Lauds is proper to sunrise, but is mostly grouped with matins. It consists of four psalms, a canticle, psalms 148-150, a hymn, the Benedictus (Luke i. 68-79) and prayers.
Prime (6 A.M.), Terce (9 A.M.), Sext (noon) and None (3 P.M.) are called the Little Day Hours, are often said together, and are alike in character, consisting of a hymn and some sections of Ps. cxix., followed by a prayer. On Sundays the Athanasian Creed is said at prime.
Vespers or Evensong consists of five varying psalms, a hymn, the Magnificat (Luke i. 46-55) and prayers. It belongs theoretically to sunset.
Compline, technically 9 P.M., but usually combined with vespers, is a prayer for protection during the darkness. It consists of the general confession, four fixed psalms, a hymn, the Nunc dimittis (Luke ii. 29-32), prayers and a Commemoration of the Virgin.
The term “canonical hours” is also used of the time during which English marriages may be solemnized without special licence, i.e. between 8 A.M. and 3 P.M.
HOUSE (O. Eng. hús, a word common to Teutonic languages, cf. Dut. huis, Ger. Haus; in Gothic it is only found in gudhûs, a temple; it may be ultimately connected with the root of “hide,” conceal), the dwelling-place of a human being (treated, from the architectural point of view, below), or, in a transferred sense, of an animal, particularly of one whose abode, like that of the beaver, is built by the animal itself, or, like that of the snail, resembles in some fancied way a human dwelling. Apart from the numerous compound uses of the word, denoting the purpose for which a building is employed, such as custom-house, lighthouse, bakehouse, greenhouse and the like, there may be mentioned the particular applications to a chamber of a legislative body, the Houses of Parliament, House of Representatives, &c.; to the upper and lower assemblies of convocation; and to the colleges at a university; the heads of these foundations, known particularly as master, principal, president, provost, rector, &c., are collectively called heads of houses. At English public schools a “house” is the usual unit of the organization. In the “houses” the boys sleep, have their “studies” and their meals, if the school is arranged on the “boarding-house” system. The houses have their representative teams in the school games, but have no place in the educational class-system of the school. It may be noticed that in Scotland the words “house” and “tenement” are used in a way distinct from the English use, “tenement” being applied to the large block containing “houses,” portions, i.e., occupied by separate families. “The House” is the name colloquially given to such different institutions as the London Stock Exchange, the House of Commons or Lords and to a workhouse.
In the transferred sense, “house” is used of a family, genealogically considered, and of the audience at a public meeting or entertainment, especially of a theatre. A “house-physician” and “house-surgeon” is a member of the resident medical staff of a hospital. In astrology the twelve divisions into which the heavens are divided, and through which the planets pass, are known as houses, the first being called the “house of life.” The word “house,” “housing,” used of the trappings of a horse, especially of a covering for the back and flanks, attached to the saddle, is of quite distinct origin. In medieval Latin it appears as hucia, houssia and housia (see Ducange, Glossarium, s.v. housia), and comes into English from the O. Fr. huche, modern housse. It has been supposed to have been adopted, at the time of the crusades, from the Arabic yushiah, a covering.
Architecturally considered, the term “house” is given to a building erected for habitation, in contradistinction to one built for secular or ecclesiastical purposes. The term extends, therefore, to a dwelling of any size, from a single-room building to one containing as many rooms as a palace; thus in London some of the largest dwellings are those inhabited by royalty, such as Marlborough House, or others by men of rank, such as Devonshire House, Bridgewater House, Spencer House, &c.; and even those which, formerly built as habitations, have subsequently been devoted to other purposes, such as Somerset House and Burlington House, retain the term. In Paris the larger houses thus named would be called hôtel.
So far as the history of domestic architecture is concerned, the earliest houses of which remains have been found are those of the village of Kahun in Egypt, which were built for the workmen employed in the building of the pyramid at Illahun, and deserted on its completion. They varied in size from the habitations of the chief inspectors to the single room of the ordinary labourer, and were built in unburnt brick with open courts in the larger examples, to give light and air to the rooms round. The models found in 1907 at Deir-Rifa opposite Assiut in Upper Egypt, by Flinders Petrie, and assumed by him to be those of “soul-houses,” suggest that the early type of building consisted of a hut, to which later a porch or lean-to, with two poles in front, has been added; subsequently, columns replaced the poles, and a flat roof with parapet, suggesting the primitive forms of the Egyptian temple.