23 February 2022

The Medieval Church in the Isles, Part 3: The Canonical Hours of the Day


Also known as the Liturgy of the Hours (in the Roman Church), the Daily Office (in the Anglican Communion), and the Divine Office (in other churches), in the Western churches the canonical hours for prayer followed the system first regularized by St. Benedict of Nursia for his monastic community around 500 CE.

The specific hours for the Divine Office of the system below come from the Regularis Concordia in England of 973.  The two Masses are not part of the Hours, and neither is Chapter, but that is when they fell in the day.

Matins, originally called Vigils and later Nocturns and began at midnight.

Lauds, originally called Matins, began at dawn, around 5 am

Prime began at around 6 am

Morrow Mass after Prime

Chapter after Morrow Mass

Terce began at around 8 am

Solemn High Mass after Terce

Sext began at around 12 am

None began at around 3 am

Vespers began at the lighting of the lamps, around 5 pm

Compline began at around 6 pm

The times varied throughout the year by necessity with the lengthening and shortening of daytime and and nighttime.

In the early centuries of the Church, the midnight hour of prayer was called Vigil, after the Roman military watch.  Benedict named it Nocturns, and later in the High Middle Ages it came to be called Matins.

Originally, in St. Benedict’s version, Lauds was called Matins, until that name replaced Nocturns.

In one reported system of the Divine Hours, there were nine offices, with one called Vigil immediately preceding one called Matins, then Lauds and the rest beginning at dawn.

The core of the Liturgy of the Hours was the Psalter, the entirety of which was said or sung every week, individual psalm or portions thereof scattered throughout the various hours.

The nocturnal hour of Matins was quite lengthy, weekdays consisting of two sets (nocturns) of six psalms, with three readings from the Old Testament, New Testament, and/or Church Fathers after the first set and a short passage from one of St. Paul’s writings after the second set.  On the vigil preceding Sundays, each nocturn was followed by four readings, after this a nocturn of three Old Testament canticles, then four readings from the New Testament, the singing of the Te Deum, a Gospel reading, and a hymn.

Of the hours, the time for saying Matins varied the most widely.  Some places always recited it at midnight, others varied with the season between 2 am and 3 am, or between midnight in summer and just before Lauds in winter.   In the Use of Lichfield, for example, Matins was sung at midnight from the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary (8 September) until Easter Sunday; from Easter Sunday through Trinity Sunday, Matins was sung at daybreak (sunrise); and from the day after Trinity Sunday until the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Matins was sung immediately after Compline.

During Holy Week, or at least the last three days thereof, Matins and Lauds were sung in the evening immediately after Compline in anticipation of the following day (Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday); in places this occurred more frequently.  At the start of Christmas in the Use of Sarum, Matins was sung just before Midnight Mass.

The major diurnal hours were Lauds and Vespers, each roughly twice the length of the minor hours.  The diurnal minor hour of Compline was slightly longer than the other minor hours of Terce, Sext, and None. 

By the 15th century, the schedule of the Hours and other daily offices were as follows:  Matins and Lauds of the Day; Matins and Lauds of the Blessed Virgin Mary; Lauds of the Dead; Prime of the Day; Commendation of Souls; Chapter Mass; Terce; the 15 Psalms of Degrees (or ‘of Ascents’, 120-134); the Litany of the Saints; Sext; None; Mass of the Day; Vespers of the Dead; Vespers of the Day; Vespers of the Blessed Virgin Mary (and/or Vespers of All Saints); and finally, Compline.

(This was the schedule at Lincoln Cathedral, and while maybe not universal at cathedrals, convents, and collegiate churches in every respect, it is nevertheless fairly representative.  It also does not include the enormous number of chantry masses said in each place by that time.)

Other rearrangements in diverse places by the Late Middle Ages included Compline immediately after Vespers; Vespers, then the Office of the Dead, then Compline; and Matins immediately after Compline in anticipation of the next day.  At Cluny Abbey in the County of Auvergne in France and at its daughter houses, the Office of All Saints was also celebrated.

In the revised Roman Breviary introduced and made obligatory throughout the Church in 1568, Matins and Lauds (of the Day) were officially fused together, with the structure of Matins radically altered.

As the liturgies for these hours developed, convents began to need several different books for their services:  a Psaltery, a book of prayers, an antiphonary, and a lectionary.  When the Divine Office spread to secular parishes and the mendicant orders arose, the need for a concise and abridged volume with appropriate psalms, readings, prayers, and antiphons gathered by service.

Thus came the Breviary, at least for the diurnal offices (Lauds through Compline), first for the Franciscans.  In the Middle Ages, extremely abridged versions of the Daily Offices became popular among the laity, especially after the invention of the printing press, each called Book of the Hours.

The full Hours of the Divine Office were said by cathedral chapters, convents, and collegiate churches in choir; parish priests in non-collegiate churches were at first strongly urged, then later required, to say them daily also, but with more leeway as to the time.

Anglo-Saxon Hours

The old Anglo-Saxon Church had its own system of seven daily offices, promulgated by Ecbert, first Archbishop of York 735-766.  They were as follows, with their Continental counterparts:

Uhtsang (Matins)

*Daegredsang (Lauds)

Primsang (Prime)

Undersang (Terce)

Middaegsang (Sext)

Nonsang (None)

Efensang (Vespers)

Nihtsang (Compline)

*There was no actual counterpart to Lauds that I know of, but had there been one, it would have been called Daegredsang, daegred being the Anglo-Saxon for “dawn”.

Uht, the base of Uhtsang, meant the dark just before dawn, indicates the time it probably was sung.  To this day in the Church of England and member churches of the Anglican Communion, Evening Prayer (normally said at the time of Vespers) is often called Evensong.

Aethelwold, Bishop of Winchester 963-984, issued with the consent of his council in 973 the Regularis Concordia, a major reform and update of the Rules of St. Benedict specific to England which expanded the English Divine Office to eight hours or offices.

Irish Hours

In the Early Middle Ages, the Irish developed their own counterparts of the Continental version, which certainly also saw use among the Picts, the Scots of Dal Riata, and the Angles of Northumbria, and even on the Continent, taken to those places by Ireland’s “White Martyrs”.

Midnocht (Matins)

Iarmerge (Lauds)

Anteirt (Prime)

Tert (Terce)

Medon Lai (Sext)

Noin (None)

Fescor (Vespers)

Deired Lai (Compline)

 

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