Learn the Office 3.3: The capitular Office (Officium capituli) associated with Prime

Chapter room of the Abbey of Fontenay

We desire that this Rule should be read aloud often in the community, so that no brother may excuse himself on the ground of ignorance.

Rule of St Benedict, ch 66

About the capitular office

If you listen to the podcasts of Prime by the monks of Le Barroux, or look at the Antiphonale Monasticum, you will find a set of prayers at the end of the hour that do not appear in the Monastic Diurnal.

The name for this quasi-liturgical set of prayers actually derives from the room in which they were traditionally said, viz the chapter room rather than the Church.

The capitular Office is not explicitly mentioned in the Rule of St Benedict.

But it seems to have been established in some form very early on, with the earliest reference to the practice of reading the Rule after Prime dating, probably, from the second half of the seventh century.

It is and was also a convenient time to hand out work allocations and deal with any ad hoc business of the day.

Strictly speaking, and in contrast to the Roman Office, these prayers - which include the reading of the martyrology, as well as the reading of a section of the Rule - are not, strictly speaking, a formal part of the Office.

They do not appear in full in the Diurnal because religious outside their communities are not bound to say it.

The rubrics and content of chapter

The 1962 Breviariarum Monasticum specifies that chapter, when it is said, follows immediately after Prime, and can be said freely according to the form specified in the Rituale of the particular monastery or congregation.

The breviary does, however, provide a version of the capitular Office which is more or less identical to that provided in the Antiphonale Monasticum.

It consists of:

• the reading of the martyrology for the following day, and associated prayers;
• prayers to bless the work for the day; 
• the reading of the Rule (and in many monasteries, this is followed by a homily on it); 
• a short reading for the season; and 
• prayers for the dead, including deceased brethren and benefactors.

There is no specifically Benedictine version of the Martyrology; instead the Roman one is generally used, though some monasteries do supplement it with specifically Benedictine saints.

The relevant prayers can be found in the Antiphonale Monasticum from page 9.

If you don't have a copy of the martyrology, you can find a Latin-English version of the Martyrology and prayers for the day's work each day under Prime on the Divinum Officium website (select the non-monastic options).

Divinum Officium also provides the relevant texts under the pre-Tridentine monastic option.

The Monastic Diurnal also provides the formulas that introduce the Rule, and most versions of the Rule indicate the dates on which each section is traditionally read (though monasteries can and do modify this).