seems to have been composed in the ninth century.... Under Charlemagne
and his successors variations in the canonical hours completely
disappeared" (Baudot, _op. cit._, pp. 63-65).

On this foundation was built up the Office, to which additions were
made, and of which reforms were effected, up to our own time.

"For us, traditional liturgy is represented by the Roman Breviary of
Urban VIII., a book which constitutes for us a Vulgate of the Roman
Office.... The thing which renders this Vulgate of 1632 precious to us
is that, thanks to the wisdom of Paul IV., Pius V., and Clement VIII.,
the differences between it and the Breviary of the Roman Curia of the
thirteenth century are mere differences of detail: the substantial
identity of the two is beyond dispute. The Breviary of Urban VIII. is
the lineal descendant of the Breviary of Innocent III. And the latter in
its turn is the legitimate descendant of the Roman canonical Office, as
it was celebrated in the basilica of St. Peter at the end of the eighth
century, such as it had gradually come to be in the course of the
seventh and eighth centuries, a genuinely Roman combination of various
elements, some of them Roman and some not, but of which some, at all
events, go back to the very beginnings of the Catholic religion"
(Battifol, _op. cit._, p. 353).




CHAPTER III.


EXCELLENCE OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY--THE ESTEEM