Antiphonary

An Antiphoner (or ‘Antiphonary’) is a book containing chants for the Divine Office in the western Roman Catholic liturgy; that is, it contains the responsories, antiphons and (sometimes) hymns required for the celebration of the daily offices of Vespers, Matins, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, and Compline. An antiphoner does not contain readings or prayers; books with all three components are known as Breviaries*.  The book type has a long history, with the earliest mention being that of Egbert of York (d. 766), who referred to having seen Gregory the Great's antiphonarium. While the attribution may be spurious (Gregory the Great had died over a hundred years before Egbert visited Rome,...