by St. Gregory the Great (590-604). His labours are summed up by Dom
Baumer (_Histoire du Breviare_, vol. i., pp. 289, 301-303): "It is
he who collected together the prayers and liturgical usages of his
predecessors and assigned to each its proper place, and thus the liturgy
owes its present form to him. The liturgical chant also bears his name,
because through his means it reached its highest state of development.
The canonical hours and the formulary of the Mass now in use were also
carefully arranged by him." "The whole history of the Western liturgy
supports us in maintaining that these books received from the great Pope
or from one of his contemporaries a form which never afterwards
underwent any radical or essential alteration." The Roman office spread
quickly through Europe. The enthusiasm of Gregory became rooted in the
monasteries, where the monks learned and taught, with knowledge and
with zeal, his liturgical reforms. Two important reforms of monastic
practice are interesting as showing further progress in the evolution of
the Roman Breviary. St. Benedict of Aniane (751-821), the friend and
adviser of Louis the Pious, became a reformer of Benedictine rule and
practice. His rule aimed at a rigid uniformity, even in detail. And the
Council of Aix-la-Chapelle (817) helped him to establish his reforms. As
a result of the saint's exertions the Penitential Psalms and Office of
the Dead were made part of the daily monastic office. The Abbey of
Cluny, founded in 910, supplied a further reform tending to guard the
office from further accretions.

Did Hildebrand, Pope Gregory VII. (1073-1086), labour for liturgical
reform? Liturgical writers give very different replies. Monsignor
Battifol (_History of the Roman Breviary_, English edition, p. 158)
maintains that Gregory made no reform, and that "the Roman office such
as we have seen it to be in the times of Charlemagne held its ground at
Rome itself, in the customs of the basilicas, without any sensible