A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

BRAWLING. The act of quarrelling, and, in its more limited and technical sense, the act of quarrelling within consecrated precincts. If any person shall, by words only, quarrel, chide, or brawl in any church or churchyard, it shall be lawful unto the ordinary of the place, where the same offence shall be done, and proved by two lawful witnesses, to suspend every person so offending; if he be a layman, from the entrance of the church; and if he be a clerk, from the ministration of his office, for so long time as the said ordinary shall think meet according to the fault. (5 & 6 Edw. VI. c. 4, s. 1.)

BREVIARY. A daily office or book of Divine service in the Romish Church. So called from being a compilation in an abbreviated form, convenient for use, of the various books anciently used in the service, as antiphoners, psalters, &c. After the prayers of the liturgy, or missal, those held in the greatest veneration by Roman Catholics are the prayers contained in the church office, or canonical hours. This office is a form of prayer and instruction combined, consisting of psalms, lessons, hymns, prayers, anthems, versicles, &c., combined in an established order, separated into different hours of the day. It is divided into seven, or rather eight parts; and, like the English liturgy, it has a reference to the mystery or festival celebrated. The festival, and therefore the office, begins with vespers, i. e. with the evening prayer, about six o’clock, or sunset. This office is called, on the eves of Sundays and holidays, the first Vespers. Next follows compline, to beg God’s protection during sleep. At midnight come the three nocturns, as they are called, or matins, the longest part of the office. Lauds, or matin lauds, or the morning praises of God, are appointed for the cock-crowing, or before the break of day. At six o’clock, or sunrise, prime shall be recited; and tierce, sext, and none, every third hour afterwards. (See Canonical Hours.) These canonical hours of prayer are still regularly observed by many religious orders, but less regularly by the secular clergy, even in the choir. When the office is recited in private, though the observance of regular hours may be commendable, it is thought sufficient if the whole be gone through any time in the twenty-four hours. The church office, exclusive of the mass and occasional services, is contained in what is called the breviary. In consequence of a decree of the Council of Trent, Pope Pius V. ordered a number of learned and able men to compile the breviary; and by his bull, Quod a nobis, July, 1566, sanctioned it, and commanded the use thereof to the clergy of the Roman Catholic Church all over the world. Clement VIII., in 1602, finding that the breviary of Pius V. had been altered and depraved, restored it to its pristine state; and ordered, under pain of excommunication, that all future editions should strictly follow that which he then printed at the Vatican. Lastly, Urban VIII., in 1631, had the language of the whole work, and the metres of the hymns, revised. The value which the Church of Rome sets upon the breviary, may be known from the strictness with which she demands the perusal of it. Whoever enjoys any ecclesiastical revenue; all persons of both sexes, who have professed in any of the regular orders; all subdeacons, deacons, and priests, are bound to repeat, either in public or in private, the whole service of the day, out of the breviary. The omission of any one of the eight portions of which that service consists is declared to be a mortal sin, i. e. a sin that, unrepented, would be sufficient to exclude from salvation. The person guilty of such an omission loses all legal right to whatever portion of his clerical emoluments is due for the day or days wherein he neglected that duty, and cannot be absolved till he has given the forfeited sums to the poor. Such are the sanctions and penalties by which the reading of the breviary is enforced. The scrupulous exactness with which this duty is performed by all who have not secretly cast off their spiritual allegiance is quite surprising. The office of the Roman Catholic Church was originally so contrived, as to divide the psalter between the seven days of the week. Portions of the old Scriptures were also read alternately, with extracts from the legends of the saints, and the works of the fathers. But as the calendar became crowded with saints, whose festivals take precedence of the regular church service, little room is left for anything but a few psalms, which are constantly repeated, a very small part of the Old Testament, and mere fragments of the Gospels and Epistles.

The lessons are taken partly out of the Old and New Testaments, and partly out of the Acts of the Saints, and writings of the holy fathers. The Lord’s Prayer, the Hail Mary, or Angelical Salutation, the Apostles’ Creed, and the Confiteor, are frequently said. This last is a prayer, by which they who use it acknowledge themselves sinners, beg pardon of God, and the intercession on their behalf of the angels, of the saints, and of their brethren upon earth. No prayers are more frequently in the mouths of Roman Catholics than these four; to which we may add the doxology, repeated during the psalmody in every office, but though not uniformly at the end of every psalm, and in other places. In every canonical hour a hymn is also said, often composed by Prudentius, or some other ancient father. The Roman breviary contains also a small office, in honour of the Blessed Virgin, and likewise what is called the office of the dead. We there find, also, the penitential and the gradual psalms, as they are called, together with the litanies of the saints, and of the Virgin Mary of Loretto, which are the only two that have the sanction of the Church. The breviary is generally printed in four volumes, one for each season of the year.

BRIEFS (see Bulls) are pontifical letters issued from the court of Rome, sealed in red wax, with the seal of the fisherman’s ring: they are written in Roman characters, and subscribed by the secretary of briefs, who is a secretary of state, (usually either a bishop or a cardinal,) required to be well versed in the legal style of papal documents, and in the sacred canons. The word Brief, in our Prayer Book, signifies the sovereign letters patent, authorizing a collection for a charitable purpose; as they are now styled, Queen’s letters. These are directed to be read among the notices after the Nicene Creed.

BROACH. In strictness any spire, but generally used to signify a spire, the junction of which with the tower is not marked by a parapet. Lancet and Geometrical spires are generally thus treated; Decorated, frequently; Perpendicular, rarely.

BULL in Cœna Domini. This is the name given to a bull in the Church of Rome, which is publicly read on the day of the Lord’s supper, viz. Holy Thursday, by a cardinal deacon in the pope’s presence, accompanied with the other cardinals and the bishops. The same contains an excommunication of all that are called, by that apostate Church, heretics, stubborn and disobedient to the holy see. And after the reading of this bull, the pope throws a burning torch into the public place, to denote the thunder of this anathema. It is declared expressly, in the beginning of the bull of Pope Paul III., of the year 1536, that it is the ancient custom of the sovereign pontiffs to publish this excommunication on Holy Thursday, to preserve the purity of the Christian religion, and to keep the union of the faithful; but the original of this ceremony is not inserted in it. The principal heads of this bull concern heretics and their upholders, pirates, imposers of new customs, those who falsify the bulls and other apostolic letters; those who abuse the prelates of the Church; those that trouble or would restrain ecclesiastical jurisdiction, even under pretence of preventing some violence, though they might be counsellors or advocates, generals to secular princes, whether emperors, kings, or dukes; those who usurp the goods of the Church, &c. All these cases are reserved to the pope, and no priest can give absolution in such a case, if it be not at the point of death. The Council of Tours, in 1510, declared the bull in Cœna Domini void in respect of France, which has often protested against it, in what relates to the king’s prerogative, and the liberties of the Gallican Church; and there are now but few other Popish princes or states that have much regard to it. So much has the authority of the papal chair declined since the Reformation, even over those who still remain in the communion of what they call the Roman Catholic Church.

BULLS (see Briefs) are pontifical letters, in the Romish Church, written in old Gothic characters upon stout and coarse skins, and issued from the apostolic chancery, under a seal (bulla) of lead; which seal gives validity to the document, and is attached, if it be a “Bull of Grace,” by a cord of silk; and if it be a “Bull of Justice,” by a cord of hemp.

The seal of the fisherman’s ring corresponds, in some degree, with the privy seal; and the bulla, or seal of lead, with the great seal of England.

The bulla is, properly, a seal of empire. The imperial bulla is of gold; and it was under a seal of this description that King John resigned the crown of England to the Pope.

Briefs and Bulls differ from each other.