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 n 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.

Is the 1962/3 Office 'traditional'? Part I - Terms of the debate

Over the next few weeks I want to share some important new insights from recent research, as well as some of my own work, that I think throws new light on some contested issues around the history of the Office.  

In this, I want to particularly draw on the evidence of the oldest antiphoner for the Benedictine Office, which dates from the ninth century, and which has only very recently become accessible to researchers.

Are the 1962 books 'traditional?!

Before I do that though, prompted by what seems like round 500 of an ongoing debate in other places, I've decided to put out now some material I've been pondering for a while over, that perhaps serves to help translate some findings that have thus far largely been discussed in a purely academic context, into debates on the current practices of the Divine Office.

In what follows, I'm going to focus primarily on the Benedictine Office, but I'll try and draw out the implications for the Roman books as well.

Before we move back a millennia and more though, I want to take brief look at the increasingly loud campaign that claims that the 1962/3 Office books and Mass are not actually traditional, and are irredeemably bad news.

Instead, the 'restore the 54' crowd would have us ditch the currently approved Office books, such as the 1963 Benedictine breviary, altogether, in favour of those for the 1950s, or depending on which particular sub-group you subscribe to, some earlier date.

Some of the claims made around this topic seem to be causing considerable confusion amongst many well-intentioned people, and so I think, are worth scrutinising.

Shadow-boxing

Some of the recent agitation, I think, has been incited by Traditiones Custodes, and the  understandable fear that its supporters will ultimately win the day altogether, and succeed in officially banning the older forms of the liturgy altogether.  Unsurprisingly then, many are looking for ways to legitimately narrow the scope of papal authority in this area, and using the 1962 books as a test platform for this.

In other cases the overreach involved in the arguments made in support of the reforms made after Vatican II seem to have provoked an overreaction in the opposite direction: instead of everything in the liturgy being 'adapted to the times', as some spirit of Vatican IIists would like, some are now arguing that nothing at all can ever be changed, for example.

In some cases, I suspect, what we are seeing is just human nature playing out. Some, for example, seem to suffer from 'complexity bias', the belief that the more complex you make something, the better it is.

Others seem to have fallen victim to that syndrome whereby when a resistance or reform group's patience is tried sorely for long enough, the temptation is to forget about the real war, and turn on each other instead, claiming that only the pure can bring about victory.  

Legitimate debate vs liturgical abuse

Regardless of the root causes of this push though, I think it is important to note that the Church has long made distinctions between legitimate debate, which is what I hope we can have here; legitimate resistance to institutional overreach (a good example of which is the longstanding push to force Benedictine monasteries abandon the provisions of the Rule relating to the Office); special, usually emergency situations that sometimes justify disobedience; and outright rejection of the Church's law and authority.

The Code of Canon Law makes it clear for example that it is perfectly legitimate for laypeople to debate questions such as whether there are flaws in the 1962 books, and whether they should therefore be amended, or even replaced by something else altogether; or to debate questions of what the limits of papal authority in relation to the liturgy might be. provided one has sufficient expertise to do so.

And though anyone who says the Office may be able to follow many of these debates, contributing to some of them often requires some degree of genuine expertise and training, as they involve complex questions of canon law, theology, history, musicology and/or liturgy. 

I'm not a great believer in credentialism as such (never forget those liturgists who disparaged Pope Benedict XVIs credentials in this area!), preferring to judge things on their merits.  But at least one recent book in my view, seems to me to fail even the most basic requirements in this regard.

The book, (whose name I will withhold for the moment), is written by an anonymous married layperson who claims no theological or canon law qualifications whatsoever; presents a set of convoluted arguments he has dreamed up that are directly at odds with the clear consensus of canonists who are prepared to go on record as well as by dubia responses; and on the basis of this, urges individual priests to set about implementing what amounts to outright liturgical abuse. 

I do plan on coming back to some of the arguments included in the book by various author as well as the main text itself, but in the meantime I would direct those advocating for it to the following posts by actual canonists:

• When does a custom have the force of law?
• What does it mean to abrogate or derogate from a law?
• Does a priest have obligation to say the Office under pain of mortal sin (1)?
• Does a priest have an obligation to say the Office under pain of mortal sin (2)

I would also recommend the clear treatment of the requirement to use the currently approved books in Beale's standard commentary on the Code. 

Obedience is a virtue

More fundamentally, what is not within the scope of legitimate debate, in my view, is to then act unilaterally to implement our personal theories.

It needs to be kept in mind, I think, that liturgy is ultimately something we receive, not decide on for ourselves: there is surely something to the old adage of 'say the black do the red' for example.

It is one thing, for example, to select an option from those officially approved; quite another to reject the officially approved books altogether without very strong reasons indeed. 

Priests and religious have more serious obligations in this regard, but even for laypeople who can arguably do whatever provided they choose to stick to purely devotional prayer, the Catholic, and particularly the Benedictine mindset, I think, should surely be to strive for obedience wherever possible, not look for ways to avoid it.

There are, of course, times when resistance or outright rejection of laws and particular liturgies is indeed warranted.

And there are also nuances in what constitutes legitimate variation, and who has the authority to authorise particular things.

But if an older book has been outright suppressed, as all of the Office books prior to the 1963 breviary have been; and if the traditional institutes and monasteries have long used the 1962 books, it is hard for me at least to see how refusing to accept them can be justified as an 'emergency'.  

Nor is it an argument in my view that 'everyone else is doing it' when it comes to liturgical 'innovation': we are all called, after all, to be saints, not join the throng going the other way!

Yet every day, it seems, a new book or blog post drops claiming that the forms of the Mass and Office accepted after due consideration by the original leaders of the traditionalist movement and their successors, and used now for many years should be rejected, or that this or that particular element of the Office and Mass cannot be changed by mere papal legislation (despite a very long history indeed of Popes doing just that).

Singing the Office in 525 and 2025…

Let me conclude this opening post by seeking to put the debate over the 1962 books in a longer perspective.

Part of the problem, I think, is that the debate has largely focused on the Roman books, whose place in tradition is rather harder to pin down than the Benedictine.

In these weeks after the Epiphany, for example, using the 1963 breviary (or the other books used for it, such as the Antiphonale of 1934, and the Monastic Diurnal) we are saying the same hours, with the same components that make up them, in the same order, as St Benedict laid out in his Rule dating from circa 510-30 AD. 

The contents of the Roman Office, it is true, were not documented until much later, and are ordered somewhat differently.  Some, such as hymns were added even later still. But it is clear the core elements of the Roman office too have ancient roots.

In the 1963 Office we are also saying exactly the same psalms and ferial canticles that St Benedict specified should be said at each hour of each day.  

When it comes to the psalms, it should be noted, the 1962 Roman Office, which has always had a somewhat different psalm ordering to the Benedictine, is in a slightly different situation - its ancient psalm cursus, which almost certainly dates back to at least the late sixth century, was suppressed in 1911.  Even so, it still follows the same basic principle of saying all of the psalms each week.

In the Benedictine Office too, we are singing ancient hymns that mostly date from the fourth to seventh centuries in their original form, with later additions for some feasts and saints.  And we have been spared the neo-classicised versions imposed on the Roman Office by Pope Urban VIII in 1632 that left barely a single line of these ancient gems intact. 

At Matins, we are reading the same books of the Bible that are laid out in an early to mid-eighth century reform of the ferial Matins reading cycle, with many of the same responsories that are recorded as being in use some 1100 years or more ago. 

So how can all this be ‘untraditional’? 

There seem to be two main camps (with some overlap between them) in this argument.

The first camp defends its position largely on the basis of changes to the 1962 books that unwind some high to late medieval practices, drawing primarily (and somewhat ironically in my view), on the liturgical scholarship of the twentieth century.  That scholarship, just as for the Mass, sought to find the elusive holy grail of the original, pure Roman Office, and claimed to find it in a set of manuscripts that mostly date from the twelfth century onwards. Recent scholarship though, has severely challenged or outright overturned many of those conclusions.

The second camp is rather more focused on recent history, and aimed at 'restoring the 54' in particular because, it seems, inter alia, they reject the views of the assorted popes (and/or those associated with them) who promulgated assorted liturgical 'reforms' from the late 1950s onwards.  But we should judge reforms on their merits in my view, and not on such arbitrary criteria.

But more on all this anon.