BREVIARY (Lat. brcriarium, abridgment, ahstract, from brevis, brief, short). The hook. among Roman Catholics, which contains what is called the 'divine office.' or the service for the canonical honrs. From very early Christian times, the regular recitation of the Psalms of David formed a large part of the public and vate devotion; it was developed in the West by the monks, whose life included frequent meeting for prayer, and still forms the groundwork or nucleus of these offices. Around it grew up a whole system of hymns, prayers, antiphons responses, and readings from Holy ture, which forms a very varied and complicated servke. Before the Sixteenth Century there was an infinite number of local uses. nearly every cese having its own breviary. The most ancient and liturgically important of the non-Roman breviaries are the "Alozarabic, once general throughout Spain, and the Ambrosial', tradi tional in Milan from the days of Saint Ambrose. Pope Pius V. abolished all that could not show an antiquity of two hundred years; and at the present day the Roman breviary is almost uni versally used, with the exception of some slight calendar variations among the religious or ders. It was systematized by Gregory VII. (1073-85), received its practically final form under Pius V. in 1568, with subsequent revision in detail by Clement VIII. (1602) and Urban VIII. (1634), and additions of new offices and feasts by all the later popes. The great number of new saints' days has rendered the ordinary ferial or week-day office very uncommon; and Leo XIII., in 1883, permitted the substitution for it. on days when it would naturally occur, of a 'votive' or voluntary office of a festival character, differing according to the days of the week. There is a tendency in favor of shortening the office, whose recitation, even in private, occupies at least an hour and a half every day. So compli cated has the system become that. a sort of annual almanac, called Ordo Recitandi Officii, is published in many countries, contain ing minute directions as to what is to be read. The need of simplification led Cardinal Quignon or Quinones, a Spaniard, to publish a reformed breviary in 1535, which, while it was never wide ly used, gave the English reformers a number of hints for their simplified and condensed prayer book (q.v.).
The canonical hours are seven: Matins and lauds (forming practically one service), prime, terse, sext, none, vespers, and compline. Matins was supposed to be, and is in monasteries, sung in the night; the other offices are called the day hours, and are published in separate form, for convenience, under the title Flora; Diurnw. Lauds
and vespers are the most important of these services, containing the 'evangelieal canticles' the Benedictus at lauds and the Magnificat at vespers), and being sung with more ritual solem nity. The names prime. terse, sext, and noses refer to the times at which they were originally recited—the first, third, sixth, and ninth hours of the day. Compline (completorium, the com pletion of the cycle) was recited at bed-time. Those who recite them privately, however, do so at any convenient time, and frequently join two or more offices together. The daily recitation of the breviary is strictly obligatory on all clerics and all 'choir' members of religious orders (as distinguished from lay brothers or sisters). The use of the breviary as a book of private devotion by laymen has become rare since the multiplica tion of devotional works of different kinds, but at present shows some tendency to increase; and it has always been a eommon custom to sing vespers or compline, at least on Sundays, in parochial churches.
The contents of the breviary, after the general rubrics. tables, calendar, etc., fall into five parts: (I) The Psalter, or original arrangement of the Psalms and prayers for the days of the week. (2) The Proper of the Season, contain ing the service for Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, and the seasons dependent on them. (3) The Proper of Saints, for the numerous special feasts which recur on a fixed anniversary. (4) The Common of Saints, parts of the service which belong to classes of saints, as apostles. martyrs, confessors, etc. (5) Several minor services, in cluding the office of the dead and the little office of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The breviary as a whole forms a marvelous storehouse of powerful and tender religious thought; and as by far the largest part of its contents is in the language of Scripture, it is invested with much grandeur and vitality, while the lessons from the fathers and the lives of the saints read at matins con tain a mass of scriptural, historical, and theo logical knowledge. Consult: The Boman Bre viary (a complete English translation by John, third Marquis of Bute, 2 vols., London, 1879) ; Batiffol, llistoirc du bri'viaire romain (Paris, 1893) ; Pleitner, deltcste Gcschichte des Brevicr gcbcfs (Kempter, 1387) : Blliner, Gesell ich te des Brcviers (Freiburg, 1895). For a scholarly modern edition of (,uignon's breviary, consult Legg (Cambridge, 1888).