The Divine Office by Rev. E. J. Quigley
page 46 of 263 (17%)
page 46 of 263 (17%)
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in a Sunday office, save that these feasts had no Vesper matter.
In still later times, the Church added to the list of names on her saint roll, the names of saints who were honoured neither as Apostles nor as Martyrs. For these, special Masses, offices and feasts were established. St. Martin of Tours was the first confessor so honoured in the Western Church. For the more important feasts, an office of nine lessons was established and this came to be known as a semi-double office, and later such feasts were called doubles. Hence, before the thirteenth century, we find celebrations of simple feasts, of semi-doubles and of doubles. And Durandus, who wrote in the thirteenth century, tells us of the existence of doubles major and doubles minor. The Breviary of St. Pius V., published in 1568, gives three classes of doubles: doubles of the first class, doubles of the second class, and doubles per annum. But, in the revision by Clement VIII. the doubles per annum were again divided into doubles major and doubles minor. In the new Pian Breviary (1913) doubles are divided into Primary Doubles of the First Class, Secondary Doubles of the First Class; Primary Doubles of the Second Class, Secondary Doubles of the Second Class, Primary Doubles Major, Secondary Doubles Major. The list of feasts under each of these six headings may be seen in the Breviary. Do double offices differ specifically from each other? No, the form is the same in all double offices. What then is the difference between doubles of different classes? The difference is chiefly in the preference which is given to them in cases of concurrence or occurrence of feasts of greater or of lesser rite. The word "double" (_duplex_) is derived, some authors hold, from the ancient custom of reciting two offices or saying two Masses on the same |
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