Research on the antiphoner — problems and perspectives

As recently as 1975, Cyrille Vogel, in his Introduction aux sources du Moyen Age, was obliged to forego a demonstration of the transmission of the antiphoner, “given the complexity of research still in progress”.[1] Since then, with the completion in 1979 of the six-volume Corpus Antiphonalium Officii (= CAO) of René-Jean Hesbert, the foundations have been laid for all future historical research on the origins of the Roman office hours. Twelve selected sources are edited, first text-incipits of the sources in their original form, and then each complete text separately; more than this, in the two concluding volumes Hesbert undertook the task of classifying 800 sources of the office by means of statistical methods, in order thereby to facilitate the reconstruction of an archetype.[2]