Should the feast of the Beheading of St John the Baptist be Class I, II or III?

 

Beheading of John the Baptist
(Museum of Icons, Recklinghausen)

Today is the feast of the Beheading of St John the Baptist, and in the 1962 calendars, it is ranked as Class III. 

Personally, I've always found its demotion from being a three nocturn/twelve readings and responsories feast a little odd given the importance of the saint, particularly to monks.

It turns out though that there is actually some historical basis for treating it as a lower level feast in the context of keeping the calendar manageable.

In particular, a Carolingian Commentary on the Rule of St Benedict includes an interesting discussion on the problem of the expansion in the number of feasts of saints and their treatment in the Office in general, and then specifically lists this particular feast as a lower ranked one.

The context of the Rule

The basic problem is this.  

The Rule provides for only one level of feasts, giving them the structure of Matins of Sundays (ie with three nocturns and twelve readings and responsories), rather than the normal weekday two nocturn/one or three readings pattern.

The lack of gradations for feasts is understandable: in St Benedict's time, the feasts of the temporale aside (Christmas, Epiphany etc) aside, feasts were generally only celebrated where the relics of the relevant saint were held in the church. Indeed, although that restriction gradually changed, before the eighth century no church or monastery seems to have celebrated more than around ten feasts in the Office.

It is also worth noting that St Benedict doesn't mention Vespers or the other hours in the context of feasts at all, and that is almost certainly because festal texts were added to these hours only very gradually.  The earliest evidence generally relates to Lauds rather than Vespers - festal psalms for Lauds for example along with festal psalms for Matins - was one of several 'romanisms' adopted by Monte Cassino in the eighth century, but initially at least spurned by the Carolingians as inconsistent with the Rule.  

And so far as Vespers goes, even in the context of the Roman Office, the Carolingian commentator Amalarius noted (in his introduction to his antiphoner) that he couldn't find any sign of First Vespers in the earliest Roman books, even though he remembered hearing it sung for a few major feasts such as Christmas in his youth.  

The growth in the feasts of saints

The number of saints feasts normally celebrated in the Office though, seems to have started expanding from the seventh century onwards.  

In Rome itself, the relics of saints were moved from their tombs and brought into the city, and an increasing number of new feasts were introduced to the city.  

More importantly perhaps in the longer term, the export of Rome's sacramentaries, with mass formulas that might only have been used at one church in Rome, posed a challenge for those attempting to use it outside of Rome.  

The expansion in the number of feasts seems to have prompted a degree of experimentation.  When it comes to Matins, for example, the surviving Roman Ordines and some of the earliest antiphoners seem attest to assorted numbers of readings and responsories, and even a 'double matins' (one of the day and one of the saint) in some cases, before the current system of feasts consisting of either one, three or twelve readings for feasts was finally settled on.

Hildemar on feasts

Hildemar of Corbie's Commentary on the Benedictine Rule, written around 830, provides a take on the problem with some very modern resonances.  

He pointed out that saying a three nocturn Matins for all saints feasts marked in the Mass would place a very heavy burden on the monks indeed, and so proposed that the provision in the Rule be interpreted as referring strictly to 'solemnities' only:

It must be noted in this place that when he [St Benedict] discusses feasts, he did not speak about all of them, as (he spoke) with regard to solemnities, and therefore it is necessary for the sake of discretion, that, although he said feasts, it must be heard as ‘special feasts’.

And this must be considered, that where he said on the feasts of the saints, it must be understood that the commemoration of the saints should be as it is on the other saints’ festivities but not as on the Lord’s Day. For if on saints’ feasts should be understood with regard to all saints who have their own masses, it seems difficult, because there are many saints’ feasts, as they are contained in the book of masses, since in that book the masses of many saints are seen to be written. And on this account, the saints’ feasts are either set aside or they are celebrated with excessive labor and almost nothing else can be done because of the multitude of saints. But, as we said, when he says ‘on feasts’, it must be heard under the heading: ‘on special feasts’. (Translation by Zachery Guiliano for the Hildemar Project).

Instead of a twelve reading Office, he suggests three readings and responsories should be said for lower level feasts - that is the equivalent of a Class III feast in winter, presumably with all of the readings of the feast. 

Hildemar also includes a list of what he considers solemnities, which consists of the major feasts of the temporale, as well as a limited selection of saints feasts (and provision for local ones to be included in the list) that he considered should be in the same category.

Although the Nativity of John the Baptist is included in the list of solemnities, Hildemar explicitly that the Beheading should be in the lower category of feasts, and be given three readings and responsories rather than twelve, even though the Mass is proper to the saint:

But with regard to the rest of the saints, who are not ‘special’ (such as Saint Romanus and others), although their masses are indeed written in the sacramentary (such as the Beheading of St John): it must be done on those [feasts] as on those which are not ‘special’.

Hildemar's take on this is actually reflected in a number of early antiphoners as well: the ninth century secular Albi antiphoner, for example, provides only three responsories for the feast; the (admittedly later) Old Roman (B.79) does not actually include any proper responsories for the feast at all.  

Carolingian enthusiasm? 

Hildemar's list of feasts (and views) may well also reflect the deliberations of the Council of Aachen in 815, as the earliest Benedictine antiphoner, from the monastery of Prüm, dating from 860, and which may have been based on an earlier set of materials put together to assist monasteries adopting the Rule, generally includes the same core feasts (though Hildemar puts the feast of St Benedict in Lent, whereas Prüm marks it in July), but with a few extras added.

One of those extra twelve reading feasts is the Beheading of John the Baptist, though most of the responsories for it were probably from the Common: most of the 'original' responsories were later erased and new ones added instead; of the four in the original version of the manuscript that can still be deciphered, three were taken straight from the Commons and one is proper.

At least some early antiphoners though, have rather more - the ninth century Compiege antiphoner has eleven for example, and both the revised version of Prüm and the later tenth century Hartker antiphoner have five proper responsories.  In Prüm (and several other later antiphoners), the rest taken from either the Common of a martyr or, rather more jarringly to modern eyes, of a Virgin.

The expansion of the feast was far from universal though - a Franciscan antiphoner from the thirteenth century (CH- Fco Ms 2), supposedly based on the Roman curial Office, provides only three for the feast.

The Benedictine Office in the Triduum and Easter Octave part 3: the Liber Pontificalis

 Responsory for Easter Sunday, Octave and Apostles and Evangelists during Eastertide

In my last post in this series I looked at what early evidence there is (or isn't) for the Benedictine use of the Roman Office during the Triduum.  

I want to turn now to the same question for the Easter Octave, whose practices (such as selective omissions of normal parts of the hour) seem closely linked to those of the Triduum (even more so in earlier forms than in the current Roman books). 

In this post I will look at an intriguing entry on the Octave in the Liber Pontificalis (LP), a collection of brief biographies of the early Popes; in the next I’ll look at evidence from some early antiphoners. 

The Office during the Octave 

Although we know that the Easter Octave itself is very ancient indeed, evidence for how the Roman Office was celebrated in it is scarce (as for everything about the Roman Office) before the ninth century.  

But there is one much earlier mention of it, which, if genuine, witnesses both to its existence in the first half of the seventh century, and to Benedictine resistance to its use: according to the Liber Pontificalis, Pope Honorius I (625 – 638) had to order ‘the monks’ to follow the Roman custom of saying only three psalms each day for Matins during the Octave rather than the usual twelve. 

The LP says of Honorius I: 

... he strengthened the decree of St Gregory on the Antiphonal and Order of offices and psalms in Septuagesima, and that the monks should leave off the Alleluia in Septuagesima; and at Easter and Pentecost, as the people were displeased, they should recite three lessons and three psalms like the Roman church, and should perform their office in the Roman manner during all of those two weeks...[1]. 

This entry, though, raises more than a few questions, the first of which is, is this passage actually genuine, and the second is, are the monks in question actually Benedictines? 

Is the entry genuine or a late interpolation? 

The reasons for questioning the entry’s authenticity are these.  First, the passage can be found in only two of the surviving manuscripts of the Liber Pontificalis, both of which date from the eleventh century.  Secondly, it seems inconsistent with some later information given by Amalarius.  And thirdly, it appears to conflict with the claim made by some that the Benedictine Office was not actually used in Rome at all until the tenth century. 

Text variants and their history 

This passage has largely been overlooked by scholars, because, as the most recent translator of the LP notes, one earlier critical edition of the LP didn’t include this text variant at all, while another buried it deep in the footnotes [2].  Its appearance in only two manuscripts though, doesn’t necessarily mean it is a later addition: Davis identified and included a large number of omissions and variants from the earlier critical editions that do appear to be genuine (and indeed others have also identified important sections omitted from the earlier critical editions) [3].  

Contextual evidence 

Moreover, the contents of the decree itself arguably help establish its authenticity.    

The first clue goes to timing: the attribution to Honorius I of the decision to stop using the alleluia during Septuagesima aligns well with other evidence on when Septuagesima was introduced, namely between the time of Gregory I but before 650 (which is also roughly the time when the entry relating to Honorius I was finalised) [4].  

In addition, the reference to a decree of Gregory the Great on the Office fits with what we know from other, mostly sources, but without the hyper-inflation of his role found in some later Carolingian sources: here we hear that he issued a decree on the antiphoner relating to the Office, not that he personally composed all of its chants for the Mass and/or Office as was later thought. [5]. 

Finally, Davis suggests that the instruction on the shorter Office during the Octave seems to conflict with Amalarius’ claim that the shorter Office was Gallic in origin, and had not yet been adopted by the Roman Church. On this point though, Davis has, I think, misunderstood what Amalarius was saying [6].  

Davis doesn’t supply a specific reference to Amalarius for his comment, but the relevant source seems to be chapter 45 of his Liber de Ordine Antiphonarii [7].  In it, Amalarius lists the three antiphons for this Office he found in his local antiphoner (from Metz), viz Ego sum qui sum, Postulavi and Ego dormivi, but says he could not find them in the Roman books and so does not know where they came from. He then proceeds to defend their use nonetheless on the basis of their appropriateness.  

What Amalarius is saying, though, I would suggest, is not that the Roman books didn’t have a three psalm Office during the Octave, but rather that they didn’t have these three particular antiphons.  In fact there are actually two different liturgical traditions for antiphons for the Octave: the three antiphons Amalarius lists (which appear in the majority of surviving antiphoners); and one with three antiphons that consist entirely of alleluias, that seems to reflect the Old Roman tradition [8]. 

Moreover, it seems unlikely that the three psalm Matins of Easter week was Gallican in origin: it fits perfectly with the three or psalm weekday secular version of Matins known to be in use in Rome and surrounding regions in the sixth century [9]. 

The entry then, fits well then with what we know of the early development of the Office. 

Who were the bolshie monks? 

But if the passage is genuine, just who were those bolshie monks who had to be ordered to use the Roman Office rather than their own?  Were they in fact Benedictines? 

The Benedictines in Rome? 

One of those many conspiracy theory rabbit holes that has devoured academia at various points in the last century is the claim that neither the Benedictine Rule nor the Benedictine Office were used in Rome (or anywhere else) until very late indeed [10].  

Part of the problem is that for Rome more generally between the sixth and eighth centuries, very little documentary evidence for anything has survived from Rome itself.  Virtually everything we know about its liturgy for this period, for example, comes from non-Roman sources (although many of these seem to be copies of documents that were originally Roman in origin).   

This seems to be partly due to a problem with the material they wrote on (viz mostly papyrus, which has a very short shelf-life unless stored correctly); partly due to seemingly eclectic archive practices; compounded by natural and man-made disasters [11].  The archives of St Gregory’s own monastery, for example, survived up until Bonaparte’s invasion of the city. 

In fact, though, there is quite a substantial body of both direct and indirect evidence for the use of the Benedictine Rule and Office in Rome after St Benedict’s time [12].  

In particular, a steady stream of Anglo-Saxon pilgrims and missionaries from the seventh century onwards (most notably SS Wilfred, Benedict Biscop, Boniface and Willibrord) claimed use of the Benedictine Rule as proof of their Romanist credentials, as the Carolingians did after them [13]. 

One of the second wave of missionaries St Gregory sent to England, the (secular) Bishop of London, St Mellitus, updated St Isidore’s chronicle around 615 to include references to St Benedict as ‘the father of monks’ whose monasteries had spread in Italy and Provence in the sixth century. 

An early eighth century secular homiliary (Agismund) included a chapter of the Rule.   

And a series of eight century popes were credited by the Liber Pontificalis with supporting the reestablishment of Subiaco and Monte Cassino respectively, and translating the Life of St Benedict into what had become the vernacular in Rome at the time, namely Greek. 

In respect of the liturgy, while some have attempted to dismiss the Roman Ordines descriptions as not being all that Benedictine in character, its explicit mentions of the Rule make that hard to sustain unless you insist that there can be no legitimate development (or experimentation along the way) of the Office at all.  

Moreover, as Michel Huglo long ago pointed out, it is hard to explain why an old Roman versions of Te Decet Laus, a hymn used uniquely in the Benedictine Office, was preserved if not for a continuing Benedictine tradition in the city [14]. 

Other monks? 

It is true of course, that there were of course, monks other than Benedictines in Rome at this time.  

And it is true that Taft and the liturgists have claimed that the twelve psalm Roman Office (rather than the three or four psalm version actually attested to for the sixth century in the Liber Diurnis and other sources) was already in place by this time.  These are, however, ‘reconstructions backwards’, with little or no hard evidence to support them [15]. 

Either way though, if the issue had simply been saying their normal Office rather than a shorter ‘festal’ version of it, then it might be possible to answer that the monks in question were not necessarily Benedictines.  

The decree, though, goes to not just one, but two explicit provisions of the Rule - chapter 15, which specifies that the alleluia is used throughout the year except in Lent, and chapters 9&10 that orders that Matins should have twelve psalms on weekdays.  

Moreover, if this were not a matter of the Rule, would a group of monks really have needed a formal ruling by the Pope to force them to follow the secular practice? 

The timing of the dispute 

Still, if the monks in question were Benedictines, why did their practice of saying the normal Office during the Octave come to a head at this particular point in time? 

The Benedictines had, after all, been in residence in Rome (and presumably were still at the Lateran) for over fifty years prior to Honorius’ reign as Pope (albeit supplemented perhaps with later waves of refugees from Subiaco and elsewhere), so what had changed?  

There seem to several possibilities, which are not mutually exclusive.  

The first is that use of the Rule in Rome had been growing in the decades immediately after St Gregory’s pontificate, as witnessed by the various Ordines. One particularly important dimension of this spread of influence seems to have been that by the mid-seventh century, the key centre of monastic influence seems to have shifted from the Lateran to St Peter’s [16].  

A second possible factor in this dispute may relate to tensions that seem to have arisen between monks and clerics in Rome around this time, perhaps partly in reaction to St Gregory the Great’s monasticizing tendencies, or perhaps the creation of the (secular) schola cantorum [17].   

A third possibility, perhaps, is that Honorius’ claim to be ‘strengthening’ the decree of St Gregory’ on the Office, actually meant reversing a decision of St Gregory and ‘restoring’ the use of the older shorter sixth century Roman secular office referred to the Liber Diurnis and other sources during the Octave.  

There is one other possibility, I think, which I'll explore in the next post, and that is a link to the development of the stational liturgy of Rome.

When did the Benedictine Office drop the Roman Octave?

 Regardless of the reasons for the timing of the order, though, a key question remains: if the Pope ordered Benedictines to use the Roman Octave back in the seventh century, why are we saying the Benedictine version of it now?  Just when did it revert back?

 In the first post in this series I noted that both Monte Cassino in the late eighth century, and Hildemar of Corbie (c830) claimed to be using the ‘Roman’ Triduum but the Benedictine Octave.  As we shall see in the next post though, the surviving antiphoners suggest rather more diversity of practice in relation to the Octave.  And by tracing some of this diversity we can, I think, identify a likely earliest possible date for the development of the Roman practice, in the second half of the sixth century.

But more on that anon!

When the Office was not said? The Benedictine Office in the Triduum and Easter Octave Part 2

Responsory for the Easter Sunday, Octave and Sunday 2 after Easter

In my last post on the Triduum and Easter Octave, I noted that what evidence we have tends to suggest that the Benedictine adoption of the Roman Triduum occurred not in St Benedict’s own time, in the first half of the sixth century, but rather much later. 

But was this because the Triduum and Octave Offices did not exist in any recognisable form in his time, or was this a more deliberate choice? 

Was the Office originally said at all during the Triduum (or Biduum)? 

Indeed, one possibility seems to be that the Office was not said at all in Rome during this period. 

In particular, the Rule of the Master states that the Office was not to be said at all from Matins of Good Friday until the Easter Mass: 

“At dawn on the Friday before Holy Saturday only the nocturns are celebrated, since the nocturns are said before cockcrow and still belong to Thursday, and thereafter [no] Matins and other Hours and regular Divine Office [will be celebrated] until the Mass on Saturday when the new alleluia of the joyful resurrection will, in the mouth of the psalm-singers, break open the long silence clamped on the psalms.  So while they will sing no psalms from after the saying of the nocturns on Thursday until Mass on Saturday, let them nevertheless say in full the simple prayers of Lent…” [1]

The romanitas of The Rule of the Master?

The Master’s Rule is most famous, of course, for the claim made at the beginning of the twentieth century that rather than post-dating the Benedictine Rule as had long been thought, it was actually the key source St Benedict drew on in constructing it.  

The tide seems to have turned, of late, on its claim to being a key source for the Rule of St Benedict [2]. 

But while the question of which Rule depended on which has not yet quite been settled definitively, most of the evidence seems to point to it being a Roman region document, most likely written around the middle of the sixth-century [3]. 

And that dating is potentially important, because the liturgical provisions of the Master’s Rule have long been as providing a possible window into that of Rome in this period, since many of the Master’s liturgical practices - often in sharp contrast to those of St Benedict - clearly align with those of Rome.  

The Master, for example, followed the Roman practice of fasting on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, while St Benedict notably didn’t adopt the Saturday fast.  

Like the Roman Office, the Master’s didn’t include hymns; St Benedict’s did.  

Matins in his Office, like that of virtually all early Western Offices, including the secular Roman Office described in the sixth century Liber Diurnis, increased in length in winter (when the nights were longer) and had fewer psalms each day in summer [4]. 

And while this could simply go to the respective dates at which the two were composed, St Benedict does not include a pre-Lent period in his calendar while the Master did. 

There is one other key feature of the Master’s Office that long ago caught the eye of an earlier generation of liturgists, and that relates to Vespers.  In particular, both the fifth century Ordo Monasterium of Alypius of Thegaste (associated with St Augustine and thought to reflect a Roman liturgical milieu) and the Master’s Office specify that six (variable) psalms are said at Vespers.

 A number of early antiphoners, including that of Compiège (F-Pn : Lat. 17436), include a six (rather than the usual) five psalm Vespers for Maundy Thursday, leading Adalbert de Vögué and others to suggest that this is an example of an archaism preserved in the distinctive Office of the Triduum, and attesting to the existence of a ‘pre-classical’ version of Roman Vespers that likewise had six psalms [5]. 

One should, I think, be skeptical of the archaisms preserved in key feasts theory: it is equally possible that this was a special form of Vespers specific to the Triduum.  Still, a mid-sixth century (or later) dating for the Rule of the Master does perhaps fit with the evidence suggesting that far from having only one form of the Office in the sixth century, and it being monastic in character, as Taft famously claimed, there was in fact a secular Roman Office in use in Rome in this period that perhaps had a fixed set of psalms at Lauds (as St Benedict attests) and Compline, but otherwise rotated through the psalms in their Scriptural order. 

Roman traditions on the Biduum? 

Regardless of the other features of the Master’s Office though, his prescription that from dawn of Good Friday until the end of Holy Saturday, the Office is not said at all seems quite consonant both with earlier Roman traditions in relation to the treatment of Friday and Saturday, as well as later practice in relation to the Triduum.

 In particular, a letter of Pope Innocent I dating from 416 refers to the longstanding Roman practice of not celebrating the sacraments on Fridays and Saturdays throughout the year as a kind of recapitulation of Holy Week:

…If in fact we celebrate the Lord’s Day because of our Lord Jesus Christ’s resurrection – doing so not only at Easter but every week renewing the image of this feast – and if we fast on Friday because of the Lord’s suffering,, then we should not omit Saturday which appears t be enclosed between a time of sorrow and a time of joy.  In fact, it is evident that during these two days the apostles were in sorrow and hid themselves, doing so because of their feast of the Jews.  In any case, there can be no doubt that their fasting during these two days has been remembered to such an extent that, according to the Church’s tradition, the sacraments are not celebrated during these two days… [6].  

So an intensification of this idea during the actual Triduum is not implausible.  

The idea is also carried forward in one of the eighth century Roman Ordines, Ordo XII, which specifies that although Matins and Lauds were (by now) being said on the (by now three) days of the Triduum, the day hours were not sung at all during this period [7].   

In fact the idea of not saying the Office persisted in various forms.  As late as the tenth century, for example, English Benedictines were instructed to say the day hours audibly on Maundy Thursday, but silently on Good Friday and Holy Saturday [8]. 

The omissions from the Office in the Triduum 

The other noteworthy point about the Master’s description of the Office is that he does not suggest that there was anything special about the way Matins on Maundy Thursday or Good Friday were said.    

But is there evidence that contradicts this? Can it be demonstrated, or at least plausibly argued, for example, that both the contents and structure of the Triduum Office, and most particularly the ‘omissions’ from it, date from any earlier than the sixth century? 

It is questionable, of course, as to whether the ‘omissions’ (such as doxologies, the litany and so forth) are actually survivals from earlier versions of the Office or rather represent deliberate decisions made later for theological reasons: Christ is symbolically absent, so how can we use the usual Trinitarian formulas? 

Still, as far as I can find, these claimed archaisms offer no real help in demonstrating that a form of Tenebrae was in place before the mid-sixth century. 

Now in large part, of course, this is because we have so little evidence for the Roman Office in this period at all, making dating particular features of it is almost impossible.  

We cannot, for example, simply assume that if the Benedictine Office included doxologies, for example, the Roman did too: in fact a letter of pseudo-Jerome (actually probably written by a sixth century cleric effectively lobbying for assorted changes to the Office including the addition of doxologies) suggests quite otherwise [9]. 

The structure of Matins in the Triduum 

There is, however, at least a little more evidence when it comes to the structure and contents of Tenebrae Matins, but it doesn’t serve to make the case for an earlier date. 

The use of patristic readings at Matins is certainly attested to in the Rule of St Benedict, but a comment of St Gregory the Great endorsing this practice in the Dialogues has long been interpreted as suggesting that it was a Benedictine innovation.   

Similarly, the use of Lamentations in the first Nocturn and Pauline readings in the third, arguably dates to likely the second half of the sixth century, since they are consistent with Roman Ordo XIV (which dates from the seventh century but may reflect practice in the second half of the sixth century), but before the start of eighth century (since it is inconsistent however with the reading pattern set out in Ordo XIII and other documents, thought to date from perhaps the late seventh or mid eighth centuries) [10].  And I’ve seen one suggestion that its distinctive responsories are actually an Eastern import dating, most likely, from the seventh century. 

The development of the Triduum 

None of this is definitive, of course, but it does seem to suggest that the Roman Triduum Office did not exist in any recognisable form in St Benedict’s time, thus accounting for his failure to mention it; indeed perhaps he actively decided not to follow the custom of not saying the Office at all during some of this period.

Is there any surviving traces though, of a distinctively Benedictine Office being said through the Triduum?  I'll come back to that question in the final part of this series, but before doing that, I want to look first at the evidence around the Roman Easter Octave, for which it turns out, there is rather more early evidence than for the Triduum.  But more on that in the next post. 

Notes 

[1] Luke Eberle (trans), The Rule of the Master (Kalazazoo, 1977), pg 218.  

[2] See Steven Vanderputten, Medieval Monasticisms forms and Experiences of the Monastic Life in the Latin West (Berlin, 2020), p 156-7 for a recent summary of the state of the debate. 

[3] Key recent contributions to the debate on its date and location include Alexander O’Hara, Jonas of Bobbio and the Legacy of Columbanus: Sanctity and Community in the Seventh Century (Oxford, 2018), esp pp 79 -83 and Albrecht Diem and Philip Rousseau, ‘Monastic Rules (Fourth to Ninth Century)’ in Beach and Cochelin (eds) The Cambridge History of Medieval Monasticism in the Latin West, volume 1 (Cambridge, 2020), pp 162 – 194, es pg 179.  An overlooked article that lends further weight to a mid-sixth century post-RB date is Michael Paulin Blecker, Roman Law and "Consilium" in the Regula Magistri and the Rule of St. Benedict", Speculum, Vol. 47, No. 1 (Jan., 1972), pp. 1-28. The most probable date ranges for it would appear to be between circa 538 (since it included as reference to Sexagesima, which most likely was introduced around that time) and 590 (since it, rather than Benedict’s Rule, was almost certainly a source for the Rule of Columbanus), but a mid-sixth century date or later seems most likely based on the terminology and canonical presumptions underlying in it.   

[4] For a recent discussion of the Office described in the Liber Diurnis (which is also attested to by complaints made about having to say it on the part of late sixth century Roman tituli priests) see Jean-Pierre Herman, 'The Roman Office from the sixth century to the Post Vatican II reform Continuity or rupture?',  academia.edu. The French original can be found at https://schola-sainte-cecile.com/2012/06/01/l%E2%80%99office-romain-du-vieme-siecle-a-nos-jours/ 

[5] Apart from the Compiège antiphoner (870), the six psalm version of second Vespers also appears in the contemporaneous (monastic) Prüm antiphoner, E-TC 44.1 (monastic, circa 1035); F-Pn Latin 1085 (monastic  c975-1000); I-CHV (secular, c11th; I-Far (secular, c11th) and while some manuscripts convert the sixth antiphon to a versicle or use it in other places, it continues to appear as a sixth antiphon for Triduum Vespers in some later Italian antiphoners.  For the discussion of whether this is a remantn of the earlier form of the Roman office see the discussion and references in Adalbert de Vögué, La Règle de Saint Benôit, Vol 5 (Paris, 1971), ppp 495-497. 

[6] Innocent I to Decentius bishop of Gubbio, 416, Lawrence J Johnson (trans) Worship in the Early Church An Anthology of Historical Sources, vol 3, (Collegeville, 2009), p101. 

[7] Michel Andrieu (ed), Les Ordines Romani du Haut Moyen Age vol 2 (Louvain, 1971, pp 463-4 (Ordo XII : 17…In duobus diebus [Friday and Saturday] nec prima, nec tercia, nec sexta, nec nona, nec vespera can[atur]. 

[8] Thomas Symons (trans), The Monastic Agreement of the Monks and Nuns of the English Nation Regularis Concordia, (Oxford, 1953), p 38. 

[9] James McKinnon, Preface to the Study of the Alleluia, Early Music History, Vol. 15 (1996), pp. 213-249. 

[10] It had been previously thought that the two reading cycles perhaps reflected the uses of St Peter’s and the Lateran respectively, however that view has been overturned by a more recent series of studies by Peter Jeffries and others, although there remain competing positions on the date of the reform of the cycle. For a recent discussion of the topic see Rosamond Mckitterick, The Homiliary of Agimund and its Implications for the Availability of Patristic Texts in Rome in the Early Middle Ages, Jnl of Ecclesiastical History, Vol. 75, No. 4, October 2024. 

To go 'Roman' or not: the Benedictine Office in the Triduum and Easter Octave part I

 (Responsory 3 for Holy Saturday Matins)

This week the Benedictine Office more or less reverts (more or less) to its usual Benedictine Eastertide form, after a brief dip into the Roman for the Triduum. 

 But why does it do that? 

 Why, for example, isn’t there a Benedictine version of the Triduum? 

 And why doesn’t the Benedictine Office continue to follow the Roman for the Octave, which is, after all, just as distinctive as that for the Triduum?

 This year, I decided to do a little digging into some of these questions, and this post (and the couple that will hopefully quickly follow!) are a rather belated look at the issue. 

The Roman Office in the Octave 

If you’ve been saying the Benedictine Office this week you will know, of course, that isn’t quite a return to normal business as yet – the Octave has its own distinctive features, such as lots of extra alleluias and the use of Lauds and Vespers of Easter Sunday throughout the week.  

Still, it is pretty much recognizably Benedictine again. 

That isn’t the case with the Roman Office, which most definitely does not conform to its normal pattern this week. 

Roman Matins in the Octave is particularly short – the opening prayer and invitatory returns, but the hour consists of only one Nocturn with three psalms (Psalms 1, 2 and 3 repeated each day), three readings and three responsories. 

And while the day hours restore some of the things dropped during the Triduum, such as the opening prayers for each hour and the use of doxologies, it doesn’t restore them all: there are still no hymns, chapters or responsories at the day hours for example. 

In addition, up until the thirteenth century, Easter Vespers in Rome was very different indeed, to the point it bore little or no resemblance to its normal form.  

So what is the history behind all of this? 

Just how old is the Triduum: towards reassessment? 

The liturgists have long argued that the Triduum was very ancient indeed: while there is no direct evidence for Tenebrae as such before the early eighth century, Baumstark and his followers argued that its archaic seeming features (such as the lack of introductory prayers, hymns, chapters, doxologies and so forth) are classic example of the ‘law’ that holds that the most ancient feasts tend to preserve ancient practices. 

As for so many of Baumstark’s claims, his ‘first law of liturgical development’ has been pretty thoroughly trashed since his time, challenged both on general methodological grounds, and undermined by concrete research findings (most particularly, somewhat ironically since it is in the ritual of this period that the law claimed to be based, that of Holy Week) that directly contradict it  [1]. 

Indeed, Miklós Földváry has recently suggested that the law should be reformulated to suggest that rather than the most solemn days of the year preserving ancient practice, they actually tend to attract the most innovation (a principle all too often demonstrated in the period after Vatican II!).  It follows that we should be wary of taking at face value what appear to be, or are even claimed to be, ancient practices. 

That’s not to suggest that at least some of the elements of these Offices do not have a long history: Földváry in fact goes on to argue that divergences from the normal pattern are suggestive of various stages in the development of a service, with archaisms sometimes surviving through a process of reinterpreting their meaning.  

As it turns out, more recent research has suggested that Tenebrae, and particularly its distinctive use of light and darkness, developed only fairly slowly, primarily between the sixth and eighth centuries; that its development was strongly influenced by the Gallican liturgy; and that one of its most distinctive features the extinguishing of a candle as each psalms is said, emerged only around 1200 [2]. 

Triduum and the Benedictines 

The history of Benedictine use of the Roman Office during the Triduum and Octave turns out to be much more complicated than earlier thought as well. 

Pierre Battifol, amongst others, for example, assuming Tenebrae was already ancient, found it difficult to explain why St Benedict doesn’t mention the Triduum in the Rule.  In the end, the early liturgists either simply asserted or assumed that the saint and his monks would have used the Roman form: Battifol’s English translator, Atwell Baylay even added a footnote to the History of the Roman Breviary saying: 

“It is remarkable that S. Benedict provided no offices of his own for the Triduum.  He adopted the Roman Offices unchanged – strikingly divergent as is their structure from that of his own offices. It seems to give ground for believing that the office of the Triduum – mattins and lauds, at all events – already existed in Rome in the sixth century in much the same state as now – AB.” [3]

 Although this claim continues to be repeated in even very recent books though, there is, alas, not a shred of hard evidence to support it. 

On the contrary, given that the design of the Roman Offices for the Triduum and Holy Week (as we known them) directly contradict several provisions of St Benedict’s Rule, his silence on the topic would seem more likely indicate he didn’t intend for his monks to follow the practice - if it really existed back then - than that he did. 

In a number of other liturgical matters after all - such as the structure of Matins for solemnities and saints’ feasts, the weekly pattern of fasts (he omitted the Roman Saturday fast), use of hymns and much more - St Benedict most certainly did not follow the Roman practices of his time. 

The Benedictines in Rome? 

Another suggestion has been that perhaps the Benedictines adopted the Roman Triduum when the monks took refuge in the Lateran after the destruction of Monte Cassino [4]. 

There are, as we shall see though, some reasons to doubt this, and the earliest evidence we have for any Benedictine use of the Roman Triduum dates from the late eighth century, with a letter that states that the monks of the newly refounded Monte Cassino had adopted the Roman Triduum – but not the Octave (amongst a number of other Romanizations of the Benedictine Office they followed) [5].  

But outside of Rome and its orbit, Benedictine monasteries (several of which had been established longer than the refounded Monte Cassino) may actually have been using a Benedictine version of Tenebrae.  [6]   

The Triduum and the Carolingians 

The issue apparently came to a head at the Council of Aachen in 816, which came down (to the dismay of some) on the side of the use of the secular version of the Office in the Triduum. 

Hildemar of Corbie’s Commentary on the Rule provides an interesting commentary on the debate, claiming that Louis the Pious had championed the use of the Benedictine Office during the Triduum, but that he and his supporters were overruled by the bishops:

 Nevertheless, it must be known that the Lord’s Supper and the Preparation [Good Friday] and Holy Saturday and Pascha [Easter] pertain to the solemnities of Christ. With regard to those four days it was defined in council that the Office should be chanted completely by the monks, in accordance with the Roman Church and not in accordance with the Rule. 

Yet there are more zealous monks who do not wish to act in accordance with the Roman tradition in those four days but to speak fully in accordance with the Rule because, if on other days we do not transgress the Rule in chanting Offices, we also do not want to transgress it in those four days… 

For the most pious Emperor Louis wished that monks should do the Office according to the Rule; but because the bishops said that it is not good that in those days they should be unlike the Roman Church in chanting the Offices, then there were some abbots who consented with the bishops. [7] 

The ultimate decision, according to Hildemar, was that Benedictines would say the Roman version during the Triduum, but return to the Benedictine Office for the Sunday (and Octave, as we do now): 

And although some did not agree, the bishops prevailed, so that only in those three days, i.e., Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, would they do the Roman Office, but the good abbots did not consent to act so upon the Lord’s Day. Instead they do the Office in accord with the Rule. 

Hildemar’s rationale for sticking with the Rule, aside from compliance with it, is particularly interesting: he cites the authority of a letter by St Gregory the Great reproduced by Bede on his Ecclesiastical History: 

For, as it seems to me, it is better that in those four days the Regular Office should be sung rather than the Roman because as St Gregory says, “There is no harm with regard to diverse customs in the Catholic faith and in good actions.” Nevertheless for this reason, i.e., with regard to those four days, there was a synod in Francia that monks should not do otherwise, i.e. not by the Rule, but they should act as does the Roman Church. 

The link to an English source may well be significant, since many of the first wave of Benedictine monasteries in the Empire had been founded by, or with the help of English missionary monks and nuns such as SS Boniface and Willibrord, thus perhaps hinting at the source of the diversity in practice Hildemar was pointing to.  

Indeed, it seems likely that the English Benedictines did not actually adopt the Roman Triduum until the tenth century, and even then, they seem to have done so with some reluctance: the Regularis Concordia also appealed to St Gregory’s authority to justify the change, this time, on the basis of his (supposed) antiphoner. [8]  But it also required all monks and nuns to recite the entire 150 psalms of the psalter after Prime each day perhaps in reparation! [9] 

The surviving English antiphoners from the Middle Ages also suggest considerable diversity in practices around the Triduum and Octave, such that the issue was really only resolved by the first post-Trent breviary [10]. 

But we are getting ahead of ourselves – in the next post, I want to go back to the beginning of the story, which may actually be a time when the Roman Office may not have been said at all on these days. 

Notes 

[1] Miklós István Földváry, Usuarium A Guide to the Study of Latin Liturgical Uses in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period, Vols I–II (Budapest, 2023), pp 201-2. 

[2] A J MacGregor, Fire and Light in the Western Triduum their use at Tenebrae and at the Paschal Vigil, (Collegeville, 1992). 

[3] Pierre Battifol, trans Atwell Baylay, History of the Roman Breviary, second ed (London, 1912), note 3 pg 92.  The original version was L'Histoire du Bréviaire Romain (Paris, 1893). 

[4] See for example H B L Tolhurst (ed), Introduction to the English Monastic Breviaries, (Bury St Edmunds, 1942), pp 206. 

[5] Theodemar, Epistola ad Theodoricum gloriosum, c12, ed J Winandy and K Hillinger, Initia consuttudines Benedictinae, CCM 1, pp 132. 

[6] There are at least some possible traces of a Benedictine form of the Triduum in some of the early antiphoners, including some manuscripts that preserve a full twelve responsories for Maundy Thursday, and I’ll look at this later in the series. 

[7] (And subsequent quotes): Commentary on the Rule, Chapter 14, trans Zachary Guiliano for The Hildemar Project, (with thanks to Albrecht Diem). 

[8] Jesse Billett, ‘The liturgy of the ‘Roman’ Office in England from the Conversion to the Conquest’ in Claudia Bolgia et al, (eds) Rome across Time and Space Cultural transmission and the Exchange of Ideas, c500 – 1400 (Cambridge, 2011), p105. 

[9] Thomas Symons (trans), The Monastic Agreement of the Monks and Nuns of the English Nation Regularis Concordia, (Oxford, 1953), p 38. 

[10] Tolhurst, Introduction to the English Monastic Breviaries, pp 206 -226.

 

 

 

 

 

Are the 1962 books traditional Part II - About that 50s Office

 In my last post I pointed to the large areas of continuity between the 1962-3 books, and the long tradition in which they are rooted, most particularly, in the case of the Benedictine Office, the Benedictine Rule itself.

So why is it that some are arguing the 1962/3 books are untraditional?

The answer is that there were a lot of changes made to the rubrics and calendar of the Office in late 1950s and early 1960s.

Against change?

Some, it seems, would reject any changes to the 1954 books at all, claiming that the legislator and/or some of those involved in producing it, were acting from ill-intent, or from a theological perspective they personally do not agree with. 

Liturgical law

As Catholics though, it is not actually our personal judgments that should rule on matters of Church legislation, save in very exceptional circumstances.  And in the case of the 1962 books, it is hard to see how such special circumstances can be claimed to exist given their endorsement by a previous generation of leaders of the traditionalist movement.

More fundamentally though, any piece of law is almost invariably the product of many hands and many steps in a process.  And as for for any law, we should surely look at it on its actual merits, not on the basis of the often baseless claims about its origins or purpose.

Change and the liturgy

Some object to the idea of making lots of changes to the liturgy on general principles, arguing that liturgy should be largely unchanging.

But history is, in my view, not on their side.  The 1911 changes to the Roman Office after all, were very major indeed.  And while the post-Trent books for the Roman Office may have largely reflected late medieval Roman practice, they represented very major changes for many places outside of Rome that were either required (because their earlier rites were suppressed), or were pressured, or chose to adopt them in to show solidarity with Rome in the face of the protestant attack on the Church. 

And if we go back further, we can similarly see major rounds of fundamental changes to the liturgy indeed.  Consider for example the suppression of the rites of the various Roman churches in favour of that of the papal court; the suppression of the Mozarabic, Gallican and Celtic rites; and many more such examples.

Which changes?

Others though, it seems, are prepared to consider at least some changes to the earlier books.  

The 1954 books, after all, contain several core elements - such as the Urban VIII hymns, promulgated in 1631; the 1911 psalm cursus; the 1945 Pian psalter for example - that many rightly in my view regard as seriously problematic.

The issue then, for this sub-group at least, is just how much change, and the merits of the particular changes.

1960 rubrics and calendar

And in this regard, when it comes to the Benedictine Office, it is important to keep in mind, I think, that none of the changes made in the late 1950s or early 1960s are in any way inconsistent with the Rule's provisions.

 Indeed, many were aimed at restoring the priority of the ferial psalm cursus that St Benedict himself set out in the Rule, but that had more often then not displaced by feasts, octaves and other later additions to the Office, and at restoring the priority of the Scriptural reading cycle that St Benedict envisaged.

Others aimed at removing some of the accretions that had crept into the Office; and at reducing the level of complexity that had built up in the rubrics.

Now those who have been regular readers of my blogs will know that I am certainly not a fan of all of the changes made.  

Nonetheless, I actually do agree with the basic objectives of many of the reforms.

Some of the changes clearly went too far, or were done in a very clumsy, arbitrary or outright misguided way.  In other cases, the choice of mechanism to achieve the objective was perhaps not the best possible option.

The key question though, is how we deal with these issues now.

1962+?

The course we had been on prior to Traditionis Custodes was to obtain permissions to modify those elements of the 1962 books that are problematic on an optional basis.

It is frustrating of course to have to wait for sanity to return, and processes to be worked through before further changes can be proposed, but should we not be making the most of the existing permissions already given, while praying and working for a return to this path rather than rejecting it altogether?  

Yet some seem to regard with suspicion, for example, the provisions of Cum Sanctissima because it was promulgated under Pope Francis despite the fact that it actually permits the celebration of feasts removed from the 1960 calendar, one of their chief complaints about the 1962 books. 

Another key plank of the Restore the 54 agenda relates to the pre 1955 version of Holy Week.  But widespread indults have already been granted for this. 

And other changes, such as the restoration of some octaves had similarly been flagged as possible future steps.

There is obviously more that can be done in this direction, and doing the work now ready for a day when action might be possible seems to me the more constructive approach than simply rejecting papal authority altogether, or attempting to subvert it.

Assessing the merits of reforms

So how do we assess the merits or otherwise of these and other previous changes that arguably require reconsideration?

In recent debates, several different criteria have either explicitly or implicitly been suggested to assess the legitimacy and/or extent to which something conforms to tradition, let me list out what I think are the main ones: 

(1)    Who made the changes – anything promulgated by Pope X/claimed as theirs by y should be rejected regardless of content.

(2)    Length and complexity – a more arduous form of the Office cannot be supplanted by a shorter/simpler version.

(3)    Volume of changes – lots of changes made at once can never be justified as liturgy essentially does not inherently change much.

(4)    Antiquity – if something is an ancient feast or feature of the Office and has continued to be used, it cannot be removed from the calendar or abolished.

(5)    Consistency with middle/late medieval practice – if it was codified in a late medieval missal/breviary, or otherwise documented for that period, then it is a legitimate addition to the post Trent books and must be kept.

(6)    Organic development – if it can be seen as unfolding naturally from earlier practice, bottom up’ changes, then it is a legitimate change.

(7)    The merits of the changes and their impact of changes on the fervour or otherwise of the faithful – do they make ‘the garden’ flourish or not?

(8)    Ressourcement, respect for the unfolding patrimony – liturgy needs to be renewed by going back to both the original and subsequent sources for it, as well as adapted where necessary to reflect the needs of the times.

 None of these, in my view, generate clear an unequivocal answers in and of themselves. 

I'm not going to go through all of these, but I do want to focus on a few that have been advocated for recently.

Antiquity and length: the case of the Octave of All Saints

One recent suggestion, for example, has been that we should privilege longer forms of the Office over shorter ones, and older things over newer.

But do these two tests stand up to scrutiny?

Take the case of a Benedictine monk in a post over at New Liturgical Movement for example, reproduced in a recent book, who uses the example of saying the Octave of All Saints (presumably from the 1953 Monastic Breviary) to make his case, appealing to the greater length of the older Offices, and the antiquity of the Octave.

He starts by making the comparison in the number of psalms said between the 1963 Office and earlier and the Novus Ordo, which is fair enough.  

But when it comes to justifying use of the 1953 books over the 1963,  the All Saints Octave, as far as I can see, is a spectacularly bad example to choose.

Antiquity

First, while some point to antiquity as a possible justification for saying older feasts, this particular octave is not an especially ancient octave at all relatively speaking - while the feast of  All Saints dates back to at least the eighth century, the Octave itself was added to the universal calendar by Pope Sixtus IV only in the 1480s.

Secondly, in the Benedictine version of the hour, the Octave altogether displaces the far more ancient Scriptural cycle of readings that would otherwise have been said.

Length

Moreover, the Benedictine version of the Octave day as it was said before 1963 is not, as far as I can see, actually longer than the ferial day in the 1963 books at all. 

The table below uses the example of the Matins as it would have been said on November 5 last year to illustrate the point - it is indicative only, and there is obviously some variation in the length of the patristic and Scriptural readings each day, but the differences are minor.

I've focused on Matins as it is the hour most affected by the Octave day in the Benedictine Office (as for feasts generally, since at the other hours mostly substitute one text for another, whereas at Matins, some additional texts can be added). 

In the 1953 (and earlier versions of the monastic breviary including pre 1911), the Octave is not actually a three Nocturn Office.  Instead it just has two Nocturns with the ferial psalms.  The main change for the Octave is the use of three patristic readings said instead of the ferial Scriptural readings of the day.

The table shows the number of verses of psalms said at the hour (as arranged liturgically, and including doxologies), as well as the number of sentences in the readings. 

The number of psalm verses said was unchanged between 1962 and earlier breviaries; the difference rests in the readings, which are actually generally slightly shorter for the Octave day compared to the ferial Scriptural readings.

Matins on November 5, 2025

	Benedictine 1901, 1930, 1953 (within Octave of All Saints)	Benedictine 1962 (ferial)
Nocturn I verses	102	102
Nocturn II verses	135	135
TOTAL	237	237
Readings Verses/sentences [words]	8 (205)	13 (232)

Now there is of course a pragmatic reason for the Benedictine reading pattern in this case - in the Benedictine Office, Matins with three Nocturns, even if shorter festal psalms are used, is generally significantly longer than the ferial Office (particularly if sung) since it has twelve psalms, readings and responsories (not the Roman nine or the normal weekday three); an extra Nocturn of canticles; the Te Deum; a Gospel; and Te decet laus.

In the Benedictine context then, a key issue that lies behind the abolition of most octaves is about the relative priority of the ancient Scriptural reading cycle over Patristic readings, an issue I want to come back to in due course.

The Roman Office

But even if one assumes that our Benedictine monk is, for some reason, saying the Roman Office from the 1954 breviary, he would have been using a structure of the Octave day had been in place less than 45 years when it was abolished.

The table below illustrates the impact of the Octave day in the Roman Office.

It illustrates, firstly one of the reasons why feasts and octave days were so popular with priests before the 1911 reform of the Roman psalter: the octave day is almost half the length of the ferial psalmody it replaced.

It also, perhaps, goes to one of the reasons for the abolition of octave days: the 1953 version of the Octave day was actually longer than the pre-1911 version by dint of as it using the ferial psalter of the day, rather than (as was the case before 1911) the psalms of the feast, during the Octave. 

By way of comparison, the pre-1911 octave day and the 1962 ferial offices are actually more or less the same length, but the Octave day is longer.

Matins for 5 November 2025

	1910 ferial Wednesday	1910 Roman (of the octave) – verses as for liturgical use including doxologies	1953	1962 Roman (ferial)
Nocturn I	217	32	39	136
Nocturn II		37	40	-
Nocturn III		49	57	-
TOTAL PSALMODY	217	118	136	136
Readings (verse equivs)	13	35	35	13
TOTAL	230	153	171	149

So when it comes to length at least, there is nothing particularly ‘anti-traditional’ about the reduction in length between the 1953 and 1962 versions of the Roman Office: the 1962 version is arguably more of a restoration!

Length as a criterion for what can and can't be changed in the Office

Now it may of course be that there are better examples our monk could have picked that actually do make his case.

But the fact that one form of the Office or particular day or feast is longer or shorter does not, in and of itself, seem to me to be a sufficient criterion given several precedents to the contrary.

The Cluniacs, for example, were strongly criticised in their day (and even unto the present time) for their extremely long Offices.

But equally, at the other extreme, back in the seventh century Pope Honorius I (625-638), according to the Liber Pontificalis, ordered 'the monks' to stop saying their normal Office of twelve psalms during the Easter and Pentecost Octaves, and instead say the Roman three psalm version during the octave, as the people were displeased at its length.  

Moreover, while length is relative, those praying the Benedictine Office at least should also be mindful of St Benedict's injunctions to pray frequently and fervently rather than at great length (RB 4, 20). 

Is there a way forward?

So how can we assess both the objectives of the changes made in the 1962/3 books and their execution, and develop a list of priorities for further restorations or revisions to the books?

More on that, with a look at some of the particular contested changes, in the next post in the series.