The Divine Office: A Study of the Roman BreviaryQuigley, Edward J.
Religion
The Divine Office: A Study of the Roman Breviary
Quigley, Edward J.
Catholic Church. Breviary; Divine office
This Curial Breviary was adopted by the Franciscans in their active
lives. They changed the text of the Psalter only, _Psalterium
Romanum_, to the more approved text, the _Psalterium Gallicanum_.
The improved Curial Breviary was imposed on the churches of Rome by the
Franciscan Pope, Nicholas III. (1277-1280), and henceforth it is called
the Roman Breviary. Thus we see that the book used daily by priests got
its name in the thirteenth century, although the divine office is almost
from Apostolic times.
But liturgy is a progressive study, a progressive practice capable and
worthy of perfecting. And the friars strove for the greater perfection
and beauty of the new Breviary. They added variety to the unity already
achieved and yet did not reach liturgical perfection nor liturgical
beauty. They loaded the Breviary by introducing saints' days with nine
lessons, thus avoiding offices of three lessons. And by keeping octave
days and days within the octave as feasts of nine lessons, they almost
entirely destroyed the weekly recitation of the psalter; and a large
portion of the Breviary ceased to be used at all. The Franciscan book
became very popular owing to its handy form. Indeed its use was almost
universal in the Western Church. But the multiplication of saints'
offices, universal and local, no fixed standard to guide the recital,
and the wars of liturgists, made chaos and turmoil.
Liturgical reform became an urgent need. Everyone reciting the canonical
hours longed for a great and drastic change. The Humanists, Cardinal
Bembo (1470-1549), Ferreri, Bessarion, and Pope Leo X. (1513-1521)
considered the big faults of the Breviary to lie in its barbarous
Latinity. They wished the Lessons to be written In Ciceronian style and
the hymns to be modelled on the Odes of Horace. Ferreri's attempt at
reforming the Breviary dealt with the hymns, some of which he re-wrote
in very noble language, but he was so steeped in pagan mythology that he
even introduced heathen expressions and allusions, His work was a
failure. The traditional school represented by Raoul of Tongres,
Burchard, Caraffa, and John De Arze loved the past with so great a love
that they refused to countenance any notable reforms, A third school,
the moderate school, was represented by Cardinal Pole, Contarini,
Sadolet and Quignonez, a Spanish cardinal who had been General of the
Franciscans. The work of reform of the Breviary was undertaken by
Cardinal Quignonez (1482-1540). He was a man of great personal piety and
possessed a love for liturgy and an accurate knowledge of its history,
its essentials, and its acquired defects. After seven years' labour at
the matter and form of the Breviary, his work, Quignonez's Breviary
(_Brevarium Romanum a Francisco Cardinali Quignonio_) appeared in
1535. It was for private use only, and was not intended as a choir
manual. Yet so popular was his work that, in 1536, six editions had
appeared, and in thirty-three years (until its suppression by St. Pius
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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