CANONICAL

The seven hours of prayer, observed, it is said, by the Catholic church since the 5th century; chiefly in monasteries. The number seems before that time to have varied, although some peculiar seasons of the day and night were always set apart for this observance. They became finally fixed at seven by the rule of St. Benedict; a number, perhaps, recommended by the literal acceptation of the words of David (Psalm cxix.), " Seven times a day will I praise thee." These hours are termed, in the language of the Latin church, matins, prima, tertia, nona, vespers, completa or completorium, which last takes place at midnight. At the time of the Reformation the canonical hours were reduced in the Luther an church to two, morning and evening; the " reformed " church never observed them. ( See Bingham's Ant. Eccl. 6.; Riddle's Christian Ant.; Ersch a7id Gruber's Encycl., " Horae.") [s. 578]