Breviary
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A breviary (from Latin brevis, 'short' or 'concise') is a liturgical book containing the public or canonical prayers, hymns, the Psalms, readings, and notations for everyday use, especially for priests, in the Divine Office (i.e., at the canonical hours or Liturgy of the Hours, the Christians' daily prayer). A breviary of such convenient size that it could be carried on the person is called a portuary (portas in plural).
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[edit] History
Before the rise of the mendicant orders (wandering friars) in the thirteenth century, the daily services were usually contained in a number of large volumes. The first occurrence of a single manuscript of the daily office was written by the Benedictine order at Monte Cassino in Italy in 1099. By a strange twist, the Benedictines were not a mendicant order, but a stable, monastery-based order, and single-volume breviaries are rare from this early period.
However, mendicant friars travelled around a lot and needed a shortened, or abbreviated, daily office contained in one portable book, and single-volume breviaries flourished from the thirteenth century onwards.
These abbreviated volumes soon became very popular and eventually supplanted the Roman Catholic Church's Curia office, previously said by non-monastic clergy.
Before the advent of printing, breviaries were written by hand and were often richly decorated with initials and miniature illustrations telling stories in the lives of Christ or the saints, or stories from the Bible.
Later printed breviaries usually have woodcut illustrations, interesting in their own right but the poor relation of the beautifully illuminated breviaries.
The word breviary can also refer to an abridged version of any text, a brief account or a summary of some subject.
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[edit] References
- The Anglican Breviary: The Divine Office, in Jacobean English, ie. The Roman Breviary according to the Language and Psalter of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, with excerpts from the 1611 Authorised Version of the Holy Scriptures.
- The breviary information server: Web site dedicated to breviaries, and particularly to making the most of the Church of England's daily office; includes a link to the office online
- Kellerbook.com: Information about the history of some Christian breviaries and psalters
- Universalis Online Breviary
- Liturgy of the Hours by eBreviary (A5 size booklet arrangement for those requiring print-outs, whether for individual Hours or all the Hours of a day combined)
- Latin-English Catholic Roman Breviary 1911 ed.
- Official Catholic editions of the Latin Rite breviary in American English
- Liturgy of the Carthusian Order of the Catholic Church
- Benedictine Divine Office
- ISBN 0-00-599504-3: abbreviated Catholic Divine Office, approved for use in Commonwealth countries
- Polish version of the Divine Office text incl. latin text for maior holidays.
