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
V,) it went through no less than a hundred editions. Its immense success
shows how much the need of Breviary change and reform was felt by the
clergy. The book, too, had an important influence on shaping the
Breviary produced by Pius V. (1566-1572). Quignonez's book was
reproduced with the variations of the four earliest editions, by the
Cambridge University Press in 1888. It is an interesting study in itself
and in comparison with later breviaries.
But it was felt by scholars that Quignonez's reforms were too drastic.
Tradition was ignored. The labour for brevity, simplicity and uniformity
led to the removal from this Breviary of antiphons, responses, little
chapters and versicles, and to the reduction of lessons at matins to
three, and the number of psalms in each hour was usually only three. His
work had as a set principle the grand old liturgical idea of the weekly
recitation of the whole psalter. The quick and almost universal demand
for Quignonez's Breviary indicated the need of a reform and the outline
of such a reform. The Pope, who commissioned Quignonez to take up
breviary reform, requested the Theatines to take up similar work. The
Council of Trent (1545-1563) took up the work of reform. But the Council
rose before the work had made headway, and the matter of reform was
finally effected by St. Pius V. (1566-1572), by his Constitution, _Quod
a nobis_ (1568).
The Reformed Breviary of 1568 is, in outline, the Breviary in our hands
to-day. The great idea in the reform was to restore the weekly
recitation of the whole psalter. Theoretically, the Breviary made such
provision, but practically the great number of saints' offices
introduced into the Breviary made the weekly recitation of the psalter
an impossibility. The clergy were constantly reading only a few psalms
out of the 150 in the psalter. The rubrics, too, were in a confused
state. Changes were made in the calendar by suppression of feasts, by
restoring to simple feasts the ferial office psalms, and by reducing the
number of double and semi-double feasts. But in the body of the Breviary
the changes were few and slight. The lives of some saints drawn from
Quignonez's work were used, St. Gregory's canon of scripture lessons was
adopted and the antiphons, verses, responses, collects and prayers were
taken from the old Roman liturgy. The antiphons and responses were given
in the older translation of St. Jerome owing to their suitability for
musical settings. And the text of the psalms was the _Psalterium
Gallicanum_, which had been in use in the Roman Curial Breviary,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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