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vigilias defunctorum, and also of the celebration of the saints’ feasts
not contained in the Ordinary, as those of St. Thorlak, St. Jon of Hol-
ar, St. Magnus (of Orkney), and others that should reasonably be kept
in accordance with the good, old customs of the Church. To these
rulings his clergy had consented.
The (lost) original letter was signed by the Official and seven priests
of the diocese who, together with the Bishop, appended their seals to it.
It is interesting that Bishop Jon VII should have attributed the
growth of the Skålholt liturgy to his predecessors, the bishops who had
been monks. The impact of the monastic upon the secular liturgy
constitutes so to say the salient feature of liturgical history in the
Middle Ages. The gradual psalms were added to the Canonical Office
by St. Benedict of Aniane in the ninth century; the Office of the dead
was also a ninth-century addition. The commendationes should prob-
ably be understood as the Office ‘Subvenite sancti Dei’ (see ManNor,
pp. 86 sqq.; BN, pp. 488 sq.).20 The kantica graduum, ps. 119 to ps.
133 inclusive, were probably recited in the same form as we find them
in the BN, pp. 13-14. These were divided into three groups of five,
intended pro defunctis, pro nobismetipsis, pro cunctorum salute
viuorum, respectively.21 In Nidaros, in 1519, however, they should be
adopted only for the feasts of Our Lady and their Octaves and the
Saturday Lady Office, as a substitute for the consuetas et quotidianas
horas de domina.
Two customs, however, had his warm approval. One was vor fru
tider, probably the Saturday Office of St. Mary, which appeared in the
eleventh century, and subsequently became generally accepted. His
second recommendation, of the vigiliae mortuorum, leaves us guess-
ing. Did these vigiliae consist of psalmody for the dead, between
death and burial, with use of the Pater Noster Psalter of fifteen
divisions? Unhappily, there is no proof of it.
All in all, Bishop Jon’s letter bears witness to the conservativeness
of the Icelandic Church, as does also the Pater Noster Psalter. Once
adopted in Iceland, it remained in use, as shown by the great many
Icelandic manuscripts against the scanty remains from Norway and
Sweden.
20 On the spread of this devotion in England, see The Monastic Breviary of Hyde
Abbey, 6 = HBS 80 [1942], pp. 77 sqq.
21 For the gradual psalms in the English liturgies, see Ibid., pp. 64-68.