3 - THE DIVINE OFFICE IN ENGLAND FROM THE AUGUSTINIAN MISSION TO THE FIRST VIKING INVASIONS, 597–c.835

Summary

Despite the almost total absence of surviving early Anglo-Saxon Office books, there is nevertheless evidence of various kinds for how the Office was sung in a few houses, as well as some evidence for the ideal to which the leaders of the English Church aspired when it came to Office liturgy. As shall be seen in the present chapter, this ideal was the Roman monastic Office. This may be seen in the manuscript and literary evidence for the sevenfold Roman Office horarium and the Roman weekly distribution of the psalms. Evaluating the available evidence for the readings and chants of the Office, however, requires some adjustment of how the term ‘Roman’ is to be applied to the early English liturgy, where Irish and especially Gallican liturgical traditions exerted considerable influence. What is quite clear, however, is that there is no evidence for the use of the monastic Office as laid down in the Regula S. Benedicti, despite the esteem in which the Rule was held. The evidence rather points to the joint recitation of a single Office by both monks and secular clergy.

The Office under the uita regularis in English minsters

Before examining the evidence for the use of any particular form of the Office in early Anglo-Saxon England, it will be useful to assess the context of its performance, namely minsters governed without the absolute authority of any one monastic rule whose inmates could include secular clergy as well as contemplative monastics, both groups using the same form of the Office.