The Divine Office | Page 6

reforms. Two important
reforms of monastic practice are interesting as showing further progress
in the evolution of the Roman Breviary. St. Benedict of Aniane

(751-821), the friend and adviser of Louis the Pious, became a reformer
of Benedictine rule and practice. His rule aimed at a rigid uniformity,
even in detail. And the Council of Aix-la-Chapelle (817) helped him to
establish his reforms. As a result of the saint's exertions the Penitential
Psalms and Office of the Dead were made part of the daily monastic
office. The Abbey of Cluny, founded in 910, supplied a further reform
tending to guard the office from further accretions.
Did Hildebrand, Pope Gregory VII. (1073-1086), labour for liturgical
reform? Liturgical writers give very different replies. Monsignor
Battifol (History of the Roman Breviary, English edition, p. 158)
maintains that Gregory made no reform, and that "the Roman office
such as we have seen it to be in the times of Charlemagne held its
ground at Rome itself, in the customs of the basilicas, without any
sensible modification, throughout the tenth and eleventh centuries and
even down to the close of the twelfth." Dom Gueranger holds that
Gregory abridged the order of prayers and simplified the liturgy for the
use of the Roman curia. It would be difficult at the present time to
ascertain accurately the complete form of the office before this revision,
but since then it has remained almost identical with what it was at the
end of the eleventh century. Dom Baumer agrees with his Benedictine
brother that Gregory wrought for liturgical reform. Probably Pope
Gregory VII., knowing the decadence which was manifest in liturgical
exercises in Rome during the tenth and eleventh centuries, decided to
revise the old Roman office which, although it had decayed in Rome,
flourished in Germany, France, and other countries. Hence, in his
Lenten Synod, 1074, he promulgated the rules he had already drawn up
for the Regular Canons of Rome, ordering them to return to the old
Roman rite. Thus he may be counted as a reformer, but not as an
innovater nor an abridger. But his reform fell on evil days. The great
struggle between Church and State about lay investitures had a baneful
influence on liturgy, even in Rome itself. The times seemed to call for a
modernised (i.e., a shortened) office. The "modernisers" respected the
psalter, the curtailment was in the Lectionary. The modernising spirit
showed itself in the arrangement and bulk of the office books. The
Psalter, Antiphonary, Responsorial, Bible and Book of Homilies were
gradually codified. Even then, a very large volume was the result. After

a time the chant, which absorbed much space, was removed from the
volume, but the resulting volume, noticeably smaller, was not yet small
enough. In time, only the opening words of the antiphons, responsories
and versicles were printed, and to the volume thus turned out was given
the name Breviary. The Curial Breviary was drawn up in this way to
make it suitable for persons engaged in outdoor pursuits and journeys.
It gradually displaced the choir office in Rome, and Rome's example
was universally followed.
This Curial Breviary was adopted by the Franciscans in their active
lives. They changed the text of the Psalter only, Psalterium Romanum,
to the more approved text, the Psalterium Gallicanum. The improved
Curial Breviary was imposed on the churches of Rome by the
Franciscan Pope, Nicholas III. (1277-1280), and henceforth it is called
the Roman Breviary. Thus we see that the book used daily by priests
got its name in the thirteenth century, although the divine office is
almost from Apostolic times.
But liturgy is a progressive study, a progressive practice capable and
worthy of perfecting. And the friars strove for the greater perfection
and beauty of the new Breviary. They added variety to the unity already
achieved and yet did not reach liturgical perfection nor liturgical beauty.
They loaded the Breviary by introducing saints' days with nine lessons,
thus avoiding offices of three lessons. And by keeping octave days and
days within the octave as feasts of nine lessons, they almost entirely
destroyed the weekly recitation of the psalter; and a large portion of the
Breviary ceased to be used at all. The Franciscan book became very
popular owing to its handy form. Indeed its use was almost universal in
the Western Church. But the multiplication of saints' offices, universal
and local, no fixed standard to guide the recital, and the wars of
liturgists, made chaos and turmoil.
Liturgical reform became an urgent need. Everyone reciting the
canonical hours longed for a great and drastic change. The Humanists,
Cardinal Bembo (1470-1549), Ferreri, Bessarion, and Pope Leo X.
(1513-1521) considered the big faults of the Breviary to lie in its
barbarous Latinity. They wished the Lessons to be written In

Ciceronian style and the