De Cursu Gallicano Disquisitio

A DISQUISITION ON THE GALLICAN COURSE.

After the commentaries on the Gallican Liturgy, the next thing is that we briefly discuss the divine offices which have obtained in the Gallican Church from the earliest times. Nor indeed did the mere affinity of the subject persuade this, but also the occasion of the Gallican Lectionary, in which certain things pertaining to ecclesiastical offices are reported. But we inscribe this Disquisition On the Gallican Course; by which name our forebears were accustomed to signify the fixed prayers of the Church, which under the name of the Breviary ought to be run through and recited each day. Hence Gregory, bishop of Tours, entitled one of his books On the Ecclesiastical Courses: which book, if it had come down to us, this commentary on the Gallican offices would be easy and compendious. But since it lies hidden in darkness up to now (if indeed it lies hidden at all), it must further be seen to that we extract knowledge of these offices from other monuments, as will be possible. Where at the very threshold we warn the reader that we are here to treat not so much of the offices of monks as of those of clerics, although monks in many places have furnished an example of sacred psalmody.

Certain preliminary matters are set forth concerning the origin, progress, and growth of the divine offices among the Eastern and Western churches.

And so that this disquisition may proceed by a clear and easy method, we take our beginning from the various modes of divine offices which were instituted from the earliest times both in the East and in the West. And indeed, if the name and authority of that writer were established, whose little book on the origin of ecclesiastical courses was published in Spelman, the judgment on this matter would be straightforward, provided only that it were sounder and more complete. But whoever and whatever sort of author he may be, he must be used by us, since at least his antiquity is confirmed by the very age of the codex. I once suspected that this was the very book of our Gregory on the ecclesiastical courses; but afterward it seemed otherwise, both because it makes mention of the course of Saint Columbanus, which had scarcely been instituted while Gregory was still alive, and of the Acts of that same man and of Saint Eustace the abbot written after Gregory's death; and because its style and diction rather suggest a Briton or a Scot.

Moreover, that anonymous author distinguishes five kinds of ecclesiastical offices and the same number of their authors. The first may be called the Asiatic, which he says was instituted by Saint John the Evangelist and his disciple Polycarp, the first bishop of the Smyrnaeans; and then it was propagated into the Gauls through Trophimus of Arles, and then through Photinus and Irenaeus, bishops of Lyons. The second I call the Alexandrian, with Mark the Evangelist as its author: which office was received in the monasteries of Lerins and Marseilles by Cassian, and from there was introduced into Scotland through the holy Germanus, bishop of Auxerre, and Lupus, bishop of Troyes, and into the Church of Arles through Caesarius, which Columbanus finally admitted at Luxeuil. The third, the Eastern office, was set forth by Saint Chromatius and Heliodorus, and the blessed Paulinus, or also Athanasius the bishop, which is not held in the custom of the Gauls; which Saint Macarius chanted; that is, through twelve hours, namely, at each single hour. The fourth office may be called the Ambrosian, or Milanese, which the blessed Ambrose composed on account of the heretics' order being dissimilar, and indeed different from that which was chanted in Italy before.

From this the opinion of Bellarmine is confirmed, who asserts, against the view of certain others, that Ambrose was not the first institutor of psalmody in the Western Churches, which they gathered from Augustine's Confessions; but that he took care only that, according to the custom of the Eastern Fathers, psalms and hymns should be sung even by the people, whereas previously they had been recited by individuals singly, or at any rate by the clergy alone among the Italians. Lastly, the fifth course is that of Saint Benedict, which that most ancient writer, whose little book Spelman published in the first volume of the Councils of England, page 176, reports to have differed little from the Roman course. This writer, whoever he is, seems to confuse ecclesiastical courses with the Liturgy. For, treating of the course instituted by Saint Mark, he describes it thus: that the whole congregation, both men and women, would sing out the Sanctus, or the Gloria in excelsis, or the Lord's Prayer, and Amen.

But Cassian, Socrates, and Theodoret present to us a far different, and indeed a more exact, manner of psalmody among the Easterners. For Cassian, passing over the various types, which he says were dissimilar according to the variety of places, describes two principal kinds of psalmody among the Eastern monks: one of those who were in Egypt and the Thebaid, the other of those who were in Palestine and Mesopotamia. In accurately expounding these two he spends the second and third books of the Institutes.

The type of the Egyptians was in sum this. First, they assembled in the oratory only twice, namely in the evening and at midnight, and at each time they sang twelve psalms, being accustomed to recite psalms in their cells during their labor at other hours. Second, these twelve psalms one lector or cantor alone, that is, single individuals one each, or at most one and another six each, used to sing standing in the midst of the brethren, while the rest sat and were attentive. Third, they recited the psalms, especially the longer ones, not continuously and in one stretch, but with meditation or a brief prayer interposed; and they concluded the psalms themselves not with the verse Glory to the Father, but with another brief prayer; but the twelfth with the word Alleluia. Fourth, when the psalms were finished, two readings were recited, one from the Old, the other from the New Testament; on the Sabbath from the New. Fifth, when these were completed, all fell to their knees.

And then the abbas or provost, gathering the vows and prayers of all the brothers into one, ended the office with a public prayer (which we call the Collect). Finally, having returned to their cells at the sixth hour, they would perform three psalms each at the third, sixth, and ninth hours while working, being thereafter intent on private prayers. This alone was peculiar to Sundays and feast days, that they came together into the oratory at the third hour, so that they might be present at the sacred mysteries. And this manner of singing psalms was indeed in force among the Egyptian monks in the fifth century. Nearly the same practice obtained in the monasteries of Palestine and Mesopotamia, except that at each of the solemn hours they frequented the oratory, so that in public assembly they might perform three psalms to God.

From Cassian I come to Socrates, who attributes the origin of antiphonal singing to Ignatius, third bishop of Antioch in Syria after Peter, in book VI, chapter 8. For he writes that Ignatius once saw angels celebrating the holy Trinity with hymns sung alternately; and thence he handed down to the church of Antioch that manner of singing which he had observed in that vision, from which this tradition afterwards spread to all the Churches. The same author in the same place recalls that this rite was instituted at Constantinople by Saint John Chrysostom in emulation of the Arians, who [did so] every week.

As often as feast days occurred, that is, on the Sabbath and the Lord's day, gathered together into one, they sang hymns composed aptly for their heresy, responding to one another alternately, namely at the night and morning hours. This alternate singing Socrates calls the antiphonary; whence the antiphons, which are sung before the alternate singing of the psalms, have retained the name.

Henricus Valesius, a most distinguished man, in his annotation on this passage concerning Ignatius, says that he does not know from what source Socrates drew these things. For it is established, he says, that the first of all, Flavianus and Diodorus, in the reign of Constantius, divided the choirs of psalm-singers at Antioch into two parts, and handed down to them the Davidic psalms to be sung alternately; and that this practice, first instituted at Antioch, afterwards spread abroad to the remaining churches of the whole world, as Theodoret testifies in book II of his History, chapter 24, and before him Theodore of Mopsuestia. Nay rather, that this kind of psalmody had already been used by the Syrians before Flavianus and Diodorus, Valesius gathers from a fragment of Theodore of Mopsuestia, which Nicetas reports in the Treasury of the Orthodox Faith, book V, chapter 30. Whatever the case concerning its author, it is manifest that alternate singing in the time of Gregory of Nazianzus was already most widely received in monasteries of both sexes, from his iambic poem on virtue, near the end, and he says that it is most well known to all. He calls their choir angelic, which now sings together, now in alternating turns.

Thus at least from this it is established that one century before Cassian this rite of singing in alternation grew up among the Easterners, which then gradually spread from there to the Westerners. Read the most learned author in book i of the Ecclesiastical Discipline, chapters 35 and following.

What manner of psalmody was observed at Rome in those times it is not easy to define. If the opinion of that ancient author in Spelman were certain and clearly expressed—namely, that the course of Saint Benedict differed little from the Roman—the conjecture concerning the Roman would be obvious, since we have the Benedictine course expressed in our rule. But that the Roman differed from it, at least in some respects, is gathered from this, that Saint Benedict in chapter 13 institutes for the ferial morning Lauds one canticle each day from the prophets, as the Roman Church sings—and he would have said more about other matters too, if his rite had agreed entirely with the Roman; nor indeed would he have left it to the abbot's discretion that he might change his arrangement of psalmody, if he had followed the Roman canon in all things. Theodemar, abbot of Cassino, or Paul the Deacon in his name, in a letter to Charlemagne, when the question was raised why Saint Benedict prescribes no readings for the night Vigils in summer, gives this reason: because "not yet in that time had it been the custom in the Roman Church to read the sacred Scriptures as they are now read; but after some time this was instituted, either by the blessed Pope Gregory or, as others affirm, by Honorius.

On this matter (Theodemarus adds) our forebears established that in this our sacred monastery, on three days of the week in summer time, readings be read from the Old Testament, lest they be seen to differ from the holy Roman church.

Against Theodemarus's former opinion—namely, that the sacred Scriptures were not read in the Roman Church in the time of Saint Benedict—there is a legitimate ground for doubt. For it is not plausible either that there were then no readings at all in the divine offices, or that, if some were taken from other sources, they were not also instituted from sacred Scripture. Indeed, when Pope Gelasius I, in the Roman council, determined which books were to be covered and which not to be read, he seems to be understood as speaking of the public reading to be done in the churches. In that Decree, moreover, although the acts of the holy martyrs are received, nonetheless their Acts are not approved for public reading. "But for this reason, according to ancient custom (says Gelasius), with singular caution they are not read in the holy Roman church: because both the names of those who wrote them are utterly unknown, and they are thought by unbelievers or ignorant persons to have been written either superfluously or less aptly than the order of the matter required." Some deny this decree to Gelasius and attribute it to Hormisdas. But the most ancient Codex Palatino-Vaticanus n. puts Gelasius forward as its author.

493, in which is contained the Missale Francorum, written in square letters nearly a thousand years ago; at its end, according to Thomasius, this decree is found under this title: Here begins the Decretal of Saint Gelasius, Pope of the City of Rome. Moreover, again, the Codices which are read to have been granted by the abbacy of Ansegisus of the monastery of Flaviacum during the principate of Louis the Pious are recorded in the Chronicle of Fontanelle; among them one volume is listed, besides others, "containing the decrees of Pope Gelasius concerning books to be received and not to be received." And so I in no way doubt that this decretal epistle has Gelasius as its author. Furthermore, the aforesaid custom of the Roman church, that the passions of the martyrs were not read publicly, the ancient author who wrote the Acts of the saints of Kent seems to criticize, as will be set forth in what follows among the Probationes.

And indeed, from the decree of the same Gelasius, "the Acts of blessed Silvester, although the name of him who composed them is unknown, were nevertheless read by many Catholics in the city, and many churches imitated this according to ancient custom." From which it appears that such Acts, which were destitute of the author's name, were not read in the whole Roman church, but for the most part in the Lateran. But others, which had credible authors, were read in the Roman church in the eighth century. Of this matter we have as a witness the third epistle of Pope Adrian I: The Lives of the Fathers without credible authors are by no means read in the church. For those titled by the orthodox are both received and read.

Nay, even at that time it was the custom in the Roman Church to recite the Lives of confessors, as John the Deacon approves in the preface to the Life of Gregory the Great, in which he addresses Pope John VIII as follows: «Recently, at the Vigils of the blessed Gregory, Roman pontiff, that is, apostle of the English people, while the reading concerning Paulinus, bishop of the city of Nola, was being sounded forth according to custom, you were seen by the venerable bishops, moved by a certain divine instinct, to ask why so great a pontiff, who had composed the lives of many saints, should have lacked his own deeds in his own Church at least.»

ii. Hence it is also clear that treatises of the Fathers were received in the same Church for lack of readings of their own: the choice of these was in the bishop's discretion in the time of Gregory the Great, as is established from book x, letter 22, to John the Subdeacon of Ravenna, in which he does not approve that Marinianus, bishop of the same city, «had ordered the commentaries of blessed Job to be read publicly at the Vigils. But tell him,» he says, «to have the commentaries on the Psalms read at the Vigils, which especially form the minds of worldly people to good morals. For I do not wish, while I am in this flesh, that whatever I have happened to say should easily become known to men.» So spoke the supreme and most modest pontiff.

The same Gregory the Great issued a statute in the Roman synod, that deacons—who ought properly to be free for the pursuit of preaching and almsgiving—should not thereafter perform the office of singers, while the singers themselves, on account of the sweetness of their voice, were being brought in to the ministry of the sacred altar. Whence it commonly happens that, while a pleasing voice is sought for the sacred ministry, a fitting life is neglected; and the singer-minister provokes God by his morals while he delights the people by his voice. Wherefore by the present decree I establish that in this see the ministers of the sacred altar ought not to sing, and that they should discharge only the office of the Gospel reading during the solemnities of the Mass; but the psalms and the other readings I ordain to be delivered by subdeacons, or, if necessity demands, by the minor orders. This decree is reported in book iv, letter 44, and in Agobard, On the Correction of the Antiphonary. Thus much concerning the rite of the Roman Church; whose norm, such as it afterward obtained in the divine offices, we understand from the decree of Gregory VII.

Concerning the ancient Ambrosian or Milanese manner of singing psalms (for the manner now in use is more recent), we have learned only this: that the people, that is, both sexes, sang the Psalms promiscuously, or in alternation. To this point is Ambrose's own exposition on Psalm 1: "The Apostle commands women to be silent in the church; yet they do well to cry out the psalm. How much labor is expended in the church that silence may be kept when the readings are read! If one speaks, all the rest make a din; when a psalm is read, it is itself the author of silence for itself; all speak, and no one makes a din." And so when the lector recited the Scriptures, silence could scarcely be enforced; but when a psalm was sung, no one made a din, because all were occupied with the singing. Saint Augustine describes the origin of this rite in Book IX of the Confessions, in the chapter: "Not long before had the Church of Milan begun to celebrate this kind of consolation and exhortation, with great zeal of the brethren singing together with voices and hearts. For it was a year, or not much more, since Justina, the mother of the boy-king Valentinian, was persecuting your servant Ambrose on account of her heresy, by which she had been seduced by the Arians. The pious people kept watch in the church, ready to die with their bishop, your servant... Then it was instituted that hymns and psalms should be sung according to the custom of the eastern parts, lest the people waste away with the weariness of sorrow, and from that day to this it has been retained, with many, and almost all, flocks imitating it throughout the other parts of the world.

The same holy Augustine, in chapter 9 of the same book, expressing the affection of his soul when he was reading the psalms of David, adds: “What voices I gave to you in those psalms, and how I was inflamed in you by them, and was set on fire to recite them, if I could, throughout the whole world against the pride of the human race! And yet they are sung throughout the whole world, and there is no one who hides himself from your heat.” And in the same chapter: “How much I wept in your hymns and canticles, strongly moved by the voices of your Church sounding sweetly. Those voices flowed into my ears, and your truth was poured into my heart; and the affection of piety boiled up, and tears ran down, and it was well with me when they did so.” Finally, that singing was joined with a sweet modulation of voices the same author testifies in book 33 of the Confessions. To the psalms were also interspersed hymns, which are called Ambrosian from their author. Of all these things Paulinus is a witness in the Life of Ambrose: “At this time the first antiphons (that is, alternate singing), hymns, and vigils began to be celebrated in the church of Milan.” And Ambrose himself in book 3, chapter 5 of the Hexaemeron compares the Church to the sea, in which “by the responsories (or alternate singing) of the psalms, by the singing of men, women, virgins, and little children, the concordant crash of the waves resounds.” The same author mentions his own hymns in the little work On the Holy Spirit, and in letter 32.

Those things that Augustine relates happened to him from the singing of the psalms instituted at Milan are to be referred to the time of his own baptism, that is, to the year. The same bishop himself brought that rite into Africa. We gather, moreover, from his exposition on Psalm 26, that there was another [manner of singing], at the passage: "Those voices of the psalm, which we have heard, and in part have sung," etc. Then, in expounding Psalm 46, at the first passage: "Therefore in this psalm, which we have heard sung, and to which by singing we have responded, we are about to say what you know." Others, then, were singing one verse, others another in turn; and thereafter, after the psalm, an exposition by the bishop often followed. But it was sung by the people standing, from the sermon on Psalm 76, at the first passage: "Is it not true that I have sung? Is it not true that, standing in the church, I have resounded with my voice so devoutly: 'I have never seen the just man forsaken,'" etc. But that sometimes the whole psalm was sung not by the people but by a single lector, the holy man declares elsewhere, namely at the beginning of the exposition on Psalm 138: "We had prepared a short psalm for you, which we had ordered to be sung by a lector; but at that hour, as it seems, being disturbed, he read one [psalm] instead of another. We prefer, in the lector's error, to follow the will of God rather than our own in our purpose." The same man hints not obscurely immediately from the beginning of the exposition on Psalm 86: "The psalm which has just now been sung is short in number of words, great in weight of meanings. For it has been read entire," etc.

But it seems one must say that in the African Church the psalms were recited in two ways: namely, either by singing for the praise of God, or by pronouncing aloud for the exposition of the psalm. The first manner was by alternating choirs, the second by a lector alone. This reading was at the discretion of the expositor, who took whatever psalm he wished as the subject of his sermon. But that singing was sometimes assigned to certain psalms according to the character of the days, as is clear from Augustine's exposition on Psalm XXI, no. 28, and from other places, which for the sake of brevity we pass over. Afterwards, when the most holy Doctor had made greater progress in the Christian life, he came to set that liveliness of melody, which had once so greatly affected him, after the simple recitation of the psalms with gravity. For thus he speaks in book X of the Confessions, chapter [33]: "But sometimes I wish that all the sweet melodies of the songs with which David's Psalter is wont to be sung were removed from my ears, and from those of the Church; and it seems to me safer, as I remember often having been told concerning Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, who made the lector of the psalm sound with so slight an inflection of voice that he was nearer to one speaking than to one singing." Another rite, therefore, was then in the Church, when Augustine preferred the Alexandrian.

Finally, in Africa on certain days readings were even intermingled with the psalms, "which were so annual, and could not be otherwise," says the same Augustine at the beginning of his exposition on the First Epistle of John. In the Council of Carthage it is established in a canon: That besides the canonical Scriptures, nothing be read in church under the name of the divine Scriptures. This clause does not exclude the treatises of the holy Fathers, nor the readings of the passions of the martyrs, which the African council permits to be read when their anniversaries are celebrated. Carefully and religiously indeed was it decreed by the Fathers of the Synod of Milevis under Innocent I, in canon 11, that no prayers be recited in church except those that have been examined by the more prudent, or approved in synod: lest perhaps something against the faith, either through ignorance or through insufficient diligence, be composed.

From Africa Spain was not so much separated by distance of place as by the rite of psalm-singing, such as is now exhibited in the Mozarabic Breviary. For whereas in Africa, as also in the whole world, psalms were sung both in the nocturnal and in the daytime assemblies of the faithful, so that "the first, the middle, and the last would be David," according to the testimony of Chrysostom, among the Mozarabs, at least the more recent ones, this is not so, inasmuch as they prescribe no psalm either in the vigils or in vespers. In all the offices, however, except Compline, this order is observed.

After the Kyrie eleison has first been said, they secretly recite the Lord's Prayer with the angelic salutation; and immediately they begin the office with these words: In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, light with peace, to which is answered: Thanks be to God. The night prayers are very brief, consisting of certain antiphons and responsories, which are called Laus and Sonus; likewise a hymn and a canticle, which is different from the canticle of Zachariah, except on the feast of the Forerunner; just as the canticle of blessed Mary is never said at vespers, except on the feasts of blessed Mary. At the other canonical hours certain psalms are recited, with Laus, Sonus, and antiphons also added. The Lord's Prayer closes the night and evening offices; it is recited in a raised voice, with the people responding Amen to each petition except to Our bread, etc., where the response is: For you are God, as at Mass. At the end: In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, let us finish with peace. To this the people respond: Thanks be to God. Whoever wishes to know more about the office of the Mozarabs should read the last volume of the Library of the Fathers, for lack of a Mozarabic Breviary, of which copies are rare, or book II of Cardinal Bona on divine psalmody, chapter 18, where he says that this office still flourishes and is observed at Toledo in five parishes, and in the chapel of Cardinal Francisco Ximénez, and likewise at Salamanca in the chapel of the doctor of Talavera, which is in the cloister of the greater church.

17. This Breviary is entitled in the edition of Cardinal Ximenez: The Gothic or Mixed Office according to the Rule of blessed Isidore. But I fear that a rite of this kind, such as is described in that Breviary, is not so ancient that it can be referred to the times of Isidore. For it is established from chapter [X] of his Rule that psalms were recited in every synaxis. For in the evening offices, first the Lucernarium, that is, the prayer for lighting the lamps; then two psalms, one responsory, the Lauds, a hymn, and a prayer are to be said. In the nocturnal Vigils, however, first "three canonical psalms are to be recited; then three masses of psalms, the fourth of canticles, the fifth of the Matutinal offices." What "mass" means in this place is obscure. This word sometimes signifies a reading, sometimes a collect or prayer, and sometimes a dismissal. Menard rightly interprets this place as concerning the Collect: "On the Lord's days, however, or on the festivals of martyrs, for the sake of solemnity, single masses are added over and above. But in the Vigils there will be the practice of reciting, in the Matins the custom of singing and chanting." Moreover, readings from the Old and New Testament are to be recited at the time of the office on ordinary days; but on the Sabbath and the Lord's day let only [readings] from the New [Testament] be pronounced. All these things differ greatly from the common Breviary of the Mozarabs, in which there are no psalms, no readings at the nocturnal Vigils.

Isidore, from the remaining offices apart from Vespers, Compline, the night vigils, and Matins Lauds, lists only Terce, Sext, and None, omitting the office of Prime, let alone that of Aurora, which office of Aurora is prescribed as a distinct one before Prime in the Mozarabic Breviary. Yet in these daytime offices Isidore assigns only three psalms, one responsory, two readings from the Old and New Testament, then Lauds, a hymn, and a prayer, all of which do not agree with the present-day Mozarabic rite. Furthermore, in Isidore's time this was the discipline among the Spaniards, that «when psalmody is sung, let it be sung by all; when prayer is made, let prayer be made by all; when a reading is read, with silence kept, let it likewise be heard by all,» in book 1 of On Ecclesiastical Offices, chapter 10.

18. Fructuosus, in chapter 2 of his first rule, differs from Isidore in some respects, but in more from the Mozarabic rite. In this, however, he agrees with Isidore, that he passes over the psalms in the night vigils, but more than Isidore; and three in the daytime offices, as he does. It is peculiar to him that he assigns Prime and Duodecima, which the other passes over; and he distinguishes Duodecima from Vespers, since the canonical hours are listed by him in this way: Terce, Sext, None, namely Duodecima, and Vespers.

But the Council of Emerita, in canon i, distinguishes the office of Vespers after the manner of other churches, namely of the Mozarabs, and its three parts: Lucernarium, Vespertinum, and Sonus. "As in the holy Faith," say the Fathers, "our unanimity is, so for the holy office there ought to be the highest intent (or perhaps consent). It is fitting, therefore, that just as in other churches at evening time, after the light has been offered, the Vespertinum is said before the Sonus on feast days, so also it should be observed by us in our churches." The blessed abbot, in book i against Elipandus, has these things concerning the office used among the Spaniards a century ago: "If at Vespers he has offered the lucernarium before the altar, it cannot be offered otherwise unless he has said: In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, light with peace. If also, the office being completed, he cannot go out without this dismissal, unless he has first said: In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, let us go with peace. So at Vespers, so at Matins, so at all the hours at which the necessary or canonical offices are performed in the church." And these things indeed are said thus far concerning the office of the Mozarabs, which in other respects departs much from the rules of Isidore and Fructuosus.

Perhaps someone may say that in these rules monastic rites were prescribed, not the common rite such as was observed in the Hispanic churches. This is confirmed by canon 1 of the relactions of the First Council of Braga, where it is decreed that one and the same order of singing be kept in the morning and evening offices, and not diverse and private ones, nor that the customs of monasteries be mixed with ecclesiastical ones. But it is by no means likely that Isidore, who labored so greatly for the Mozarabic rite that he is held to be its author—it is not, I say, likely that a rite so different from the one established in other churches by the same author was prescribed by him in monasteries; especially since in this the ancient Fathers always agreed, that in the divine offices a uniform rite be observed, at least in each province. Certainly in the Fourth Council of Toledo, canon 2, it was decreed that one order of praying and singing be preserved throughout all Spain and Gaul, one manner in the solemnities of the Masses, one in the evening and morning offices. And yet I do not doubt that in Gaul, even in Narbonensian Gaul, the psalms were always recited at the night vigils, although I admit that no mention of this matter is made in the councils of Agde and Narbonne, in which the night vigils are not expressly treated.

§ II.

The origin and development of psalmody in the Gallican Churches, of Lyon, Arles, Vienne, and Marseille. Where the Gallican Psalter is discussed.

In investigating ecclesiastical rites we find everywhere confirmed the saying of the Sixth Council of Toledo, in canon 6, namely that it often happens through the long passage of time that the reason for an origin does not lie open. We have just now proved this by the example of the ecclesiastical courses, whose beginnings are obscure in the whole Church, and no better known in individual Churches—much less in the Gallican, which we now undertake to investigate.

First of all, the Gauls in ancient times used a peculiar version of the Psalter, namely that which was emended by Saint Jerome. On this matter Walafrid Strabo is to be heard, in On Ecclesiastical Matters, chapter 23: "But whereas the Romans still have the Psalms according to the Seventy Translators, the Gauls and some of the Germans sing the Psalter according to the emendation which Father Jerome composed from the Septuagint edition; this, borrowed from the regions of Rome by Bishop Gregory of Tours, he is said to have transferred into the Churches of the Gauls." On the matter itself the opinion of Berno, abbot of Augsburg, is the same; but concerning the time at which this version was received by the Gauls, he does not agree with Walafrid.

I more gladly report Berno's words because they were taken from his unpublished letter to Meginfrid and Benno, where, speaking of Jerome, he says: "Among other things," he says, "he translated the Psalter from the Greek into Latin from the corrected translation of the Seventy Interpreters, and delivered it to be sung by all the Churches of Gaul and certain ones of Germany. And on this account he called it the Gallican Psalter, while the Romans were still singing the Psalter from the corrupt Vulgate edition, from which the Romans composed their chant and handed down to us the practice of singing. Hence it happens that the words which they modulate in the manner of singing in the daytime or nighttime offices are intermingled and confusedly inserted into our psalms, so that by the less experienced it can hardly easily be discerned what belongs to our edition or to the Roman. Seeing this, the pious Father and skilled teacher composed three editions in one volume; and he arranged the Gallican Psalter, which we sing, in one column, the Roman in the second, the Hebrew in the third." Thus far Berno in the manuscript letter, in which words two things are to be noted.

There is one point: that this version was delivered to the Gallican and certain Germanic churches by Jerome himself is maintained in Berno's opinion, whereas Walafrid reports that it was brought into the Gauls by Gregory, bishop of Tours. But this seems to have been done after Gregory's time, certainly after Jerome's age. Gregory himself supplies us with arguments for this matter in his History, where in more than one place he cites verses of the Psalms from a version other than the Gallican. It is a pleasure to adduce two rather notable ones. One passage is in book 5, chapter 2, where he brings forward the verses of Psalm 72 in this manner: "Nevertheless, because of their deceitfulness you have set evils before them; you have cast them down while they were being lifted up. How have they become a desolation, suddenly they have failed; they have perished because of their iniquities." The other passage is in book 6, chapter 5 of the same History, where he has the half-line of the ninth verse from Psalm 95 thus: "The Lord has reigned from the wood." These two passages are read otherwise in the Vulgate or Gallican version, and agree more with the Roman version, in which the aforementioned half-line stands in exactly so many words; but the verses of Psalm 82 in this manner: "Nevertheless, because of their deceit you have arranged evils for them." Almost the same reading is found in both places in our silver Codex written on purple membranes, that is, in that Psalter which is believed to have belonged to Saint Germanus, bishop of the Parisians. For the reading of the former passage in that Codex is this: "Nevertheless, because of their deceitfulness you have set evils for them.

There is a variation in these words: they perished because of their iniquity. But the later passage has exactly the same reading in the German Codex. Fortunatus used the same version, as his hymn on the Cross testifies. From this we understand that at the time when Gregory, bishop of Tours, was writing his History, the Psalter emended by Jerome, which is called the Gallican, had not yet been received in Gaul. Therefore it was admitted in the interval between Gregory and Walafrid, perhaps through the work of Saint Boniface, bishop of Mainz, who delivered it to the Gallican and Germanic churches.

Another point must be observed in Berno's words: namely, that the Romans in his time, that is, in the middle of the eleventh century, adhered to their own version, from which version the antiphons used in the Roman chant were excerpted. And yet this Roman Psalter was in use in the churches of the City down to the pontificate of Pius V, by whose command the Vulgate or Gallican edition was received everywhere, except in one church at Rome, the Vatican, and outside the City in the Milanese church: both of which retain their ancient Psalter, as also does the church of Saint Mark at Venice. Finally, that use of Roman antiphons was brought from the Roman Church into the Gallican by Pepin, to whom Pope Paul sent the Antiphonale and Responsale from the City.

With these prefatory remarks on the Gallican Psalter, it must now be inquired in what order and by what means the institution of public prayers in the Gallican Churches was established, and by what method it proceeded. If this rite had been admitted from the beginning of the received religion, the Church of Lyon would claim for itself the primacy in this matter, as in religion itself. But although in the public assemblies of the faithful, even from the very beginning of the nascent Church, psalms and other prayers were recited, yet the discipline of that time was far different from that which followed. For neither was singing then in use, nor was there a fixed arrangement of psalms or readings. "The primitive Church, indeed, sang in such a way that the singer made his voice resound with a modest inflection, so that he was closer to one pronouncing than to one singing," says Rabanus in the book On the Institution of Clerics, chapter 48 (see Augustine, above, page 391). The same author adds, which he received from Isidore: "For the sake of the carnal in the Church, not the spiritual, the custom of singing was instituted; so that those who are not pricked by the words might be moved by the sweetness of the melody." It is therefore scarcely credible what the old author in Spelman writes, that Photinus of Lyon and Trophimus of Arles, bishops, were the authors of establishing the Asiatic cursus in their churches. The origin of this matter must therefore be sought elsewhere.

Concerning the course of the church of Lyon, nothing more ancient comes to mind than what is read in the conference of bishops held in the year before Gundobad, king of the Burgundians, against the Arians. The conference was appointed by the king for the feast day of Saint Justus. On the vigil of that solemnity, the bishops decreed to spend the night at his tomb, so that they might commend to God the success of the coming conference. « But it happened that on that night, when the lector according to custom began the reading from Moses, he came upon those words of the Lord: But I will harden his heart, etc. Then, when after the psalms had been sung he was reciting from the prophets, there met him the words of the Lord saying to Isaiah: Go, and you shall say to this people: Hearing you shall hear, etc. And when psalms had still been sung, and he was reading from the Gospel, he came upon the words in which the Savior reproaches the Jews for their unbelief: Woe to you, Chorazin, etc. Finally, when the reading was made from the Apostle, those words were proclaimed: Or the riches of his goodness, etc. When this had been observed by all the bishops, they recognized that those readings had so come together, by the will of the Lord, that they might know that the heart of the king was hardened. From this notable passage we learn five things concerning the ancient discipline of psalmody among the people of Lyon. First, that in the night vigils there were made four kinds of readings, namely from the Heptateuch, from the Prophets, from the Gospel, and from the Apostle.

Then those readings fell by chance on that day, perhaps because the Pentateuch and the following books, then the prophets, the Gospels, and Paul's Epistles were read in sequence; and in the next office the reading began from where it had left off in the previous one. Third, that the night Vigils began with a reading. Fourth, that singing of Psalms was interposed among the readings. Fifth and lastly, that no readings were made concerning the passion of Saint Justus. Why we observe this will be understood from what follows.

From that time down to the ninth century I find nothing concerning the course of Lyon in ancient monuments, besides what Agobard, bishop of that city, suggests to us in his book On Divine Psalmody, and likewise in other books On the Correction of the Antiphonary and Against Amalarius. In the first of these three books he asserts and defends the usage of the church of Lyon, which at that time admitted no songs except from the Psalms, no hymns written by poets, and no readings in the praises of God except from sacred Scripture. But also, he says, the venerable councils of the fathers decree that vulgar psalms are by no means to be sung in church, and that nothing poetically composed is to be used in divine praises. This passage refers to the twelfth canon of the first council of Braga, by which it is decreed that, apart from the Psalms and the canonical Scriptures of the New and Old Testament, nothing poetically composed be sung in church.

as the holy canons also enjoin, namely those of the Council of Laodicea, whose canon forbids the singing of plebeian psalms in the Church, and forbids any books other than the Canon to be read. Different was the discipline of the Fourth Council of Toledo in canon 12, and different also that of certain councils of Gaul, such as the Council of Agde in canon 30, and the Council of Tours in canon 23, where hymns, and indeed Ambrosian ones, are approved for the ecclesiastical offices, and even those of other authors who are worthy to be sung in form. Agobard adds that for anyone thinking otherwise it ought to suffice that, just as in the daytime at the masses only the divine utterances are generally chanted, so also in the nights, for rendering the sacred vigils to God, that law should without doubt be observed. He proves the same in the following book, On the Correction of the Antiphonary, where these words occur: "Not therefore by anyone's fictions, but by the utterances of the Holy Spirit, is the divine Majesty to be praised." And a little later he praises certain religious men who gave this command to the brothers subject to them, that no one should presume in the congregation either to meditate upon or to say responsories or antiphons which certain persons are accustomed to sing with a composed melody at their own pleasure, not taken from the canonical Scripture. These are the words of the holy Paul and Stephen in chapter 14 of their rule. Finally Agobard concludes thus: "Wherefore, by the aid of God's grace, we must strive with every zeal of piety and observe that, just as for celebrating the solemnities of the masses the Church has the book of the mysteries of the most pure faith.

and set out in fitting brevity, it also has a book of readings, gathered with suitable order from the divine books; so too let us have this third official book, that is, the Antiphonary, purged of all human fictions and lies, and ordered most sufficiently throughout the whole circle of the year from the purest words of holy Scripture; so that in carrying out the sacred offices... one and the same form may be kept by us: the form of prayers, the form of readings, and the form of ecclesiastical chants.

The church of Lyon retains this rite in some respects even now; but in most things, especially in the distribution of the Psalms, it agrees with the Roman. It has no hymns except at Compline; it admits readings from the Acts of the saints.

The church of Vienne observes almost the same rite, which likewise sings no hymns except at Compline, varying for different feasts. In the office for the dead it places Vespers after Lauds. Hence on the solemn anniversary of all the faithful departed it postpones Vespers to the second day of November. And indeed in this order they are prescribed in the old manuscript Roman Order. In the Acts of Saint Clarus the abbot, who flourished in the seventh century, monasteries of both sexes are listed, twelve in number, in which a numerous choir continually paid praises to God.

Concerning the cathedral of Saint Maurice and the other churches of the same city, the author adds the following: Moreover, in the greater house of the holy martyrs, many clerics were living the apostolic life and dwelling together as one, so that, arranged in companies, they performed the ministries of the offices. At Saint Severus too there was a venerable company of clerics. Other venerable dwellings as well of saints living together as one, to the number of about sixty, living under the care of the bishop, were situated in the diocese of Vienne in sufficiently orderly fashion. Thus at that time the Church of Vienne flourished to the glory of almighty God. To these sacred places, which existed at Vienne in those times, there seems to belong fragment 5 of Avitus, that most holy bishop of the same church: «For the scepters of our age have known wherein lies the strength of their time; by these, as we trust, the city is fortified invincibly, and rightly more by basilicas than by bulwarks. It is encircled on every side by the protection of sacred buildings; rich is the approach, and to the thresholds of the gates, though they stand open, one does not come at every hour except through the holy doorkeepers. Let the use of arms therefore cease here plainly by the heavenly will.» Furthermore, that the rite of psalm-singing flourished in these sacred places is gathered from these words of the fragment: «Let our Gaul flourish. Let the world desire what the place has brought in. Let eternity begin today from the burning, dignity to the region. To those praising God in the present age, and about to praise him likewise in the future, let death renew rather than end the action, etc.»

The same author in fragment G mentions that the passion of the holy martyrs of Agaune was read on their feast day, which he says was done as a matter of customary obligation.

What an old author in Spelman attributes to Saint Trophimus, the first bishop of Arles, does not seem to be so ancient an institution. In Sidonius Apollinaris, book 4, letter 1, Claudianus the monk, brother and vicar of Mamertus bishop of Vienne, is praised because he sang the psalms beforehand and arranged the readings throughout the year. Here he is the modulator and choirmaster of the psalms: Before the altars, with his brother rejoicing, he taught the assembled classes to sound forth. Here he prepared for the annual solemnities the times at which they should assemble under the roof. After Claudianus, Saint Caesarius the bishop must be reckoned an enlarger of the divine office in that church, as Cyprian bishop of Toulon testifies in the first book of his Life. For thus it is read at that passage: "Therefore, solicitous and provident Pastor for the progress of all, he at once established that daily at the third, sixth, and ninth hours the clerics should chant the work with hymns in the basilica of Saint Stephen; so that if any of the secular folk or of the penitents should desire to perform the holy work, he might be able to be present at the daily office without any excuse." And at the following passage: "He further added and compelled that the multitude of the laity should prepare psalms and hymns, and with high and modulated voice, in the manner of the clerics, some in Greek, others in Latin, should sing the prose texts and antiphons, so that they might not have leisure in church to be occupied with idle talk.

Of course, it was not only men of the Latin tongue who were there, but also Greeks, on account of the Phocaean colony which had migrated to Massilia. Nor indeed in that period was the Latin language so familiar in Gaul that anyone could understand it without a teacher. I call Gregory as a witness to this, the distinguished writer of our Gaul, who in chapter ii of the Lives of the Fathers, speaking of the abbot Brachio, who "when he was still a layman (for so it must be read from the manuscript), rising from his bed twice or three times in the night, prostrate on the ground poured out prayer to the Lord; he did not yet know," he says, "what he was singing, because he was ignorant of letters," that is, of the Latin language.

I return to Caesarius, who, concerning the established discipline of psalmody, pours out the joy of his soul thus in the sermon of the 188th appendix of the new Augustinian collection: The joy which the Lord has granted me from your holy and faithful devotion I am unable to explain in words. For many were the years in which my soul was in turmoil over this matter, and with the whole intention of my heart I desired that the Lord in his mercy would inspire in you this custom of psalmody. Wherefore I bless my Lord, and as much as I can I give thanks continually to him who has deigned to fulfill my desire. For when I desired that you should sing psalms in such a way as was sung in other neighboring cities, God so prepared your mind that, with the Lord's help, you accomplish this even better. To these things i.

in speech: And therefore I ask you, most dear brothers, rise for the morning Vigils: at Terce, at Sext, at None above all assemble. Let no one withdraw himself from the holy work, unless infirmity, or public utility, or perhaps a certain and great necessity has kept him occupied. Nor let it be enough for you that you hear the divine readings in church; but also in your own homes either read yourselves, or seek out others reading, and hear them willingly." Thus Caesarius to the lay people of the city of Arles: who frequently also, on account of newcomers, used to recite homilies at Matins and at the Lucernarium, "from Cyprian bishop of Toulon in his Life, no. 4, so that there would be no one who might excuse himself on grounds of ignorance." In these morning Vigils we understand that not only the sacred Scriptures, but also the passions of the martyrs were read, from the same Caesarius in a sermon of the new Augustinian appendix; "Some days ago, on account of those who either have pain in their feet, or labor under some irregularity of the body, solicitous with fatherly piety I gave counsel, and in a certain manner entreated, that when either lengthy passions, or certainly some longer readings are read, those who cannot stand should sit humbly and in silence, and with attentive ears hear what is read. But now some of our daughters think that this ought frequently to be done either by all, or certainly by the many who are sound in body.

For when the word of God begins to be read, they wish to lie there as if in their own beds, etc.

Thus. From these things we gather, first, that the institution of public prayers was made no less for the sake of the people than of the clergy. Then, that at the time of the readings the faithful stood on their feet, except the infirm. In addition, no mention is made here of the office of Prime, just as neither is it in the constitution of Injuriosus, bishop of Tours, of which below. Lastly, that this norm of psalm-singing was instituted in the neighboring Churches before it was in the Church of Arles.

Not far from Arles is Massilia, where Cassian lived in the middle of the fifth century. He mentions the Gallican cursus in two places, and first indeed in book II of the Institutes, chapter 10: "That also which we have seen in this province, that when one sings, at the close of the psalm all standing by sing together with a shout, Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, we have nowhere heard throughout all the East, but with the silence of all, when the psalm has been finished by him who sings, prayer follows; but by this glorification of the Trinity only antiphons are wont to be ended," that is, if I interpret rightly, alternate singing. For we have seen above that by the name of antiphon among the older authors this is understood. The second place is in book III, chapter 4, where Cassian teaches us two things. First, that the morning solemnity, that is Lauds, after the night psalms and prayers had been completed, after a short interval of time, was celebrated in the monasteries of Gaul.

Saint Benedict also prescribes this in his Rule; and Paul the Deacon, in the book On the Fathers of Emerita, chapter 1, relates that this was the custom in the church of Emerita during the winter season. The second point is that the other morning solemnity, which is the office of Prime, was observed especially in the western regions. And yet Caesarius, as we have just seen, being later in age than Cassian, makes no mention of Prime; but nevertheless in the appendix to his Rule he prescribes it for Sundays and feast days, as we shall see later.

Museus, or (as a very ancient codex has it) Maseus, must not be passed over in this place: at the urging of Saint Venerius, bishop of Marseille, he excerpted from the holy Scriptures readings suited to the feast days of the whole year, and also responsories and chapters of psalms suited to the seasons and the readings. This work is approved as so necessary by the reader in the church that it removes both anxiety and delay, and brings knowledge to the people and splendor to the celebration. These things are from Gennadius, chapter 79, where observe that the readings are designated only for feast days, not for ferial days.

By what arrangement the divine offices were ordered at Marseille is not clear; but concerning the rite of Arles we can conjecture from the rules of Caesarius and Aurelian, who prescribe a manner far different from that of Lyon. Both, however, everywhere assign only two nocturnal readings in the night vigils, and each calls the readings "masses." And Caesarius indeed requires three leaves for each reading; Aurelian three or four pages, according to the size of the book, who prescribes readings from the passions of the martyrs on their feasts, as the third Council of Carthage permits. In addition, Caesarius and Aurelian direct that at Matins, in the Lauds, the canticle Magnificat and the hymn Gloria in excelsis be said for the days of Easter, and likewise for individual Sundays and the greater feasts. By the same Caesarius the canons of the second Council of Vaison were established, by whose canon it is decreed that Kyrie eleison be used frequently at Matins, at masses, and at Vespers. For this reason the rule of Aurelian orders it to be repeated sometimes three times, sometimes even twelve times. The canon of the same council decrees that in all the closes of the psalms, after the Gloria, Sicut erat be said in all the churches of that province.

Besides these things, Ferreolus, bishop of Uzès, in chapter 18 of his rule says: "The acts of the martyrs, that is, the passions of the holy faithful, which have been compiled by the effort of certain persons and set forth in discourse, we altogether decree should be read aloud in the oratory before all the hearers at the time when the yearly course by the laws of its circuit presents to us the day of their departure." This we have also observed above concerning the churches of Vienne and Arles. Finally Faustus, bishop of Riez, formerly a monk of Lérins, was, as Sidonius testifies in book IX, letter 3, skilled in the prayers of the islanders, which he brought from the discipline of the eremitic life and from the assembly of the cell-dwellers of Lérins into his own city as well, changed in nothing by the abbot through the priest. To all these it is fitting to add the metropolitan sees of Narbonne, Bordeaux, and Bourges, whose bishops in the Council of Agde of the year 506, in canon 30, ordained that the same order in the divine offices be observed everywhere, which canon we shall set out in full in what follows. In addition, Gregory in book I, chapter 29 of his History relates that at Bourges, from the earliest times of the faith received, clerics were ordained who took up the rite of singing.

These are roughly the things that came to our attention for observance concerning the churches of Lyon, Vienne, Arles, and the other neighboring churches: from which we understand that, first indeed, the psalms were at one time recited by a single reader, as Cassian testifies, and after the end of each verse the Gloria Patri was sung by all; then afterward that discipline of psalmody succeeded, so that all would sing, which Caesarius of Arles instituted by the example of the neighboring churches. Now let us proceed to other churches.

I III.

On the origin and propagation of the divine offices in the second, third, and fourth Lyon, and in both Belgica.

No testimony commends the antiquity of psalmody in the second Lyon, that is, in the church of Rouen, more illustriously than the letter of Paulinus to Victricius, bishop of that city. Finally, we now hear Rouen, and the neighboring regions before it, once spread abroad under a modest name, named with veneration even in distant provinces, and numbered among cities noble for their sacred places with divine praise. Not undeservedly, since your Holiness's merit has brought there the whole face of Jerusalem, such as is remembered in the East, and even the presence of the apostles: who, by the attraction of the holy spirits and the affection of divine works, settle in their own seats a city made a stranger by their memorials, who have found in you yourself a most fitting lodging for themselves.....

There, the daily wise singing of the psalterers throughout the frequent churches and monasteries in a hidden concert delights both the hearts and the voices of your sheep, most chaste—that is, the friends of God. There was therefore already at that time, that is, at the end of the fourth century, in that city a daily concert of psalm-singers, not only in the monasteries but also in other churches, by the example of the monks, whom it would be easy to demonstrate furnished the example for this institution.

Concerning the church of Tours, which is the third of Lyon, Gregory recorded this in memory at the end of his History: that Injurious, the bishop there, instituted "Terce and Sext" in that church, "which," he adds, "persists even now in the name of God." This was around the year 550. Shortly afterward, that is, in the year 567, the council of Tours prescribed the order of singing which was to be observed both in the basilica of the blessed Martin itself and in other churches.

For this reason canon 18 was composed, in which it is defined what is to be sung at Matins in each of the months of the year, with no mention made of the other hours except Sext and None, but only by comparing the institution of the ancients concerning Sext and None with the observance of Matins that the Fathers of the council established—namely, that no fewer than six psalms be recited at Matins, that is, in the night office, since the statutes of the Fathers, that is, of the Egyptians, prescribed as many psalms at Sext and None, concerning whom Cassian speaks in book II of his Institutes, in chapters 5 and 6, where this number of twelve psalms, to be kept both in the evening and in the night assemblies, is said to have been instituted by the teaching of an angel. There the night assemblies are none other than the Matins of the council of Tours, to which its Fathers had regard at this point. And so to Terce and Sext, which Injuriosus had appointed for the days, the council added Matins also for each day. Before that time, under the metropolitan Perpetuus, the council of Vannes was held in the year [of his episcopate], by whose canon it was decreed that the same order of sacred rites and of psalmody be observed within the province, and, as the Fathers say, just as we hold one faith with the confession of the Trinity, so let us hold one rule of offices. And by the canon: That the clerics who are in the city shall attend the morning hymns.

Therefore the order of psalm-singing had already been instituted in the province of Tours, but perhaps not for individual days, but for feast days. Whence the luxurious one instituted Terce and Sext for ferial days.

Let me be permitted to join the church of Poitiers to that of Tours, which, although subject to another metropolis, namely Bordeaux, nevertheless has great affinity with it, both on account of proximity and on account of Saint Martin, whom the most holy Hilary, bishop of the Poitiers, conceded to Tours. I was conjecturing that the origin of psalmody is to be attributed to this one among the first, both from the fact that, having been relegated to Phrygia on account of the catholic faith, he could easily have introduced this custom of psalm-singing from Asia into Gaul, and because he was the first of the Latins to compose a book of hymns, as Jerome testifies, and afterward with Isidore. Those hymns have perished; but Jerome had seen them, from which we learn that the Gauls are called unteachable in the song of hymns by Hilary, as Jerome himself testifies in the preface of book II of his commentary on Galatians. One complete hymn from among these remains to us among the works of Hilary, consisting of iambic verses, which is said to have been sent to his daughter Abra. In that hymn mention is made of Matins, to which hour it is suited.

Worthy of mention is what Baudonivia relates at the end of book II of the Life of Saint Radegund—namely, that it was then the custom on the feast of blessed Hilary for the remaining monasteries round about in the vicinity to celebrate Vigils until midnight, and from midnight each abbot with his brothers to return to his own monastery to celebrate his own course. i Finally, in the church of Poitiers the use of Collects seems not yet to have prevailed in the time of Fulbert, bishop of Chartres, as I gather from his letter to Hildegarius, dean of the church of Saint Hilary: "But when the chapters are finished, after the Lord's Prayer, where it is said, Lord, hear my prayer, the prayer which is recited from the Sacramentary book should immediately be added. Yet allow the church to retain its own use up to the present."

To the fourth Lugdunensian [psalm] then belonged the city of the Parisians, whose clergy's fervent zeal in rendering divine praises Venantius Fortunatus asserts as a weighty witness. In his little book on the Life of Saint Germanus, bishop of this city, he praises him for his indefatigable constancy in Vigils, which was such that he would sing to the Lord fifty psalms or more in the temple of his breast—that is, recite them—before he roused the rest from sleep to arise; then, as the clerics took their turns, he himself without alternation would not finish the melodies of singing.

Finally, entering the church at the third hour of the night, he did not afterward leave the order of those singing psalms until, as day broke, the entire course, solemnly chanted, was completed from the canon. Here Fortunatus reminds us of many things. First, that it was the bishop's custom to rouse his clerics to the night Vigils, and therefore that they all lived together under the same roof. Then, that the clerics succeeded one another in turn for the singing. In addition, that the Vigils were begun at the third hour of the night in the Church of Paris, which even now religiously observes this laudable institution, performing the night Vigils at midnight. Finally, that the canon of the sacred course was then established and fixed. The writer of his Life also committed this to writing concerning Lupus, bishop of Sens: that at the hour when he applied himself to the morning solemnities with his clergy, he struck the signal with his own hands.

Praiseworthy indeed is the commendation of the same clergy of Paris for their assiduous psalmody in the same Fortunatus, in book II, in verse: The lofty reverence of the Parisian clergy, flourishing, the genius of the Church, its glory, gift, and honor; composing divine poems in Davidic song, with assiduous care it unrolls the sweet work. Hence the priests, hence the Levitical order shines forth: those gray hairs, these a beautiful stole covers. The former already in old age, yet these gleam well in white vestments, that the embroidered crown may please the Most High God.

In the middle stands Germanus the bishop with honor, who rules the young on this side, and raises up the old on that. From the following verses it seems to be gathered that the singing of the psalms was continuous from midnight until daylight. And perhaps this is what we soon afterward related from the Life of Germanus, that the clerics succeeded one another in singing. The soldier swift to arms, the signal soon sounded in his ears, he rises, having shaken off sleep from his couch. He flies before the others, seeking the sacred mysteries, and each from every side hastens to the churches to be sought in his own place. With burning zeal the house waters the whole people, and they strive eagerly, urging who is able to go first. Joining watchful nights to the first dawn, the reverend crowd forms angelic choirs. Nor was there then only the use of voices, but also of musical instruments in the Parisian Church, as the same Poet adds. Hence a boy tunes the organs with slender reeds; thence an old man snatches the broad trumpet from his mouth. The voices of cymbals are mingled with sharp reeds, and the pipe sounds sweetly with unequal stops. The boyish flute soothes the hoarse drums of the old men, and the tuneful words restore the lyre of men. Finally, it is clear from the following verse that not only clerics but also laypeople devoted their effort to singing the praises of God: The clergy, the people, and even the child sing psalms to the merits of the bishop.

These are the things that we have been able to find concerning the ancient Gallican cursus among approved authors. Moreover, from other sources we understand that the daily custom of psalm-singing was admitted rather late in certain Churches. In the Church of Verdun, Bishop Paul, who ceased to live around the year, established this rite, or certainly restored it, after estates for this purpose had been obtained from King Dagobert and from Grimo as a endowment for the canons. For before that time that church was so destitute of resources that there was no cleric who would continually (as the ecclesiastical order thus prescribes) complete the solemnities of the masses, or the customary cursus of the psalms therein; but from poverty, scarcely and with great labor, some priest from outside would come each day, and very swiftly, and quite indecently completing the offices of the hours and of the mass at once, having received his pay, would return to his own place. Similarly the second and the third, and the rest, until that same order, having been confused, returned from the last to the first. Thus far from the Acts of this same Paul, which are held in our seventh century

Nor was this rite established in the church of Auxerre in any other manner, near the end of the seventh century. For Tetricus, the bishop, in the first year of his ordination, decreed that the abbots, archpriests, and rural parish priests, together with the Lord's-day clergy (as the Acts of the bishops have it), should perform the divine office in the church of Saint Stephen; so that the weekly duty should fall to each monastery, archpriest, or parish priest, with a stipend assigned to each from the Lord's-day treasury.

At the same time among the people of Reims, "Rigobertus the pontiff restored the canonical religious life to the clergy," and established sufficient provisions for them, and conferred certain estates upon them, and also instituted a common treasury for their uses. Thus Frodoardus in book II, chapter 11. But the writer of the Life of Rigobert attests the same somewhat differently in these words: He instituted the canonical religious life for the clergy. Also according to the number of them, however many there were at that time, he established sufficient and continuous provisions for them, so that they might be able to devote themselves to divine worship more freely and earnestly. For before that desirable patron and father of theirs arrived, canonical bread was not given to them, and they were not, as they are today, canons, but rather matricularii. And in addition to this, he conferred their own properties, together with the inhabitants thereof, upon them, who would perpetually serve their individual needs. He is said to have been the first of the bishops of Reims to institute a common treasury for them, generally to benefit their uses for ages to come.

That Rigobertus is said here to have instituted, or, as Frodoardus has it, restored, the canonical religious life for the clergy, is to be understood thus: that he formed them into a common life, granting them a common treasury, since previously they did not have common revenues, but received their stipend day by day from the bishop, like the matricularii enrolled in the church's register. Blessed Remigius in his own testament designates the clergy of the church of Reims and the matricularii in these words: To the subdeacons twelve solidi, to the lectors two solidi, to the doorkeepers and junior clerics two solidi I order to be given. To the poor placed on the matricula, waiting for alms before the doors of the church, let two solidi be assigned, from which they may refresh themselves. Treating similarly of the church of Lyon or of Laon, he names only subdeacons, lectors, doorkeepers, and junior clerics, with no mention made of presbyters or deacons. From this it can be gathered that at that time the clergy of the church of Reims was sufficiently numerous for the divine offices. But when it had been diminished by the storms of the times, Saint Rigobertus restored it. From his time the divine worship in the church of Reims was undoubtedly increased, which perhaps before, on account of the scarcity of canons, was not so solemn. But now it is celebrated there with such majesty and such gravity of rite as is scarcely found in any other cathedral church.

§ IV.

The institution of divine offices in parochial and other churches.

Since the divine offices were instituted no less for the edification of the faithful than for the duty of the clergy, it mattered greatly that they be celebrated not only in cathedrals but also in parochial and other churches, insofar as the resources of each church permitted it. Of this institution I find no older record than in the Council of Epaon, by whose canon it was established: Let not the relics of the saints be placed in rural oratories, unless perhaps it should happen that clergy of some parish are nearby, who may serve the sacred ashes with frequent psalmody. The custom therefore at that time, that is, at the beginning of the sixth century, was that in places where the relics of the saints were kept, the divine offices were performed by clergy either belonging to the place or from nearby. Consistent with this is the sanction of the Council of Chalon held in the middle of the seventh century, in canon 13, concerning the oratories that are built throughout the villas, that they be in the power of the bishops; who, from the resources collected there, are to provide that the divine office can be fulfilled and the sacred offerings consecrated.

The Council of Emerita in Lusitania, after the middle of the seventh century, decreed concerning parochial presbyters, in canon 19, that they should make for themselves clerics from the household of their church, and so nourish them in good will that they may both worthily perform the holy office and have them fit for their service. Likewise among the English, in the year 787, it was decreed in chapter 7 of the Council of Celichyt, that all public churches should have their course of the canonical hours with reverence. Whence King Edgar in his century decreed, chapter 45, "That at the appointed times the bells be rung, and that every priest then sing his hourly chant in the church." There is no other discipline among us. For in Regino, in the Collection of Canons, book I, chapter 208, the nineteenth chapter of the Council of Nantes is reported in these words: "Let the presbyter, when the morning office has been completed, pay the due of his service by singing (that is, by reciting privately) Prime, Terce, Sext, and None; yet in such a way that afterwards, at the proper hours, as far as possible, they be completed publicly either by himself or by the scholars." I interpret the word "singing" as private recitation, nor do the following words allow any other interpretation. For thus this word and others like it are sometimes taken among authors of this kind, as we have proved elsewhere.

And because this observation is of some weight in our argument, I bring forward one indubitable testimony of Remigius, monk of Auxerre, who, in his exposition on the Canon of the Mass, where he gives the reason why the Canon is recited silently, says: "For this reason," he says, "the custom came into the Church, that the obsecration itself and the consecration should be chanted silently by the priest, lest words so sacred should become cheap." Nor is the word "chanting" understood otherwise in the aforementioned canon of the Council of Nantes; and at what time that council was held is uncertain. Hincmar reports this chapter in the very same words in article 9 of the first Capitulary. Furthermore, that psalmody flourished even in rural churches in the seventh century is proved by this, that Saint Eligius, bishop of Noyon, when he was visiting his dioceses, that is, his parishes, as is the custom of bishops, "on account of the evil morals of a certain presbyter, forbade the course [of psalmody] or the offering in one basilica," as is read in book II, chapter 20 of his Life.

Indeed Riculfus, bishop of Soissons in the ninth century, has almost the same constitution in an article addressed to his parishioners: "Have, I pray, zeal in singing the psalms, in reading the divine books, in keeping the canonical hours, that is, Prime, Terce, Sext, in the daily celebration of Masses, None, Vespers, and Compline, and in chanting the morning office; and invite your parishioners, that if they are not able to come to the other services, they may at least strive to hear Masses more frequently, and on Sundays and other feast days let them not neglect to attend Vespers, Matins, and Masses." In the first centuries of the Church, the faithful rose for nocturnal prayers, from Tertullian, in chapter 2 of the Apology; from Pliny's letter to Trajan concerning the Christians; and from Eusebius, book III, chapter [ ]; and from Nicephorus, book III, chapter 17; to which add Hilary on Psalm 118, and Ambrose in various places. Solemn too was the hour of the Lucernarium toward the end of the day, as Prudentius testifies along with others, before the rite of our Vespers had been instituted. The writer of the Apostolic Constitutions, in book VII, chapter 34, addressing all the faithful universally, says: "Make prayers," he says, "in the morning, at the third hour, the sixth, the ninth, in the evening, and at cockcrow." 418 Later, as piety grew cold, the faithful on feast days and Sundays deemed it a matter of religion to be absent from Matins. Whence Ebroinus on the Lord's day, while he was returning from this office of Matins to his own house, was killed by his adversaries.

Now piety has come to such a point that whoever has not been absent from Mass, whether public or private, on the appointed days is considered eminently religious. Yet let this be said without offense to the devout, who even in our own age imitate the religion and customs of the early Christians, each according to his measure.

The ancient ordering of the divine offices in the churches of Gaul is described.

To this point we have set forth in a rough work what we have been able to observe concerning the Gallican cursus in various churches; but in what this cursus consisted is not yet sufficiently clearly understood from the foregoing. To describe it accurately is difficult, both because the rites were different in the various churches of Gaul and because we lack ancient records of this matter. Nevertheless, it has seemed good to set out here, in a single view, a certain general specimen of the Gallican cursus, for the greater illustration of the subject we are treating.

In the first place, the bishops everywhere took the greatest care that in each province a uniform rite should be observed in the divine offices. Various decrees on this matter survive, both among the Gauls and among the Spaniards.

Outstanding above all is the constitution of the Fourth Council of Toledo, whose Fathers, after setting forth the catholic faith, held nothing more important than to establish a uniform manner of singing the psalms, in canon 1: It has pleased us that all priests who are bound together in the unity of the catholic faith should do nothing further that is divergent or dissonant in the ecclesiastical sacraments; lest any diversity of ours should seem to show the error of schism among those who are ignorant or carnal, and variety among the Churches should stand as a scandal to many. Therefore let one order of praying and singing the psalms be preserved by us throughout all Hispania and Gaul; one manner in the solemnities of the Masses, one in the evening and morning offices: nor let ecclesiastical custom be further diverse among us, since we are held together by one faith and one kingdom. For the ancient canons also decreed this, that each province should have an equal custom both of singing the psalms and of ministering. This decree was established not only for the Spains, but also for Narbonensian Gaul, which was then contained within the kingdom of the Visigoths.

What those canons were that were praised by the Fathers of Toledo, we understand from the decrees of other councils, namely the Bracarensis in Lusitania, the Gerundensis in Catalonia, and among the Gauls the Veneticum and the Epaonense. Thus the Veneticum, celebrated in the year [blank] in canon 15, has: We have also judged it right that within our province there be one order and one custom of singing the sacred psalms; and just as we hold one faith with the confession of the Trinity, so let us hold one rule of offices, lest by a varied observance our devotion appear to differ in anything. The Epaonense of the year 517, in canon [blank]: For celebrating the divine offices, the provincials shall observe the order which the metropolitans hold.

Nor indeed was a certain common rite flourishing only in each single province, but even throughout all Gaul, if not in all, at least uniform in most, which by the common appellation was called the Gallican cursus by our ancestors, as in the Acts of Saint Walaric the abbot: He observed without ceasing with great zeal the cursus both monastic and also Gallican. The same is read concerning Saint Serenicus, namely that without a special supplication, he would sing to the Lord at each hour the Roman or Gallican cursus, and also those of Saints Benedict and Columban. And so all the Gallican Churches were conspiring into some one manner, which was called the Gallican cursus.

Concerning the night offices, the Council of Tours II established this in the year, in the canon: That on feast days at Matins six antiphons be completed with two psalms each... In September seven antiphons with two psalms each; in October eight with two psalms each; in November nine with three psalms each; in December ten with three psalms each; in January and February likewise up to Easter. Where note in passing that the year ends at Easter. But what do these and similar words mean: Six antiphons be completed with two psalms each? Are there more antiphons than psalms? No—rather two or three psalms for each individual antiphon. This is understood from what follows, where it is added that twelve psalms be dispatched at Matins. Therefore under each antiphon two psalms were sung.

What the Fathers of the Council of Tours mean here by the word Matins is no slight difficulty. Some interpret this passage as concerning the night office, some as concerning only the morning Lauds, which Saint Benedict and other ancients are accustomed to designate by the name of Matins. We have already set forth above on page [—] that Matins or Matins is of ambiguous meaning, by which name sometimes Lauds (as we call them), sometimes the office of Prime is expressed in Cassian; sometimes indeed the night office itself, which it was the custom to celebrate in the morning hours on Sundays and on feasts of lesser solemnity.

For the night prayers were of a twofold kind: some were the Vigils customary on the more solemn feasts, so called because they took their beginning from the start of night, or at least from around midnight; others were the Matutinae on ordinary days and Sundays, on which the night prayers were completed later. It is in this sense that Matutinum is taken in the Council of Vienne of the year 465, canon 14, where it is enjoined that clerics who are in the city be present at the morning hymns; and in the aforementioned Council of Tours. For that this is the meaning of that council is persuasively shown, first, by the example of the Fathers drawn from Cassian to prove that the number of twelve psalms was received among the Egyptian monks both in the night and in the evening gatherings. Then, it is by no means likely that only the office of Lauds, with the night prayers omitted, was instituted by the Fathers of the Synod of Tours. Besides this, the rite of Lauds at that time in the Gallican churches was not such as is assigned in that council. For at the office of morning time, or of Lauds, Gallus, bishop of the Arverni, near to death, recited the fiftieth psalm, the blessing or canticle of the three youths, and the Alleluia-psalm, that is, psalm 148 and the two following, which have Alleluia for a title, as Gregory testifies in the seventh chapter of the Dialogues concerning the Lives of the Fathers. In addition, the same Gregory in more than one place calls the night prayers of the public office Matutinae. The first place is in the book.

From the same Gregory, chapter on the Miracles of Saint Martin: "But on the third night, after we came to the holy basilica, we arranged to keep vigil, and so we did." That these vigils were private, kept by Gregory with his own cleric, is clear from the context of the narrative. "And when morning had come," Gregory adds, "the signal for Matins having been rung, we returned to sleep." Behold the signal for the public prayers of the night, which are here called Matins. There is another passage in the same Gregory, in the book On the Lives of the Fathers, chapter 8, where Nicetius, bishop of Lyon, when he had once risen for Matins, after waiting for two antiphons, is said to have gone out into the sacristy; and while he sat there, the deacon began to sing the responsorial psalm, namely after the reading.

And so, according to the prescription of the Council of Tours, after at least twelve psalms had been recited continuously under six antiphons, the readings with their responsories followed. For the month of August no psalms are prescribed, but only this: "Throughout August let manications be made, because the feasts and masses of the saints are [then]." This passage Aimoin also explains in book III of the History of the Franks, chapter 1: "Moreover, throughout August, on account of the frequent feasts, manications were made. For 'manicare' means to rise in the morning." But what is the consequence, that because throughout August people rose in the morning on account of the frequent feasts, no psalms are prescribed for this month? Perhaps because the masses of the saints were then said very early in the morning on account of the needs of the harvest.

For those festivities were mostly ended by the celebration of Mass. The Antiphonary of Tarodunum is listed among the books which the abbot Wido, in the middle of the century, bestowed upon the monastery of Fontanelle. What the council relates concerning the daily Masses of the month of August is far removed from the custom of the Cistercians, that is, the monks of Barbeaux in the diocese of Paris, who "in the time of harvest ceased from the solemnity of Masses," since they were occupied in gathering the crops. Wherefore Philip Augustus decreed that every day in the morning, for the remedy of the soul of his father Louis VII, who is buried there, the solemnities of Masses should be celebrated. These being completed, the monks could daily give their attention to reaping whatever harvests they had. The diploma of this matter was given in the year 1186, published in book VI of De Re Diplomatica.

At the Vigils, or night prayers, sometimes the bishops themselves, sometimes the one to whom this had been entrusted by them, roused the clerics. Concerning Saint Germanus, bishop of Paris, Fortunatus relates that he performed this himself, as we saw above. Caesarius of Arles had laid this care upon Stephen the deacon, from book II of his Life, number 4. This Caesarius observed, that none of his own who remained with him should be roused before the lawful hour. Thus Saint Benedict imposes the duty of signaling the divine office upon the abbot, or upon some diligent brother to whom the abbot has committed his place.

The Council of Narbonne of the year 589, in canon 2, ordains that at the end of each psalm the Gloria be said, and with pauses after the manner of the ancients. For the longer psalms were divided into two by a pause, and through each pause the Gloria of the Trinity was chanted. This also Saint Benedict established. To this the Second Council of Vaison, in canon 5, adds the Sicut erat after the Gloria. Finally, besides the Ambrosian hymns, the Second Council of Tours, praised just now, in canon 25, admits also those which are worthy to be sung in form.

When the office of Prime was first received in Gaul is not certain. Cassian, in book 1 of the Institutes, chapter 4, is the authority that this "Morning office" (by which name he understands the office of Prime) "was observed especially in the western regions." Whether this is to be understood of Gaul may be doubted, since no mention of Prime is made in the constitution of Injuriosus, bishop of Tours, who instituted Terce and Sext, no mention of Prime having been made. This we have also seen above concerning Caesarius of Arles. But it can be replied that the office of Prime was indeed not prescribed on ferial days, of which the constitution of Injuriosus treats, but only on festivals and Sundays. Certainly Caesarius in his rule prescribes Prime for these days alone besides the Sabbath, namely the greater festivals and Sundays, in these words: "Then Prime is to be said with six psalms, and the hymn Fulgentis auctor aetheris: two readings, one from the Old, the other from the New Testament, and the capitellum.

It should be done in this manner on the Lord's Day or the Sabbath and on the greater feasts. But if Caesarius did not impose the office of Prime upon the nuns for ferial days, much less should it seem unusual that the same man in his cathedral church, and likewise Injuriosus in his, judged that it should be omitted on those same days. Aurelian instituted the same number of psalms and readings, with a chapter, and the same hymn at Prime, but he seems to have assigned it to every single day.

The same author requires for the subsequent hours six psalms, then after the antiphon, a hymn, a reading, and a chapter; at Lucernarium a directaneum psalm, two antiphons, a hymn, and a chapter; at the Twelfth hour eighteen psalms, an antiphon, a hymn, a reading, and a chapter. Where you see that in all the offices the hymn is placed after the psalms and antiphons, whereas we are accustomed to place it before them at Prime and the three subsequent hours. The office of Lucernarium, as preliminary to the Twelfth, was celebrated at the time when lamps were lit for the Twelfth, that is, for Vespers.

In the oft-praised canon of the Council of Tours mention is made of Sext and None, not by defining but by comparing the offices of each instituted by the ancient Fathers with Matins, whose office is defined in that council. For thus the Fathers of this council argue: Because the statutes of the Fathers have commanded that at Sext six psalms be said with Alleluia, and at None twelve psalms likewise with Alleluia, why at Matins are not likewise either twelve psalms unfolded? And by these words it is doubtful whether the council adhered to the statutes of the ancient Fathers (namely the Eastern ones, of whom Cassian treats in book II) in assigning the office of Sext and None.

That the office of None was distinct from Compline is clear from the rule of Aurelian. In the old Gallican Missal two prayers are recorded for None, namely for the vigils of the Lord's Nativity and of Easter. The latter prayer marks the hour, beseeching God that, as the day declines, he hear the voice of our roaring, and that, as the darkness of night comes on, he illumine the faithful with the splendor of his light. Therefore as the day declines, that is, at the last hour of light, this office is celebrated.

Caesarius imparted a blessing to the people at the Lucernarium, that is, at Vespers, as recorded in book II of his Life, at the passage: "It came about that at a certain time four bishops came to meet him, with whom he went down to the basilica of Saint Stephen for the Lucernarium. And when, the Lucernarium being finished, he had given the blessing to the people," etc. Besides these things, he often either recited homilies himself "from memory," or, whenever his health did not permit it, he took care that they be recited by others, both "at Matins and at the Lucernarium, so that no one might be left who could excuse himself on the ground of ignorance." Nor did he do this only on feast days, but also on ordinary days. Read, if you please, the admonition in the sermon of the new Augustinian appendix. Concerning this blessing, which was given by bishops or presbyters at the end of Matins and Vespers, the canon of the Council of Agde is to be read. And because it is fitting that the order of the Church be kept equally by all, care must be taken that, just as it is done everywhere, both after the antiphons the Collects be said in order by the bishops or presbyters, and the morning or evening hymns be sung on all days; and at the conclusion of the morning or evening masses, after the hymns, the little chapters from the psalms be said; and the people, the prayer being collected, be dismissed in the evening by the bishop with a blessing.

These are the things that we have been able to observe concerning the Gallican cursus in the ancient authors. In the ninth century, the discipline of psalmody among the clergy was uniform, as we understand from Amalarius's supplement to the book On the Divine Offices and from other writers. This came about from the time when Pope Paul sent the Roman Antiphonary into Gaul, a copy of which Harduin, then a recluse at Fontanelle, is recorded to have transcribed. Gregory VII described the rite of psalmody which flourishes even today in very many Gallican churches, in the Roman council, whose decree is cited in De Consecrat., distinction 5, chapter In die.

On the obligation of the clergy to recite the cursus privately; where it treats of those who travel and of the infirm.

So great a regard for and necessity of praying to God rests upon all Christians that the Apostle demands from them continuous and uninterrupted prayer, however much they are distracted by the various troubles and cares of a fluctuating and wretched life. Without doubt no lesser—indeed a stricter—obligation of assiduous prayer pertains to the clergy, as those who are, so to speak, a kind of intermediary between God and men, consecrated and devoted to the divine Majesty by a special title, and more free and immune from earthly solicitude. Wherefore the apostles felt themselves so bound to prayer that, having left the care of the lower ministry to the deacons, they declared themselves wholly devoted to prayer and to the preaching of the word of God.

But since human weakness, and indeed the manifold necessity of this life, does not allow men to be occupied with the praises of God and with prayer in a continual intention of the mind—indeed, since it is even more acceptable to God that clerics should repeatedly apply themselves to the other duties of their order, which the charity owed to neighbor demands—therefore, as Jerome says to Eustochium, "they ought to have diverse hours of praying, so that if perhaps they have been detained too long by some work, the time itself may remind them of the office." And in this way at last they can fulfill the precept of continual prayer, according to Augustine, "if the works of prayer are not interrupted on any day." Further, as the same holy Doctor says in his letter to Proba, "therefore at fixed intervals of hours and times we also ask God in words, so that by these very signs of things we may be stirred more keenly. For a worthier effect will follow, which a more frequent affection precedes."

This holy institution is approved by everyone; but that obligation seems too harsh to many, by which this recitation of the divine offices is required of the sacred ministers under penalty of mortal sin. For such men think that this obligation is a new one, unknown in ancient times, and imposed by no law of the universal Church, but introduced by the schoolmen and by the arbiters of cases. And indeed it were to be wished that the will of Christ's ministers might run so spontaneously to the duties of piety that it would need no stimulus of laws.

But such is the depravity of customs, such the vanity of opinions, that the supports of laws are necessary to recall good morals, lest they utterly perish; and to preserve piety, lest forgetfulness of God at last take possession of minds. And this is assuredly to be greatly feared concerning many of those who are devoted to the divine worship, who are so carried away by the cares and desires of worldly things that, unless they were admonished by some law to pray to God, they would think less about God than the secular men themselves. And so it belonged to the religion of the Church to stir up by laws the languishing piety of the sacred ministers, so that they might spend at least some hours in the divine praises, whose every thought ought to be in God and about God. Whether, therefore, it is a law or a custom by which sacred ministers are bound to recite the canonical hours, it ought to be holy and inviolable, since it is a certain interpretation of the divine law, and has arisen from the very condition of the clergy, who are wholly devoted to the divine worship. But setting these things aside, two things are to be examined by us in this place. One, from what time this private recitation of the divine offices was received in the Church, especially among the Gauls. The other, in what century at last this custom passed into a law, and whether that law was general.

To begin with the first point: Venantius Fortunatus records in more than one place that Germanus, bishop of Paris, who lived in the middle of the sixth century, had this custom, that he religiously completed his daily course. For in the chapter of his Life he makes mention of the "course of Terce having been sung" by Germanus, that is, recited; and more expressly in chapter 76: "He, riding on a journey," he says, "always either spoke or sang something concerning God, saying the course with bare head, even if no rain pressed upon him." Gregory of Tours, moreover, was so devoted to reciting the course that, waking around the middle of the night, he would rise to render the course, in book VIII, chapter 15 of his History. And in book V, chapter 19, when he was staying at Paris at the time of the council: "On that night, indeed," he says, "when the nocturnal hymns had been sung, that is, recited privately, I hear the door of our lodging being struck with heavy blows." The same man bears witness of himself in book IX, chapter 6. Nor did he do this out of any peculiar religious devotion, but according to the custom of other priests. For in the book On the Glory of the Confessors, chapter 31, he treats of a certain presbyter who, being on a journey, when he had been given hospitality at the house of a certain poor man, "according to the custom of priests, rose in the night from his bed and stood at prayer," as is related. Hence in the book On the Lives of the Fathers, chapter

7. Gregory, bishop of Langres, "rising at night from his bed, with no one perceiving it, would go to prayer, with God alone as witness; the door having been opened by divine power, he would chant the psalms attentively in the baptistery." This chanting "was heard as if of many voices, for a space of three hours and nearly more." Afterwards, "the course having been completed, returning to his little bed, he would lay himself down upon the bed so cautiously that absolutely no one perceived it." Finally (which is most relevant to the matter), Gregory of Tours reproached the bishops Salonius and Sagittarius for neglecting the sacred course, in book V, chapter: "There was absolutely no mention of God, no course of the memory was held at all."

It is uncertain at what time the Council of Nantes was held, whose canon Regino, abbot of Prüm, cites at the beginning of the century in book I, chapter: "Let the priest, the morning office having been completed at dawn, discharge the allotted task of his service by singing (that is, reciting) Prime, Terce, Sext, and None," etc., which we have reported above. This is indeed a particular synod, not a universal one; but nevertheless its authority is valid for proving the custom and law of the Church at that time. Chrodegang, bishop of Metz, supports this after the middle of the eighth century. For he, in the chapter of the canonical rule prescribed,

He thus instructs: "Whoever of the clergy set out on a journey with a bishop or with another, let them not neglect their order, insofar as the journey or reason permits; and the appointed hours ought not to pass them by, whether for the divine offices or otherwise." Nor was this merely in the manner of a pious admonition and counsel, but it was reckoned as a precept, such that those who had done otherwise acknowledged themselves guilty of sin. Hence Alcuin, in the formula of confession, col. 166: "I have sinned in that I was negligent concerning my course, which I ought to have discharged through the canonical hours; and concerning my psalmody, and my prayers, etc."

At the beginning of the ninth century that author was writing whose book On the Blessing of God Stevartius edited, dedicated to Bathuricus, bishop of Regensburg. This man indeed in his preface censures certain priests and bishops who, so that they might more freely indulge their inclination, before they go to sleep, "slothfully performing the nocturnal Vigils, presently lie down on their bed. But rising while they clothe themselves, they carry out the daytime offices: thinking it can suffice for them if they at least chant those in some manner," that is, recite them. Unaware that there are three hours established in holy Church, at which the offices of divine service are to be performed by day and by night.... Which when we neglect, we contravene the institutions of the holy Fathers; to contravene which is dangerous.

For they cannot have holy communion with the Church who strive to attack its institutions, if not in words, then in deeds: since that which is the greatest thing in the holy Church, if it be performed with charity and zeal for piety—that is, the modulated psalmody of divine praise and the solemnities of the Mass—they celebrate neither at fitting times nor with religious affections. How far was that author from the opinion of those who either thrust the recitation of the divine offices into a single book, or set it aside among other things. But how much more religious was Bishop Liudger, who could not be drawn away by any reverence for the king, even for a moment, from reciting the course (which is also read of Saint Saba), being accustomed to pay the divine offices at night with his clerics.

To this pertains the fourth homily of Pope Leo IV to the priests and sacerdotes: Rise every night for the nocturnal hours; chant your course at the appointed hours; perform the celebrations of the Masses devoutly. Ratherius repeats this in the same number of words in the synodal homily to his priests.

In the statutes of Edgar, king of the English, there occurs a formula of confession, in Spelman, page: I confess that I have neglected my canonical hours. And that no one should think this a light sin, it must especially be noted that among the heads of accusation which were brought against John XII and led Otto to depose him, one is that he had not celebrated Matins and the canonical hours, in Liutprand, book VI, chapter 7. So even then that obligation was reckoned most grave, not a pious admonition of mere counsel. Hear James of Vitry in the chapter of his Western History: Although a priest, intent on the various cares of souls, may sometimes omit private prayers and secret supplications, he ought not to omit the canonical hours. For other prayers are of free will, but these of necessity. Add to these the sanctions of the Council of Basel and of the Lateran under Leo X, which bind beneficed persons (the Basel council adds those initiated into sacred orders) to the recitation of the Breviary.

I pass over the other constitutions of other Churches, such as that of the Council of Toledo IV in canon 10, where it commands priests and subject clerics, under grave threat, that the Lord's Prayer be recited daily either in public or in private office. From this it is understood that the private recitation of the divine office had already then been enjoined upon clerics among the Spaniards, that is, before the seventh century. In the same century among the Greeks, John, surnamed the Almsgiver, "indeed performed the divine office of the ecclesiastical rule with attention of mind and contrition of heart at the appointed times." Where the Greek author calls it. The canon of the Council of Carthage IV is to be understood of the public office: A cleric who is absent from the Vigils without the infirmity of his little body, let him be deprived of his stipends. To the same point belongs the canon of the Council of Veneto: A cleric who shall be established to remain within the walls of his city, and who shall be found to have been absent from the morning hymns without a probable excuse of illness, let him be held a stranger from communion for seven days, etc.

Not only those on journeys, but also those detained by the gravest illnesses either recited the divine office themselves or took care to have it recited in their presence. Concerning Eugendus, or Augendus, abbot of Jura, who departed to the heavens around the year 510, this has been handed down by an anonymous contemporary: that although beyond the age of sixty he labored for six months with bodily infirmity, he was nevertheless never absent from the canonical course up to the hour. The same is written of Benedict, abbot of Aniane, of Adalhard of Corbie, and of others. But Benedict, surnamed Bishop, as Bede testifies, when he could not easily raise his tongue or voice to complete the customary course of psalmody, at each of the hours of the day or night office would summon some of the brethren to himself; with them chanting the customary psalms in two choirs, he too sang along with them as far as he was able. This is likewise recorded in memory concerning Gervin, abbot of Centula.

But these were monks. Certainly, but even clerics are consecrated to God a little less than monks; most of them are bound to recite the divine offices on a twofold title, namely by the title of consecration and by that of an ecclesiastical benefice, which does not belong to monks. And indeed the holy Gallus, bishop of the Arverni, when near to death, "on the third day coming," which was the Lord's day, as the sky was already growing light, asked what they were singing in the church. "They said that they were singing the benediction, that is, the canticle Benedicite. But he, having chanted the fiftieth psalm and the benediction, and having completed the alleluia with its little chapter, completed the whole office of the morning time," which we call Lauds. This is from Gregory, On the Lives of the Fathers, chapter 6.

As for those on journeys, not only the religious but also secular clerics in ancient times used to perform the divine offices. This has been proved above by examples, namely from Gregory, bishop of Tours, and from the rule of Chrodegang; not to repeat the example of Saint Germanus, bishop of Paris, to which add the example of Epiphanius, bishop of Ticinum. Hence it is that all clerics were bound to hold all the Psalms in memory by the prescription of the canons. For this reason Genoadius, patriarch of Constantinople, ordained no one who did not know the Psalter by heart, from Theodore the Lector in the most learned Valesius, page 554. Whether those on journeys also recited the readings, there will perhaps be someone to inquire. Indeed, at least the monks used to carry little books or codices for this purpose.

For, to pass over what Gregory the Great relates about Abbot Equitius, who “was accustomed to carry the sacred books in leather satchels on his right and left side,” which we also read of Fructuosus, bishop of Braga, Gregory IX decreed concerning monks about to set out abroad that they themselves should recite the hours on the way, and that books should be provided for them. Of this kind we once saw two books for travelers in the Cistercian sacristy, which Joseph Meglinger describes in this way in his Cistercian Journey: The little books do not exceed the width of three fingers, yet they have more length. When you look at them closed, they appear small; but opened they become three times larger, since the leaves, which consist of rough parchment, are folded three times, downward and on both sides. Nor are the pages filled with letters on both sides, but only on the inside; so that even if you separate one leaf from another, unless the folds are unfolded, no letters present themselves. These indeed, very small, complete whole periods of a few syllables with the briefest compendium. They are bound with no binding or cover; but on one side a thread gathers the leaves, lest they come apart, and then a leather satchel receives the little books. Thus he.

Moreover, with how great reverence our forebears were accustomed to attend the divine offices, we understand from the deed of Saint Martin, bishop of Tours, whom no one ever saw sitting in church, as is read in book II of his Life. Ennodius likewise hands down the same concerning Saint Epiphanius, bishop of Ticinum: he resolved that he ought to stand with feet joined together until the completion of the mystic work, so that he would mark the place of his footprints by the moisture and show it to those looking on from afar. Yet we learn that certain men reclined on footstools from Gregory in book VIII, chapter 31, where, speaking of Praetextatus, pontiff of Rouen, he says: “When the day of the Lord’s resurrection had arrived,” that is, the Lord’s day, when the priest (Praetextatus) had hastened to the church earlier to fulfill the ecclesiastical offices, he began to intone the antiphons in order according to custom. And while during the singing he was reclining on a footstool, etc. Peter Damian, however, disapproves of this in his little work 39. Nay, Chrodegang, bishop of Metz, also in the chapter of the rule: Nor with staffs, or curved staves, or rods in the choir, except for the weak, but they must stand and sing religiously.

For there are certain clerics who pass almost the whole day untiringly in secular business and disputes; and as soon as they have entered the church to perform the divine office, they seem so weary that they can neither devote themselves to prayer nor stand to sing the psalms; but rather, sitting, they are accustomed to pour forth not divine but vain speeches, etc. What it means to lean on a cambuta in the divine office, we understand from the manuscript Life of Saint Victurius, bishop of Le Mans, to whom Saint Martin gave a staff (or) support, upon which priests are accustomed to be supported while prayers are poured forth (that is, being poured out). In a very ancient Codex, which contains the Life of Saint Amand, bishop of Trajectum, preserved at Elnon, I saw images of bishops of this kind, who hold the pastoral staff in one hand, and in the other a curved staff, and indeed a shorter one, with which they supported themselves while praying. Today also in the church of Saint George at Venice, men of both sexes are accustomed to use cambutae of this kind while praying, as the learned and venerable Claudius Castellanus, canon of the Church of Paris, reminded me. In addition, in the suppliant book of the monks of Fulda to Charlemagne, they complain that, because of the harshness of Abbot Hatto, it is not permitted even to the sick among them to carry a staff for support, nor to remain at the inclinatorium, which we call a formula, while standing.

Much less was this indulgence granted to the sound (nor indeed do the Fuldenses seek it), that they should be burdened with formulae at the time of the divine office.

Finally, that institution of ecclesiastical prayers, whether they are to be recited publicly or privately, is, as we have already said, especially pious and holy. For what is more fitting for rendering to God the worship and honor due to Him? Or what is more suited to stirring up the piety of the faithful—as even Augustine proved by his own testimony—than the singing of the Psalms in church? Indeed, nothing is more effective for rekindling the memory of God, Best and Greatest, than prayers of this kind recited privately; and if their obligation seems to some rather harsh and burdensome, it is to be feared that this arises from weariness and distaste for divine things. For since the Breviary (as they call it) contains three things greatly useful and full of edification—namely, the praises of God, readings, and prayers—nothing is sweeter to a religious man, nothing holier, than the praises of God drawn from the Psalms, which carry the mind up to God and kindle it with the sacred spark of divine love. But what ought to be more ancient or more familiar to ecclesiastical men than the readings from the divine Scriptures, which hold the chief place in the sacred offices? Finally, what is more pressing and solid for devotion than the prayers or Collects approved by the Church, together with the frequent recitation of the Lord's Prayer?

Nothing, therefore, could have been instituted more fitting for the ministers of God than a Breviary of those prayers, provided it be purged of excessive prolixity and of uncertain histories. This the supreme pontiffs, by their providence, have taken care to accomplish by emending the Roman Breviary, which ought to be the model for others. But because many things are daily brought to light by learned men, the bishops, especially the Gallican, have also taken that care upon themselves, whose diligence and religion in this matter may deservedly stir others to the same work. And indeed in the ecclesiastical offices "it is not fitting that novel or trifling things be heard," as Bernard writes in his letter to the men of Acre, but certainly things authentic and ancient, which both edify the Church and breathe ecclesiastical gravity. But if one wishes to hear new things, and the cause requires it, those things, as I have said, I would judge should be received which the dignity both of the eloquence and of the author renders more useful to the hearts of hearers in proportion as they are more pleasing. Furthermore, let the meanings shine with undoubted truth, sound forth justice, persuade humility, teach equity; let them also bring forth the light of truth to minds, form to morals, the cross to vices, devotion to affections, discipline to the senses. So many words, so many oracles, worthy of the most holy Father and Doctor of the Church.

But to return to my point, it matters little by what right this obligation of reciting the Breviary was first introduced, whether by law or by custom, since it rests on a legitimate foundation, namely the general precept by which all Christians are bound to continual prayer, and the special condition of God's ministers, who have devoted themselves wholly to divine worship. For he is judged to fulfill the divine and apostolic precept concerning unceasing prayer "who daily at the canonical hours, according to the rite of ecclesiastical tradition, does not cease to praise and entreat God with the customary psalms and prayers," as Bede says on Luke chapter 18. There are indeed other duties and burdens of the sacred ministers, no less important; nor have such abundant revenues of the Church been assigned to them for this alone, as if, once the Breviary had been recited, they had at once fulfilled the whole of their office. For certain other things are required of ecclesiastical men: the reading and study of the Holy Scriptures and of sacred tradition, the preaching of the divine word, works of charity, and other exercises of virtue of that kind. These things ought to be done, but not to omit pious prayers either.

Nor does a diligent and prudent man lack intervals of time and holidays for performing both duties, once a devotion to piety and a concern for divine things, with useless cares shut out, has imbued his mind—since we read that secular men (nor even in our own age are examples lacking), indeed even kings, who vigorously administered the commonwealth themselves in person, amid so many tumults of business did not fail in these same prayers. For this matter I call two witnesses: namely Alfred, king of the English, and Saint Louis. Alfred, indeed, as the meticulous writer of his Life, Asser, reports, amid wars and the pressing hindrances of the present life, as well as the infestations of pagans and daily infirmities of the body, amid the governance of the kingdom, nonetheless used to hear Mass daily, to celebrate certain psalms and prayers and the daytime and nighttime hours, and at night, for the sake of prayer, to visit churches secretly, away from his people. And so he used to apportion the whole course of any given day "so that he would spend eight hours in writing, reading, and praying; eight in care of the body; eight in dispatching the business of the kingdom," as William the monk of Malmesbury writes concerning him. Would that a similar diligence might take possession of our minds.

Concerning Saint Louis, his contemporary author handed down to memory in a carefully composed sermon, which the never-sufficiently-praised Antonius Herovallius communicated to us: "He heard all the canonical hours, and those of the glorious Virgin always with a note; nevertheless he recited them softly, among himself and his chaplain, and nine lessons for the dead daily. He rose at midnight to confess to the Lord; and the queen of good memory sometimes covered him with some garment on account of the cold. Thus to no one, even the most occupied, will time and leisure be lacking for devoting oneself to God, if only a zeal for piety be not lacking.