This Curial Breviary was adopted by the Franciscans in their active
lives. They changed the text of the Psalter only, _Psalterium
Romanum_, to the more approved text, the _Psalterium Gallicanum_.
The improved Curial Breviary was imposed on the churches of Rome by the
Franciscan Pope, Nicholas III. (1277-1280), and henceforth it is called
the Roman Breviary. Thus we see that the book used daily by priests got
its name in the thirteenth century, although the divine office is almost
from Apostolic times.

But liturgy is a progressive study, a progressive practice capable and
worthy of perfecting. And the friars strove for the greater perfection
and beauty of the new Breviary. They added variety to the unity already
achieved and yet did not reach liturgical perfection nor liturgical
beauty. They loaded the Breviary by introducing saints' days with nine
lessons, thus avoiding offices of three lessons. And by keeping octave
days and days within the octave as feasts of nine lessons, they almost
entirely destroyed the weekly recitation of the psalter; and a large
portion of the Breviary ceased to be used at all. The Franciscan book
became very popular owing to its handy form. Indeed its use was almost
universal in the Western Church. But the multiplication of saints'
offices, universal and local, no fixed standard to guide the recital,
and the wars of liturgists, made chaos and turmoil.

Liturgical reform became an urgent need. Everyone reciting the canonical
hours longed for a great and drastic change. The Humanists, Cardinal
Bembo (1470-1549), Ferreri, Bessarion, and Pope Leo X. (1513-1521)
considered the big faults of the Breviary to lie in its barbarous
Latinity. They wished the Lessons to be written In Ciceronian style and
the hymns to be modelled on the Odes of Horace. Ferreri's attempt at