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 MATRICULA

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MATTEO

this manner extracts from all the Books of the I?iblc are reatl at the Olhoo during the year. The idea, how- ever, of having the whole Bible read in the Office, as proposed by several reformers of the Breviary, more especially during the seventeenth and eighteenth cen- turies, lias never been regarded favourably l>y the Church, which views the Divine Office as a prayer and not as an object of study for the clergy.

(e) The Invitatory and, on certain days, the Finale or Te Deuni also form one of the principal character- istics of this Office.

(d) The Responses, more numerous in this Office, recall the most ancient form of psalmody; that of the psalm chanted by one alone and answered by the whole choir, as opposed to the antiphonic form, which consists in two choirs alternately reciting the psalms.

(e) The division into three or two Nocturns is also a special feature of Matins, but it is impossible to say why it has been thought by some to be a souvenir of the military watches (there were not three, but four, watches) or even of the ancient Vigils, since ordi- narily there was but one meeting in the middle of the night. The custom of rising three times for prayer could only have been in vogue, as exceptional, in cer- tain monasteries, or for some of the more solemn feasts (see Nocturns).

(f) In the Office of the Church of Jerusalem, of which the pilgrim JCtheria gives us a description, the Vigils on Sundays terminate with the solemn reading of the Gospel, in the Grotto of the Holy Sepulchre. This practice of reading the Gospel has been preserved in the Benedictine Liturgy. It is a matter for regret that in the Roman Liturgy this custom, so ancient and so solemn, is no longer represented but by the Homily.

The .^mbrosian Liturgy, better perhaps than any other, has preserved traces of the great Vigils or vavmxlSe^, with their complex and varied display of processions, psalmodies, etc. (cf- Dom Cagin; " Paleographie Musicale", vol. VI, p. 8, sq.; Paul Lejay ; Ambrosien (rit.) in "Dictionnaire d'Arch^ol. Chr^t. et de Liturgie", vol. I, p. 142,3 sq.). The same Liturgy has also preserved Vigils of long psalmody. This Nocturnal Office adapted itself at a later period to a more modern form, approaching more and more closely to the Roman Liturgy. Here too are found the three Nocturns, with .^ntiphon. Psalms, Lessons, and Responses, the ordinary elements of the Roman Matins, and with a few special features quite Am- brosian. In the Benedictine Office, Matins, like the text of the Office, follows the Roman Liturgy quite closely. The number of psalms, viz. twelve, is always the same, there being three or two Nocturns accord- ing to the degree of solemnity of the particular Office celebrated. Ordinarily there are four Lessons, fol- lowed by their responses, to each Nocturn. The two most characteristic features of the Benedictine Matins are: the Canticles of the third Nocturn, which are not found in the Roman ' iturgy, and the Gospel, which is sung solemnly at the end, the latter trait, as alri-ady pointed out, being very ancient. In the Mozarabic Liturgy (q . v.), on the contrary. Matins are made up of a system of Antiphons, Collects, and Vcrsicles which make them quite a departure from the Roman system. V. Signification and Symbolism. — From the fore- going it is clear that Matins remains the principal Office of the Church, and the one w-hich, in its origin, dates back the farthest, as far as the Apostolic ages, as far even as the very inception of the Church. It is doubt- less, after having passed through a great many trans- formations, the ancient Night Office, the Office of the Vigil. In a certain sense it is, perhaps, the Office ■which was primitively the preparation for the Mass, that is to say, the Mass of the Catechumens, which presents at any rate the same construction as that Office: — the reading from the Old Testament, then the Epistles and the .Acts, and finally the Gospel — the whole being intermingled with psalmody, and termi-

n.ated by the Ilomily (cf. Cabrol: " Les Origiiies Litur- ginucs", Paris, 1906, 33-t seii.). If for a time this Oflice appeared to be secondary to that of Lauds or Morning Office, it is because the latter, originally but a part of Matins, drew to itself the solemnity, prob- ably on account of the hour at which it was cele- brated, permitting all the faithful to lie present. According to another theory suggi'stcd by the testi- mony of Lactantius, St. Jerome, and St. Isidore, the Christians, being ignorant of the dale of ( 'hrist's com- ing, tliought He would return during tlie niiddk' of the niglit, and most probably the night of Holy Saturday or Easter Sunday, at or about the liour wlicii He arose from the sepulchre. Hence the importance of the Easter Vigil, which would thus have become the mode! or prototype of the other Saturday Vigils, and inci- dentally of all tlic nightly Vigils. The idea of the Second Advent would have given rise to the Easter Vigil, and the latter to the office of the Saturday Vigil (Batiffol, "Hist, du Br^viaire", 3). The insti- tution of the Saturday Vigil would consequently be as ancient as that of Sunday.

Bona, De Dmna Pmlmodia in 0;.. ,, 0„,,;,, fAntwerp, 1677), 693 sq.; GnANCOLAS, Commcul ' .s in Rom.

Brcviar., 100; Probst, Brevier un<! /; ' I'l'ubingen,

1854). 143 sq.; BXdmer, Histoirc du /;, /, ..ir, BiRoN, I (Paris, 1905), 60 sq.; Duchesne, (Jlinstuui II orxhtp (1904), 44S, 449; Batiffol, Histoire du Briviatrc, 3 sq.; Tbalhofer, Handbuch der Katholischen Liturgik, II, 434, 450; Gastoue, Les Vigiles Nocturnes (Paris, 190S) (Collection Bloud); see Hours (Canonical); Laudsj Vigils; Breviary.

F. Cabrol.

Matricula, a term applied in Christian antiquity (1) to the catalogue or roll of the clergy of a particular church; thus Clerici immatriculati denoted the clergy entitled to maintenance from the resources of the church to which they were attachctl. Allusions to matricula in this sense are found in the second and third canons of the Council of Agde and in canon xiii of the Council of Orleans (both of the sixth century). This term was also applied (2) to the ecclesiastical list of poor pensioners who were assisted from the church revenues; hence the names mairicularii, matriculariw, by v.'hich persons thus assisted, together with those who performed menial services about the church, were knov.-n. The house in which such pensioners were lodi-'d wa also known (3) as iiii}lrirula, which thus becomes synonymous with .rrnndocliiiiiii.

Maurice M. Hassett.

Matrimony. See Marriage.

Matteo da Siena (Matteo m Giovanni di Bar- TOLo), painter, b. at Borgo San Sepolcro, c. 1435; d. 149.5. His common appellation w-as derived from his having worked chiefly in the city of Siena. In the fourteenth century the masters of the Sienese school riv. lied the Florentine painters; in the fifteenth, the former school, resisting the progress achieved at Florence, allowed itself to bc'Outstripped by its rival. Although in this period it gives the impression of a superannuated art, Sienese painting still charms with its surviving fine traditional qualities — its sincerity of feeling, the refined grace of its figures, its attention to minutiae of dress and of architectural background, and its fascinating frankness of execution. Of these quali- ties Matteo has his share, but he is furthermore distin- guished by the dignity of his female figures, the gra- cious presence of his angels, and the harmony of a colour scheme at once rich and brilliant. For this reason critics pronounce him the best of the fifteenth- century Sienese painters. The earliest authentic work of Matteo is dated 1470, a Virgin enthroned, with an- gels, painted for theServites, and now in the Academy of Siena. In 14S7 he executed for the high altar of Santa Maria de' Servi del Borgo — the Servile church of his native village — an ".Assumption", with the Apostles and other saints looking on; on the predella he has painted the history of the Blessed Virgin. Ac-