Letter of the canons of Saint Peter's to Paul V concerning the demolition of the old basilica, 1605

Abstract

Liturgical practices were not strictly uniform from one community to another, but there was a tendency to view Saint Peter's as the model, and it was at Saint Peter's that some important features of the familiar Roman liturgy took shape. For the eighth-century office celebrated by the monasteries serving Saint Peter's, the evidence is focused largely on the cycles of readings during the night office of Matins. The fourfold liturgical year, centred on Saint Peter's, seems to underlie the arrangement of readings in OR XIV, OR XVI and OR XIVB, representing the period when the great Roman basilicas were staffed by monastic communities, and when Saint Peter's seems to have been something of a model for the other churches of the city. The liturgical leadership seems to have been shifting away from the Vatican basilica, toward the person of the pope himself, whose cathedra or chair was at the Lateran.