Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 3.djvu/558

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CELTIC


498


CELTIC


medium noctis", "ad matutinam" (Lauds), "ad secundam" (answering to Prime), "ad tertiam", "ad sextam", and "ad nonam". At the four lesser Hours St. Columbanus orders three psalms each; at Vespers, "ad initium noctis", and "ad medium noc- tis" twelve each, and "ad matutinam", a very curi- ous and intricate arrangement of psalmody varying in length with the longer and shorter nights. On Saturdays and Sundays from 1 November to 25 March, seventy-five psalms were recited on each day, under one antiphon for every three psalms. From 25 March to 24 June these were diminished by three psalms weekly to a minimum of thirty-six psalms. It would seem, though it does not say so, that the minimum was used for about five weeks, for a grad- ual increase of the same amount arrives at the maxi- mum by 1 November. On other days of the week there was a maximum of thirty-six and a minimum of twenty-four. The Rule does not say how the Psalter was distributed, but from the Bangor book it seems that the "Laudate" psalms (cxlviii-cl) were said together, doubtless, as in all other rites, Eastern or Western, except certain eighteenth-century French uses, at Lauds, and that "Domine, Refugium" (Ps. lxxxix) was said "ad secundam". Adamnan men- tions that St. Columba sang Ps. xliv, "Eructavit cor meum", at Vespers on one occasion. The psalms at the lesser Hours were to be accompanied by a number of intercessory versicles. In the Bangor book these, somewhat expanded from the list in the Rule, but certainly to be identified with them, are given in the form of one, two, or three antiphons and a collect for each intercession. There are six canticles given in the Bangor Antiphoner: —

1. — "Audite, cceli", headed "Canticum Moysi". This has no antiphons, but a repetition of the first verse at intervals, after the manner of the Invita- tory to the "Venite" in the Roman Rite. 2. — "Cantemus Domino", also headed "Canticum Moysi".

3. — "Benedicite", called "Benedictio trium Puero- rum".

4. — "Te Deum", preceded by Ps. cxii, 1, "Laudate, pueri".

5. — "Benedictus", also called "Evangelium". 6. — "Gloria in excelsis", followed by psalm and other verses similar to those which, with it, make up the Ao£oXo7(a /j.eyi\r} of the Greek Rite. It is ordered to be used "ad vesperum et matutinam", resembling the Greek Rite use of it at Complin ('A7r65ei7ri'oi') and Lauds ('Opftpos). When the Stowe Missal was written the Irish used this canticle at Mass also, in its Roman position. The Bangor Antiphoner gives sets of collects to be used at each hour. One set is in verse (cf. the Mass in hexameters in the Reichenau Gallican fragment). It also gives several sets of collects, rot always com- plete, but always in the same order, to be said after certain canticles and after the hymn. The Turin fragment gives some of the same sets in the same order. It may be conjectured that these sets show- some sort of skeleton of the Bangor Lauds. The order always is: (1 ) " Post, canticum" (evidently from the subjects, which, like those; of the first ode of a Greek canon, refer to the Crossing of the Red Sea, "Cantemus Domino"); (2) "Post Benediction, m trium Puerorum"; (3)"Post tares Psalmos", or "Post Laudate Dominum de ccelis" (Ps. cxlvii-cl); (4) "Post Evangelium" (clearly meaning "Benedictus", which is the only Gospel canticle in the book and the only one not otherwise provided for. The same term is often applied — e. g. in the York Breviary — to "Benedictus". "Magnificat", and "Nunc Dimit'tis"); (5) "Super bymnum"; (<>) "De Martyribus". — The last may perhaps be compared with the commemora- tions which come at the end of Lauds in. for instance. the present Roman Divin" Office. There are also


sets of antiphons, "super Cantemus Domino et Bene- dicite", "super Laudate Dominum de ccelis", and "De Martyribus". In the Bangor book there are collects to go with the "Te Deum", given apart from the preceding, as though they formed part of another Hour; but in the Turin fragment they, with the text of the "Te Deum ", follow the "Benedicite ' ' and its col- lects, and precede the "Laudate Dominum de ccelis". In the Book of Mulling there is a fragment of a direc- tory, or plan, of some service. Dr. Lawlor seems to think it to be a plan of a daily Office used morning and evening, but the editors of the "Liber Hym- norum" take it to be a special penitential service and compare it with the penitential office sketched out in the "Second Vision of Adamnan" in the Leabhar Breac, which, as interpreted by them, it certainly resembles. The plan in the Book of Mulling is: (1) — illegible; (2) "Magnificat"; (3) stanzas 4, 5, 6 of St. Columba's hymn, "Noli pater"; (4) a lesson from St. Matt., v; (5) the last three stanzas of the hymn of St. Secundinus, "Audite omnes"; (6) two supplemen- tary stanzas; (7) the last three stanzas of the hymn of Gumma in Fota, "Celebra Juda"; (S) antiphon "Exaudi nos Deus", appended to this hymn; (9) last three stanzas of St. Hilary's hymn, Hymnum dicat"; (10) either the antiphon "Unites in Trini- tate" or (as the sketch of Adamnan seems to show) the hymn of St. Colman MacMurchon in honour of St. Michael, "In Trinitate spes mea"; (11) the Creed; (12) the Paternoster; (13) — illegible, but possibly the collect "Ascendat oratio".

IV. The Mass. — Two books, the Bobbio and the Stowe Missals, contain the Irish Ordinary of a daily Mass in its late Romanized form. Many of the vari- ables are in the Bobbio book, and portions of some Masses are in the Carlsruhe and Piacenza fragments. A little, also, may be gleaned from the St. < tail fragments, the Bangor Antiphoner, and the order for the Communion of the Sick in the Books of Dimma, Mulling, and Deer. The tract in Irish at the end of the Stowe Missal and its variant in the Leabhar Breac add something more to our knowledge. The Stowe Missal gives us three somewhat differing forms, the original of the ninth century, in so far as it has not been erased, the correction by Moelcaich, and. as far as it goes, the Mass described in the Irish tract. From its size and contents it would seem to be a sort of Missale Itinerantium, with an Ordinary that might serve for almost any occasion, a general Common of Saints and two Masses for special intentions (for penitents and for the dead). The addition of the Order of Baptism, not, as in the Bobbio book or in the "Missale Gothicum" and "Missale Gallicanum", as part of the Easter Eve services, but as a separate thing, and of the Visitation of the Sick, points to its being intended to be a convenient portable minimum for a priest. The pieces said by the people are in several cases only indicated by beginnings and endings. The Bobbio book, on the other hand, is a complete Missal, also for a priest only, of larger size, with Masses for the Holy Days through the year.

The original Stowe Mass approaches nearer to that of Bobbio than the revised form does. The result of Moelcaich's version to produce something more than a Gelasian ('. on inserted into a non-Roman Mass. It ha.- become a mixed Mass, Gelasian, Roman, or Etomano-Ambrosian for the most pan. with much of a Hispano-t lallican type underlying it, and perhaps with some indigenous details. It may lie taken to represent the latest type of Irish Mass of which we have any information. The title of the Hiilil.ie dailj

Mass is "Missa Komensis cott idiana ". and the same title occurs before the Collect "Deus qui culpa offenderis" at the very end of the "Missale Goth- icum". This collect, which is in the Gregorian Sacramentary, occurs in both the Bobbio and the Stowe, and in the latter has before it the title,