hymns ? Not so. Agobard, 2 in
fact, when he reproaches Amalarius for having dared to
alter the text of the Eoman Office received in France,
goes so far as to reprove him even for having introduced
antiphons and responds the words of which were not
taken from Holy Scripture :
Sed et reverends concilia Patrum decernunt nequaquam
plebeios psalmos in ecclesia decantandos, et nihil poetice com-
positum in Divinis laudibus usurpandum. 3
On this point Agobard appeals to the ordinances of the
Council of Laodicea and that of Braga ; and in his book
* De Corrections Antiphonarii he returns to the same point
with fresh insistence : he could hardly have attacked with
such vehemence the introduction into the office of non-
Biblical prose if the office of his own Church had included
metrical hymns. And, independently of this, we know that
1 Migne, Pair. Lat. torn. xcix. p. 871.
2 [Archbishop of Lyons, died A.D. 840. A.B.]
8 Agob. De Divina Psalmod. 104, col. 327.
188 HISTORY OF THE KOMAN BREVIARY
the office of Amalarius did not include such hymns, being
in this respect in agreement with the traditional use alike
of Lyons, the Imperial chapel, and the Koman Church.
In fact, when the hymnal did find its way into the
office of the Frankish Churches, it did so en bloc, just as
it was then in use in the monasteries of the order of
S. Benedict.
This hymnal of the Benedictines was originally com
posed of hymns, metrical or rhythmical, which were
styled Ambrosian : that was the kernel of the hymnal, a
kernel formed in the sixth century. The Carolingian
renaissance adorned it with pieces selected from Pruden-
tius, Sedulius, and Venantius Fortunatus, and enriched it
with the compositions of poet monks like Paul the Deacon
and Rabanus Maurus. This anthology, compiled by
monks, remained the property of the monks.
At the end of the eighth century and the beginning of
the ninth, under the triumphant influence of the Eoman
Church, which was opposed to the admission of the
hymnal into its liturgy, it seemed as if metrical hymns
were going to be altogether proscribed and banished from
ecclesiastical use. A number even of monasteries among
the Franks, in their zeal for perfect agreement with the
Eoman liturgy, renounced them. 1 There was a moment,
at the end of the eighth century, when hymns might
almost be looked on as generally abandoned by clerks,
and even by monks, with the exception of some abbeys,
like Monte Cassino and Fulda, where they still sang them
and still composed them, as Paul the Deacon and Rabanus
Maurus testify. But this state of things lasted but for a
1 Columban, Reg. Coenob. No. 7 ; Lup. Ferrar. Epistul. ciii. ; Paul,
Diac. Epistul. i.
THE MODEEN OFFICE AND THE BEEVIAEIES 189
moment. That influence of Eome in the direction of
promoting uniformity in liturgical matters beyond the
Alps soon came to an end. Already, in the first half of
the ninth century, a monk of Fulda, Walafrid Strabo,
who died abbot of Eeichenau in 849, tells us that many
Churches north of the Alps had taken up the hymnal :
1 quamvis in quibusdam ecclesiis hymni metrici non
cantentur, he writes. 1 Soon after this that is to say,
dating from the pontificate of John VIII. (872-882) there
begins for the Holy See a melancholy period of eclipse,
servitude, and impotence. Latin Christendom is in
travail of a new order of things ; the Carolingian empire
has disappeared ; the feudal system, and the crumbling
away of all centralisation which accompanied it, naturally
produced a condition of anarchy as regards ecclesiastical
customs, which was aggravated and consecrated by the
rivalry between different Churches. But at the very
moment when the star of Eome was eclipsed, and the
Italian, German and Frankish Churches involved them
selves in the feudal system, the presage and the means of
their worst period of debasement, there appeared the new
power which was destined to repair all this ruin, and
this power was that of the Benedictine abbey of Cluny
(A.D. 910). The influence of Cluny on the reform of the
Church in the tenth and eleventh centuries was capital
and decisive, and in its wide extent did not fail to include
the liturgy. We shall have many proofs to give of this,
but one proof at all events is the general adoption of the
hymnal, and that hymnal in all respects identical with
that of the Benedictines.
Walaf. Strab. De Rebus Eccl 25.
190 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
The modification of the Kalendar, the abbreviation of
the lectionary, and the adoption of the monastic hymnal,
are the three most salient characteristics of this non-
Eoman Modern Office. It remains for us to note some
other details which were features of this office, and for
which it secured general adoption viz. the Creed
Quicunque vult, the suffrages which we call Commemora-
tiones, 1 the Little Office of our Lady, and the Office for
the Dead.
The question of the origin of the Quicunque vult is
one of those which have been most constantly debated
for the last two hundred years without arriving at any
clear conclusion. On the one hand, it is indisputably not
the work of S. Athanasius ; it is also certain that it is of
Latin, or, to speak more precisely, of Gallican origin.
But on the other hand, the date at which it was put
forth is a matter on which people find it very hard to
agree. Some critics of our own time have seen in it a
work of the time of Charlemagne or Charles the Bald ;
others, a work of the sixth century ; some date it back as
far as the fifth. Harnack recognises two distinct
portions in it : the first devoted to the doctrine of the
Trinity, the second occupied entirely with the Incarna
tion. He thinks the first part, which, according to him,
is the outcome of the theology of S. Augustine and of
Vincent of Lerins, must have been a profession of faith in
use among the clerks and monks of Southern Gaul, who
came in contact with the Arian Visigoths of Spain : which
1 [Otherwise called Memoriae, Memories, or Memorials, and com
prising an antiphon, versicle, response, and collect ; appended to
Lauds and Vespers, and sometimes to the Little Hours of the day.
A.B.]
THE MODERN OFFICE AND THE BREVIARIES 191
would carry us back to the fifth century and the first half
of the sixth. The clerks learnt it by heart, just as they
learnt the Psalter. The most ancient mention we find of
the Quicunque vult is in a decree of a Council at Autun
about the year 670 :
Si quis presbyter, diaconus, subdiaconus, vel clericus sym-
bolum quod inspirante S. Spiritu Apostoli tradiderunt, et fidem
S. Athanasii praesulis, irreprehensibiliter non recensuerit, ab
episcopo condemnetur. 1
As for the purely Christologic portion of the Qui
cunque vult, Harnack considers that its origin is involved
in obscurity. It cannot, however, but be anterior to
the ninth century, 2 and, we may add, probably older
than the eighth.
This old Gallican Creed, which we find in the most
ancient Psalters of that Church, written at the end of the
psalms and canticles, was not received into the liturgy at
Rome. Neither Amalarius nor the Micrologus mentions
it. A Creed was indeed recited in the Eoman office at
Prime, but it was the Apostles Creed credulitas nostra
quam SS. Apostoli constituerunt as Amalarius says. 3
In the Frankish Churches, on the contrary, the
Quicunque vult was very popular. Hincmar, in 852,
enjoins his clergy at Bheims to know it by heart and to
be prepared to expound it like a catechism, 4 though he
does not give us to understand that this sermo Athanasii
de fide, cuius initium est Quicunque vult, as he calls it,
has any place in the Divine Office. Hayto, Bishop of
Basle (d. 836), on the contrary, imposes on his clergy
1 Mansi, torn. xi. p. 125.
2 Harnack, Dogmengeschichte (Fribourg, 1894), torn, ii. 3 p. 296.
s Amal. De Ecd. Off. iv. 2. 4 Hincmar, Capitular. 2.
192 HISTOKY OF THE KOMAN BKEVIAEY
the obligation, not only of knowing it by heart, but of
reciting it every Sunday at Prime : Fides S. Athanasii
. . . omni die Dominico ad horam primam recitetur. 1 In
the eleventh century there was no part of the Church
north of the Alps where the Quicunque milt was not
recited at Prime, at least every Sunday ; and in most
churches not only on Sundays, but at Prime every day.
John of Avranches, Archbishop of Eouen (d. 1079), and
more especially Ulric of Cluny (d. 1087) do not leave
us in any doubt as to this custom. The latter writes :
Textus fidei, a S. Athanasio conscriptus, cuius nonnullae
ecclesiae nee meminerint nisi in sola Dominica, nullo die ob-
nrittatur
thus showing us how, here again, the use of Cluny
becomes that of the majority of Churches outside Italy. 2
Passing on to the common memorials or suffrages,
we note that Amalarius never prescribes, either at Lauds
or Vespers, any memorial of the Blessed Virgin or of any
Saint. Nor is there any trace of such in the pontifical
ceremonial described by the Eoman Canon Benedict at
the beginning of the twelfth century. But, on the other
hand, both the Antiphonary of S. Peter s (twelfth century)
and Canon Benedict prescribe a memorial of the Cross, to
be made both at Lauds and Vespers in Paschal-tide :
In omnibus laudibus et vespertinis horis, fit commemoratio
Passionis Christi et Eesurrectionis, antiphona Crucem Sanctam
et Noli flere cum versibus et orationibus suis. 3
John of Avranches bears witness that this memorial
of the Cross was also prescribed on the other side of the
1 Migne, Pair. Lat. torn. cxv. p. 11.
2 Udalric, Consuetud. i. 2 ; cf. Jo. Abrin. De Off. Eccl. p. 5.
3 Bened. 55 ; cf . Tommasi, torn. iv. p. 100.
THE MODERN OFFICE AND THE BREVIARIES 193
Alps for the whole of Paschal-tide. 1 But while at Eome
the memorial of the Cross stood alone at that season, at
Rouen there are added the memorials of the Blessed
Virgin and of All Saints. At Rome, according to the
Antiphonary of S. Peter s, these two latter memorials,
with the addition of one of SS. Peter and Paul, were said
at the end of Lauds and Vespers every day in the year,
except from Passion Sunday to Whitsun Day, and in the
season of Christmas. 2 These common memorials of the
Blessed Virgin and the Saints at the end of Lauds and
Vespers were in general use in the churches north of
the Alps, both monastic and secular. Ulric of Cluny
prescribes them under the title of suffragia sanctorum?
John of Avranches enumerates a dozen of them : the
Virgin Mary, All Saints, the Holy Angels, S. John
Baptist, S. Peter, S. John Evangelist, the Apostles,
S. Stephen, the Martyrs, S. Martin, the Confessors,
the Virgins. But he notes that none of these memorials
are to be used during Lent. It appears that the use of
common memorials is originally a custom of the monastic
churches beyond the Alps, not imported into Rome until
the eleventh century. The first Roman mention of it
is in the Micrologus.
In the third place we come to the Little Office of our
Lady.
Here again we have monastic influence triumphing
over secular custom. The most ancient mention of this
daily office of the Blessed Virgin is of the eleventh
century, and comes from the Italian abbey of Fons
1 Jo. Abrin. op. cit. p. 29.
2 Tommasi torn. iv. pp. 22, 27, 30, 52, 100.
3 Udalric, Consuetud. i. 2.
194 HISTOKY OF THE KOMAN BKEVIAKY
Avellanus, founded in 1019 by Ludolf, Bishop of Eugu-
bium, as a Benedictine community, the brethren being,
however, as much hermits as monks. The institution of
this office is generally attributed (following Cardinal
Baronius l ) to S. Peter Damian, who, before being made
Cardinal and Bishop of Ostia, belonged to Fons Avel
lanus ; but this attribution is not clearly established.
What is certain is that S. Peter Damian is the first to
speak of this office. Writing to the monks of S. Barnabas
at Gamugno, a monastery of the same congregation as
Fons Avellanus, he relates that the rule of daily reciting
the Office of our Lady had been established in the
Monastery of S. Vincent, near to Petra Pertusa :
Statutum erat atque iam per triennium fere servatum, ut
cum horis canonicis- quotidie B. Mariae semper Virginis officia
dicerentur.
Then, at the instigation of a bad monk, it was given
up on the pretext that its recitation constituted an ad
ditional obligation, which was both novel and burden
some. But scarcely had they given it up when tempta
tions, storms, robbers, and all the worst calamities
imaginable poured down on the convent. 2 This happened
about 1056. Elsewhere, in his opusculum on the
canonical hours, S. Peter Damian recommends the
recitation of the Office of the Blessed Virgin as an
additional exercise, very well calculated to ensure the
final perseverance of the clergy, and to give them con
solation in their last moments. And he takes this
opportunity of relating the story of a poor clerk, who had
1 Baronius, Amialcs, torn. xvii. p. 119.
2 Petr. Damian. Epistul. viii. 32.
THE MODERN OFFICE AND THE BREVIARIES 195
sinned long and grievously in his life, and who, at his
last hour, not knowing to what good work he could
point, was only able to remind the Virgin Mary, Gate
of Heaven, and Window of Paradise, with what faithful
ness he had recited her office every day : Seven times a
day I have set forth thy praises, and, unworthy sinner as
I am, I have never, in the Divine Service of the canonical
hours, defrauded thee of the homage which is thy due.
It is what S. Peter Damian calls quotidiana canonicis
horis officia in Mariae laudibus frequentare. 1 And he
assures us that the mercy of God was gained for that
sinful clerk through the intercession of the Virgin whom
he had so devoutly served. In another passage again
this time in the Life of S. Peter Damian by his disciple
the monk John we have a whole chapter devoted to
telling us with what zeal the holy cardinal laboured for
the salvation of souls, by his devotion to the Cross and to
the Blessed Virgin, and how he applied himself especially
to the promotion, among the cold and lax secular clergy
of his time, of the custom of reciting daily that Office of
our Lady which the monks of the congregation of Fons
Avellanus were wont to recite : Omnium horarum officia,
in honore almae Dei Genitricis in pluribus ecclesiis
[instituit]. 2
Dom Mittarelli published, in 1756, the text of The
Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary after the use of the
monks of the monastery of the Holy Cross at Fens
Avellanus, from a MS. of about the twelfth century. 3
The office comprises Vespers, the Nocturn with its
invitatory, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, None and Com-
1 Petr. Damian. Opusc. x. 10.
2 Migne, Patr. Lat. torn, cxliv. p. 132. 3 16. torn. cli. pp. 970-4.
o 2
196 HISTOKY OF THE EOMAN BREVIARY
pline. There is but one nocturn of three lessons, each of
only a few lines in length. Here we have the Office of
our Lady as practised in Italy in the time of S. Peter
Damian. But at Borne itself such an office was, long
after this time, still unknown ; the Antiphonary of
S. Peter s has no trace of it, and the first mention we find
of it at Eome goes no further back than the pontificate
of Innocent III. (1198-1216). 1
Fourthly, and last, we come to the Office of the
Dead.
The Penitentials of Theodore of Canterbury (d. 690),
and Egbert of York (d. 766), which are both based on
Boman use in the seventh century, bear witness that
at that period there was no vigil of the dead at Borne.
According to the Church of Borne, so we read in them,
the custom is to carry the dead to the church, to anoint
his breast with chrism, and to say Mass for him ; then to
carry him to the grave with chanting (cum cantatione
portare ad sepulturatri), and when he has been laid in the
tomb to say a prayer over him. Mass is said for him on
the day of burial itself, on the third, ninth, and thirtieth
day after, and on the anniversary if it is desired. 2 That
is all, and there is no question of a vigil of any kind.
This is in the seventh century.
To find the Office of the Dead established we must
come down to the eighth century and to the time of
Amalarius. Then only alongside of the ordo sepulturae
do we find a real canonical Office for the Dead, officium
pro mortuis. 3 The Antiphonary of S. Peter s and the
1 Eadulph. De Canon. Observ. 20.
2 Theod. Paenit. 5 ; Egbert, Paenit. i. 36.
8 Amal. De Ord. Antiph. 65, 79.
THE MODERN OFFICE AND THE BREVIARIES 197
Or dines JRomani l give us both its text and its rubrics. The
body of the departed has been brought in the evening to
the basilica, say of S. Peter. They have traversed, amid
the tolling of bells, the fore-court of the church, and they
have stopped at the threshold of that one of its five doors
which is called Gate of Judgment (porta iudicii) ,
because it is the door of the dead ; there they have
chanted the psalm Miserere, with two antiphons :
Qui cognoscis omnium occulta, a delicto meo munda me.
Tempus mihi concede ut repaenitens clamem, Peccavi Tibi.
Indue eum, Domine, in montem haereditatis Tuae, et in
sanctuarium quod praeparaverunt manus Tuae, Domine. 2
The door has been opened, the body has been brought
into the sanctuary, and the office begins. It is a vigil,
in the full and true sense of the term, and, like every
such vigil, includes Vespers, three Nocturns, and Lauds.
Here we have the genuine office of the Roman clergy,
clear of all monastic influence. The Vespers have their
five psalms with antiphons, the versicle and response, the
Magnificat with its antiphon, the Kyrie eleison, and the
Lord s Prayer. No hymn, no short lesson : it is entirely
the Roman Office in its purest state. The three nocturns
begin without the invitatory psalm : there is no place for
Venite exultemus in a funeral vigil. Each nocturn
includes three psalms with antiphons, and three lessons
from the book of Job, each lesson being followed by a
1 Mabillon, Mils. Ital. torn. ii. pp. 155 sqq. (Ordo X).
2 Tommasi, torn. iv. p. 103. Thou who knowest the secrets of
all hearts, cleanse Thou me from my sin. Grant me time to cry in
penitence "Against Thee have I sinned." - Bring him in, Lord,
to the mountain of Thine inheritance, even to the sanctuary which
Thine hands have prepared, Lord.
198 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
respond, also taken from the same book. The ninth
respond is Ne recorderis peccata meet : our admirable
Libera me, Domine, does not belong to the Roman Office of
the time of Charlemagne. The Nocturns are followed
by Lauds : five psalms with antiphons, the versicle and
response, the Benedictus with its antiphon, the Kyrie
eleison, and the Lord s Prayer. The vigil of the dead is
ended : in the morning Mass will be sung before
the body, and followed by the diaconia, or absolutio as it
was afterwards called. Then comes the burial.
This pathetic office for the vigil of the dead, having
been created at Rome at the beginning of the eighth
century at latest, was received at the same time as the
rest of the canonical Roman Office by the Frankish
Churches, before the end of the same century. No
essential modification was introduced ; beyond the Alps it
remained what the Roman liturgy had made it, and, what
is most noticeable, in -all ages without hymns. But
instead of being, as it was at Rome, only an accompani
ment of solemn obsequies, the prelude to the sacrificium
pro dormitione, or Mass at the burial, it was considered
as the necessary complement of every solemn Mass for
the dead, whether on the day of burial, the anniversary, or
at other times. From this the vigil of the dead got in
time to be celebrated daily, both in monasteries, and by
the chapters of the secular clergy, and even in parish
churches. Agenda mortuorum per totum annum
celebratur, writes John of Avranches. 1 At Cluny the
Vespers of the dead were said after Vespers of the day,
and Lauds of the dead after Lauds. As for the Nocturns
1 Jo. Abrin. De Off. Eccl. p. 71.
THE MODERN OFFICE AND THE BREVIARIES 199
of the dead, they were recited every night after supper, in
choir :
Post coenam cum psalmo L. [Miserere] in ecclesiam reditur
. . . ; agitur officium vel quod a nostratibus vigilia vulgo appella-
tur . . . ; ipsum quoque officium nunquam agitur modo, nisi
cum novem lectionibus et responsoriis, et collectis quae ipsum
officium sequuntur. 1
It is, as we see, the entire nocturnal office, with its
nine psalms, nine lessons, and nine responds. The
writings of S. Peter Damian furnish us with proof that
this daily Office of the Dead was, in the eleventh century,
practised in Italy just as it was in France, and that
certain clergy, who found it too heavy a burden to recite
both the canonical Office of the day and the Office of the
Dead, even confined themselves to the latter, as being
shorter and simpler. He relates the story of a certain
brother who was accustomed to say neither the Office of
the Season nor of saints days, but only the Office of the
Dead. Well, he died, and as soon as he appeared before
the tribunal of God, the devils made accusation against
him with vehemence, that, neglecting the rule of the
ecclesiastical state, he had refused to render to God His
due, in the matter of the Divine Service. But the Virgin
Mary and along with the Blessed Queen of the world, all
the choirs of saints intervened, to save the soul of this
friend of the dead. 2 So at least the story was told to S.
Peter Damian by a tender-hearted visionary, his friend
1 Udalric, Consuetud. i. 3.
2 Petr. Damian. Opusc. xxxiv. pt. 2. No. 5. Similarly, in the
thirteenth century, as Salimbenus tells us : Item iste Patriarcha
[Antiochenus] parvae litteraturae fuit, sed recompensabat hunc de-
fcctum in aliis bonis qiiae, faciebat : nam largus eleemosynarius fuit
et cotidie cum IX lectionibus officium defunctorum dicebat (Salimb.
ad annum 1247). This patriarch of Antioch was illiterate, but he
200 HISTOKY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
the Bishop of Cumae, not that either of them had any
intention of encouraging the daily recitation of the Office
of the Dead to the prejudice of the canonical hours,
eclesiasticae institutions regulam.
Here is another legend of the same period. A pilgrim
of Aquitaine, returning from Jerusalem, lost his way one
day, and found himself close to a barren and desolate
little islet, inhabited by a hermit. This holy man
extended hospitality to the wandering pilgrim, and asked
him, since he belonged to Aquitaine, if he knew a
monastery called Cluny, and its abbot, Odilo. The pilgrim
replied that he did. Listen, then/ said the hermit ; in
this place we are quite close to the regions where the
souls of sinners undergo the temporal penalty of sins
committed on earth ; and from where we are we can
hear them lamenting that the faithful, and, in particular
the monks of Cluny, are so niggardly as to offering up
prayers for the mitigatioji of their sufferings and their
release from them. In God s name, good pilgrim, if you
ever get back to your country, seek out the abbot of Cluny,
and beseech him, from me, to redouble both he and his
congregation their prayers, vigils, and almsgivings, for
the deliverance of these souls in pain, and so increase the
joy of heaven and the grief of the devil. On hearing this
from the pilgrim, S. Odilo (d. 1049) ordained that, in
all the monasteries of his congregation, the morrow of the
feast of All Saints should be devoted to the commemora
tion of all the faithful departed J one more liturgical
made up for this defect by the good he did in other ways : for
he was a liberal almsgiver, and every day said the Office of the Dead,
with all nine lessons.
1 Jotsald, Vita Odil. ii. 13 ; Udalric, Consuetud. i. 42.
THE MODEKN OFFICE AND THE BREVIARIES 201
creation of the abbey of Cluny, propagated thence
throughout the West, and finally received at Eome : one
more proof, the last we shall give, of the preponderating
influence of Cluny on the formation of the Modernum
Officium.
It remains for us to see how it was that this Modern
Office, which we have shown to be nothing but a trans
formation of the Eoman Office of the time of Charlemagne
effected by the Churches north of the Alps, was finally
introduced at Borne itself.
Ill
We have reached the period of that liturgical evolution
which took place at Eome in the thirteenth century, and
which was destined to give birth to the Breviary of the
Eoman Curia. In other words, what we have now to
relate is the manner in which there was formed a breviary
of that Modern Office which we have just described,
and how this breviary was adopted by the Popes, by the
Curia, and eventually even by the churches of Eome.
The daily recitation of the Divine Office implied that
the clergy who by this time were individually bound to
this recitation had in their possession the text of that
Office ; and this text constituted an immense mass of
writing. The psalmody properly so called required a
Psalter and an Antiphonary ; the responds, a Eesponsoral
or liber responsalis ; the lessons, a Bible, or Bibliotheca,
as it was often called, also an Homiliary or Sermologus,
and a Passionarium or book of the passions of the saints ;
to these books we may add a Collectarium or book of
collects, a Hymnal, and a Martyrology. Some of these
202 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
numerous books might themselves extend over several
volumes. 1 It was well if monasteries and chapters
had no difficulty in procuring and keeping up such a
voluminous and costly collection. But how about the
poorer religious houses, the country parish churches, the
poor clergy ? There was clearly a pressing necessity, now
that the recitation of the Divine Office had become a duty
incumbent on all the clergy, to make it easier to each of
them. Hence proceeded a series of attempts at codifica
tion, which at last resulted in the production of a breviary
of the entire office.
When we run over the ancient catalogues of monastic
or chapter libraries of the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth
centuries, we are struck by the appearance in the
eleventh century of a new T class of books. 2 The libri
responsales, such as we should meet with at Rome in the
eighth century, have disappeared : but we meet with
frequent mention of libri yocturnales or libri matutinales.
These collections we find generally to be in three volumes,
and most of them without note (absque cantu). They
contain the lessons, both of the season and for saints days,
for the whole year, and each lesson is accompanied by its
respond. To these are sometimes added the psalms and
antiphons of the Nocturns. Finally, united to all these,
we find, not only the collectarium, but everything pertain
ing to the nocturnal office (Mattins and Lauds), and even
in addition to these, the Little Hours of the day, and
Vespers. Thus we have liturgical collections answering
to the following description :
1 loann. Beleth. Rationale, 60.
2 G. Becker, Catalogi Bibliothec. Antiq. (Bonn, 1885).
THE MODERN OFFICE AND THE BREVIARIES 203
Libri nocturnales absque cantu, primus ab Adventu Domini
usque ad Pascha, secundus a Pascha usque ad Adventum Domini,
tertius de Sanctis per anni circulum ; cum psalterio et ymnario
officiali
or more briefly :
Ordo cantandi et legendi per circulum anni, in tribus volu-
minibus.
These liturgical collections are still to be found in
goodly number among the MSS. preserved in our
libraries : they are generally of the eleventh and twelfth
centuries, some even of the thirteenth. The modern
catalogues, whose compilers have not always been suffi
ciently well up in the distinctions to be observed in
liturgical bibliography, describe them indifferently as
Lectionaries, Antiphonaries, or even as Breviaries : but
no one of these descriptions exactly suits them.
We needly hardly say that these collections were very
voluminous, since they gave the entire text of the
canonical Office. They were emphatically choir books :
for saying the office out of choir something different was
needed, and they succeeded in producing for this purpose
a little book, capable of being suspended to a clerk s
girdle by a ring. From the liber nocturnalis pleniter
scriptus l they eliminated the psalter : the clergy knew
all the 150 psalms by heart. There remained the Office
of the Season and of Saints days : it was thought suffi
cient to write down merely the first words of each
antiphon, verse, or respond, as constant use was sure to
have taught a clerk the whole passage. As for the lessons,
they abridged them so far as to give but a few lines of
1 Becker, p. 252.
204 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
each. So we have, alongside of the ponderous libri
nocturnales for the choir, little books, which are not a mere
compression of the former, but abridgments, epitomata
sive breviaria, as a catalogue of the end of the eleventh
century calls them. 1 And thus, at this period, name
and thing together, appears the Breviary of the Divine
Office.
In reality, however, the word was already 300 years
old. Alcuin (d. 804) had been the author of an abridg
ment of the Divine Office, which he dedicated to the
Emperor Charlemagne, and of which a copy is extant,
written specially for Charles the Bald. But this book
has hardly anything in common with the office of the
clergy, and what is more, was not written for their use.
Alcuin himself in his preface takes care to point out
that clerks and monks have their own canonical hours,
and that what he has been asked to do is to put forth a
shorter office for the laity living in the world :
Rogastis ut scriberemus vobis breviarium commatico ser-
mone qualiter homo laicus, qui adhuc in activa vita consistit,
per clinumeratas horas has Deo supplicari debeat.
Alcuin assigns to each day of the week a number of
psalms ; these psalms are grouped together according to
their connection with a mystical subject which is different
for each day : on Monday, thankfulness to God ; on
Tuesday, contrition ; on Friday, the Passion of our
Saviour, and so forth. Each psalm is followed by a
collect. Each day has also a Litany of the Saints, these
litanies being so arranged as to comprise between them
in the six days the principal saints in the whole martyro-
1 Becker, p. 174.
THE MODERN OFFICE AND THE BREVIARIES 205
logy. There are no lessons from Holy Scripture, still
less from the Fathers or from the Lives of the Saints.
At the end of the psalmody there are some beautiful
prayers or elevatioites, taken from S. Augustine, S. Ambrose,
S. Cyprian, S. Gregory the Great, Bede, &c., and also
some metrical hymns, such as the Pange lingua gloriosi
praelium certaminis, or the Christe caelestis medicina
Patris. The Breviary, then, of Alcuin was not an
abridgment of the Roman or of the Gallican Office of
the eighth century ; it was merely a book of prayers for
the laity, pious, learned, and diversified, made to suit a
liturgical fancy on the part of his prince. But this
experiment of Alcuin s, though it remained isolated and
provoked no imitation, brought into liturgical use a certain
word, the word Breviary. 1
In the language of Alcuin that is, in the ninth century
this word still retains its most general meaning, and
therefore generally requires for its determination the
addition of a second word. They used the phrase
Breviarium psalterii to designate the little psalter, or
collection of selected verses from the psalms, compiled by
S. Prudentius, Bishop of Troyes (d. 861). At the same
period the inventory of the books of the monastery of
S. Gall is called Breviarium librorum, just as in the next
century that of the books of the abbey of Lorsch is called
Breviarium codicum. Even in the eleventh century the
word has not assumed the peculiar and exclusively
liturgical acceptation which it was eventually to retain,
since we find the expression Breviarium or Adbreviatio
computi as the designation of an exposition of the com-
1 Migne, Patr. Lat., torn. ci. pp. 1383-1416.
206 HISTORY OF THE EOMAN BEEVIARY
potus : and Bremarium id est de compute as the title of
a MS. of the cathedral of Puy in the eleventh century. 1
But after the end of this century the use of the word
Breviary is exclusively liturgical.
This new word, at the time when it came into liturgical
use, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, denoted a thing
which was newer still, and of which the ultimate results
were no doubt at first quite unforeseen. The office as
contained in these epitomata sive breviaria was, at least
as regards the lessons, considerably shorter than that
found in the libri nocturnales : 2 and these epitomata sive
breviaria were not meant for the use of clergy taking part
in the Divine Service in choir, but for reciting the office
out of choir, in their own rooms, or when travelling.
Among the books in the possession of the cathedral of
Durham in the twelfth century is one called a Breviary,
which fully bears out this, for it is described as a little
travelling Breviary (breviarium parvum itinerarium). 3 In
the thirteenth century (1227) a Council at Treves autho
rises the clergy to make use of breviaries of the office
when travelling :
Breviaria in quibus possint horas suas legere, quando sunt
in itinere. 4
Thus, by way of toleration, was introduced the use of
an office differing from that said in choir, contained in
books styled breviaria itineraria or breviaria portatilia. 5
1 [The whole body of rules for finding the movable feasts was
called Computus or Compotus. A. B.]
2 Nocturnale breve totius anni, we read in a Cassinensian
catalogue (Becker, p. 240).
3 Becker, p. 244. 4 Boskovany, torn. v. p. 58.
6 Martene, Thesaurus Nov. Anecd. torn. iv. p. 1757.
THE MODERN OFFICE AND THE BREVIARIES 207
What happened next was that the use of such books
spread rapidly, and that this shortened office ousted from
the choir that which was ancient and traditional.
The influence of the pontifical Curia on this movement
of transformation was great and decisive. The Pope and
the clergy of the Curia recited the daily office in private.
Moreover, the movements from place to place of the Pope
and his train were continual. The Pope s chapel, there
fore, could not be tied down to the canonical Office as
said in choir. A liturgist of the latter part of the
fourteenth century, very learned, and greatly in love with
Roman customs, Eaoul de Eivo, who was provost of
Tongres in the diocese of Liege, and died in 1403, instructs
us as to the peculiar use of the pontifical chapel.
Formerly, he writes, when the Eoman Pontiffs were
residing at the Lateran, the Eoman Office was observed
in their chapel ; but less completely than in the collegiate
churches of the city of Eome. The clerks of the Papal
chapel, whether of their own accord or by order of the
Pontiff, always abridged the Eoman Office, and often
modified it in other ways, to suit the convenience of the
Pope and the cardinals. 1 Thus, even before the Popes
had left Eome for Avignon, the Curia had an office different
from that of the churches of the city of Eome, both as
regards its length and its rubrics. Eaoul de Eivo goes on to
settle the date at which this use of the Eoman Curia origi
nated. Not only, he tells us, is it anterior to the time of
Clement V. (1305-1314), but it goes back at least as far as
Innocent III. (1198-1216) ; for, he adds, I have seen at
1 Radulph. De Canon. Observ. p. 22. We cite the treatise of
Raoul de Rivo from the Maxima Bibliotheca Patrum (Lyons, 1677)
torn. xxvi. pp. 289-320.
208 HISTOEY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
Eome an ordinarium of this palatine office which was
compiled in the time of Innocent III. This testimony
is very important, Eaoul being an accurate liturgist,
who had consulted and examined, at Eome itself, the
office books of several churches Romae plura ex di-
versis ecclesiis et libris scriptitavi and the testimony is
definite :
Clerici capellares . . . officium Romanum semper breviabant,
et saepe alterabant, prout Domino Papae et Cardinalibus con-
gruebat observandum, et huius officii Ordinarium vidi Romae
a tempore Innocentii III. recollectum.
Moreover, there are several things which confirm this
testimony : we find, in fact, traces of rubrics, and those,
too, of importance, which bear the name of Innocent III.
and which appear to belong to a general reorganisation of
the office. Thus the introduction of the daily office of the
Virgin and of the departed into the canonical Office is
attributed to Innocent III: ; so are the rubrics concerning
the recitation of the penitential and gradual psalms in
Lent. 1 This seems to give us a right to affirm that
Innocent III. made rules for the recitation of the office by
the Curia, and to indulge a hope that some day a
MS. copy may be found of this first edition of the pontifical
breviary.
We may even define within narrower limits the time
when this new ordinarium of the office was established.
We have a bull of Innocent III., dated May 25, 1205 :
Baldwin, who had been made Emperor of Constantinople
on May 9, 1204, wrote to the Pope, asking him for
Missals, Breviaries, and other books, containing the
1 Radulph. pp. 20-22.
THE MODERN OFFICE AND THE BREVIARIES 209
ecclesiastical Office according to the use of the Holy
Roman Church :
Postulavit missalia, breviaria, caeterosque libros, in quibus
officium ecclesiasticum secundum instituta S. Romanae ecclesiae
continetur.
And the Pope makes inquiry among the bishops of
France, in order that they may be good enough to procure
for the Emperor the books which he asks for: ut
Orientalis Ecclesia in Divinis laudibus ab Occidental* non
dissonet, 1 If there had been at Eome, in 1205, a Eoman
ordinarium of recent promulgation, would Innocent III.
have had recourse to the bishops of France in order to
furnish Baldwin with office books secundum instituta
S. Romanae Ecclesiae ? Hence we may conjecture that
the ordinarium of Innocent III. is posterior to 1205.
Would it not even be posterior to 1210 ? We shall see
that such a conjecture is not without foundation.
It would have been quite conceivable that the ordina
rium of Innocent III. would remain peculiar to the Papal
chapel, and not travel outside the Lateran palace ; on the
contrary, however, it was, as a matter of fact, propagated
with astonishing rapidity in Latin Christendom. This
propagation was not, at first at all events, the work of the
Popes, but of the sons of S. Francis. Raoul de Rivo
himself tells us that the shortened office of the Palatine
clergy was adopted by the Friars Minor :
Huius officii Ordinarium vidi Romae a tempore Innocentii III.
recollect urn, . . . et illud officium breviatum secuti sunt Fratres
Minores.
The first companions of S. Francis, not being clerks,
1 Potthast, No. 2512.
210 HISTOEY OF THE KOMAN BKEVIAKY
were not bound to the recitation of any office. 1 Thomas
of Celano relates that, when S. Francis was at Rivo Torto,
Deprecati sunt eum fratres tempore illo ut doceret eos orare,
quoniam, in simplicitate spiritus ambulantes, adhuc ecclesias-
ticum officium ignorabant.
And S. Francis, for their only prayer, taught them to
say the Pater Noster, and the antiphon, Adoramus Te,
Christe, et benedicimus Tibi, quia per S. Crucem Tuam
redemisti mundum. 2
S. Bonaventure tells us the same, saying that these
primitive Friars Minor
Vacabant ibidem [at Rivo Torto] Divinis precibus incessanter,
mentaliter potius quam vocaliter, studio intendentes orationis
devotae, pro eo quod nondum ecclesiasticos libros habebant, in
quibus possent horas canonicas decantare : loco tamen illorum
librum Crucis Christi continuatis aspectibus diebus ac noctibus
revolvebant. 3
At a later time, when the Order was open to clergy
and laity without distinction, the obligation to recite the
Divine Office followed into its ranks the clerks who
joined it. So it is specified by the Franciscan Eule of
1 See the author s Origine de PObligation personelle des Clercs
a la Kecitationde 1 Office Canonique (CanonisteContemporain, 1894),
pp. 9-15.
2 Thorn, de Celano, Vita Prima S. Franc. 45 (Bolland. Octobr. ii.
696) : We adore Thee, Christ, and we bless Thee, because by Thy
holy Cross Thou hast redeemed the world.
3 S. Bonav. Vita S. Fratic. 41 (Bolland. Octobr. ii. 751) : There
they remained occupied incessantly in prayer to God, more with the
mind than with the mouth, giving themselves up to the exercise of
devout supplication, for they had not yet any ecclesiastical books from
which they might sing the canonical hours : but instead of these they
pored upon the book of Christ s Cross keeping their eyes ever on
It, day and night.
THE MODERN OFFICE AND THE BREVIARIES 211
1210, which enjoins on the clergy of the Order the
singing of the office secundum consuetudinem clericorum :
simply that -no mention of the office according to the
use of the Curia or of the Eoman Church. But on
the other hand the Eule of 1223 enjoins on the clergy
of the Order the singing of the office according to the
ordinarium of the Holy Eoman Church, and commands
them to provide themselves for that purpose with
Breviaries of the said office. Whence one may conclude
that between 1210 and 1223 the Friars Minor had
adopted the Breviary of the Eoman Office. Now see
how Salimbenus, in the second half of the thirteenth
century, expresses himself on this point ;
A.D. MCCXV. Innocentius papa III. apud Lateranum sol-
lemne concilium celebravit.
Hie . . . officium ecclesiasticum in ... [?] correxit et ordina-
vit ; et de suo addidit et de alieno dempsit. 1 Sed non adhue
est bene ordinatum secundum appetitum multorum, nee etiani
secundum rei veritatem, quia multa sunt superflua, quae magis
taedium quam devotionem faciunt tarn audientibus quam dicen-
tibus. Ut prima Dominicalis, quando sacerdotes debent dicere
missas suas, et populus eas expectat, nee est qui celebret, occu-
patus in prima. Item dicere XVIII psalmos in Dominicali et
nocturnali officio ante Te Deum laudamus, et ita aestivo tempore,
quando pulices molestant et noctes sunt breves et calor intensus,
ut yemali, nonnisi taedium provocat. Sunt adhuc multa in eccle-
siastico officio quae possent mutari in melius, et dignum esset, quia
plena sunt ruditatibus, quamvis non cognoscantur ab omnibus. 2
1 There is no mention of this fact in the chronicle of Martin of
Poland, any more than in the Pontifical Registers ; and nothing about
it in the Canons of the Lateran council.
2 F. Salimbenus, Chronica (ed. Parma, 1857), p. 3 : A.D. 1215.
Pope Innocent III. held a solemn council at the Lateran. He
corrected the ecclesiastical Office and set it in order, and added
somewhat of that which rightly pertained to it, and removed other
matter which belonged not to it. But not yet is it well set in order,
p2
212 HISTOEY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
Here we are told that the ordinarium or breviary of
Innocent III. was published in 1215 ; that it was actually
a new edition of the office : correxit, ordinavit, addidit,
dempsit ; that this edition, when Salimbemis wrote, was
in everyone s hands just as the Pope had made it, and
that superior persons like Salimbenus made no scruple
of reproaching it with its prolixity and barbarisms
* plena sunt ruditatibus.
In 1223, at all events, we find breviaries of the
Divine Office according to the use of the Holy Eoman
Church, books which do not seem to have been in
existence in 1210 any more than in 1205, and these new
books are adopted by the Franciscan family :
Et illud officium breviatum secuti sunt Fratres Minores ; inde
est quod breviarium eorum et libros officii intitulant secundum
consuetudinem Komanae Curiae. l
But this breviary of the Roman Curia was not adopted
by them just as it was m the time of Innocent III. The
Friars corrected it for their own use, and the modifica
tions introduced by them constituted really a second
according to what many would wish, nor indeed really and truly ;
for many superfluous things remain, which are a greater cause of
weariness than of devotion, both to those who hear the Office and to
those who say it. Such is the long Sunday Prime, when the priests
ought to be saying their Masses, and the people are waiting for
them, and lo ! there is none to celebrate he is busy, forsooth,
saying his Prime. So, to say xviii psalms in the Sunday Nocturn
Office or ever you come to Te Deumand that just as much in the
summer (when the fleas are so troublesome and the nights are short
and the heat intense) as in the winter is nought but a weariness.
There are many other things in the ecclesiastical Office which might
well be changed for the better and should be, of right ; for they
are full of barbarisms, though all men perceive it not.
1 Kadulph. De Canon. Observ. pr. 22.
THE MODERN OFFICE AND THE BREVIARIES 213
edition of the breviary of the Curia, an edition which we
have seen authorised by Gregory IX. in 1241, and which
was mainly the work of the General of the Order,
Aymo.
Breviarium a F. Aymone sanctae recordationis, praedecessore
meo, pio correctum studio, et per sedem apostolicam confirma-
tum, et approbatum postea per capitulum generate. 1
Thus writes John of Parma in 1249 in a circular
letter, wherein he enjoins on all the Friars Minor the
use of the breviary of Aymo, authorised by Gregory IX.,
without changing anything, in the chant, in the text,
in the hymns, in the antiphons, in the responds, or in
the lessons :
Praeter id solum . . . nihil oranino in cantu vel littera, in
hymnis seu responsoriis vel antiphonis aut lectionibus, vel aliis
quibuslibet B. Virginis antiphonis . . . quae post completorium
diversis cantantur temporibus, in choro cantari vel legi, nisi
forte alicubi compellant librorum nostrorum defeetus. 2
So here we have a sort of second edition of the
breviary of the Eoman Curia, an edition for the use of
the Franciscans, for which, in a few years, they are to
gain a universal popularity, and which, before long, the
Curia itself will adopt for its own use.
This adoption by the Curia of the breviary of the
Friars Minor took place between the pontificate of
Gregory IX. (1227-1241) and that of Nicolas III.
(1277-1280), but no trace of it is found in the Pontifical
Eegisters. Eaoul de Eivo simply tells us that Nicolas
III. caused all the antiphonaries and other books of the
ancient office to be suppressed in all the churches of
1 Wadding, torn. iii. p. 209 ; Potthast, No. 11028.
2 Wadding, loc. cit. ; cf. the bull of Innocent IV., Nov. 14, 1245
(Potthast, No. 11962).
214 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
Rome, ordering that henceforth they should make use of
the books and breviaries of the Minorites, whose Eule he
at the same time confirmed. And this, adds Raoul,
is why all the books at Rome now are new and
Franciscan. Thus the grand old Roman Office, the
office of the time of Charlemagne and of Adrian I., was
suppressed by Nicolas III. in those of the Roman
basilicas which had hitherto remained faithful to it, and
for this ancient office there was substituted that breviary
or epitome of the modernised office, which the Minorites
had observed since the time of Gregory IX.
Nicolaus papa III., natione Romanus, de genere Ursinorum,
qui coepit anno 1277, et palatium apud S. Petrum construxit,
fecit in ecclesiis Urbis amoveri . . . libros officii antiques, . . .
et mandavit ut de caetero ecclesiae Urbis uterentur . . . breviariis
Fratrum Minorum, quorum Regulam etiam confirmavit. Unde
hodie in Roma omnes libri sunt novi et Franciscani. 1
The Palatine breviary of Innocent III. had become
the breviary of the Minorites ; under Nicolas III. the
breviary of the Minorites became the breviary of the
Roman Church, and henceforth there was to be no other
Roman Office but according to this new form. In 1337,
the Holy See being established at Avignon, a decree of
Benedict XII. (which recalls to our mind that which
Raoul de Rivo attributes to Nicolas III.) suppressed the
old books which were used by the clergy and in the
churches of Avignon, in order to impose on them the
breviary of the Curia :
Ordinamus et statuimus quod amodo universi et singuli
cleric i ac personae ecclesiasticae praedictae civitatis et dioecesis a
consuetis officiis liberi et immunes existant, et pristinis veterum
codicum rudimentis omissis . . . officium Divinum, diurnum
1 Radulph. pr. 22.
THE MODERN OFFICE AND THE BEEVIAKIES 215
pariter et nocturnum, dicere valeant iuxta ordinem, morem, vel
statutum quo Ecclesia utitur et Curia Eomana supradicta. . . .
Statuimus ut in universis et singulis ecclesiis eiusdem civitatis
et dioecesis, quarum libri ex antiquitatis incommodo renovationis
vel reparationis remedio indigent, illi ad quos pertinent emant
seu fieri f aciant libros convenientes et aptos, qui dictae Ecclesiae
et Curiae Romanae usui congruant opportune. 1
Anyone who wishes to know what these books
conformed to the use of the Curia and the Eoman
Church were, has only to cast his eye over the ancient
catalogues of the library of the Popes at Avignon : he
will not find any longer the books which used to serve
for the Divine Service, libri responsales, libri nocturnales,
&c., but crowds of books entitled Breviarium ad usum
Romamim, Breviarium de Camera, Breviarium pro
Camera. 2 The liturgical revolution which substituted the
Breviary of the Roman Curia for the old Ordo psallendi
of S. Peter s was an accomplished fact.
And what had the Roman liturgy of the Divine Office
gained by this change ? This is the question we have
now to discuss. 3
The Breviary of the Roman Curia is divided into five
parts : the Kalendar, the Psalter, the Temporale, the
1 Martene, Thesaurus Nov. Anecd. torn. iv. p. 558.
F. Ehrle, Historia bibliothecae Romanorum Pontificum (Rome,
1890), torn. i r pp. 200, 214, 404, 507, &c.
3 See the Rationale of Durandus, a work composed about 1286
by William Duranti, chaplain of the Roman Curia, and considered
to be the commentary of highest authority on the Office of the
thirteenth century. We quote it from the Lyons edition of 1574.
Our observations on the Breviary are founded on the following MS.
copies : Paris Library, Nos. 756, 760, 1044-1050, 1058, 1064, 1260,
1262, 1280-1283, 1288-1290, 1314, 9423, 10481, 13227, 13236, 13244,
17993 ; Arsenal Library, Nos. 101, 596, 597, 601 ; Mazarin Library,
Nos. 351, 365, 366.
216 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
Proper of Saints, and the Common of Saints. To these
five essential parts we may add the Eubrics.
The Psalter is placed either at the head of the
volume, immediately after the Kalendar, or in the
middle, between the Temporale and the Sanctorale. Gene
rally speaking, the Psalter has no title, though sometimes
one is given, such as Incipit psalmista cum invitatoriis
et ymnis, or Incipit psalter ium ordinatum The leading
characteristic of this Psalter is that it is arranged in a
different order to that in which the 150 psalms stand in
the Bible : the psalms are in the order in which they
serve for the Sunday and ferial offices, and they are
interspersed with the hymns, invitatories, antiphons,
versicles and responses, and capitula (each in their
respective places) of these offices, both of Mattins, Lauds,
Vespers, and the Little Hours of the day ; the hymns of
the Proper of the Season and of the Common of Saints
are placed at the beginning or end of the psalter. In a
word, what we now call the Common of the Season, the
psalter arranged for the week with the ordinary of the
office of the season/ is an existing feature of these
Franciscan Eoman breviaries of the thirteenth century.
The version of the Psalter used by the Minorites is that
called the Gallican : at Borne, at least in the basilicas, the
version called the Eoman held its ground in liturgical use
up to the end of the fifteenth century. 1 At beginning
each hour of the office the cleric says the Lord s Prayer,
1 Tommasi (torn. ii. Preface) cites a Psalter written in 1480 for
the chapter of S. Mary s the Greater : the text is that of the Roman
psalter, secundum consuetndinem clericorum Romanae zirbis eiusque
districtus. The Gallican was S. Jerome s second version. See
p. 100.
THE MODERN OFFICE AND THE BREVIARIES 217
not an early custom, for it does not even go back to the
eleventh century : John of Avranches (De Off. Eccl. p. 30)
has no acquaintance with it. To the Lord s Prayer the
custom grew up of adding the Ave Maria. 1 The Pater
Noster, in a low voice, was also said after the versicle and
response which follows the psalmody of every nocturn. 2
At the Little Hours there was an antiphon and a prayer. 3
At the end of each of the hours, after the Benedicamus
Domino, came the memorials (suffragia sanctorum] ; 4 but
after Compline, every day, an antiphon in honour of the
Blessed Virgin, varying with the season ; John of Parma,
in the letter already quoted (A.D. 1249), enumerates, as
the four adopted by the Minorites, the Regina caeli, the
Alma Redemptoris Mater, the Ave Regina, and the Salve
Regina. 5 Amalarius would probably have considered the
1 Durand. Rationale, v. 2, 6 : Laudabili consuetudine inductum
est utsacerdos ante canonicarum horarum initia, et in fine Dominicae
orationis [sic], et ante horas B. M. V. et in fine, " Ave Maria " voce sub-
missa praemittat. Quidam etiam in fine horarum dicunt Dominus
det nobis suam pacem." Mr. Baylay thinks that Durandus may be
alluding to the strange custom that grew up of putting in the Ave
at the end of Pater noster almost whenever it was said : for instance,
after the versicle and response of a nocturn they said silently, Pater
noster, then Ave, 1 and then, aloud, Et ne nos inducas, &c. In
some cases this was done even when Pater noster was said after
Kyrie eleison e.g. in Mattins of the Dead.
52 16. v. B, 14. 3 Ib. v. 5, 3, and 2, 55. * Ib. v. 2, 63.
5 Wadding, Annales Min. torn. iii. p. 208. The Regina caeli is
an antiphon for Vespers at Easter, found as early as the twelfth
century in the Antiphonary of S. Peter s (Tommasi, torn. iv. p. 100).
The Salve Regina, made popular in the twelfth century by S. Bernard,
is the work of a.monk of Reichenau, Hermann Contractus. The Alma
Redemptoris Mater has been wrongly attributed to the same author.
The Ave Regina is closely related to the Salve, but its exact origin is
unknown. See W. Brambach, Die verloren geglaubte Historia de
S. Afra und das Salve Regina des Hcrmannus Contractus (Karls
ruhe, 1892), pp. 13, 14.
218 HISTOEY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
psalmody greatly weakened by all these additions of Pater
noster, memorials and hymns. The liturgy had gained
nothing but the antiphons addressed to the Virgin, which
are four exquisite compositions, though in a style
enfeebled by sentimentality.
The Temporale is the principal part of the Breviary,
which gives to the whole book its distinctive name :
In Nomine Domini incipit ordo Breviarii secundum con-
suetudinem Curiae Romanae.
In Nomine Domini nostri Ihesu Christi incipit Breviarium
Fratrum Minorum secundum, &c.
In Nomine sanctissimae et individuae Trinitatis, Patris et
Filii et Spiritus Sancti. Amen. Incipit ordo Breviarii secun
dum, &c.
Note that it is only to the Temporale that the term
Breviary is applied, and that, whether the book is for the
Friars Minor or not, it is always according to the use of
the Eoman Curia.
The Temporale contains the Proper office of the Season
from the first Sunday in Advent to the last Sunday after
Pentecost: capitula, antiphons, versicles, responds, collects,
all still identical, with few exceptions, with what they
were in the eighth century. The lessons from Holy
Scripture are allotted according to the traditional order,
which the Modern Office has not forsaken ; but these
lessons from Scripture are what they are now in our
present Breviary, each extending over a very few lines,
and often not more remarkable for their consecutiveness
than for their extent. The lessons taken from the sermons
and homilies of the Fathers are of no greater length : we
find passages from SS. Leo, Gregory, Ambrose, Augustine,
John Chrysostom, Jerome, alongside of others from
THE MODERN OFFICE AND THE BEEYIAE1ES 219
Origen, and from spurious works attributed to Augustine,
Ambrose, and Leo ; but no author is included later than
S, Gregory. An important novelty characterises the
Temporale in the introduction of the festivals of the Holy
Trinity and of Corpus Christi. The office of the Holy
Trinity, Gloria Tibi, Trinitas aequalis, was certainly
absent from the breviary of Innocent III. and that of
Gregory IX. and even at the beginning of the fourteenth
century we find MS. breviaries which are without it.
Eomani nunquam de Trinitate celebrant festum, says
Durandus in 1286. l The office of Corpus Christi
Sacerdos in aeternum the work of S. Thomas Aquinas, is
wanting in some breviaries of the beginning of the four
teenth century. The festival was first observed at Liege
in 1246 ; promoted by Urban IV. in 1264, in consequence
of the miracle of Bolsena ; became neglected towards the
end of the thirteenth century, but was re-established in
full dignity by Clement V. in 1312. 2 With the exception
of these two observances, the Temporale, though reduced
and altered as regards its lectionary, is the Temporale of
the ancient Roman Office.
The Sanctorale never mentions in its title the Eoman
Curia :
Incipiunt festivitates sanctorum per totum anni circulum
is its invariable heading, both in MSS. and in printed
1 Rationale, vi. 114, 7. There are two offices extant of the Holy
Trinity : one of the end of the fourteenth century (?) (Sedenti super
solium), which is detestable; the other (Gloria Tibi), which is found
in the present Breviary, is, if we may believe Durandus (vi. 114, 6),
the work of Stephen of Liege that is to say, dating back to the
tenth century.
* Baronius, Annales, torn. xxii. p. 140, and torn, xxiii. p. 550.
220 HISTOEY OF THE BOMAN BREVIARY
breviaries. Nor does the Common of Saints mention the
Curia ; the heading is simply
Incipit commune Sanctorum
or
Incipit commune Sanctorum per totum anni circulum.
It comprises the office of Apostles, Evangelists, of One
and Many Martyrs, of Confessors, Bishops and otherwise,
of Virgins, Martyrs and not Martyrs, and of holy women
other than virgins, with the addition of the office of the
Virgin Mary, and of the Dedication of a Church : the
latter sometimes appears at the end of the Proper of
Saints, while the Office of the Dead is always found after
the Common of Saints. The office of the Saints, common
or proper, includes nine lessons : the festivals of three
lessons have gone out, and the saints who are only com
memorated do not exceed a half-dozen in number. Of
these nine lessons, the first six are taken from the history
of the saint ; the other three generally from a homily on
the Gospel of the Mass. These homilies or sermons are
taken from the writings of SS. Jerome, Gregory, Ambrose
and Augustine, and from Origen, genuine or spurious.
But the apocryphal Acts of Apostles, the fabulous legends
of saints, the notices of ancient Popes from the Liber
pontificalis, interpolated with forged decretals, the whole
blended with much excellent matter, make up a lectionary
as alluring as it is dangerous. I have found on the
margin of late copies of the breviary annotations such as
these : Neutiquam . . ., Fabula . . ., Apocrypha . . .,
Falsa narratio . . ., Fabula anilis . . ., Officium stolidum
et ridiculum . . . ; these critical notes are by clerks of
the Eenaissance. But, long before the Kenaissance,
Baoul de Eivo reproached the breviary of the Minorites
THE MODERN OFFICE AND THE BREVIAEIES 221
with having admitted apocryphal writings condemned in
the list drawn up by Pope Gelasius, and Acts such as
those of S. George, S. Barbara, and S. Katherine, apo
cryphal and contemptible writings, full of incredible tales :
not to speak of a number of passions of saints inserted in
particular local editions of the breviary, accepted without
any discernment, which cannot safely be read in the
office. 1 The lectionary of the Sanctorale, in fact, tells us
of a degree of literary taste and judgment which puts
Aymo if it is he who is responsible for the selection of
these pieces of history far below Paul the Deacon. In
old times the lessons were taken from books of legends
and homilies edited by various compilers, from which the
choir of each church could choose ; it was only the
lessons from Holy Scripture that were fixed by the
liturgy ; but now the breviary, by enjoining the use of
certain hagiographic and homiletic passages, without
liberty of choice, put into circulation works that were far
from being all of equal value, and in this matter the loss
is greater than the gain.
The Kalendar that of the thirteenth century, to wit
is richer than it was in the eighth, but it differs very little
from that given by the Antiphonary of St. Peter s in the
twelfth ; we may say that the tradition of Borne still
imposed its rule, and that at first, at all events, faithful
adherence was yielded to it. Some names which were in
the Antiphonary of S. Peter s have been eliminated from the
Kalendar of the Koman Curia about eighteen altogether. 2
1 Badulph. pr. 12.
2 SS. Telesphorus, Aquilas, Papias, Simeon, Euplus and Lucius,
Aura, Balbina, Thecla, Eustace, Germain of Capua, Quintin, Juliana,
Savin, Eustratus, Gregory of Spoleto, Eugenia, and, wonderful to
relate, S. John Chrysostom.
222 HISTOEY OF THE KOMAN BKEVIARY
Others have been added : such as SS. Basil, Paul the
Hermit, Ignatius, Gilbert of Sempringham, Bernard,
Justina, Eemigius, Hilarion, Leonard, Vitalis and Agricola,
Brice, Peter of Alexandria, Lucy, Thomas of Canterbury,
and a group of early Popes, SS. Hyginus, Marcellinus,
Felix, Sylverius, Zephyrinus, Pontianus, and Miltiades.
The net increase is barely ten festivals. And it would
be a mistake to suppose the Kalendar of the Eoman Curia
suffered any great increase from the thirteenth to the
fifteenth century. In the course of the thirteenth century
it received the feast of the Conception of the Virgin ; l
those of the Minorite Saints, SS. Francis (canonised 1228),
Clare (1255), Antony of Padua (1232), and Elizabeth of
Hungary (1235) ; so also those of the Black Friars, SS.
Dominic (1234) and Peter Martyr (1253). The fourteenth
century contributed the festival of the Stigmata of S.
Francis (1304), and those of SS. Thomas Aquinas (1323),
Louis, Bishop of Toulouse (1317), Louis, King of France
(1297), also the feast of S. Mary of the Snows. At the
end of the fifteenth century, in the printed Breviaries, we
note indeed a more numerous accession of feasts, the
Transfiguration of our Lord (1457), the Presentation of
the Virgin (1464), the Visitation (1475), 2 SS. Bridget
(1419), Nicolas of Tolentino (1447), Bernardine (1450),
Vincent Ferrier (1455), also SS. Joseph, Anne, Juliana,
Patrick, and Anselm ; S. John Chrysostom returns, and
1 The breviaries of the fifteenth century give an Office for the
Conception, Sicut lilium inter spinas, the work of Leonard of Noga-
rola, protonotary to Sixtus IV., published by that pontiff in 1477.
There is another, Conceptio gloriosae Virginis, attributed to the
Council of Basle.
2 The Office for the Visitation would also be the work of Leonard
of Nogarola (Fabricius, Biblioth. Lat. Med. Aev. torn. v. p. 134).
THE MODEEN OFFICE AND THE BEEVIAEIES 223
there are, it may be, a few more, but the upshot is that
the number of festivals admitted by the Popes into the
breviary of the Curia is a limited one very limited, if
we compare with it the number of feasts which the
breviaries not strictly of the Ciwia admitted into their
Kalendars. 1
But if the feasts of the Sanctorale, in the office of the
Eoman Curia, have not increased immoderately in
number, they have at all events gained as to the degree
of solemnity with which they are to be observed. All
the feasts of the Virgin are greater doubles, equal to
Christmas or Easter ; so are those of S. Peter, S. John
Baptist, and All Saints. 2 The festivals of Apostles,
Evangelists, and Doctors, 3 of S. Laurence, S. Michael,
the Commemoration of All Souls, the dedication of the
basilicas of S. Peter, S. Paul, and S. John Lateran, the
two festivals of the Holy Cross, the Octave-days of S.
1 It is important carefully to distinguish the Kalendar of the
Koman Curia from those which are not of the Curia. The latter
are much more rich in festivals, not only in such as are connected
with the locality or the religious Order for which each book may have
been written, but in some which might claim an interest for Christen
dom at large : such as the festivals of the Wisdom of our Lord, of
the Finding of the Child Jesus (in the temple), of Moses, Zacharias,
Simeon, Agabus, Silas, Longinus (the centurion of the Crucifixion),
of the Apparition of S. Mark, the Sisters of the Blessed Virgin, the
Conversion of S. Augustine, Saint (instead of the Venerable ) Bede,
S. Christopher, the Eleven Thousand Virgins, S. Margaret, S. Mary
the Egyptian, S. Apollonia.
2 Christmas, the Circumcision, Epiphany, Easter, Ascension Day,
Whitsun Day, Trinity Sunday, Corpus Christi, and for each church
its patronal festival and the anniversary of its dedication, are greater
doubles.
3 That is, the four Latin doctors, SS. Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine,
Gregory. Their festivals were raised to the dignity of lesser doubles
by Boniface VIII. in 1298.
224 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
Peter, the Assumption, and the Nativity of our Lady, are
lesser doubles. The ordinary Sundays are no more than
greater semi-doubles, as are also the festivals of the Holy
Innocents, the Apparition of S. Michael, S. Mary
Magdalene, and S. Martin. All the other feasts of
the Kalendar are festivals of nine lessons. We may
reckon that the number of festivals of nine lessons and
of superior rank amounted to nearly 150 by the end of
the thirteenth century, and on all these 150 feast-days
(some with Octaves) the Office of the Season was thrust
aside.
Through all these elements thus massed together in
a portable breviary the clergy had to steer their way :
and it was not easy, for there were no tables, no number
ing of pages, no references, to help them to join together
the dispersed portions of their daily office. The codi
fication of the breviary remained until the sixteenth
century in this imperfect state. They met the diffi
culty, as well as they could, by means of rubrics ; but
these, of various dates and workmanship, interlaced
one another, and repeated one another, without succeed
ing in enunciating anything like a clear set of general
rules.
Then, further, the daily office was burdened with the
Little Office of our Lady, which was to be said every day,
except on greater doubles, the last three days of Holy
Week, the Octave of Easter, and the feasts of our Lady.
It was still further burdened with the Office for the Dead,
which was obligatory on all days on which the canonical
Office had but three lessons. Still further, on all days
when the ferial office was used, it was burdened with
the recitation of the Penitential psalms and the Gradual
THE MODERN OFFICE AND THE BREVIARIES 225
psalms. It is true that in the fourteenth century there
were not wanting those who felt how onerous were all
these additions to the canonical Office ; Raoul de Rivo
reproaches the Minorites with being exceedingly lax
about their obligation to recite daily the Office of our
Lady ; he also reproaches them with having multiplied
saints days of nine lessons in order to get out of the
obligation to recite the Penitential and Gradual psalms
and the Office for the Dead, to whom they are thereby
the cause of perpetual injury. l
To sum up, how far we have got from the broad and
harmonious simplicity of the Roman Office of the eighth
century ! The antiphonary and the responsoral, the ordp
psallendi and ordo legendi of old, are preserved, and the
hymnal is added ; but the lectionary is become scanty
and corrupt. And if we owe a just debt of gratitude to
those who gave us the antiphons of the Blessed Virgin,
what are we to say, on the other hand, of the additional
daily offices ?
It is difficult not to see in these additions, these
numerous and burdensome services of adventitious prayer,
a grave wrong done to the canonical Office itself. The
grand and simple lines of the edifice remain, but a huge
number of parasitical little chapels block up the nave and
aisles. The feasts of the Sanctorale have been so multi
plied as to make the Office of the Season practically a
thing condemned to desuetude. The Councils of the
fifteenth century vie with one another in deploring the
coldness with which the clergy perform their duty of
1 Radulph. pr. 15, 21, 22.
226 HISTOEY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
reciting the canonical Office, even in choir. 1 They do
not, as its seems, sufficiently recognise the fact that this
coldness, this scandalous negligence, proceeds in part
from the deterioration of the Office itself, from those
religiosae prolationes which have disfigured it, those
preces perlongae per omnes horas for which the devotion
of a saint would scarce suffice. The Divine Office,
writes Martin of Senging to the Council of Basle in 1435,
is recited in disorderly fashion, in haste, without devotion,
and with a perverse intention, viz. an itching desire to
get to the end of it : the clergy come to prefer to the
canonical Office the superfluous additions which are
tacked on to it. - 2 No doubt the remedy for all this would
partly consist in the reformation of the clergy, but to be
perfect it would have to include the reformation of the
Office as well, the clearing away of encumbrances, the
restoration of an earlier and purer state of things : but
neither Martin of Senging nor the .Council of Basle had
any thought of this second part of the task of reforma
tion. Eaoul of Tongres alone seems to have got hold
of the just view of the case, when, writing to his canons
at Windesheim, ,he denounced the deterioration of the
canonical Office, both in its text and in its rubrics. He
accuses the Minorites of having been the authors, and
their Breviary the instrument, of this deterioration. They
called their Breviary, he says, The Breviary according to
the use of the Eoman Curia, without concerning them-
1 Roskovany, torn. v. pp. 108 sqq. [In my own neighbourhood
the fifteenth century Visitations of Southwell Minster reveal a de
plorable state of things in regard to this matter A. B.]
2 Martin of Senging, Tuitiones, ap. Fez, BibliotJieca Ascetica
(Ratisb. 1725), torn. viii. p. 545.
THE MODERN OFFICE AND THE BREVIARIES 227
selves about what was the use of the Roman Church. And
he adds : The Roman Church was once celebrated and
glorious, living waters sprang out from under her feet,
whence, as from a fountain, were derived all ecclesiastical
rules. He appeals from the liturgy of the Minorites to
that of Amalarius and the Micrologus. 1 The provost of
Tongres was right, but no one listened to him.
With this liturgical deterioration we come to the end
of the middle ages. Printing receives the Roman Breviary
from the hands of the Roman Curia :
In nomine Sanctissimae et Individuae Trinitatis, Patris et
Filii et Spiritus Sancti. Amen. Incipit ordo Breviarii secun-
dum consuetudinem Romanae Curiae.
Breviarium ad usum Romanae Curiae, ob Dei gloriam et
honorem, animarumque salutem, ac totius ecclesiae militantis
utilitatem.
Such are the titles we read at the head of earlv
*/
printed Roman Breviaries. 2 We have reached the end of
the fifteenth century, and the Breviary of the Roman
Curia has now existed for about three hundred years.
1 Radulph. pr. 22.
2 In L. Hain s Eepertorium Bibliograpliicum (Stuttgart, 1826)
will be found a descriptive list of Roman Breviaries printed before
1500. The dates are : Turin 1474, Venice 1474, Lyons, 1476, Naples
1477, Rome 1477, Venice 1477, Venice 1478, Venice iterum 1478,
Venice 1479, Rome 1479, Venice iterum 1479, Nonantola 1480,
Venice 1481, Venice iterum 1481, sine loco 1482, Venice 1482, Venice
iterum 1482, Venice tertio 1482, Nuremberg 1486, Venice 1486,
Venice 1489, Venice 1490, Venice iterum 1490, Venice 1491, sine loco
1492, Pavia 1494, Venice 1494, Venice iterum 1494, Venice 1496,
Brescia 1497, Venice 1497, Venice iterum 1497, Venice tertio 1497,
Turin 1499, Venice 1499. (Hain, Nos. 3887-3927.)
Q2
228 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
Will the wishes of Eaoul of Tongres be realised, and a
return be made to the liturgy of the eighth century ? Or
for these changed times will some new sort of euchology
be produced ? Or is this book of the thirteenth century
destined to endure ?
229
CHAPTER V
THE BBEVIAEY OF THE COUNCIL OF TKENT l
HUMANISM, the cultus of Pagan literature, received from
Nicolas V. the freedom of the city of Eome, and established
its rule there under Pius II., that truly Virgilian Pope.
And if it aroused in the austere Paul II. nothing but fear
and distrust, and was viewed with some indifference by
Sixtus IV., Innocent VIII. and Alexander VI., while from
JuliusII.it received no more than an indulgent toleration,
it recovered under Leo X., at all events, the very height
of Pontifical favour. 2 Erasmus, who visited Eome in
1509, treasured all his life the recollection of what had so
greatly enchanted his erudite and refined intelligence :
Quam mellitas eruditorum hominum confabulationes, quot
1 As types of the Eoman Breviary of the sixteenth century
anterior to that of S. Pius V. we have consulted the following :
Breviarium secundum consuetudinem Bomanae Curiae, cum aliis
quamplurimis de novo superadditis (Venice, 1503), and Breviarium
Romamim de Camera, optime castigatum et ita ordinatum ut omnia
suis in locis sint posita (Venice, 1550).
2 The dates of the Popes here mentioned are : Nicolas V. 1447-
1455, Pius II. 1458-1464, Paul II. 1464-1471, Sixtus IV. 1471-1484,
Innocent VIII. 1484-1492, Alexander VI. 1492-1503, Julius II. 1503-
1513, Leo X. 1513-1521, Clement VII. 1523-1534.
230 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
mundi lumina ! he exclaims when thinking of it, and he
loves to recall the high esteem he saw conferred upon
good studies, in that peaceable home of the Muses, the
common fatherland of all men of letters. Leo X., who
had as secretaries Bembo and Sadoleto, desired that
whatever was to be heard or read should be expressed in
really pure Latin, full of spirit and elegance. Bembo s
one ideal was to write in the style of what another
Cardinal, Adrian of Corneio, called the immortal and
almost divine age of Cicero. This revival of the Latin
language extended itself to poetry and oratory. Sannazar,
the Christian Virgil, beloved of Leo X. and Clement VII.,
makes the shepherds of Bethlehem sing, round the
manger of the Saviour, the Fourth Eclogue. One Good
Friday, preaching before the Pope, the most famous
orator of the Eoman Court considered that he could not
better praise the Sacrifice of Calvary than by relating the
self-devotion of Decius and the sacrifice of Iphigenia. 1 In
the eyes of these superfine scholars, in love with Cicero-
nianism and mythology, what sort of figure would be
made by our old chief chanters of S. Peter s, Catalenus,
Maurianus and Virbonus ? In the opinion of such men
as Inghirami, Sadoleto, or Bembo that Bembo who
persuaded his friend Longueil to read nothing but Cicero
for five whole years what would be the flavour of the
Latinity of our antiphons, our responds, the lessons of
the Breviary, and all that liturgical literature, the work
of schoolmen and friars ?
1 P. de Nolhac, Erasme en Italie, 1888, p. 76 ; J. Burckhardt, La
Civilisation en Italie au Temps de la Renaissance, torn. i. pp. 277,
311-17 (French edition) ; cf. J. Janssen, L^Allemagne et la Eeforme,
torn. ii. p. 26, and, still more, p. 65 (French edition).
THE BREVIARY OF THE COUNCIL OF TRENT 231
To this morbidly refined literary taste the Eoman
Curia was tempted to accommodate its breviary. The
initiative of this design belongs to Leo X., the execution
of it to a Neapolitan, a fellow-countryman of Sannazar,
by name Zacharias Ferreri, Bishop of Guardia Alfiera,
the printing to a Eoman bookseller, and the approbation
of it to Clement VII. A start was made by issuing a
sample of a new hymnal. It is only a sample, but it was
intended to prepare the way* for the publication of an
ecclesiastical breviary made much shorter and more
convenient, and purged of all mistakes (hreviarium
ecclesiasticum longe brevius et facilius redditum, et
ab omni err ore purgatum). For such seem to have
been the terms of the commission given by Leo X. to
Ferreri.
In fact, if we wish to know in what spirit he was
prepared to abridge, simplify and- expurgate the traditional
liturgy, it is sufficient to cast our eyes over the hymnal of
Ferreri, the first stone of the projected edifice. It
received the Papal approval on November 30, 1523, and
was published on February 1, 1525. The title reads :
Hymni novi ecclesiastici iuxta veram metri et latinitatis
normam . . . sanctum et necessarium opus. The appro
bation of Clement VII. follows, couched in fine Ciceronian
phrases :
Etsi a teneris annis nobis semper cordi vehementer fuerit
bonarum disciplinarian, sacrae praecipue doctrinae, exercitia, et
in eis se cum optimo virtutum odore versantes omni studio
fovere, &c. ;
and granting by his Apostolic authority leave to read and
employ these new hymns, even in Divine Service (etiam in
Divinis). Then comes Ferreri s preface, in which he anti-
232 HISTOKY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
cipates the charge which some might bring against him, of
having dared, in opposition to the judgment of S. Augus
tine and S. Gregory, to submit the words of the sacred
oracles to the rules of Donatus, and the interpretation of
holy writings to the authority of Quintilian : but what ?
he cries : if it is indeed possible to introduce genuine
Latinity and the classical style into Divine worship, is it
not contrary to all reason to prefer to it the barbarisms
of a style devoid of taste (barbariem et insulsam orationem
amplectamur) ? For his part, he is content to justify him
self by the esteem of Leo X., to whom he submitted each
one of his hymns as fast as he composed them, and
who read and approved them all (singulos quidem hymnos
prout a me quotidie prodibant perlegit et probavit). Here,
then, we are definitely assured that this liturgical experi
ment is really a thing devised by Leo X., Clement VII.,
and the Curia, who do not fail to intimate to us that its
execution surpasses their expectation : the work is not
merely holy and necessary, it is Divine ; and Ferreri
has gained thereby, not immortality, but eternal glory
(aeternitatem proculdubio consecuturum).
The hymns of Ferreri have been judged with more
severity than justice. I have before my eyes his pretty
little book, printed in italic and roman type of rare
elegance. Most assuredly, I am far from loving this
laboured poetry, redolent of classical reminiscences and
clever tricks of versification : as when he sings of the
Holy Innocents in sapphics :
Hos velut flores veniens pruina
Coxit, et gratum superis odorem
Reddere effecit, meritoque summis
Condidit astris ;
THE BREVIARY OF THE COUNCIL OF TRENT 233
or the Virgin Mary in iambics :
Ave, superna ianua !
Ave, beata semita !
Salus perielitantibus,
Et Ursa navigantibus !
or S. Peter in choriambics :
Tu, Petre, et reseras caelica limina
Et claudis, sapiens arbiter omnium ;
Dum terris animas solvis et alligas,
Firmatur super aethera. l
One can better relish the rude Christian originals of
which these verses are imitations, correct, clever and
insipid. But did not Urban VIII., a century later, take
up the same task of metrical correction, and has he not
disfigured, in the attempt to improve them, the old hymns
which we still read in our Breviary in the form they
assumed under his correcting hand ? And if there is in
the poetry of Ferreri too much about Phoebus, Olympus,
1 [With, I fear, inexcusable rashness, I give the following versions
of these stanzas :
These were the flow rs that fell before the north wind ;
Yet did its blast but summon forth their fragrance
Dear to the skies, and called them to the glory
Stored in the heavens.
Hail, Mary ! hail, thou door of Heav n
And pathway to our home afar !
In danger bringing safety near,
Upon earth s sea a guiding star.
Thou, Peter, openest wisely the Heav nly door ;
Thou also closest, of all things the arbiter ;
Binding or loosing the soul here on earth below,
Thy word stands firm for aye above. A. B.]
234 HTSTOEY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
Styx, Quirites, Penates, and astra aetherea ; if there are
Lenten stanzas such as this :
Bacchus abscedat, Venus ingemiscat,
Nee iocis ultra locus est, nee escis,
Nee marital! thalamo, nee ulli
Ebrietati ; l
and hymns for S. Francis of Assisi with such verses as :
Ibat in sylvas tacitosque saltus
Solus, ut caelum satius liceret
Visere, et mundas agitare dulci
Pectore euras,
we must at all events grant that he has the virtues of his
defects, that faultless purity of language, and that elegance
of workmanship which justly delighted his contemporaries,
and an ingenuity sufficiently happy in its expression to be
capable of stirring our hearts still. As in the hymn for
S. Gregory :
Roma quae tantum decus edidisti,
Quid triumphales meditaris arcus ?
Cogita magnum peperisse mundo
Gregorium te !
1 [Preposterous as this stanza is, it is perhaps hardly fair to
represent it as follows ; the comic associations of the Needy Knife-
grinder are too strong for the English reader :
Hence with thee, Bacchus ! Venus, fall a-weeping !
Here s no more place for laughter or for feasting ;
Nor for the joys of marriage,, nor for any
Drunkenness either.
The hymn for S. Francis is not so unpleasing :
Far in the greenwood s shadow and its silence
Lonely he walked, while Heav n itself grew nearer ;
Pure were the thoughts that in his gentle bosom
Rose and were cherished. A. B.]
THE BREVIARY OF THE COUNCIL OF TRENT 235
or the ingenious and spirited hymn for the Common of
Apostles :
Gaudete, mundi principes,
Quorum fide et constantia
Et supplici innocentia
Sunt victa regum culmina. l
These two hymns are worth the greater part of ancient
and modern hymns put together.
What was deplorable in this experiment of Ferreri s
was the whole state of mind which produced it, the
ignorance of all liturgical tradition, and aversion to the
study of it. And it is melancholy to see churchmen so
enslaved to their Ciceronianism that Ferreri could write in
the preface to his hymnal the following passage, which
no one has remarked on, and which is his inexorable
condemnation :
Qui bona latinitate praediti sunt sacerdotes, dum barbaris
vocibus Deum laudare coguntur, in risum provocati sacra saepe-
numero contemnunt. 2
What humanists, and what priests !
What the humanist breviary would have been like it
is impossible to imagine. The terrible blow which fell
on the Eternal City in 1527, that frightful sack of Kome
1 [ Rome, who hast gained so great a height of glory,
Why on triumphal arches dost thou ponder ?
This may suffice that thou hast shown the dark world
Gregory s splendour !
True princes of the world, rejoice !
Patience and faith in lofty tones,
And innocence with pleading voice,
Have triumphed o er earth s proudest thrones. A. B.]
2 Priests who are accustomed to good Latinity, when they are
compelled to praise God in such barbarous language, are moved to
laughter, and frequently led to despise sacred rites altogether.
236 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
by the Spanish and German army of Charles V., forbids
us to follow up the inquiry, or to pass judgment on the
frivolity of that band of wits and scholars. Their
brilliant and volatile society was dispersed, never to
reassemble. Graver thoughts and forebodings succeeded,
aroused by the echoes of the formidable voice of Luther.
Sadoleto, from his retirement in France, wrote these
melancholy words, marked by deep Christian feeling :
( If our misfortunes have disarmed the fierce anger of
Heaven, if these terrible chastisements only make us
return to the path of right conduct and the observance of
wise laws, our situation, it may be, will be less cruel.
. . . Let us seek in God the true glory of sacerdotal
dignity. l It was indeed to the esteem and defence of
these wise laws that it was necessary to return. And
yet a new act of unfaithfulness to them was about to be
committed.
When Ferreri died, Clement VII. did not give up the
idea of presenting to the Church that ecclesiastical
breviary, short, convenient, and purged from all errors,
which he had hoped to obtain from the Bishop of
Guardia. 2 He cast his eyes, for the execution of this
project, on a grave and devout man, whose nationality,
which was Spanish, and his religious profession, that of
the Franciscans, seemed to have preserved from the
contagion of humanism. Francis Quignonez, of the
family of the Counts of Luna, entered the Order of
1 Quoted by Burckhardt, op. cit. torn. i. p. 156.
2 F. Arevalo, De Hymnodia Hispanica (Eome, 1785), pp. 385 sqq.
Historia uberior de Fatis Breviarii Quignoniani, reprinted by Ros
kovany, torn. xi. pp. 3-47.
THE BREVIARY OF THE COUNCIL OF TRENT 237
S. Francis when young, and in 1522 the chapter of the
Order made him its General. Immediately after this he
was sent by Charles V. to Rome, to treat with Clement
VII. on certain delicate affairs, in which he acted to the
entire satisfaction, we are told, both of the Pope and the
Emperor. In 1529 he received the Cardinal s hat and
the title of Holy Cross in Jerusalem. He was a man of
cultured mind and austere gravity, a precursor of the
coming interior reform of the Church. He understood
that Clement VII. had desired him to arrange the
canonical hours, bringing them back as far as possible to
their ancient form, to remove from the office prolixities
and difficult details : it was to be faithful to the institu
tion of the ancient Fathers, and the clergy were to have
no longer any reason for revolting against the duty of
reciting the canonical prayers. So he expresses himself
in the preface to his breviary. We see that the idea of
the Eoman Curia has been perceptibly modified : it is no
longer a question of praying according to the rules of
good Latinity, but in accordance with the institution of
the ancient Fathers not to flatter the Ciceronianism of
the clergy, but to give them an office against which
they should have nothing to object. Humanism has
made way for reformation.
But what a singular novelty, and no less dangerous
than singular, to speak of reforms to be carried out by a
return to antiquity, while what antiquity is meant is
not expressed ! Was not this just such a way of speak
ing as had been employed by the German Protestant
reformers? And this echo of their protestations, met
with at Eome, is one indication among many of the fact
that at a particular moment in its history this Eoman
238 H1STOEY OF THE KOMAN BREVIAKY
Curia, itself so fiercely attacked by these violent theorists,
was, after all, the medium in the whole of Catholicity
the most attentive to their grievances, the most ready to
listen to them, and to respond to their reproaches in a
spirit of fairness. 1 But it is also allowable to see in the
liturgical experiment made by Cardinal Quignonez an
individual approach on his part towards the spirit of the
German reformers. It is this which gives its special
interest to his work : this also which constitutes its secret
and fatal vice.
Cardinal Quignonez began his work in 1529. It has
been proved that he had several assistants : Diego Neyla,
a canon of Salamanca, a canonist and Hellenist ; another
learned Spaniard, Gaspar de Castro ; and perhaps a
third, better known than the others, Genesius de Sepul-
veda. 2 At the death of Clement VII., September 25,
1534, the constitution of the new breviary was not yet
agreed upon : that point^ was not reached until 1535,
under Paul III.
And even then the new breviary appeared at first in
the form of a project submitted to public judgment.
Quignonez says himself, and we may fully believe him,
that he had no other intention than to open a public
discussion with a view to collecting several opinions on
the subject. This first form of the breviary of Quig
nonez has now become exceedingly scarce, although
from February 1535 to July 1536 there appeared no less
1 Nos certe in omnibus quae per nos, Deo interveniente, fieri
poterunt, neque amore, neque studio, neque liberalitate deerimus
(Clement VII. to Cardinal Campeggio, quoted by Janssen, op. cit.
torn. ii. p. 347). As for ourselves, in all that by God s help can be
done, we shall not be wanting in goodwill, or zeal, or liberality.
2 Roskovany, torn. xi. pp. 23-25.
THE BKEVIAKY OF THE COUNCIL OF TKENT 239
than six editions of it, at Eome, Paris, Venice, and
Antwerp ; but recently the University of Cambridge has
had the happy thought of reprinting it. 1 The criticisms
for which Quignonez had asked did not fail to make
their appearance : the Sorbonne in particular signalised
itself by issuing a censure which set forth the grounds on
which it was made, July 27, 1535. 2 Wherefore, writes
Quignonez, in his preface to the revised form of his
work, having duly weighed the advice which has been
addressed to us, whether in word or in writing, we have
added, changed, revised, still retaining the general form
of our breviary. And so the breviary in a revised form,
and now with its text definitively settled, was at last
published. The title of my copy runs thus :
Breviarium Romanum a Paulo Tertio recens promulgation,
ex sacra potissimum Scriptura et probatis Sanctorum historiis
constans. Ab authore denuo recognitum, et antiphonis, homeliis,
precibus, sanctorum commemorationibus et aliis id genus addita-
mentis multifariam locupletatum, variisque modis immutatum,
ut in prefatione luculentius explicatur. 3
Cardinal Quignonez sets forth in the preface of his
breviary the principles by which he has been guided.
The clergy, he says, are called by their office not only to
pray but to teach, and it is proper that they should
instruct themselves by the daily reading of the Holy
Scriptures and ecclesiastical history. The Divine Office
was so fashioned by the ancient Fathers as to provide
perfectly for this double need. But what has come to
1 Breviarium Romanum a Fr. Card. Quignonio edituin et recog
nitum, iuxta editionem Venetiis A.D. 1535 impressum, ed. J. W.
Legg, Cambridge, 1888.
2 Boskovany, torn. viii. pp. 32-41.
3 Paris, 1538, chez Yolande Bonhomme.
240 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
pass by men s negligence ? The books of Holy Scripture
are hardly read in the office at all, their place in it is
reduced to almost nothing, and they are replaced by
matter which cannot be compared to them for utility or
importance. Of the psalms of David, intended to be
sung completely through every week, only a few are ever
used, which few are continually said over and over again
all the year. The histories of saints in use are of no
authority and written in barbarous style. The order of
the office is so complicated that as much time has to be
spent in finding the office as in reciting it.
To remedy, therefore, these defects, there have been
suppressed in the new office versicles, capitula, and
responds : there is nothing left in the breviary but
(1) psalms, (2) antiphons, and (3) lessons. Such of the
hymns have been retained as appeared to have most
authority and impressiveness. The psalms have been
distributed in such a way that the entire psalter is recited
every week, but each canonical hour has but three
psalms, the length of some being compensated by the
shortness of others, so that all the offices are of the same
length. On every day in the year the lessons are three
in number, the first from the Old Testament, the second
from the New, the third is either the legend of the saint,
if it happens to be a saint s day, or a homily on the
Gospel for the day, if it has a proper Mass, or, on
ordinary days, a lesson from the Epistles or from the
Acts of the Apostles.
Such were the objects proposed to himself by
Cardinal Quignonez in his revised breviary, and such the
method he adopted to secure them.
There is something to say, no doubt, for these objects,
THE BREVIARY OF THE COUNCIL OF TRENT 241
but is there enough to justify such a thorough upsetting
of the whole order of the breviary ? Was it not possible
to make reforms as to the points complained of, the
scanty amount of lessons from Scripture, the incomplete
recitation of the psalter, the undesirable character of
many of the saints day lessons, and the complicated
character of the office, while allowing its main structure
to stand ?
After all, was not this traditional office conceived
on a certain plan, a plan harmonious in itself ? And had
not the details of this ancient edifice their own beauty of
form, to which historical associations had added interest?
But Quignonez sweeps all away, and proceeds to build
up a new edifice on a new plan.
In his first edition he suppressed antiphons altogether ;
but in his second, to meet the general protest made
against this, he was obliged to re-establish a few. But
responds are suppressed without mercy, and therewith
disappears at one stroke all that beautiful literature of
the responsoral, the most original portion of the Roman
Office ! The Roman distribution of the psalms disap
pears equally ; the psalms are rearranged on a new plan,
in an order which is no doubt practical, easy, attractive,
but unknown to the ancient Church. No more exposi
tions or sermons from the sainted Fathers thus traversing
o
the custom of the Church for the past thousand years : a
patristic homily is just allowed by way of third lesson
on festivals of the Season, and even this is a concession
made in the second edition. No more distinction of rite
between festivals : every day is to have the same degree
of solemnity. The only distinctions by which a saint s
day is marked are in the invitatory, the hymn, the third
B
242 HISTOEY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
lesson, and the collect. To make up for this we have
the Holy Scripture : that is, the most useful and impor
tant books of the Old Testament, and the whole of the
New/ with the exception of the Apocalypse, of which
only the first few chapters are to be read. And thus the
Divine Office becomes principally a reading of the Bible,
and in a subsidiary degree a study of ecclesiastical
history. It was a very moderate utterance on the part
of the Sorbonne when it said of Quignonez : The author
of the new breviary has preferred his private judgment
to the decrees of the ancient Fathers, and to the common
and time-honoured customs of the Church.
Can it be said that Cardinal Quignonez has at least
shown more sense in the matter of expunging from the
lessons of the Sanctorale whatever was calculated to
excite contempt or ridicule/ desiring that nothing
should appear there but what was distinguished by
refinement of style and f gravity of matter, founded on
ecclesiastical history and the writings of grave and trust
worthy authors ? The saints day lessons of Quignonez
have an elegant sobriety, and are in good Latin ; their
refinement of style is irreproachable. But the sources
from which they are drawn are far from being equally
pure. Eusebius is a grave and trustworthy author, no
doubt, but how about Platina s Lives of the Popes, and
Mombrizo s Lives of the Saints? What an acute and
cautious spirit of criticism would have been needed to
deal successfully with this matter ! The sagacity of
Quignonez did not extend so far as to make him suspect
that the apocryphal Acts of the Apostles, and the
apocryphal Gospels were fabulous ; and it never occurred
to him that certain lessons in the old breviary, such as
THE BREVIARY OF THE COUNCIL OF TRENT 243
those on the festival of S. Mary of the Snows, needed to
be replaced by others. These few examples will suffice
to show that, even in the one direction in which it was
legitimate, the work of revision undertaken by Quignonez
was one for which he was not sufficiently equipped.
It is only fair to say, in defence of Cardinal Quig
nonez, that his breviary was, after all, only intended by
him as tentative, that it was made to be used solely for
private recitation of the office, and not for its per
formance in choir ; that the Holy See granted the right
of using it only to such clergy as should individually ask
permission to do so, and that the intention of the Church
was, by means of this abridged and simplified office,
to recall to the duty of reciting the canonical hours the
large numbers of clergy who had abandoned it. The
Blessed Canisius, with this object, propagated in
Germany the use of the breviary of Quignonez. 1 But it
is also fair to relate that what was at first a privilege
granted to individuals soon became a widely extended
custom, in Italy, in France, in Germany and in Spain.
The author of the Life of S. Francis Xavier calls the
breviary of the Cardinal of the Holy Cross the breviary
1 Canisius to S. Ignatius Loyola, December 28, 1560, quoted by
Schober, p. 15 : Complures ecclesiastici homines nihil recitarunt de
horis canonicis, Eos pensum hoc nobiscum persolvere curavimns,
ut recitandi morcm addiscerent ; et quid breviarii novi Eomani
usus maxime placebat, impair ammus illis quod petebant a legato
pontificio. Jtaque pergunt quotidie in recitandis horis canonicis.
Many ecclesiastics never recited the canonical hours at all. We
induced them to fulfil this task along with us, so that they might
learn the method of saying them ; and since they preferred to use
the new Roman Breviary, we got leave for them from the papal
legate to do so. And so they persevere in reciting daily the canonical
hours.
244 HISTORY OF THE EOMAN BREVIARY
of busy people, l and on this score no doubt it was that
the Jesuits adopted it as soon as it was published ; 2 but
from busy people it passed into the hands of canons,
who are people of leisure, or generally supposed to be so,
at all events ; and in Spain it was introduced into the
choirs of several cathedrals : thus from private recita
tion it passed into solemn and public celebration. It
was under these circumstances that the people of Sara-
gossa, unable to recognise the office of Tenebrae one
Maundy Thursday, and no doubt thinking that the
Chapter had turned Huguenots, made an uproar in the
cathedral itself, and went near to making an auto da fe
of the canons and their new breviary. 3 Thus these good
folk defended in their own fashion the just rights of
liturgical tradition.
All this was too much for the breviary of Quignonez.
In a memorandum dated Trent, August 1, 1551, and
addressed to Cardinal Marcello Crescenzi, the legate of
the Holy See at the Council, John de Arze, a Spanish
theologian, submitted to the Fathers of this Council certain
reasons which should move the Church to repudiate the
breviary of Quignonez. This memorandum, which for a
long time remained in manuscript, has been printed and
published in our -own time. 4 Father Arevalo, who had
read the MS., praises its conclusions, but considers that
1 Roskovdny, torn. xi. p. 13 : Breviarium in occupatorum homi-
num levamen editum.
2 P. Michel, Histoire de S. Ignace de Loyola (Tournai, 1893),
torn. ii. p. 331.
3 Roskovany, torn. v. pp. 656-7.
4 De novo breviario tollendo consultatio . . . D. loann. de Arze
presbyter Pallantinus professione theologus, apud Roskovany, torn. v.
pp. 635-720. The MS. is in the Vatican, Lat. 5302.
THE BREVIARY OF THE COUNCIL OF TRENT 245
it contains more declamation than strong reasoning ; we
cannot agree with this opinion. To our mind, John de
Arze has shown a just and penetrating judgment in
estimating both the tendencies and the results of the
work of Cardinal Quignonez. He was perfectly right
when, while recognising the fact that many legends of
the old breviaries required reformation, he deplored the
rejection of so many on too slight grounds, the retention
of others which were scarcely, if at all, better established,
the attaching of too much faith to the dicta of such a
historian as Platina, sciolus inter dum et amator novitatis
He was right when, while expressing a warm desire to
see the ferial office more frequently celebrated, out of
love to the psalter and the Holy Scripture, and the Sunday
office made obligatory every Sunday, in order to preserve
fidelity to the institution of the ancient breviary (et ita
constabit ratio veteris breviarii), he demanded that the
Kalendar of the festivals of the Saints should be secure
from interference, that these festivals should have their
proper office, and that these offices should be able to be
transferred, as had been the custom. He was right in under
taking the defence of the responds, versicles, and capitula,
and in saying that, if these details are proper to an office
which is sung in choir, and are only fully intelligible
when this is borne in mind, one cannot, for all that, allow
two offices, one for the choir and the other for private
recitation, without introducing into any canonical Office
an inevitable confusion. He was right in saying that
the office was made to be sung, being in its essence an
address to God, and not a matter of study, and that it
was mixing two distinct forms of religious exercise, and
confounding two distinct aims, to try and transform the
246 HISTOKY OF THE KOMAN BBEVIARY
recitation of the office into a Bible-reading : even putting
aside the consideration that, if the mere instruction of the
clergy were our object, it would be better to give them
some easy portions of the Bible to read and reflect on,
passages which had a direct tendency to edification and
the formation of Christian character, than to throw open
the Holy Scriptures promiscuously to the misunderstand
ing and the levity of persons who might be ill prepared
to profit by it, or devoid of a right intention to do so.
He was still more emphatically right when he entered
his protest on behalf of the rights of the traditional ordo
psallendi of the Church, the Eoman Church particularly :
on behalf of the traditional distribution of the psalms
among the various canonical hours, the traditional allot
ment of the lessons from different parts of Holy Scripture
to different seasons of the Christian year, the traditional
number of nocturns in fact, on behalf of the whole of
that liturgical order, based as it was on deep and mystical
reasons, and constituting a conspicuous monument (hand
obscura vestigia) of the most venerable antiquity.
These were judicious criticisms ; and if there were
others less well founded, or which prove nothing by trying
to prove too much ; if it is true that some considerations
of John de Arze are pushed too far in the direction of
declamatory vehemence, there are on the other hand
some pages of his memorandum which are characterised
by a simple and lively eloquence. What ! he cries ; is
it when our people see the clergy, and the highest
dignitaries of the Church, so anxious to increase the
income of their benefices, that we are to regard it as a
happy moment for shortening that Divine Service for
for which those revenues are the remuneration ? Worse
THE BEEVIARY OF THE COUNCIL OF TRENT 247
still, is it in this iron age, an age in love with the most
dangerous novelties, when the ecclesiastical chant is
mocked at, the canonical hours proscribed, the ceremonies
of the Church despised, and her laws treated as mere
human inventions, and that, too, all over the world, in
Germany, in Switzerland, in England ; when even among
ourselves, who adhere to the old faith, we see disgust for
the usages of the Church freely expressed, a growing
contempt for holy things, a more and more widespread
audacity in judging, each man for himself, of dogmas and
canons : is this the time to give up our liturgical traditions
and seem tacitly to allow that our adversaries are right,
when our first duty is to stand firm, and the more the
state of ruin manifests itself among them, the more on
our part to exert ourselves to uphold the tottering edifice
(et quo plura apud eos cadunt, plura a nobis sunt sub-
stituenda) ?
And observe that there was some boldness shown by
John de Arze in expressing himself in such an outspoken
manner. He defends himself, in the first lines of his
memorandum, against the imputation of wishing to
condemn anything which has proceeded from the Holy
See, or has once received its approval, and deprecates the
idea of bringing any charge against so august a throne :
Id profiteri libet nos . . . nee quidpiam damnare quod a Sede
Apostolica sit profectum aut eius auctoritate aliquando compro-
batum, . . . nee tantam sedem, quod absit, in ius vocamus.
And yet with what vigour he attacks the breviary
which has proceeded from the Holy See, and has once
received its approval ! This Spanish theologian,
thoroughgoing like all his countrymen, clothes his
248 HISTOEY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
indictment in terms which, for all the deprecatory tone
assumed by him, strike the heaviest and most direct
blows. He conjures the Fathers of the Council to be on
their guard against that innovating spirit which despises
antiquity and takes up with novelties, some of them
positively erroneous, all of them worthy of being suspected
-the spirit which was so applauded in that century,
and which, not content with giving birth in Germany to
new rites, new chants, new hymns, new sacraments, new
canons, new breviaries, was now endeavouring to gain
credit among the orthodox themselves, and to bring to
its full development among them also the mystery of
iniquity : Caveant pas tores !
It amounted to a denunciation of the affinities, un
realised but only too real, which subsisted between the
work of Cardinal Quignonez and the spirit of the
Keformation. 1
The revised breviary of Cardinal Quignonez had been
published at Borne in 1536; twenty-two years later it
was proscribed there. By a rescript dated August 8, 1558,
Pope Paul IV., without condemning its temporary use,
decreed that there was no longer any reason for allowing
it to be reprinted. 2 There still remained the task of
providing for the reform of the old breviary. After the
attempts of Clement VII. and Paul III., the work was
still to do ; would Paul IV. have better success ?
1 Several writers have pointed out the influence exercised by the
breviary of Quignonez on Cranmer and on the constitution of the
Book of Common Prayer. See Edward VI. and the Book of Common
Prayer, F. A. Gasquet and Edm. Bishop (London, 1890), pp. 29
a Roskovany, torn, xi, p. 26.
THE BKEVIAKY OF THE COUNCIL OF TEENT 249
He undertook this reform with the clearness of ideas
which was natural in a man who had long ago deeply
studied the subject. His historian, Caracciolo, tells us
that he had never been willing to use the breviary of
Quignonez, which he considered unsuitable for its purpose,
and contrary to the ancient form. l Nor was his judg
ment less severe on the unreformed Eoman breviary. In
fact, at a time when he was simply Peter Caraffa, being
then Bishop of Chieti (Teate), he joined with S. Cajetan
of Thiene in forming a congregation of Clerks Eegular-
the first in order of time of all such institutions, and the
prototype of that of S. Ignatius Loyola known as the
congregation of the Theatines ; and one of the most novel
of the points comprised in the Rule which he gave them
was that, for the use of these Theatines, a reform of the
old Eoman breviary was to be undertaken. In 1533, in
a letter addressed to the datarius 2 Giberto, Caraffa ex
pressed the disgust he felt for the recitation of this
breviary ; he complains of the barbarism of its style, and
of having to read in it so many passages from authors of
doubtful authority, such as Origen, and so many legends
unworthy of credit. 3 In 1529 (January 21), Pope Clement
VII. had addressed a brief to Caraffa for the purpose of
congratulating the Theatines on having, for the honour
of the worship of God and our holy religion, conceived
the design of bringing the Divine Office, as used in the
Holy Eoman Church, into a form which appeared to them
more suitable for its purpose, and better calculated to
1 Koskovany, torn. xi. p. 26.
2 [The chief officer of the Koman Chancery. A. B.]
} Quoted by Silos, Historia Clericorum Eegularium (Rome,
1650), p. 95.
250 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
secure the edification and the devotion alike of those who
officiated and of those who assisted at it. 1 Even at this
time, Caraffa s ideas did not stop short of procuring the
adoption by the Eoman Curia of the Theatine reform of
the breviary. The Theatines, in fact, not only asked
permission of Pope Clement VII. to recite the breviary as
corrected by themselves, but when they should have
made practical trial of it, they wished to present it to
the Holy See, that it might be examined and a resolution
come to as to whether it would not be well to bring it
into public use in churches generally. And the Pope, in
the brief above quoted, gives them some hope that what
they wished might be granted.
But at this very moment (1529), Cardinal Quignonez
on his part had set to work, nor is there any room for
doubting that he would never have undertaken the reform
of the breviary without the approbation of Clement VII.
And this circumstance causes Caracciolo, not without
some appearance of reason, to accuse the Pope of
changeableness and inconstancy : This Pontiff, he writes
with some bitterness, had no one to guide him to the
choice of such things as were good, and the reforms which
were really advantageous for the Church of God ; and
all the plans he formed were either never put into execu
tion or were abandoned after the very first trial, as
Florebello also says, who was his secretary. 2 Such was
certainly not the character of Paul IV., who, ascending
the pontifical throne in 1555, carried thither the same
views on Catholic reform which he had held ever since
1524, and set before himself as his object what had been
1 Silos, I.e. 2 Roskovdny, torn. ix. p. 10.
THE BREVIARY OF THE COUNCIL OF TRENT 251
with Clement VII. no more than a passing wish, the
approbation for the whole Church of that Theatine brevi
ary which had been waiting twenty-five years for its
authorisation.
In the first place, however, the Pope wished to revise
it once more. We really know very little about the
details of this reform of the breviary projected by Paul IV.
Father Silos himself knew no more of them than such as
were mentioned by the Theatine Isachino, the Pope s
chamberlain, in a letter dated 1561, and found by Silos in
the archives of the convent of S. Sylvester at Borne. 1 By
this it appears that Paul IV. suppressed all lessons from
Origen and other authors not approved as being thoroughly
orthodox ; he wished to have only such passages from
the holy Fathers as were irreproachable both as to
doctrine and as to style ; and at Nocturns, only such
blessings as were distinguished by devout gravity, instead
of some silly and absurd ones which were in use ; he
removed those narratives of martyrdoms which were
without authority, so as to admit none that were not of
certain and unquestionable authenticity ; he suppressed
the uncouth hymns (hymnos absonos) which had been
assigned to the festivals of the Transfiguration and the
Holy Trinity ; he shortened the Sunday Prime office,
which he considered inordinately long. If we may judge
by these few particulars, we may say that Paul IV.
understood better than Clement VII. and Paul III. the
true conditions of a good reform of the breviary, which
he, equally with them, felt to be needed : viz. that such a
reform ought to be a return, not to an ideal antiquity such
1 Silos, p. 98.
252 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
as Quignonez dreamed of, but to the ancient tradition
which was represented by the existing liturgy ; that there
was no need of change in the traditional arrangement of
the Divine Office as it stood in the old breviary of the
Eoman Curia : all that was necessary was to purge that
breviary from historical errors, from literary defects, and
from wearisome prolixities, which discouraged the clergy
from using it with devotion. Pius V., in fact, afterwards
well expressed the essence of the idea of Paul IV. when
he wrote :
Totam rationem dicendi ac psallendi horas canonicas ad
pristinum morem et institutum redigendum suscepit. 1
Thus, at last, liturgical tradition (pristinus mos) found
the highest authority of all able to comprehend and willing
to protect it. A fortunate reaction took place in favour
of the old Koman breviary, and the Council of Trent
found the question brought before it in the excellent
terms in which it was stated by Paul IV.
It was inevitable that the Council of Trent should
deal with the question of the breviary : it was one of
those points on which more synods than one can number
had demanded a reform, during the last twenty-five years.
Thus, in 1522, the Synod of Sens requested the Ordinaries
to inspect the breviaries, and especially the legends of
the saints, so as to suppress whatever they should find
there which was superfluous, or unbecoming the dignity
of the Church. Similarly the Synod of Cologne in 1536. 2
1 See the bull Quod a nobis.
2 Roskovany, torn. v. pp. 211, 222.
THE BBEVIAEY OF THE COUNCIL OF TRENT 253
At Augsburg, in 1548, the scheme of ecclesiastical reform,
adopted by Charles V., expressed itself somewhat to this
effect : The tradition as to the method of chanting and
praying, which goes back to the holy Fathers, and has
been handed down to us by S. Gregory and other rulers of
the Church, is not to be called in question. But it cannot
be denied that, in the lapse of time, many things have
crept into it which are silly, apocryphal, and by no means
accordant with a pure worship. Wherefore it is fitting
that the bishops, each in his own diocese, should apply
themselves to the correction of the breviaries, bringing
back the rites to their pure and ancient form ; so that not
only the current fashion observed in the prayers may be
reformed, but that nothing may be allowed to be recited
in them but what is holy, authentic, and worthy of a
place in the Divine Office. It will be the part of the
bishops to see if anything can be set forth concerning the
histories of the saints of which the churches of Germany
may make use temporarily in the lessons of Nocturns,
until a General Council has pronounced upon the question ;
the bishops will also have to see if there is any means of
suppressing the wearisome repetitions of the same
prayers and psalms on the same day, as well as the
commemorations, 1 and the memorials of the saints, and
everything else which hinders priests from saying the
ferial office of the Season, and causes them to prefer the
office of the Saints, which is shorter, but less profitable ;
finally, they must see if there is any means of suppressing
1 [I take these to be the commemorations of saints or mysteries
assigned to certain days of the week, if vacant, which were the ruin
of the ferial office. See Wordsworth and Procter s edition of the
Sarum Breviary, Fascic. III. Append. II. vi. A. B.J
254 HISTOKY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
certain additions to the canonical Office, which do not
belong to the essence of that Office. l This programme
of the German bishops is somewhat confused and vague :
how much clearer and more practical were the views of
Paul IV. ! We are therefore not surprised to find that
his programme was preferred without hesitation by the
Council of Trent.
The Council only attacked the question of the breviary
in 1562 that is to say, in the year before that in which
its labours ended. 2 The demand for a reform of the
canonical Office was made simultaneously by the Cardinal
of Lorraine in the name of the king and bishops of
France, and by the Emperor Ferdinand I. The latter,
taking up and stating in more precise terms the scheme
drawn up at Augsburg in 1548, demanded that the
breviaries should be corrected, that nothing should be
allowed to remain in them which was not from Holy
Scripture ; and that, on ^he other hand, to remedy the
lukewarmness with which the clergy regarded the recita
tion of their office, it should be notably abridged : for,
said he, far better is it to recite five psalms with calm
ness and spiritual joy, than to say the entire psalter
through with a heart filled with gloom and ill at ease. 3
The Germans, in fact, did not seem satisfied with the
experiment which had already been made with the
breviary of Quignonez of this Protestant and chimerical
scheme of reform : we here find them taking up on their
own account the very notion which had been entertained
1 Roskov&ny, torn. v. p. 224.
2 See Schmid, Studien iiber die Reform des Romischen Breviers
unter Pius V., in the Theologische Qiuxrtalschrift of Tubingen, 1884.
3 BoskovAny, torn. v. p. 226 ; Schmid, p. 621.
THE BKEVIARY OF THE COUNCIL OF TEENT 255
by the Cardinal of Holy Cross. The French contented
themselves with vague expressions : they demanded from
the Council the restoration of rites to a purer form, and
the suppression of superstitions. 1 The Spaniards, showing
themselves better acquainted with the state of the
question than either the Germans or the French, made
their request to the Pope, expressing to him their grief at
the harm done by the breviary of Cardinal Quignonez,
and demanding the correction of the old Roman breviary
according to the plan of Paul IV. : repurgatis paucis, quae
iudicio eiusdem pontificis per ignorantiam et temeritatem
multis saeculis irrepserant. To this end, they asked the
Pope to charge the Cardinal Archbishop of Trani,
Bernardino Scotti, and with him, Father Isachino, and
the prelate Sirleto, to inform the Council of the state of
the work commenced by Paul IV. 2
The ideas of the Spaniards prevailed at the Council.
Their request was forwarded to Trent by the Secretary of
State to Pope Pius IV., the sainted Cardinal Charles
Borromeo, in November 1562, in terms which allowed it
to be clearly seen that the mind of the Spanish prelates
w T as also that of the Roman Curia. Eight months later,
June 24, 1563, the legates informed the Sovereign Pontiff
that the correction of the breviary had been delegated to
a Conciliary Commission, that of the Index. The com
mission was composed of Leonardo Marini, Bishop of
Lanciano, Muzio Calinio, Archbishop of Zara, and Egidio
1 Grancolas, Comment. Hist. p. 10 : Que le service Divin soit
pur, toutes les superstitions retranchdes, les prieres et les ceremonies
corrig&es. 1
2 Schmid, pp. 623-25. The letter of Isachino already quoted
probably relates to this inquiry ; see p. 251.
256 HISTOKY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
Foscarari, Bishop of Modena ; to whom was added
Thomas Godwell, the deprived Bishop of S. Asaph, a
Theatine of English race, a friend of Cardinal Pole and
S. Charles Borromeo. 1 In the same letter, the legates
begged the Pope to be good enough to place in the hands
of the Commission the MSS. containing the correc
tions made by Paul IV., which were in the possession of
the Cardinal Archbishop of Trani, who was also a
Theatine. 2 By July 22 all these were in the hands of the
Commission. 3 But by this time it was too late for the
Council itself to come to a decision on the changes
proposed by Paul IV.
On December 4, 1563, the Council of Trent came to
an end, without the Commission having settled anything
about the breviary, except that its reformation should be
remitted to the care of the Holy See itself, to be pursued
and brought to completion. When, at the last sitting of
the Council, the Archbishop of Catania read out the
decrees which awaited its approval and ratification,
among which was the decree concerning the breviary,
although a prelate remarked on the fact that these
decrees had never been submitted to the various Commis
sions for discussion, and had not been actually deliberated
by them, the Council adopted the resolution which
remitted the reform of the breviary to| the care of the
Pope. 4 One can hardly imagine a conciliary assembly
discussing the infinite details of the constitution of the
1 Schmid, p. 626. 2 Ib. p. 269 ; Silos, p. 447.
3 Schmid, p. 625.
4 Theiner, Ada Authentic** Cone. Trid. (Agram, 1874), torn. ii.
p. 506 ; cf. Grancolas, op. cit. p. 11, for the objections made by the
Bishop of Lerida, Ant. Agostino.
THE BREVIARY OF THE COUNCIL OF TRENT 257
text of the Divine Office, as it might do the wording of a
canon : but, it being granted that the idea of Pius IV. was
in accord with that of Paul IV., to remit the affair to the
care of the Pope was simply to approve the programme
of reform proposed by these two Pontiffs, a programme
which the Conciliary Commission had made their own,
and which the Council, by continuing the delegation of
the matter to the bishops who were members of that
Commission, made in their turn their own. One may
say, then, that the Council of Trent adopted the views of
Paul IV., and that the old Roman breviary, so harshly
viewed by the French and Germans, so disowned even at
Rome in the hey-day of success of the Quignonez breviary,
came out victorious and consecrated from this trial, so
important and so decisive. And in addition to this, the
upshot of the course taken by affairs on this occasion was
that the committee which had to achieve the reform of
the Office was a Roman committee, and the reformed
breviary, in becoming the breviary authorised by the
Council of Trent, did not cease to be, even in its title, the
Roman breviary.
II
Scarcely had the Council come to an end, when
Pope Pius IV. summoned to Rome the three bishops
appointed by it for the correction of the breviary :
Marini, Calinio and Foscarari. One would like to know
something more about the labours of this Committee than
merely the conclusions they arrived at ; and perhaps
some day more will be known, if it should turn out that
the MSS. recording their proceedings are in existence
s
258 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
somewhere or other ; but at present they are not to be
found. The names even of the members whom Pius IV.
added on his own account to the three delegates from the
Council are imperfectly known ; the Cardinal Archbishop
of Trani, Scotti, seems to have been made the chairman
of the Committee, at all events for a time ; there was the
modest, learned, and industrious William Sirleto, one of
the most learned men of the Eoman Curia at that time,
and subsequently a Cardinal, of whom it was afterwards
said that he was il principal istitutore et essecutore di
questo bel ordine de uffici : Curtius de Franchi, Canon
of S. Peter s ; Vincent Masso, a Theatine renowned for
his knowledge of ecclesiastical history ; an elegant
Latinist, Giulio Poggiano ; and, lastly, perhaps Antonio
Caraffa, afterwards a Cardinal. 1 For our information as
to the aims and the methods of this Congregation of the
Breviary we have only the book itself in the shape in
which it left their handstand two other documents : the
bull of Pope Pius V. which serves as Preface to the
Breviary, and a letter in Italian, supposed -to have been
written by Leonardo Marini, one of the members. 2
Pius V. tells us that, after the disappointing experiment
tried by Cardinal Quignonez, many Ordinaries attempted
on their own account to reform the breviary for the use
of their own clergy, an undesirable custom (prava con-
suetudo), from which the worst confusion had proceeded ;
to remedy which, Pope Paul IV. of happy memory had
abrogated the permission granted for the use of the
breviary of Quignonez, and undertaken the task of
1 Schmid, pp. 628-631. See the author s La Vaticane de Paul
III. a Paul V. pp. 25 and 65.
2 Roskovdny, torn. v. pp. 576-583 ; Schmid, p. 459.
THE BREVIARY OF THE COUNCIL OF TRENT 259
bringing the office back to its ancient form (ad pristinum
morem) ; but Paul IV. having died without bringing this
work to its completion, the Council of Trent expressed its
desire to see the breviary reformed in accordance with
the idea of that Pontiff (ex ipsius Pauli Papae ratione
restituere cogitarunt) ; and the Council in its turn delegated
the care of this reform to a Committee, which eventually
completed, under the pontificate of Pius V., the work of
which the initiative belonged to Paul IV. And the Pope
adds : Having ascertained that in the accomplishment of
its work the Congregation has not departed from the form
of the ancient breviaries of the most notable churches at
Borne, and our library of the Vatican ; and while eliminat
ing whatever was of foreign origin or uncertain authority,
they have not omitted anything which is of the essence of
the ancient Divine Office, we have given our approval to
their work. In other words, the Eoman Congregation of
the Breviary had as the object before them, in accordance
with the idea of Paul IV., the restoration of the liturgical
tradition, which they were to carry out by studying the
Office in its ancient manuscript forms, and by removing
from it all that was foreign to those forms or for the
insertion of which there was no sufficient justification
(remotis Us quaealiena et incerta essent, depropria summa
veteris officii Divini nihil emitter e). 1 Such at least was
the notion of Pius V.
Leonardo Marini enters into detail as to the applica
tion of this leading idea expressed by the Pope. The
Congregation, he says, * convinced that the ancient form
of prayer was good, and that it had become disliked
simply through the fact of other offices having been
1 See the bull Quod a nobis.
260 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
superadded to it, aimed at restoring the ancient order,
and reducing to just proportions the additions with
which it had been burdened.
Starting from this principle, they maintained the
traditional division of the offices into those of nine
lessons and those of three. But, in order to give the
psalter greater scope, they enjoined for the office of
simple feasts the twelve psalms of the ferial nocturn, in
accordance with the ancient rubric. And in order to give
more scope for the reading of Holy Scripture as well,
they ordained that one lesson out of three, and three
out of nine, should at all times be taken from the book
of the Bible then in course of reading. They felt (and
the point is excellently expressed by Marini) that the
ferial office is the fundamental one ; it was most
unbecoming that that office should be the one least often
said, especially in Lent, when the canons of the Church
ordainer 1 , on the contrary, that it should be the only one
used ; thev were sensible that the recitation of the
j
psalter, which ought to be performed in its entirety
every week, was so cut up in practice, that the psalms of
the Common of Saints, and none other, came over and
over, to the weariness of those who said the office ; and
that the reading of Holy Scripture could not be
diminished as it was, without the ignorance of the clergy
being increased in the same degree. 1 The Sunday office,
with its eighteen psalms, was no longer to be ousted by
semidoubles ; while in Advent and Lent it was even to
have the preference over doubles. Thus did the Con
gregation aim at restoring the ancient order.
The Gradual and Penitential psalms, which had
1 Roskovany, torn. v. p. 578.
THE BEEVIARY OF THE COUNCIL OF TKENT 261
become obligatory on all f erias in Advent and Lent, were
no longer then to be recited, except the Gradual
psalms on Wednesdays, and the Penitential psalms
on Fridays. The Office for the Dead, which had been
made obligatory on every day which was kept as a feria
or as a simple feast, was henceforth only to be recited
every Monday in Advent and Lent, and at other times
on the first vacant day of each month. The Little Office
of our Lady, which was obligatory on every day when
the office was of the feria, of a simple, or of a semi-
double, was now only to be recited on Saturdays (quovis
sabbato non impedito), excluding Ember Saturdays, vigils,
and the whole of Lent. The Nocturns of the Sunday
office, however long they might be, were not to be touched,
but the Sunday Prime was relieved of the burden of
Ps. xxi. to xxv. [xxii.-xxvi.]. which used to precede the
Beati immaculati, ] but which it was now decided to
distribute over the Prime of the ferias during the week.
Thus did the Congregation endeavour to reduce to just
proportions the additions with which the ancient order
of the office had been burdened. 2
From these declarations on the part of Marini we
can see what kind of spirit animated the Congregation.
It is impossible to say whether their action fell short of
what Paul IV. had proposed to himself or went beyond
it : more probably the latter. But what is most worthy
of notice is the extent to which the imprudences com
mitted by Quignonez made them on their part circumspect,
and even timid, possessed, perhaps excessively, with the
idea of abolishing nothing : Nihil quod in usu erat e
1 The first thirty-two verses of Ps. cxviii. [cxix.].
2 Roskovany, torn. v. pp. 579-581.
262 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
medio sublatum, sed temperatum, as Marini says. Pius V.
shows himself more decided, when, by his sovereign
authority he rendered optional the recitation on certain
days of the Office of the Virgin, the Office of the Dead, and
the Penitential and Gradual psalms, an obligation
religiously maintained by the Congregation, and to this
day enjoined by the rubrics of the Breviary. 1 Here were,
indeed, foreign elements (aliena), as to the removal of
which no hesitation need have been shown.
The Congregation manifested the same scrupulous
tenderness as to the elimination of such elements of the
old breviary as were of uncertain authority (incerta)).
The reproach has been made, writes Marini, that some of
the legends of saints in the old breviary were apocryphal,
unedifying, or written in a bad style. The Congregation
has decided to retain the more authentic, putting them
into a better literary form, thus securing both the edifica
tion and the pleasure of readers. They feel that many of
the Lives of Saints in the old breviary are excellent, being
taken from authors venerable for their antiquity, or from
the Acta sincera of the Martyrs, and to these preference
ought to be given, while carefully revising them from the
point of view of historical accuracy as well as correctness
of literary style. This task was entrusted at first to
Foscarari, afterwards to Poggiano, and these two had all
the legends of the Sanctorale to revise. 2 Here again the
indications furnished by Marini tend to confirm our
impression that the Congregation viewed the Reform of
the Breviary merely as a correction, and that correction
1 See the bull Quod a nobis.
2 Roskovdny, torn. v. p. 582 ; cf. Julii Pogiani Epistolae et Ora-
tiones (Rome, 1756), torn. ii. pp. xl-lii.
THE BREVIARY OF THE COUNCIL OF TRENT 263
as one to be confined to what was strictly indispensable.
-Marini says as much, in conclusion, in a sentence which
leaves no doubt about the matter : Perstitit inconcussa
deputatorum convictio nil mutandum esse in ipsis Ecclesiae
libris
The Eoman Breviary, corrected according to these
views, appeared in 1568, hardly five years after the
close of the Council of Trent. It would even seem
that its correction was finished by 1566, from a letter
written by Cardinal Borromeo to Sirleto. 1 At this rate
the reform must have occupied barely three years in its
execution. The bull Quod a nobis, publishing the new
Breviary, is dated July 1, 1568. The book itself was
printed at Eome, and the printer, Paul Manutius,
received the privilege to do so on November 11 in that
year. The office according to the new Breviary might
thus come into use at the beginning of the year 1569.
The title runs as follows :
Breviarium Romanum, ex decreto Sacrosancti Concilii Tri-
dentini restitution, Pii V. Pont. Max. iussu editum. Romae,
MDLXVIII. Cum privilegio Pii V. Pontificis Maximi, in aedibus
Populi Romani, apud Paulum Manutium.
The bull Quod a nobis pronounced the absolute
abolition of the breviary of Quignonez, as well as of all
breviaries precedent to the new one now published,
with the exception of such as could claim Pontifical
approval, or a prescription of two hundred years dura
tion : along with a prohibition to change the new Breviary
in whole or in part, to add to it or take from it anything
. whatsoever.
1 Borromeo to Sirleto, September 4, 1566 (Schmid, p. 654).
264 HISTOEY OF THE KOMAN BKEVIARY
Bearing in mind the scrupulously conservative spirit
with which the liturgists of Pius V. were animated, we
must not expect to find in the breviary of 1568 anything
but the traditional breviary of the Roman Curia, as it
had been printed ever since 1474 amended, however,
and rendered in all respects both more handy to use and
more polished in style. Quignonez had pronounced the
old rubrics obscure and involved ; at the head of the
new breviary was placed the excellent exposition of the
general rubrics of the office which is still to be found
there, and which was partly borrowed from the Dircc-
torium Divini Officii published by L. Ciconiolano in
1540, with the approbation of Paul III. 1 Quignonez
had deplored the inroads made on the office of the
Season by the Sanctorale ; the Kalendar of fixed feasts
was now lightened by the removal of several festivals-
those of SS. Joachim, Francis de Paula, Bernardin,
Antony of Padua, Anne,. Louis de Toulouse, Elizabeth of
Hungary, and the Presentation of our Lady. Several
more were reduced to have a memorial only SS.
Euphemia, Thecla, Ursula, Saturninus. The total
number of semidoubles was brought down to 30 ; of
doubles of all classes, 57 ; of memorials, 33. Thus the
offices of the Common of Saints now took only about a
hundred days from the office of the Season.
The text both of the psalter and of the lessons from
Holy Scripture was that of the Vulgate. It has often
been asserted that this was an innovation of this date ;
but in reality it had been introduced at a period which
cannot be stated with precision, but certainly anterior to
the sixteenth century. 2 The distribution of Holy Scrip-
1 Schmid, p. 637. 2 Schober, p. 41.
THE BREVIARY OF THE COUNCIL OF TRENT 265
ture for the lessons of the first nocturn was made
conformably to the decree commonly called that of
Gregory VII. 1 in reality, as regards its main outlines, it
agrees with the distribution the use of which in the
eighth century we have already verified. 2 Every day had
its lesson from Scripture, and these were chosen, with
few exceptions, from the plainest and simplest pages of
the Bible.
The Antiphonary and Eesponsoral remained intact :
that is to say, in accordance, with the exception of a few
details, with what they had been in the eighth century.
The Lectionary for the second nocturn of fixed feasts
underwent notable changes. New lessons were given
for the festivals of SS. Hilary, Paul the Hermit, John
Chrysostom, Ignatius of Antioch, Matthias, Joseph,
Soter and Caius, Cletus and Marcellinus, Athanasius,
Gregory Nazianzen, and Basil ; the Visitation, the Octave
of S. Peter, S. Mary Magdalene, S. Peter s Chains, the
Invention of S. Stephen, S. Dominic, S. Mary of the
Snows, the Transfiguration, S. Laurence, the whole
Octave of the Assumption, S. Bartholomew, S. Augustine
of Hippo, the Beheading of S. John Baptist, the Octave
of the Nativity of our Lady, SS. Matthew, Jerome,
Francis of Assisi, Simon and Jude, Martin, and Damasus.
A dozen or so additional homilies for the third Nocturn
were introduced, or the old replaced by new : on the
1 See chap. iv. pp. 170-173.
2 It comprises Isaiah for Advent ; Genesis in spring ; Acts,
Apocalypse, and the non-Pauline Epistles in Paschal-tide ; the Kings
in summer ; Sapiential books in August ; Job, Tobit, Judith, and
Esther in September ; Maccabees in October ; Ezekiel, Daniel, and
the Minor Prophets in November: the Pauline Epistles in the
Christmas season. See ch. iii. pp. 102, 103.
266 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
feasts of SS. Agnes, Vincent and Anastasius, Ignatius,
Agatha, Martha, Matthew, Bernard, Augustine, Jerome,
Nicolas, Lucy, &c. But it is here we come on the weak
point in the reform of Pius V. His liturgists had no
hesitation in suppressing the lessons given in the breviary
of 1550 for the festival of S. Margaret, as also those for
SS. Thecla, Eustace, and Ursula : but this was not sup
pressing enough. And as for new lessons, if we judge by
those for S. Bartholomew, the Invention of S. Stephen,
and S. Mary of the Snows, they admitted more than they
ought. And how many more lessons there were which,
either in their origin or in the form they had been made
to assume, remained undoubtedly worthy of censure !
No one can question the fairness and openness of mind
with which these liturgists approached their task ; but it
may be doubted whether the time was ripe for such an
enterprise, and their critical ability seems not to have
been equal to the strain put upon it. We cannot blame
Bellarmine and Baronius on the one hand, and Benedict
XIV. on the other, for reproaching them on this score.
And yet, on the whole, a great progress was effected.
This respectful and timid treatment of the Breviary of the
Curia was the best restoration of the ancient Roman
Office which was possible at the time. It preserved the
traditional ordo psallendi of the Roman Church ; it pre
served the Antiphonary and Responsoral of the time of
Charlemagne ; it restored the ordo canonis decantandi of
the eighth century ; it suppressed the additional offices
introduced into the liturgy in the post-Carolingian
period ; it reduced the Kalendar of fixed feasts to juster pro
portions, and restored to its due place of honour the office
of the Season. If it did not venture to suppress the hymnal,
THE BREVIARY OF THE COUNCIL OF TRENT 267
it is because at that time no one had any idea of doing
such a thing, and, indeed, no one has thought of doing so
since. And if in the matter of correcting the lectionary
its literary and historical criticism was somewhat at
fault, that was in great measure inevitable, owing to the
then state of critical scholarship.
Catholic Christendom did full justice to the wise and
sincere work of Pius V. All Italy, the whole of Spain,
including Portugal, through the influence of Philip II.,
and France, rather more tardily, dating from 1580, l and
then owing to the efforts of the Jesuits, received with
esteem the new Eoman Breviary. If in the ninth
century, writes the Sorbonnist Grancolas, the Eoman
Breviary deserved such universal praise as to be pre
ferred to those of all other Churches, it shone with even
greater lustre after Pope Pius V. brought it out afresh ;
and it may be said that, since that time, particular
Churches have adopted it universally, at all events to this
extent, that those who have not received it under the
title of the Roman Breviary have incorporated it almost
entire in their own, adapting it to their own rite. 2
We may even say, with Dom Gu^ranger, that the
success of the Breviary of Pius V. was excessive.
The Holy See contemplated the continued use of
liturgies with a prescription of two centuries and
upwards. Thus, by a rescript of September 10, 1587,
it accorded to the Church of Aquileia the privilege of
continuing to celebrate the Divine Office according to its
1 A fine edition of the Breviary of Pius V. was, nevertheless,
published at Paris by Kerver, 1574.
- Cf. Gueranger, torn. i. pp. 450 sqq. ; Roskovany, torn. ii. pp. 236-
262 ; Baumer, Geschichtc, pp. 457-467.
268 HISTORY OP THE ROMAN BREVIARY
ancient patriarchal rite. 1 It would have been a good,
thing if Churches which might have availed themselves
of the exception made by the bull Quod a nobis, had
preserved their own traditional ordo. When the Chapter
of the Cathedral of Paris, in 1583, refused to its Bishop,
Peter de Gondy, the reception of the Breviary of Pius
V. maxime quod recepta dudum tarn illustris Ecclesiae
consuetude* non facile suum immutari officium patere-
tur 2 it was in accordance with the conservative views
expressed by the Holy See. We are far from blaming
the Chapter, writes Dom Gueranger. It was only right
that the Romano- French liturgy, which several religious
Orders had adopted, and which had made its way into
the Churches of Jerusalem, Ehodes, and Sicily, should
stand as one of the glories of our nation. Already
abolished in the greater part of the French cathedrals by
the introduction of Roman books, by Paris, at all events,
it ought not to be allowed to perish. Rome itself had
prepared the way for this preservation by the provisions
of her bull ; if, then, this beautiful and poetic form of
Catholic worship now no longer exists, it is not from the
Holy See that we are to demand the reason, but from
those Parisians w r ho, a hundred years later, thought fit to
overthrow the venerable and noble edifice which their
forefathers had defended with so much affection. 3
1 Gueranger, torn. i. p. 430.
2 Breviarium insignis Ecclesiae Parisiensis restitutum ac emen-
datum R. in Christo Patris D. Petri de Gondy Parisiensis Episcopi
authoritate, ac eiusdem Ecclesiae Capituli consensu editum (Paris,
1584 ; preface by De Gondy).
3 Gueranger, torn. i. p. 452. But Dom Gueranger is wrong in
falling foul of the Parisians of the seventeenth century. It was
Peter de Gondy who, in 1584, caused the Parisian service-books to
THE BREVIARY OF THE COUNCIL OF TRENT 269
III
In promising in the bull Quod a nolis that the
Breviary * should never at any time be changed either
in whole or in part, and that no one should add to it or
take away from it anything whatever/ Pope Pius V.
engaged himself to something which his successors were
not disposed to observe.
His immediate successor, Pope Gregory XIII. (1572-
1585), did not consider himself bound by the terms of
the bull Quod a nobis. Pius V. had not instituted any
office in commemoration of the victory of Lepanto
(1571), contenting himself with inserting in the Roman
Martyrology under October 7 the mention of our Lady of
Victory. Gregory XIII. was not satisfied with this, and
by a decree dated April 1, 1573, he instituted the feast of
the Rosary, fixed it for the first Sunday in October of
each year, and assigned to it the rank of greater double.
It is true that this festival was not extended to the
Church at large that was not the case until October 3,
1716, under Clement XI. But, all the same, Gregory
XIII. felt no scruple as to interfering with the Breviary
of 1568. We see this plainer when, in 1584, he re-esta
blished, as a double, the festival of S. Anne, which
Pius V. had removed from the Breviary, and introduced
a memorial of S. Joachim, all mention of whom had been
suppressed by his predecessor. 1
After him, again, Sixtus V. (1585-1590) laid his hands
be corrected, and introduced into them nearly the whole of the
Breviary of S. Pius V (Gueranger, loc. cit.).
1 Schober, p. 49.
270 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
on the work of Pius V. He re-established in 1585, as a
double, the feast of the Presentation of the Virgin,
which had been abolished by Pius V. In the same way
he re-established the festivals of SS. Francis de Paula
and Nicolas de Tolentino. The next year (1586) he
re-established the festivals of SS. Januarius and his
companions, Peter Martyr, and Antony of Padua, all
suppressed by Pius V. In 1588 he bestowed on S.
Bonaventure the title of Doctor of the Church, and
raised his festival from a semidouble to a double. 1 He
had thoughts, indeed, of doing far more, and of per
fecting, if not of recasting throughout, the correction of
the Breviary carried out under Pius V. Dom Baumer
has been the first writer to bring forward proofs of the
fact that Sixtus V. requested his nuncios in the various
Catholic Courts to use all necessary diligence in order to
collect quelli avvertimenti, osservationi et fatiche che sin
hora si ritrovassero haverci fatte alcune persone pie, dotte
et accurate - - any admonitions, observations, and works
which up to the present time may be found to have
been made by any pious, learned, and accurate
persons - -because the Pope had the intention resti-
tuire alia loro purita il Breviario et il Missale Romano
of restoring to their purity the Eoman Breviary and
Missal. 2
This project of Sixtus V. did not lead to any result
during his pontificate, but Dom Baumer has also dis
covered traces of a Commission to whom Gregory XIV.
1 Schober, p. 50.
2 Baumer, Geschichte, p. 486. Letters to Cardinal Gesualdo,
July and August, 1588.
THE BREVIARY OF THE COUNCIL OF TRENT 271
(1590-1591) entrusted the execution of the revision pro
jected by his predecessor, recorded in certain Acta
Congregationis propurgando breviario sub Gregorio XIV. l
Cardinal Gesualdo was the president of this Commission,
whose programme is stated thus :
Ut in lectionibus sanctorum et aliis quibusque rebus ea
solum mutentur quae nullo pacto sustineri possunt. At quae
satis bene digesta noscuntur, non ulterius laborandum ut am-
pliora et perfectiora reddantur ; cum importunae novitates, hoc
praesertim tempore, nihil expedire . . . videantur. 2
The Commission met several times in May and June
1591 ; the text of a few timid corrections proposed by
them for the lessons of the Sanctorale is given, and it
must be confessed that these reveal a most elementary
and insufficient perception of the principles of historical
criticism ! We gather also that the Commission was
entrusted with the task of correcting the hymnal, for
there are diversae annotationes et correctiones hymnorum
a multis allatae. 3
The pontificate of Sixtus V. gave the Catholic Church
an edition of the Vulgate of S. Jerome (1589). In the
bull Aeternus Ille, which serves as a preface to this
Sixtine edition of the Vulgate, the Sovereign Pontiff gave
the printers a permission or rather, a command, which
was not without grave effects viz. the command to
1 Baumer, Geschichte, pp. 488-492. From the Vatican MSS.,
Lat. 6097.
2 In the legends of saints and all other passages let those things
only be altered which are in no way tolerable. As for such as are
fairly well expressed, let no labour be bestowed on making them
fuller or more perfect ; for constant changes, especially at the
present time, seem altogether inexpedient.
3 Baumer, loc. cit.
272 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
correct, in accordance with this edition, in missals,
breviaries, psalters, rituals, pontificals, ceremonials, and
other ecclesiastical books, all the passages taken from
Holy Scripure (iuxta hunc nostrum textum ad verbum et
ad liter am corrigantur). Well, we know what sort of
criticism the Sixtine text of the Vulgate aroused, and how
it became necessary at once to undertake its revision ;
hence there appears a fresh edition of the Vulgate in
1592. What disturbances in the text of the Eoman
Office does all this imply ! We have got to about the
year 1600 ; the Breviary of 1568 has already been thirty
years in use. What book would not be found to betray
some flaws under such an ordeal as it had to face ?
Textual criticism, the knowledge of history, literary taste,
were all of them more developed and more exacting than
they had been when the revision was made. The Con
gregation of 1568, coming after Cardinal Quignonez, had
worked at a time of reaction, when circumspection was
peculiarly necessary ; a fresh body of revisers might
venture on bolder courses without being rash. What
Cardinal Sirleto in the time of Pius V. could not do
might well lie within the power of Cardinal Bellarmine
in the time of Clement VIII. 1
It was not, however, to Bellarmine that reference was
most especially made. The chief part in the Clementine
revision of the Breviary belonged to Cardinal Baronius.
The initiative in the matter of revision was taken by
the Holy See. From Borne messages were sent, asking
the advice, not of the Ordinaries of Churches, but of the
1 A. Bergel, Die Emendation des Romischen Breviers unter
Papst Clemens VIII., in the Zeitschrift fiir Katholisclie Theologie
(Innsbruck, 1884).
THE BREVIAKY OF THE COUNCIL OF TKENT 273
most learned members of the various learned theological
bodies of Europe ; and the Adnotationes Criticae thus
addressed to the Pope by the theologians of Poland,
Savoy, Spain, Germany, Naples, Venice, the Sorbonne,
the Dean of the theological faculty at Salamanca, and so
forth, not omitting Ciacconio and Bellarmine, have been
preserved among the papers of Baronius in the library of
the Vallicellan at Eome. 1
In fact, all these replies were consigned to Cardinal
Baronius for him to pass judgment upon them and
report his conclusions to the Pope ; and we possess the
text of his Eeport.
I have examined, he says, all the criticisms which
have come in from various countries, or which have been
sent to me by learned persons at Eome itself. In
accordance with these I have ruled out, all through the
Breviary, whatever seemed indefensible, thus applying
myself first, for greater despatch in the work of correction,
to suppress, rather than to add anything fresh. As it is
but just that my work should be submitted to the censor
ship of others, the best course would be for your Holiness
to appoint one of the Cardinals of the Congregation of
Eites, joining with him two or three learned and erudite
consultors, who would take the trouble to review it
carefully. A decision could thus be arrived at in a few
days as to this matter. I have everywhere indicated my
reasons for correcting or leaving uncorrected this or that
passage of the Breviary ; and, moreover, I would attend
myself, so as to be ready to give any necessary explana
tions, should any point seem obscure or ambiguous. As
soon as the corrections had been reviewed by these
1 Bergel, pp. 293-94, gives a list of them.
T
274 HISTOEY OF THE KOMAN BREVIAKY
censors, they might be submitted at least, as regarded
the more important modifications to the Congregation of
Eites, and lastly your Holiness might take cognisance of
them, and decide on the whole work as might seem good
to yourself. As regards the best plan for applying the
corrections, it has been suggested that a small volume
might be printed, containing the new offices approved by
Sixtus V., and the correctorium of the whole Breviary.
As far as the new offices are concerned, some of which
(those for the Conception, Visitation, and Presentation of
our Lady) have not yet been printed, there might be
some good in this ; but as regards the correctorium, I
altogether disapprove of it. To publish the correctorium
would amount to exposing to all the world, including the
enemies of the Church, the numerous and grave errors
which we have hitherto tolerated in the Breviary : this
would be a scandal, and a slight upon the authors of our
Breviary besides, not to. mention how irksome it would be
to many persons to make all these corrections in their
books. It will be much better to print a Breviary,
corrected and purged from errors, not obliging any persons
to discard those they are using and to buy the new one
forthwith, but only as they have occasion to do so. Thus
the religious and the poor priests will not be put to incon
venience ; and at the same time, while few people would
notice these new corrections of all the errors which really
have crept into the Breviary, in a few years there would
be none but corrected Breviaries in circulation. If it is
decided thus to print a corrected Breviary, a thing which
all well-instructed persons keenly desire and eagerly
(avide) await, your Holiness might explain, in a bull
prefixed to it, the reasons for this new edition . . .,
THE BREVIARY OF THE COUNCIL OF TRENT 275
especially that its object is to put an end to the temerity
of some who, on their own authority, have inserted in the
Breviary false or uncertain matter (as is evidently the
case with the lessons for S. Alexis and others), and that
advantage has been taken of this opportunity to correct
some other defects due to the carelessness of printers or
of others. l
The views here expressed by Cardinal Baronius would,
on more grounds than one, be severely criticised. Let
us gather from them one fact at all events : it was he
who prepared the correction of the Breviary.
The special committee whose advice he asked for was
forthwith nominated by Clement VIII. The names of
its members are as follows : John Baptist Bandino, Canon
of S. Peter s ; Michael Ghisleri, a Theatine ; Bartholomew
Gavanto, a Barnabite ; Louis de Torres, Archbishop of
Monreale ; Cardinal Antoniano, Cardinal Bellarmine, and
Cardinal Baronius as President. 2 It met for the first
time on September 10, 1592.
The committee, in the very first place, was agreed
that in the text of the Breviary as few changes as possible
were to be made : * data est opera ut quam minima mutatio
fieret* Cardinal Antoniano had proposed to correct the
false quantities which occur in the hymns : but the com
mittee, while recognising the fact that the hymns are
full of errors of prosody (scatent error ibus syllabarum),
did not consent to alter anything beyond those errors
which seemed to be due to careless copying, or which
could be corrected by the mere changing of a single
letter or a single syllable, particularly in the hymns of
1 Bergel, pp. 295-97.
2 Gavanto, in front. TJiesaur. Sac. Eituum." 1
T 2
276 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
Prudentius and Ambrose, whom we may not suppose to
have composed them incorrectly. 1 As to the Lectionary,
the Antiphonary, and the Eesponsoral, they aimed at
changing nothing but that which could not be retained
without scandal (ut ea sola mutaremus quae sine offensione
tolerari non poterant). 2 They removed some homilies
and sermons from the Lectionary and replaced them by
others : thus, on August 15, they took away an apocryphal
sermon attributed to S. Athanasius, to make way for one
by S. John Damascene ; on November 1 they restored
the name of Bede to the sermon in the second nocturn,
which the Breviary of Pius V. had attributed to S. Augus
tine. They removed from the legends of the Sanctorale
a small number of assertions which were judged histori
cally untenable : as, in the legend of S. Martin, the
relation, borrowed from Gregory of Tours, of S. Ambrose
coming in a vision to be present at the death of S. Martin ; 3
and the assertion that "SS. Gordian and Epimachus were
1 Bergel, p. 297. Two new hymns were added : the Fortem
virili pectore, written by Cardinal Antoniano for the Common of
non -Virgins, and the Pater superni luminis, by Cardinal Bellar-
mine for the festival of S. Mary Magdalene. See his autobiography :
Scripsit mtdta carmina. . . . Superest . . . hymnus de S. Maria
Magdalena qui positus est in breviario, qiti hymnus compositus fuit
Tusculi, et a Clemente VIII. antepositus hymno quern de ea re
scripsit Cardinalis Antonianus, et uterque nostrum quasi ex tempore
scripsit, et ioco magis quam ut in breviario poni deberet (J. B.
Couderc, Le Ven. Card. Bellarmin, Paris, 1893, torn. i. p. 25). He
wrote many verses. There remains the hymn for S. Mary Magda
lene s day in the Breviary, written at Frascati, and preferred by
Clement VIII. to the hymn on the same subject written by Cardinal
Antoniano. And both of us wrote impromptu, and more for amuse
ment than with any idea of what we wrote being put in the
Breviary.
8 Bergel, ib. * Ib. p. 340.
THE BREVIARY O* iti UULJSUIL OF TRENT 277
condemned at Rome by the Emperor Julian, 1 &c. But
most of the errors corrected were those of simple chrono
logy: such as the date of the death of S. Ambrose or
of S. Hilary, or of the martyrdom of SS. Gervase and
Protase, Faustina and Jovita, &c.
Some corrections proposed by Baronius, however
opportune, were not adopted. He considered disputable
the fact related in the legend of the Dedication of S. John
Lateran : Et imago Salvatoris in pariete depicta populo
Romano apparuit. 2 But it was allowed to stand. He
asked that in the legend of the apparition of S. Michael
on Mount Garganus, the mention of the consecration of
an oratory at Rome, in summo circo, should be modified
so as clearly to indicate the oratory of S. Michael in
summo circulo molis Adrianae that is, on the terrace of
the Castle of S. Angelo ; but the old wording was retained,
obscure as it is. The grave errors which Baronius pointed
out in certain legends, particularly in that of S. Alexis,
were not even examined by the committee, and the much
controverted legend of that Saint has been left intact. On
the other hand, some of the corrections which were adopted
were open to dispute. For example, Baronius made the
Breviary say that the bones of S. Andrew were translated
to Constantinople in the reign of Constantius : the
Breviary of Pius V. said Constantino, a reading judi
ciously replaced by Urban VIII. The Breviary of Pius V.
had styled S. Hippolytus priest ; Baronius gives him the
erroneous title of Bishop of Porto. The legend of S. James
the Greater in the Breviary of Pius V. said, without
1 Bergel, p. 317.
2 There appeared to the people of Rome the image of the
Saviour depicted on the wall.
278 HISTOKY OF THE KOMAN BEEVIAKY
enlarging on the fact, that the Apostle traversed Spain
and preached the Gospel there, afterwards returning to
Jerusalem : Bellarmine wished this assertion to be
removed from the Breviary, as not resting on any testi
mony worthy of credence, but Baronius, so far from com
plying with this, had the following passage inserted :
Mox Hispaniam adiisse, et ibi aliquos ad fidem convertisse,
Ecclesiarum illius provinciae traditio est ; ex quorum numero
septem postea episcopi a B. Petro ordinati in Hispaniam primi
directi sunt. 1
And Urban VIII. was afterwards bound to suppress in
this passage the words about Ecclesiarum illiiis pro-
mnciae traditio, giving way to the urgent protestations of
the clergy of Spain, who held that S. James s coming into
their country was something better than a Spanish
tradition ! In the Breviary of Pius V., the identity of
Denis (Dionysius the Areopagite), Bishop of Athens, and
Denis, Bishop of Paris, Vas assumed. Bellarmine wished
them to be distinguished from each other, making the
latter a bishop of the time of Decius, as he is regarded by
Gregory of Tours and Sulpicius Severus : but Baronius
insisted on the retention of the account given in the
Breviary of Pius V. Baronius corrected the legends of
the early Popes ; but only to the extent of giving greater
precision to the dates of their respective pontificates, still
so uncertain.
And how many details quae sine offensione tolerari non
poterant were nevertheless retained ! Bellarmine denied
1 It is the tradition of the Churches of Spain that S. James went
into that province, and there converted some to the faith ; of whom
seven were afterwards ordained by S. Peter, and sent into Spain as
the first bishops of that country.
THE BREVIABY OF THE COUNCIL OF TEENT 279
the authenticity of the False Decretals, and everybody
knows how these are worked into the legends of ancient
Popes in the Breviary ; yet Baronius refused all correc
tion on this point. Again, Baronius himself recognised
the apocryphal character of certain Acts of Apostles,
such as the Acts of S. Thomas ; yet he appeals to
their authority, * licet adnumerentur inter apocrypha, as
he says. He admitted the corrupt character of some
Acts of Martyrs : Acta S. Donati depravata esse nulla
dubitatio est, he says ; and speaking of S. Katherine :
Multa eius Tiistoria habet quae veritati repugnant. Yet
he did not think that anything further was necessary in
their case beyond emendations.
In the end, the correctorium drawn up by Baronius
as adopted by this Clementine Congregation, amounted to
no more than some unimportant modifications, 1 very
small even in comparison with the premises set forth by
Baronius in his programme. But, such as it was, it
established a point of great importance, implicitly
recognised by Clement VIII. by his not reproducing, in
his bull prefixed to the new edition of the Breviary, the
strictly prohibitive terms of the Bull Quod a nobis of
S. Pius V. : that is to say, that the text of the Eoman
Breviary is something capable of amendment. And if
such is the case, it must be because it contains in its
time-honoured and unchanging structure certain elements
which are merely temporary and provisional, the true
character of which the progress of time has revealed or
has still to reveal.
Another matter in which Clement VIII. revised the
work of Pius V. was the introduction of new festivals
1 Baumer, Geschichte, pp. 495-97.
280 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
into the Eoman Breviary, or the re-establishment of
some which had formerly had a place there : such as
SS. Eomuald (February 7), Stanislas (May 7), Lucius,
Pope (March 4), Katherine of Sienna (April 29), John
Gualbert (July 12), and Eusebius (December 15). Besides
this he raised again the rank of some feasts which had
been lowered by Pius V. : the feast of the Invention of
the Cross became a double of the second class : the
festivals of the Transfiguration, the Exaltation of Holy
Cross, S. Mary of the Snows, the Visitation, Presentation,
and Conception of our Lady, the Apparition of S. Michael,
S. Peter s Chair, both at Borne and at Antioch, S. Peter s
Chains, the Conversion of S. Paul, S. John before the
Latin Gate, and S. Barnabas, were raised to the rank of
greater doubles ; some simple feasts were raised to
semidoubles SS. Timothy, Polycarp, Nereus and Achilles,
and Gregory the Wonder-worker. 1 In 1568 the object
in view was to reduce -the Sanctorale, so as to restore
to the office of the Season its due predominance
in use and in dignity ; in- 1602, 2 the tendency was to
give the Sanctorale the preponderance. And the example
thus set by Clement VIII. was destined to be followed
more and more by all his successors, with the exception
of Benedict XIV. If I may be allowed to state my own
view on so delicate a question, I believe the theory of
Pius V. and Benedict XIV. to be preferable.
1 Schober, p. 47.
2 Breviarium Romanum ex decreto Sacrosancti Concilii Triden-
tini restitutum, Pii V. Pont. Max. iussu editwn, et dementis VIIL
auctoritate recognition (Rome, 1602).
THE BREVIARY OF THE COUNCIL OF TRENT 281
Since the beginning of the sixteenth century, under
Leo X., Clement VII., Paul IV., Pius V., and
Clement VIII., we have now seen five reforms of the old
Breviary of the Eoman Curia. We have to add a sixth,
that of Urban VIII.
This also, like the others, was provoked by the com
plaints of several pious and learned persons, who
represented that the Eoman Breviary still contained
faulty elements :
Piorum doetorumque virorran indicia et vota, conquerentium
in eo contineri non pauca quae, sive a nitore institutionis ex-
cidissent, sive inchoata potius quam perfecta forent ab aliis,
certe a nobis supremam manum imponi desiderarent. 1
It was made a reproach to the Eoman Breviary that
the sermons and homilies of the holy Fathers were not
from a good text ; they ought to be collated with printed
editions and ancient MSS. The punctuation of the
psalter was defective : it ought to be conformed to that
of the Vulgate, and, for convenience in chanting, the end
of the mediation in each verse should be marked with an
asterisk. But the subject of keenest complaint was that
the hymns sinned against the laws of metre and prosody :
if a more correct reading could be found in MSS., it
should be restored ; the lines should be made correct in
their scansion, and the Latin in its grammar, wherever it
was possible ; if otherwise, the lines should be re-written
altogether. 2
Urban VIII. appointed a Congregation to carry out
this reform. It was presided over by Cardinal Louis
Gaetani, and composed of nine consultors, several of
whom were famous : Father Terence Alciati, a Jesuit,
1 See the bull, Divinam psalmodiam. - H>.
282 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
who prepared the History of the Council of Trent
published after his death by Cardinal Pallavicini ; Father
Hilarion Eancato, the Curator of the Sessorian Library at
Eome ; Father Luke Wadding, a Minorite, and the
historian of his Order ; Father Bartholomew Gavanto, a
Barnabite, the best liturgist of his time. 1 The other five
were : Tegrimi, the secretary of the Congregation of
Bites : Sacchi, the pontifical Sacrist : Eiccardi, the Master
of the Sacred Palace ; Vulponi, an Oratorian ; and Lanni,
a prelate of the Signatura. 2 The especial work of the
Congregation seems to have been the careful correction
of the letter of the Breviary, rather than any amendment
of the matter contained in it. Speaking of the legends of
the saints, Gavanto tells us that, having been reformed
under Clement VIII. by Cardinals Bellarmine and
Baronius with a severe exactness which spared nothing
that was doubtful, the text of these could hardly be
rendered more historically correct ; the revisers therefore
determined on making the fewest possible changes.
They retained even controverted facts, provided that,
having the support of some one grave author, they might
be deemed to possess some probability :
Quae controversa erant, alicuius tamen gravis auctoris testi-
monio suffulta, dum aliquam haberent probabilitatem, retenta
sunt eo modo quo erant, cum falsitatis argui non possint, quam-
vis fortasse, altera sententia sit a pluribus recepta. 3
In fact, on the confession of Gavanto all through his
commentary on the Breviary, the Congregation of
i
We find him on the committee who advised Cardinal Baronius
on the occasion of the previous revision.
2 [A department of the Roman Chancery. A. B.]
3 Gavanto, Thesaur. Sacr. Bit. torn. ii. p. 75.
THE BREVIAKY OF THE COUNCIL OF TRENT 288
Urban VIII. has left hardly any trace of new corrections
made on the text as settled by Clement VIII. 1
Moreover, it was not to this Congregation of liturgists
that Urban VIII. entrusted the revision which he had
most at heart, but to four Jesuits, Fathers Strada, Galluzzi,
Sarbiewski, and Petrucci, who, under the personal direc
tion of the Pope himself a poet were the workmen
wiio carried out the chief feature of this reform, viz. the
correction of the hymnal. 2 Urban VIII., like all the
Barberini of the seventeenth century, was a man of
refined literary taste ; his Court, like that of Richelieu,
was almost an Academy. He put his name to a whole
volume of little Latin poems. Two of his hymns were
eventually inserted in the Breviary, those for S. Martina :
Martinae celebri plaudite nomini,
Gives Romulei, plaudite gloriue,
Insignem meritis dicite virginem,
Christi dicite martyrem ; 3
1 Baumer, Geschichte, pp. 503-7. He has examined the original
papers of this Congregation, preserved in the Vatican Library and in
that of the Barberini.
2 The Civiltd Cattolica of Jan. 10, 1896, p. 209, notices a letter
from Father Strada to the Pope, published by Venturi (Gli inni
della Chiesa, Florence, 1880, pp. ix-xii), from which it appears that
Urban VIII. himself corrected some of the hymns of the Breviary,
and submitted his corrections to Father Strada. But one cannot
conclude from this letter that the correction of the hymns generally
was made by the Pope himself, or that the Jesuit Fathers were not
the persons actually responsible for the way in which this deplorable
enterprise was carried out.
8 Applaud Martina s ever glorious name,
Ye citizens of Rome, her praises sing ;
The merits of the virgin saint proclaim,
Christ s martyr hail her, faithful to her King.
284 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY
and that for S. Elizabeth of Portugal : 1
Opes deeusque regium reliqueras,
Elizabeth, Dei dieata numini :
Recepta nunc bearis inter Angelos ;
Libens ab hostium tuere nos dolis. 1
Urban VIII. thought to give satisfaction to the pre
dilections of his own time by undertaking -the correction
of the prosody, if prosody it can be called, of the ecclesias
tical hymns. Singular demand, made by the taste of
that particular epoch ! In the same way the Barberini
and others of that period restored antique statues,
attaching to them new limbs which disfigure them more
than all the mutilations which the hand of time had
inflicted ! That these Jesuits outran their commission,
and, under the pretext of restoring the language of the
hymns in accordance with the rules of metre and good
grammar, deformed the works of Christian antiquity, is
now an established fact, writes the Abbe" Chevalier, and
he gives as 
