Can you use the Diurnal with the modern or pre-1960 Roman calendars? A guide to August, Pt 1

There has been some discussion in a number of places recently on using the modern sanctoral Roman calendar (or some variants thereof) in conjunction with the Monastic Diurnal, so I thought I might provide some notes on this topic, as well as the related topic of the pre-1960 Benedictine or Roman calendars, using the month of August as an example.

The Office and the Mass

In essence, the problem is this: in an ideal world, the Office of the day should align with the Mass you attend.  

The Office and the Mass are supposed to reinforce each other, and on saints feasts, for example, at a minimum they will usually share the same collect, and the 'proper' texts (whether from the Common of the relevant type of saint, and/or specific to the feast) typically reflect similar themes. 

But there will always be at least some differences.

You might turn up to daily Mass and find that a Requiem Mass is being said that day for example, or perhaps a votive Mass, instead of the Mass of the day, neither of which have any necessary link to the Office required to be said that day (the Office of the Dead being entirely optional).

Moreover, for many feasts, the impact on the Office at the day hours at least (Matins is a different story, since it will typically contain at least one substantive reading on the saint of the day) is relatively minor.

So its arguably not a big deal if you say the Office of a feast, but the Mass you attend doesn't celebrate it, or vice versa.

Differing calendars

It is also important to be aware that unless you attend daily Mass in a monastery following the 1960 calendar, discrepancies between the calendars of the Office as set out in the Monastic Diurnal and the Mass you attend are inevitable. 

If you attend a Roman Extraordinary Form Mass, you will find it includes several feasts either not included in the Diurnal calendar at all, or in some cases, said on different days. 

And the differences are even greater with the Roman 2025 calendar, which moves many feasts to different days, and adds several new ones.

Possible approaches

Accordingly, it is certainly possible to simply use the Diurnal (or Breviary) and ignore any differences in the feasts celebrated in the Mass that you attend.

If you do want to align calendars between the Mass you attend and the Office that you say however, it really isn't actually that hard to do, and doing so is arguably perfectly consistent with liturgical law.  There are a couple of options you can follow.

Using the modern sanctoral calendar

The first option, which I understand is followed by the Solesmes Congregation traditional monasteries, is to move the sanctoral calendar around so that feasts are said on the same date as they are in current Roman calendar.  

In essence, when the Benedictine Confederation effectively deregulated control of the Office to individual monasteries and/or forced certain monasteries to use something other than the 1962 Mass, it required monasteries to use the Roman sanctoral calendar as it then stood together with a list of supplemental feasts for the Confederation. So, particularly if you are an oblate of one of those monasteries and attend a Novus Ordo Mass, you should ideally say the Office of the saint of the day in the 2025 calendar, not the monastic 1960 one.

Clear Creek Monastery has actually published two supplements, one for the Antiphonale (day hours) and one for the Night Office, available through Lulu, to assist this (it is worth noting though, that these books use older terminology for feast levels, and their calendar of saints does not always entirely align with the Roman 2025 one).

But you can get most of the way yourself without these if necessary.

In August, for example, as the table below shows, if you compare the current Roman calendar with the 1960 Benedictine one, there are ten feasts that are said on exactly the same day (highlighted in yellow), so you can just follow the Diurnal for them.

There are also a further five feasts celebrated on a different date (highlighted in green), so simply a matter of looking the saints name up in the index of saints names in the Diurnal, and using the texts on the appropriate date.

The 2025 calendar also contains several saints canonised since 1960 (highlighted in blue), most notably SS Peter Eymard (canonised 1962); St Teresa Benedicta (canonised 1998); and St Maximilian Kolbe (canonised 1982).  In these cases, the decree Cum Sanctissima gave permission for their Offices (and Mass) to be said with the 1962 books as Class III feasts.  Simply use the Common for the relevant type of saint - confessor for St Peter Eymard, Virgin martyr for St Teresa Benedicta and so forth.

That then leaves you with nine saints whose feasts were included in the 1962 Roman (EF) calendar, but not in the 1960 monastic one (although in a few cases they were in the 1953 and earlier calendars), highlighted in orange.  In some, but by no means all, cases the Solesmes Congregation has included these and you can find the necessary texts in the Supplements, use the Commons, or use an EF 1962 Office book to provide the necessary texts.

Adding feasts to the 1960 calendar

The other (and rather simpler) approach you can take is, consistent with Cum Sanctissima, simply to add any 'missing' feasts - newer or older (see purple highlighted) to the calendar set out in the Diurnal, and use normal principles where clashes occur.  If you want to say the Office of the Vigil of  St Lawrence, for example, you could mark the feast of St Teresa Benedicta as a commemoration.  It is not a perfect solution, but will get you 90% of the way...

DAY	ROMAN 2025	Benedictine 1960	Benedictine 1953
1	St Alphonsus Liguori, M, MD [210] (1960: Aug 2)	The Holy Maccabees, Memorial	St Peter in Chains; coms of St Paul, Maccabees
2	St Eusebius of Vercelli, Opt M (Roman 1962, commemoration; Benedictine 1953, Aug 14)	St Alphonsus Liguori, Memorial	St Alphonsus Liguori; St Stephen
2	St Peter Julian Eymard, opt m
3	St Dominic, MD [211] (1960: Aug 4)
3	St Germanus of Auxerre (Wales)
4	St John Vianney M (Roman 1962: Aug 8)	St Dominic, Cl 3	St Dominic
5	The Dedication of the Basilica of St Mary Major, MD [211 – Our Lady of the Snow]	Dedication of Our Lady of the Snows, Memorial	Dedication of Our Lady of the Snows
6	The Transfiguration of the Lord, MD [212	The Transfiguration of the Lord, Cl 2	The Transfiguration of the Lord; SS Sixtus II, Felicissimus and Agapitus (1960 – Aug 7)
7	SS Sixtus II & companions, MD [219]	SS Sixtus II, Felicissimus and Agapitus, Memorial	St Cajetan
8	St Cajetan (Roman 1962: Aug 7)	St Cyriacus	St Cyriacus
8	St Mary of the Cross, F (Aust)
9	St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross	Vigil of St Lawrence, Cl 3	Vigil
10	St Lawrence, F, MD [220]	St Lawrence, Cl 2	St Lawrence
11	St Clare, M, MD [228] (1960: Aug 12)	St Tibertius, Memorial	St Tibertius and Susannah
12	St Jane Frances de Chantal (1960 Roman: Aug 21)	St Clare	St Clare
13	SS Pontian and Hippolytus, MD [228]	SS Pontian and Hippolytus	SS Pontian and Hippolytus
	St Fachtna (Ireland)
	St Radegunde (France)
14	St Maximilian Kolbe, M	Vigil of the Assumption, cl 2	Vigil; St Eusebius
15	Assumption of the BVM, S. MD [230]	Assumption of the BVM	Assumption of the BVM
16	St Stephen of Hungary (Roman 1962: Sept 1)		Octave of Assumption
17			Octave, St Lawrence
18		St Agapitus, Memorial	Octave; St Agapitus
19	St John Eudes (Roman 1962)		Octave
	St Bernard Ptolemy
20	St Bernard, M, MD [245]	St Bernard	Octave; St Bernard
21	St Pius X, M, MD [258] (1960: Sept 3)	St Bernard Ptolemy, Memorial	Octave; St Bernard Ptolemy
22	The Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary, M (Roman 1962: May 31)	St Timothy, Memorial	Octave day, SS Timothy and Symphorianus
23	St Rose of Lima (Roman 1962: Aug 30)		Vigil
24	St Bartholomew, F, MD [250]	St Batholomew	St Batholomew
25	St Joseph Calasanz (Roman 1962 : Aug 27)
	St Louis, MD 42**
26	St Caesarius of Arles, (France)
27	St Monica, M (Roman 1962: May 4)
28	St Augustine, M, MD [251]	St Augustine, cl 3	St Augustine
29	The Passion of Saint John the Baptist, M, MD [252 – The Beheading of St John the Baptist]	The Beheading of John the Baptist, Cl 3	Beheading of John the Baptist
30	SS Margaret Clitherow Anne Line and Margaret Ward, martyrs (England)	SS Felix and Adauctus, Memorial	SS Felix and Adauctus
31	St Aidan (England and Ireland)

(Key: S-Solemnity, broadly equivalent to Class I; F=Feast/Class II; M/OptM = Memorial or Optional Memorial/Class III).

In the next post, I'll provide a few more notes on how to say some of these additional Offices, and I'll consider doing a version of this exercise for all months and providing page numbers and or references to the relevant Common if there is enough interest.  

I understand, though, the Benedictine Confederation are actually considering a revised calendar at the moment, so it may be worth waiting a while to see what emerges...

Resurrexit sicut dixit!

 

 
c XVI, Image by Saiko,
Musée d'art et d'histoire de Genève

Just to wish everyone a joyous Easter!

And a reminder that the Benedictine Office reverts, this week, to its Benedictine form, so that the psalms at Matins on Sunday, Lauds and Vespers are festal, but those at the other hours are of the day of the week as usual (with the antiphons and other texts of the Octave however).

I have to say that the reasons for this are obscure to me: from ancient times until the post Trent books, most Benedictines seem to have continued the practice of the Triduum and followed the Roman Office this week, most notably in its truncated three psalm version of Matins, a practice attested to as ancient by a seventh century instruction to the monks recorded in the Liber Pontificalis. 

Even odder, in my view, is the use of the (Roman origin) 'festal' psalms of Matins and Lauds (including through Eastertide on Sundays) in imitation of the Roman Office's avoidance of Psalm 50 on feasts, since the actual psalms of the Benedictine ferial Office are, in my view, rather more appropriate to the season than the festal psalms.  In particular, use of Psalm 92 and 99 means that Psalm 117, the quintessential Resurrection psalm, is not sung in the Benedictine Office at all in Eastertide!

A case perhaps for some judicious reform!

The Ordo

But in any case, here are the detailed rubrics for the week so far as the official rubrics go.  

Sunday 20 April – Easter Sunday, Class I with a Class I Octave

 Note: Matins and Lauds are included in the Vigil, so do not need to be said by those who attended it. 

Matins (if said): Three Nocturns, all of the feast, for the chants, LR 82/NM 334 ff. 

Lauds (if said): Festal psalms (MD 44 ff) with antiphons, chapter, responsory, hymn, versicle, Benedictus antiphon and collect of the feast, MD 328*/AM 453 ff. 

Prime: Antiphon 1 of Lauds, MD 328*/AM 453. 

Terce to None: Antiphon, chapter, versicle and collect of the feast, MD 331*/AM 457 ff. 

2 Vespers: Antiphons of Lauds (omitting the fourth) with psalms of Sunday, chapter, responsory, hymn, versicle, Magnificat antiphon and collect of the feast, MD 332*/AM 458 ff. 

Compline: Marian Antiphon, Regina Caeli, MD 267-8/AM 176 or 179-80, henceforward. 

Monday 21 April – Class I 

[The feast of St Anselm is not marked in the Office this year.] 

Matins:

Option 1: Two nocturns with the invitatory antiphon and hymn of Easter Sunday, MB 568 ff; psalms and antiphons for Nocturns I & II of the feast, readings, responsories, chapter and collect, MB 586 ff.

Option 2: Two nocturns with psalms of the day, one antiphon for each Nocturn (Iesum qui crucifixus est/Venite et videte) with readings and rest, MB 586 ff.

Option 3: All of the feast except the readings, responsories and collect, NM 346 ff. 

Lauds to Compline: All as for Easter Sunday (with festal psalms at Lauds and Vespers), except for the canticle antiphons and collect, MD 335*/AM 460-1.

Tuesday 22 April – Class I 

Matins: See above, Option 1&2: MB 589 ff; Option 3: NM 351 ff. 

Lauds to Compline: All as for Easter Sunday (with festal psalms at Lauds and Vespers), except for the canticle antiphons and collect, MD 336*/AM 462. 

Wednesday 23 April – Class I 

[The feast of St George is not marked in the Office this year.] 

Matins: Two nocturns with Invitatory antiphon and hymn of Easter Sunday; antiphon for each Nocturn with psalms of the day of the week; versicles, three readings, responsories, chapter and collect, MB 593/NM 355 ff. 

Lauds to Compline: All as for Easter Sunday (with festal psalms at Lauds and Vespers), except for the canticle antiphons, and collect, MD 336-7*/AM 462-3. 

Thursday 24 April – Class I 

Matins: Two nocturns, NM 357 ff. 

Lauds to Compline: All as for Easter Sunday (with festal psalms at Lauds and Vespers), except for the canticle antiphons and collect, MD 337*/AM 463-4. 

Friday 25 April – Class I

[The feast of St Mark is not marked in the Office this year.] 

Matins: Two nocturns, NM 359 ff. 

Lauds to Compline: All as for Easter Sunday (with festal psalms at Lauds and Vespers), except for the canticle antiphons and collect, MD 337-8*/AM 464-5. 

Saturday 26 April – White Saturday, Class I 

[The feast of St Cletus is not marked in the Office this year.] 

Matins: Two nocturns, NM 360 ff. 

Lauds to None: All as for Easter Sunday (with festal psalms at Lauds and Vespers), except for the Benedictus antiphon and collect, MD 338*/AM 465. 

1 Vespers of Low Sunday: Psalms of Saturday under one antiphon (Alleluia); chapter, responsory, hymn, versicle, Magnificat antiphon and collect, MD 339*/AM 473 ff. 

Monastic breviary reprint and Nocturnale...

There is some exciting news for all users of the Monastic Office - the Monastic Breviary of 1963 will soon be available once again!

Breviary edition

The 1963 breviary (or indeed any version of the monastic breviary) is currently extremely difficult - indeed nigh on impossible - to obtain, so having a new edition available will make the texts for Matins (particularly the readings and responsories) in particular far more accessible.

The new edition is being published by the Monastery of St Benedict's (Brignoles) Editions Pax inter Spinas, and copies can be pre-ordered now for a nice discount, with release scheduled for the feast of St Benedict on July 11 (see the details below).Monastic Nocturnale project

Even more excitingly, as I've previously mentioned, the monastery is also working on producing a Monastic Nocturnale equivalent to the Antiphonale Monasticum, containing all of the necessary chants for Matins.

This is a huge step forward as currently the only versions of the monastic Matins psalter either don't contain any or all of the necessary chants; or, in the case of the draft developed many years ago by Peter Sandhofe, are riddled with inconsistencies and errors.

The Nocturnale will have three volumes, with the first, the Psalter currently out in a trial version for comment and proofreading.  

It contains the hymns, psalms, antiphons, short responsories and other texts necessary for the daily ferial Office throughout the year (with major seasonal variants) in one conveniently sized, easy to hold book. It is expected to be publicly available in the Northern Spring.

The sanctorale and temporale volumes will follow thereafter.

Feast of St Gregory the Great

Ms.315, tome II, f.1 verso,
Bibliothèque municipale de Douai

 

Today is the feast of St Gregory the Great, easily the most important of Benedictine saints by virtue of his Life of St Benedict in book II of his Dialogues.

The Dialogues have long been a bête noir for those within the Order and outside it who reject the very idea of miracles, and hate what they deem Benedictine 'triumphalism', or acknowledgment of the importance that the Benedictine charism has played down the centuries.

Vast tomes have been produced trying to variously explain away the miraculous aspects of St Gregory's work, and to argue that the entire work was a fake.

Thankfully, these efforts have been completely demolished, but there still lingers a reluctance amongst some to acknowledge the importance of St Gregory's work for the Benedictine charism.

Was St Gregory a Benedictine?

One of the sillier lines of argument, in my view, denies that St Gregory was a Benedictine at all.

Some of the arguments for this proposition are purely legalistic, hanging off the definition of the 'Benedictine Order'. Others have pointed to the fact that St Gregory did not, as Pope, attempt to impose the Rule on monks following other legitimate monastic charisms.

Another argument goes to his understanding of the Rule as set out in the Life of St Benedict, with claims that some of the stories don't always seem to reflect in full its provisions.  Most of these clearly miss the point of the stories involved (my favourite example of this being those who claimed St Scholastica clearly wasn't really a nun given her argument with her brother over extending her visit), or misunderstand how Rules were interpreted in late antiquity (hint: not as Anglo-Saxon style black letter statute law).

But in my view the Life is itself the key testimony to St Gregory's status as a follower of St Benedict: lives of monastic saints in late antiquity were almost invariably written by their followers in order to help perpetuate their particular charism, and this seems to be no exception.  Indeed, one modern study has made a compelling case to interpret the first three books as a triptych, with Books I and III framing the Life by helping to explain and promote certain aspects of  both St Benedict's life and his particular approach to monasticism.

Generic monasticism

Part of the problem, I think, is that until very recently, researchers have not understood it in the context of some of the debates over aspects of monastic practice and theology in late antiquity.

One of the great myths perpetrated by twentieth century monastics, was I think, the idea of a generic monasticism; that rather than reflecting a particular charism, the Rule of St Benedict was simply a particularly compelling distillation of the monastic tradition.

RB 1980, for example, claimed that “the life actually lived in Western monasteries from the end of the fourth century up to the sixth seems to have been basically the same” (pg 85).

In fairness, this was certainly the view of the Rule promoted by later reformers such as St Wilfrid in England, and St Benedict of Aniane for the Carolingians.

The actual reality though, as recent research has highlighted, is very different.

Monastic diversity

There were actually huge variations in practices in late antiquity, with vigorous debates occurring on the respective merits of things like how much time was spent on the Office (ranging the liturgical minimalism of Cassian's Egyptian hermit's, who gathered only for Sunday Vespers and Matins, to monasteries maintaining a perpetual liturgy); attitudes to manual labour; on whether or not to provide hospitality, and much more.

And although monks in late antiquity certainly read a common body of texts, such as the Lives of the Desert Fathers, the works of Cassian and others, they read them through the lens of their own particular charisms, and thus interpreted them in different ways.

In this light, St Gregory's Life of St Benedict can best be interpreted both as a defense of a particular type of monasticism, and a guide on how the life was lived in practice.  Indeed, at least one early opponent of the Benedictine spirituality, Jonas of Bobbio (a promoter of Columbanian monasticism), had clearly read and directly engaged with it.

The Life's wide popularity was a huge factor in promoting the spread of the Rule, and thus cementing St Benedict's rightful title as the Father of Western monasticism.

St Gregory

St Gregory's importance though, goes beyond the Life, and includes his other writings; his actions as Pope, not least in sending the mission to Anglo-Saxon England; his contributions to the liturgy; and his own saintly life and example.

St Gregory, pray for us.

The earliest layer of responsories? (pt 6)

GKS 3443 8°: Ordines Romani, XIIIa
https://permalink.kb.dk/permalink/2006/manus/101/eng/

In my last post in this series on the Matins responsories, I looked at the evidence around the earliest Roman reading pattern for Matins, captured in Ordos XIV and XVI, and I noted  that the latter Ordo contains what is probably the first explicit surviving reference to the psalm based responsories.

And since Ordo XVI does represent a plausible way of integrating Ordo XIV's 'calendric' listing of the books to be read at Matins, it is potentially helpful to us in exploring some of the key questions around the history of the psalm based, or 'de psalmiis' responsories.

In particular, perhaps the most important question is whether the 'ferial' responsories, or 'historia' sets associated with particular books of the Bible developed in the context of the reading cycle in Ordo XIV, or only the psalm based responsories were used in this period; or whether they developed around the later reading cycle that replaced that of Ordo XIV (I will come back to the question of the date of the later reading cycle, but for the moment it is worth noting that it seems to have emerged in the early to mid eighth century).

How old are the history responsories?

One of the most important plank of the case for the use of the de psalmiis responsories as a ferial set, ferial responsories is the claim that the psalm based responsories represent the oldest layer of responsories in the Office, and there were not a sufficient number of 'history' (and festal) responsories to support the Benedictine Office until very late indeed.

The first statement of this claim, I think, can be found in René-Jean Hesbert's pioneering compilation of  responsories from twelve of the earliest antiphoners, Corpus Antiphonalium Officii (1963-1979).  But variants of it have been repeated many times since, not least in James McKinnon's The Advent Project, Robertson's The service-books of the Royal Abbey of Saint-Denis and Jesse Billett's The Divine Office in Anglo-Saxon England.

In this post I want to look at some of the evidence for different chronological layers in the responsories, with the help of Ordo XVI.

Understanding Ordo XVI

Ordo XVI, though, it has to be said, is a somewhat cryptic document that is not easy to interpret - if it does indeed date from the late seventh century, it reads as if it is perhaps an attempt after the fact to capture the various quite diverse topics touched on at John the Archcantor's Anglo-Saxon chant workshops, rather than as lecture notes or instructions per se.

All the same, since it is our earliest piece of evidence on their use, it is important to interrogate the document, not least since it provides the first clear reference to the de psalmiis responsories.

On the de psalmiis responsories, it says:

Reliquo tempore in anni circoli praeter quod memoravimus ipsis psalmis responsuria nende [The rest of the time during the year, except for those that we have mentioned, the psalm responsories are used.]

In my last post I mentioned that the most likely interpretation of this is that it is referring to feasts without their own responsories.  

There are other possible interpretations though, so today I want to focus on where, other than on feasts, the psalm responsories could have been used.

The Advent Project?

I've previously noted that Ordo XIV, the earliest Roman reading cycle, simply lists the books to be read.  Ordo XVI seems to make it explicit that there are responsory sets associated with each of these sets of readings.  

In its first paragraph, it refers to responsories associated with Isaiah (read from the start of December in Ordos XIV and XVI), consistent with the approach to Advent in the other early Roman books in the lead up to Christmas, and responsories for them.  

It says the same thing for Jeremiah and Daniel, which then follow.

The subsequent references to the ferial cycle don't explicitly mention responsories associated with them, but it is reasonable to assume it is implied.

That said, the alternative possibility that it means exactly what it says, and the responsories for Advent and Epiphanytide referred to in Ordo XVI reflect their seasonal status rather than the books being read, and the de psalmiis responsories were used the rest of the time.

One of the key assumptions around the history of the Office responsories, after all, has long been that there probably wasn't much - if any - continuity between the responsory sets used by St Benedict, and those that emerged in the course of the seventh century or early eighth keyed to what is more or less the modern reading cycle.

We've already looked at some evidence that casts doubts on this theory from the fifth to sixth centuries, in the form of the early establishment of sets of festal responsories; the establishment of Office homiliary sets for feasts that align with this; references to an established 'canonical' set of responsories; and early specific references to a Kings responsory.

 How old are the de psalmiis responsories: psalms vs Kings

When it comes to the ferial cycle though, the evidence for different chronological layers in the responsory cycle takes a little more digging.

I've previously noted that there doesn't seem to be any musicological basis to the claim that the de psalmiis responsories are older than the rest of the 'historia' sets that have come down to us: a study by Brad Maiani found that it was impossible to differentiate musically between the de psalmiis responsories and the Kings/Chronicles responsories in terms of the structures and melody components, and the way they were used.

One claim, for example, is that the de psalmiis set are significantly shorter than the other responsories, reflecting their origin as psalm refrains.  Maiani, however, has suggested that this is largely driven by the text: the Kings prose is more verbose than the poetry of the psalms.  

Even so, the differences in length are not great: there is really only extremely short psalm responsory in the set, noted in my previous post.  

The table below provides a very crude measure of this: it compares the number of lines the transcriptions of the respond sections take up in the 'Nocturnale Project' versions of them, for Roman Sundays; Gregofacsimil for the remainder. 

Respond length (lines)	De Psalmiis Sunday Roman	De psalmiis weekday	Monastic’ Sunday	Kings	Hartker Kings additional
1 - 2	-	1		-
2 – 2.9	2	7		2
3 – 3.9	2	7	1	-	3
4-4.9	3	3	1	3	1
5 -5.5	-	-		2

It shows that the Sunday psalm responsories used in the Roman Office (as well as the additional responsories used in the monastic Office or listed in the monastic Hartker MSSS are generally around the same length range as the Kings ones, though the Kings set has two longer responsories.  The weekday set are generally shorter, but not systematically so.

On the face of it, then, the psalm based responsories and the Kings set were probably composed at the same time, not one much earlier than the other. 

The eighth century layer and Ordo XVI

Maiani did, however, identify what look like a number of later compositions that seem likely to have been added to fill in gaps created by the extra time allocated to the reading of some books in the reading cycle employed from (at least) the eighth century onwards.  

There is another side of this coin though: I want to suggest that it is also possible to find traces of the contraction of the amount of time allocated to some books of the Bible in Ordo XIV compared to the later pattern, and of a less 'properised' set of responsories.

Kings-Chronicles

Consider, for example, the Kings/Chronicles cycle after Pentecost in the post-Trent books.  

The 'core' group in the post-Trent Roman Office (unlike the Benedictine) does not include any responsories using texts from Kings/Chronicles.  

Instead, three additional responsories, two based on Chronicles texts, are added on weekday days from the Fourth Sunday after Pentecost onwards. 

There are several more Chronicles responsories preserved in early manuscripts, presumably remnants of a more extended cycle from the time that the reading of Kings/Chronicles extended up to mid-October.

Lent

Similarly, Amalarius' introduction to his antiphoner describes his struggle to try and 'properise' the responsories for Septuagesima and Lent, a process that eventually led to the cycle based around the Genesis Patriarchs we still use.  

But the early manuscripts also preserve a considerable number of responsories relating to the other six historical books originally read at this time: in the surviving manuscripts, they appear in other contexts, such as Commons and for particular feasts.

More work would need to be done on their musicological features to verify this, but it is at least plausible, it seems to me, that they had their origins in the lectio continuo of Genesis to Judges envisaged in Ordos XIV and XVI, but were then displaced by later properization associated with the new reading cycle. 

The creation of Epiphanytide and Advent

One important example of the possible redeployment of surplus responsories may have occurred for the period of the year that most concerns us, namely after Epiphany.

In Ordo XIV and XVI, three books were read in the time between Epiphany and pre-Lent: Job, Ezekiel and the Minor Prophets.  In the later schema all of these were moved to other times of the year: Job to September; and Ezekiel and the Minor Prophets to November.  

Although the minor prophets feature in the later 'Prophets' historia set though, and Job has its own full set, there are no Ezekiel responsories at all in November.

So is this perhaps an example of where the de psalmiis responsories were originally used?

In fact though, there are at least a full set of responsories based on texts from Ezekiel, but in the modern Office, they turn up in other contexts, such as the feasts (and Commons) of Evangelists, Advent, and Lent.

The problem, it would seem, is that there simply wasn't enough space in November because it also had to accommodate seasonal responsories for the new five week Advent that was put in place in the early eighth century.

The epistles?

All of this suggests that although there was a great deal of fluidity in the responsory cycle as it developed over time, there is no obvious place for or evidence of the use of the de psalmiis responsories as an invariable ferial set in the six and seventh centuries.

There is one other possibility I want to explore though, namely that they were indeed used throughout the year, in the context of the third Nocturn reading of the Pauline epistles.

But I'll come back to this point in due course.

Getting ready for Lent....

Just a quick reminder that this week marks the start of Lent, so it is time to start preparing if you haven't already!

The Office from Ash Wednesday to the Saturday before the first Sunday of Lent

Although Lent starts on Ash Wednesday, this period was something of a later add-on to Lent to make up the correct number of days (given that Sundays are not counted for fasting and other purposes).

The Office continues to be said as during the season of Septuagesima, with the following modifications: 

• there are Patristic readings at Matins;
•  there are canticle antiphons for Lauds and Vespers each day of the week; and
• two collects are provided for each day, the first used from Matins to None (omitting Prime), the second at Vespers only.

Under the 1960 rubrics, Class III feasts are reduced to a commemoration at Lauds only.  However, permission has since been given to say them as Class III feasts on an optional basis, and so the notes below generally provide the Class III option as the default. 

The Rule on the observance of Lent

This is also a good time, I think, to reread Chapter 49 of the Rule of St Benedict, on the observance of Lent (take a look also at chapters 41 and 48).

I've also written a couple of posts drawing out its application which you can find here:

• on sacred reading during Lent (read a book right through);
• refrain from sin and apply ourselves to prayer;
• fasting and abstinence.

Praying the Psalms in Lent

If you are looking for something extra by way of prayer for Lent, I plan to provide a series of notes on the psalms over at Psallam Domino blog, focusing mainly on Psalms 141 and 147.

You could also look at some of my past Lent series on:

• the Penitential psalms;
  
• the Gradual Psalms;
  
• Psalm 118; or
  
• The psalms of Tenebrae