The breviary was far too complex for use by lay people, however. In the Gothic period, and especially in the thirteenth century, there was a strong desire on the part of lay people to imitate the devotional practices of monks and nuns. The result was a new and more complex book known as the breviary. A liturgical calendar was used to keep track of the days and the seasons, and rubrics were employed to indicate exactly what words were to be said when. These disparate elements were arranged in a repetitive structure that varied in its details depending on the time of the day, the day of the week, and the season of the year. The antiphons were joined by a variety of prayers, canticles, hymns, readings from the Bible, and dialogues. It became customary, for example, to frame the Psalms with "antiphons" - brief passages that helped to bring out the Christian significance of the old Jewish texts. Over the centuries, the Psalms were provided with a number of supplementary texts. For those monks show themselves too lazy in the service to which they are vowed, who chant less than the Psalter (together with the customary canticles) in the course of a week, since we read that our holy Fathers strenuously fulfilled that task in a single day.
LITURGY OF THE HOURS WEEK NUMBER FULL
Benedict: The Psalter with its full number of 150 Psalms be chanted every week, and begun again every Sunday at the Night Office. Monks and nuns recited the Psalms according to guidelines laid out in monastic rules. Christians adopted this book for their own use, and the " Psalter" soon became their main devotional text as well. The Jews of the pre-Christian era had an authoritative source of devotional verse in the Book of Psalms, which, they believed, had been composed by King David. Before that time, Christians wishing to say a daily round of prayers had to seek guidance from some other type of book. The Book of Hours did not appear as an identifiable class of book until the thirteenth century. For a more comprehensive introduction to the Book of Hours generally, please look at the resources on the Links page, or consult the sources at the end of this document. In keeping with the theme of that exhibition, the focus is on the idea of liturgical time. What follows are extracts from the catalogue of the exhibition Sacred Time: The Book of Hours from the Middle Ages to the Present Day (Bruce Peel Special Collections Library, University of Alberta, June 3 - September 9, 1996). Hypertext Book of Hours - Introduction Introduction to the Book of Hours
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