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| Office of Trinity
Corpus Christi | At the beginning of the section ANN the chants of two post-Pentecostal feasts
can be found. The Office of Trinity is incomplete or ambiguous in many sources. As it is
known, this feast was introduced as late as the turn of the 10th-11th centuries. Its liturgical
institution was by no means uniform as far as the age of the introduction and the day of
celebration are concerned. Some churches preserved the full Octave of Whit-Sunday and
commemorated the new feast on Monday. The feast of Corpus Christi created even
later is either missing in the early sources or appended to the main text. |
| Psalterium | The most important part of the Office, the order of the Psalterium comes after
these feasts. It serves as a basis for the whole year; all the items determined neither by the Proper of
the day nor the season must be taken from this unit. The Psalter may occupy different positions in
the medieval codices: it may head the breviaries, come after the feast of Epiphany in the
antiphonaries or after the Pentecostal section in other cases. It can often occur several times in the
same book in full length or by rubrics (sometimes with slight contradictions in meaning). Due to its
importance this section required a distinguished position and a clear-cut arrangement in the tables.
Within the liturgical books the inner order of the Psalter was based on one of the following two
principles: either the daily sequence of the Hours or the numbering of the psalms was observed
(Matins + Lauds of every day, the Little Hours being inserted after the Sunday and Monday
Lauds, followed by all the Vespers of the week, and finallly the Compline). We intend to employ this
latter scheme. |
| | Some of the pieces vary in the winter months. The variants will be included here in the
same place of the Office marked by a sign + and discussed in addition in the notes. |
| | In many sources the scheme of the Compline is poorly recorded. Sometimes even such
features remain unclear whether the psalms are sung with antiphon(s) or simply in
directaneum, whether a responsory is sung at all, etc. |
| Per annum | The Psalter is followed in the tables by the material of the summer and
autumn seasons per annum. These Offices were made up of three layers: the Psalter
(mentioned above), the Historiae and the Sunday antiphonae maiores. The
pieces taken from the 2nd and 3rd groups were entered conjunctly or mixed in the medieval
books. For purposes of comparing the local traditions it will be more practical to present these
layers separately. |
| Historiae | The words of the Historiae cycles, i.e. the responsories for Matins and the
antiphons for the 1st Vespers on Sundays are taken from the biblical scriptura
occurrens of the Office as follows: Historia Regum (from Trinity until the end of June),
Histora Sapientiae (August), Historia de Job (1st and 2nd weeks of
September), Historia de Tobia, Judith, Esther (the rest of September), Historia
Maccabeorum (October), Historia Prophetarum (November) each 'imposed' on
the nearest Sunday to the Kalendae of the month. |
| | The number of responsories is generally
higher than the necessary nine (in the cursus saecularis) and their distribution is not always clear. It is therefore more practical to list
all in one course, as many sources actually do. Similarly, all antiphons will be grouped together
following the set of responsories. The Historia de Esther for the 5th, incomplete week
in September contains only a few responsories which were combined - in rather different ways -
with the responsories of the Historia de Judith. In many churches one of the nocturnal
responsories was anticipated at the 1st Vespers on Sundays and its selection was more or less
accurately recorded in the rubrics. Wherever such a device proves to be typical in a given tradition
we will mention it in the commentary. |
| Gospel antiphons | The repertory of the Gospel antiphons (for Ab and V2: Am)
follows the numbered sequence of the post-Trinity Sundays. The extra items were again sung
during the week but it can be rarely established evidently, in which order. In many sources all these
antiphons were notated in one single group distributed among Sundays. It seems to be sensible to
add the surplus items to the 2nd Vespers and mark them Am+. |
| Dedication
Officium mortuorum | The section and together with it the whole chart is closed down by two additional Offices,
the first being that of the Church Dedication that easily fits into the general scheme.
The other is the Officium mortuorum celebrated in the full, three-Nocturn form only
for the dead or as a general commemoration on some days. On weekdays of lesser rank it was
sung in the abbreviated, one-Nocturn form as an addition to the ferial Office. The Officium
mortuorum had only 1st Vespers, Matins and Lauds Hours. In most of the rites a set of six times
three responsories was offered to fill up the whole week frame. The 2nd three times three group of the
eighteen responsories is included here after the N3-R3 item. The structure of the Officium mortuorum is fairly similar to
that of the Triduum Sacrum in that both lack all the other parts except the psalms,
canticles and the readings with their antiphons and responsories, and often the Invitatory, too. |
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