Changes in the arrnangement of the Responsories in the Tridentine Breviary - A guest article by Thomas O'Sullivan - Part 1

The aim of this article is to describe the development in the arrangement of the Mattins responsories in the Roman Breviary between the reforms of St Pius V and Clement VIII and to occasionally offer some suggestions that may explain those changes. In highlighting these differences and providing explanations for some of them, I am not trying to make an argument for the superiority of one of these breviaries over the other (and certainly not supporting any further reforms).

First it is important to note that, although the focus of this article is on the changes made to the responsories, there is a very high degree of consistency in their arrangement across various editions. Of the 626 responsories for the Office in the 1570 breviary (there is one further responsory, Subvenite included in the Ordo Commendationis Animæ at the back of the breviary), all save two were preserved through the reforms of Clement VIII and Urban VIII, albeit with a few, usually minor, textual variations. (For this count, responsories that differ only in minor ways were counted as one: so, for example, the responsories for the Nativity, Conception and Visitation of Our Lady are counted as the same because the texts are identical except for changing the name of the feast, for example, Nativitas to Visitatio; and three appointed for St Mary Magdalen are counted as the same as three from Paschaltide, because they are identical except for the omission of the alleluias.) One of these responsories is not found in the 1568 breviary, namely Si enim non abiero, the eighth for the Sunday within the Octave of the Ascension (also used on the Friday after the Octave and the Vigil of Pentecost). It is the only addition to the 1568 corpus of responsories that I have found until Clement VIII.

The reason I used the 1570 breviary to calculate the number of responsories in the Tridentine Breviary is because of some surprising variations in the two editions from 1568 that I examined. One of these, a facsimile reprint from the Vatican press, lacks eleven of the responsories found in all other editions: these are ferial responsories used during Septuagesima or Lent and two for the feasts of St Peter’s Chair. Another edition, digilatized by Google Books, includes these missing texts and in fact contains all the responsories found in the 1570 edition, except for Si enim non abiero. Another significant difference is that the Vatican reprint has three responsories that are not in any of the other editions I examined, including the other from 1568. These are Misericordiam, Domine exaudi and Velociter, assigned for Saturdays in the time after Epiphany. The other breviaries examined, up until 1610, give no alternatives. Obviously, usually a Saturday without a feast would use responsories for Our Lady, but if one of the Sundays after Epiphany is anticipated, they would be needed (except for the anticipated Second Sunday, when one would use the responsories of the first nocturn of the Sunday, which would not otherwise be used that year). A breviary from 1646 gives the responsories from Wednesday in this case, as do later editions from 1888 and 1906. Thus Saturday is the only day in that season without proper responsories. The 1909 Dominican Breviary gives three texts very similar to those of the 1568 for these Saturdays, but they didn’t find their way back into the Roman Breviary until the reform under St Pius X (albeit with some textual variations).

The two responsories that were lost from the 1570 corpus under Clement VIII are both from the Common of Saints. In the Common of a Confessor not a Bishop, the fourth responsory was originally:

 Iste est, qui ante Deum magnas virtutes operatus est, et omnis terra doctrina eius repleta est. Ipse intercedat pro peccatis omnium populorum. V. Iste est qui contempsit vitam mundi, et pervenit ad cælestia regna. Ipse intercedat pro peccatis omnium populorum.

This was changed to:

Honestum fecit illum Dominus, et custodivit eum ab inimicis, et a seductoribus tutavit illum: Et dedit illi claritatem æternam. V. Justum deduxit Dominus per vias rectas, et ostendit illi regnum Dei. Et dedit illi claritatem æternam.

The original seventh read:

Iste homo ab adolescentia sua meruit infirmos curare, Dedit illi Dominus claritatem magnam, cæcos illuminare, et dæmones effugare. V. Ecce homo sine querela, verus Dei cultor, abstinens se ab omni opere malo, et permanens in innocentia sua. Dedit illi Dominus claritatem magnam, cæcos illuminare, et dæmones effugare.

This was altered to: Iste est qui ante Deum magnas virtutes operatus est, et de omni corde suo laudavit Dominum: Ipse intercedat pro peccatis omnium populorum. V. Ecce homo sine querela, verus, Dei cultor, abstinens se ab omni opere malo, et permanens in innocentia sua. Ipse intercedat pro peccatis omnium populorum.

The former of these was not completely lost to the breviary though, since it was, and remained, the sixth responsory for Confessor Bishops. Also, the first part of Honestum is not a new composition, but is taken from the Common of One Martyr (the fourth in that Common), and the first part the new Iste est is very similar to the original fourth, while the verse is the same as in the responsory it replaced.

The second lost responsory is from the Common of Non Virgins. The former seventh responsory was:

Pulchra facie, sed pulchrior fide beata es N. respuens mundum lætaberis cum angelis, Intercede pro omnibus nobis. V. Specie tua, et pulchritudine tua, intende prospere, procede, et regna. Intercede pro omnibus nobis.

It was replaced with:

Os suum aperuit sapientiæ, et lex clementiæ in lingua eius: consideravit semitas domus suæ, Et panem otiosa non comedit. V. Gustavit et vidit quia bona est negotiatio eius: non extinguetur in nocte lucerna eius. Et panem otiosa non comedit.

As Honestum is taken from the Book of Wisdom (x, 12, 14, 10) and Os suum from Proverbs (xxxi, 26–27, 18), perhaps this indicates a preference for Scriptural texts, although Iste est is not purely Scriptural (part of it is taken from Ecclesiasticus xlvii, 10).

One further change was made to the Commons: that of Doctors gained a proper responsory. Whereas previously, all the responsories from the Common of a Confessor (Bishop or not depending on the Doctor) were used, the eighth responsory was now to be In medio ecclesiæ, echoing the Introit of the Mass. Since, however, this text was already in use on the feast of St John the Apostle, this change made no alteration to the overall number of responsories in the breviary.

The reign of Clement VIII also saw new responsories appointed for the Feast of the Visitation of Our Lady. Previously, those of the Nativity were used, changing the word Nativitas to Visitatio. The last two remained, but four new ones were introduced and placed alongside two existing Marian Responsories, Quæ est ista and Congratulamini (both used on the Feast of Our Lady of the Snows, the former also being used on the Assumption, the latter on the Annunciation, as well as the Circumcision).

In spite of these changes though, the overwhelming majority of the 1570 responsories can still be found in the 1906 edition. Not only that, but the majority are on the same days and in the same order in which they appear in the breviary of St Pius V. The few variations to be found in this arrangement will be examined below.

[To be continued]