The Divine Office | Page 7

hymns to be modelled on the Odes of Horace.
Ferreri's attempt at reforming the Breviary dealt with the hymns, some
of which he re-wrote in very noble language, but he was so steeped in
pagan mythology that he even introduced heathen expressions and
allusions, His work was a failure. The traditional school represented by
Raoul of Tongres, Burchard, Caraffa, and John De Arze loved the past
with so great a love that they refused to countenance any notable
reforms, A third school, the moderate school, was represented by
Cardinal Pole, Contarini, Sadolet and Quignonez, a Spanish cardinal
who had been General of the Franciscans. The work of reform of the
Breviary was undertaken by Cardinal Quignonez (1482-1540). He was
a man of great personal piety and possessed a love for liturgy and an
accurate knowledge of its history, its essentials, and its acquired defects.
After seven years' labour at the matter and form of the Breviary, his
work, Quignonez's Breviary (_Brevarium Romanum a Francisco
Cardinali Quignonio_) appeared in 1535. It was for private use only,
and was not intended as a choir manual. Yet so popular was his work
that, in 1536, six editions had appeared, and in thirty-three years (until
its suppression by St. Pius V,) it went through no less than a hundred
editions. Its immense success shows how much the need of Breviary
change and reform was felt by the clergy. The book, too, had an
important influence on shaping the Breviary produced by Pius V.
(1566-1572). Quignonez's book was reproduced with the variations of
the four earliest editions, by the Cambridge University Press in 1888. It
is an interesting study in itself and in comparison with later breviaries.
But it was felt by scholars that Quignonez's reforms were too drastic.
Tradition was ignored. The labour for brevity, simplicity and
uniformity led to the removal from this Breviary of antiphons,
responses, little chapters and versicles, and to the reduction of lessons
at matins to three, and the number of psalms in each hour was usually
only three. His work had as a set principle the grand old liturgical idea
of the weekly recitation of the whole psalter. The quick and almost
universal demand for Quignonez's Breviary indicated the need of a
reform and the outline of such a reform. The Pope, who commissioned
Quignonez to take up breviary reform, requested the Theatines to take
up similar work. The Council of Trent (1545-1563) took up the work of

reform. But the Council rose before the work had made headway, and
the matter of reform was finally effected by St. Pius V. (1566-1572), by
his Constitution, Quod a nobis (1568).
The Reformed Breviary of 1568 is, in outline, the Breviary in our hands
to-day. The great idea in the reform was to restore the weekly recitation
of the whole psalter. Theoretically, the Breviary made such provision,
but practically the great number of saints' offices introduced into the
Breviary made the weekly recitation of the psalter an impossibility. The
clergy were constantly reading only a few psalms out of the 150 in the
psalter. The rubrics, too, were in a confused state. Changes were made
in the calendar by suppression of feasts, by restoring to simple feasts
the ferial office psalms, and by reducing the number of double and
semi-double feasts. But in the body of the Breviary the changes were
few and slight. The lives of some saints drawn from Quignonez's work
were used, St. Gregory's canon of scripture lessons was adopted and the
antiphons, verses, responses, collects and prayers were taken from the
old Roman liturgy. The antiphons and responses were given in the
older translation of St. Jerome owing to their suitability for musical
settings. And the text of the psalms was the Psalterium Gallicanum,
which had been in use in the Roman Curial Breviary,
But the Pian reform was soon to be followed by a reform of the
Breviary text, in accordance with the Sixtine Vulgate, the Clementine
Vulgate, and the Vatican text. Clement VIII. (1592-1605) published his
edition of the revised Breviary in 1602; and thirty years afterwards
Urban VIII, (1623-1644) issued a new and further revised edition,
which is substantially the Breviary we read to-day. He caused careful
correction of errors which had crept in through careless printing; he
printed the psalms and canticles with the Vulgate punctuation, and he
revised the lessons and made additions. He established uniformity in
texts of Missal and Breviary. But the greatest change made in this new
edition was in the Breviary hymns, which were corrected on classical
lines by Urban himself aided by four learned Jesuits (see Note, Hymns,
p. 259).
"The result (of their labours) has always given rise to very different

judgments and for the most part unfavourable. It seemed to be
exceedingly rash to regard as