BREVIARY. By this title we are to understand an abbreviation, as well as an amended arrangement of the more ancient offices used at the seven canonical hours, which are matins, prime, tierce, seat, nones, vespers, and compline. See C.tsoNicAh Bonus. The books in which these offices were contained were formerly distinct—viz.: 1. The Psalter, which included the Psalms of David according to St. Jerome's Galbian version, the Te Deum, the Athanasian creed, etc.; 2. The Bible; 3. The Antiplionarium, containing the anthems and responsories; 4. The Hymnarium; 5. The Colleetarium, or the collects to be said at the end of the services; 6. The Homilart'um, Passionarium, and .
liartyrologi um, containing the comments of the fathers upon the gospel of the day, and accounts of the martyrdoms of the saints for each distinct festival. Out of all these sep arate books, the 13. was compiled, about the llth c., by pope Gregory VII., as is sup posed; the lessons, anthems, hymns, and responsories for the different days of the year being all arranged, in their proper places, in the same volume with the psalter, prayers, etc. In later times, the B. was divided into two parts, one for each half of the year, as was the case with those of Salisbury, York, and Ilereford, used 111 England; and afterwards into four parts, so as to be more portable, whence it was also called Porti fori um. It may perhaps be necessary to inform our Protestant readers that the B. is an entirely distinct book from the Missal (q.v.), the latter containing the proper offices for the service of the sacrifice of the mass.
The last settlement of the 13. was under the pontificate of Pius V., and his bull of 1563 was that by which the present daily office of the Roman church is authorized. This edition was compiled by the college of sacred rites at Rollie, in conformity with the decrees of the council of Trent, because of the variety of uses, as they were called, which at that time existed in different dioceses. The bull of Pius V. abolished the use of all breviaries, except such as could prove a prescription of 200 years. This exception would have extended to the breviaries of Salisbury and York, if the church of England had not already thrown off Rome's supremacy, and compiled a new book of common prayer for herself. After this, iu 1602, Clement VIII. had a standard edition printed at the Vatican, to which all future editions were to conform; and again, in 1631, Urban VIII. caused the meters of the hymns and the Latinity of the whole to be carefully revised.
It is perhaps hardly necessary to state that the B. is in Latin, portions of it beiug sometimes translated for the use of the unlearned. Itis necessarily a very bulky volume, when com plete; and although some of the legends of the saints and martyrs may be of doubtful authenticity, yet it is a mine of interesting and devotional reading. Its general contents may be judged of from what has been already stated as to the sources from which they were drawn, every saint in the calendar having his proper services for the different canonical hours. The festivals of the Roman church have their services, according to their importance, duplex, semi-duplex, or simplex—i.e., double, semi-double, or simple; these, again, are further distinguished, so that there are no less than 0 classes of services —the Feria] or ordinary weekday, the simple, the day with an octave, the semi-double, the dominical or Sunday, the double, greater double, double of the second class, double of the first class. Indeed, so elaborate and perplexing are the rubrical directions, that it is impossible to form any idea of them without consulting the B. itself, and there arc probably but few of the priests who are thoroughly conversant with their own ritual.
The 13. contains, besides an office for the dead and other smaller offices, three kinds of office in honor of the blessed Virgin Mary—viz. : 1. The full office, said on such festi vals as the Purification, Annunciation, Immaculate Conception, Assumption, etc.; 2. the office of the Virgin Mary on Saturdays; 3. What is called the " little office," or the hours of the Virgin. This last was in use as early as the 7c., and was enjoined by the council of Claremont, 1090, to be said by the clergy daily, and by the laity on Saturdays, but the bull of Pius V. removed this obligation except as to clergy in choirs. The Roman church enjoins, under pain of excommunication, all " religious" persons—i.e., all per sons, male or female, who have taken vows in any religious order—to repeat, either in public or private, the services of the canonical hours as contained in the breviary. For the influence of the old breviaries on the English common prayer-book (q.v.), consult Palnier's Antiquities of the English Ritual, and The matins or morning-prayer of the English prayer-book is an abridgment, with many omissions and additions, of the matins, lauds, and prime of the B., whilst the office of even-song, or evening-prayer, is in like manner an abridgment of the ancient vespers and compline.