Brevarium Aberdonense

The Aberdeen Breviary (Latin: Brevarium Aberdonense) is a 16th-century Scottish Catholic breviary. It was the first book to be printed in Scotland.

The creation of the Aberdeen Breviary can be seen as one of the features of the growing Scottish nationalism and identity of the early sixteenth century. In 1507, King James IV, realizing that the existing Sarum Breviary, or Rite, was English in origin, desired the printing of a Scottish version. Since Scotland had no printing press at that time, booksellers Walter Chepman and Androw Myllar of Edinburgh were commissioned to “bring home a printing press” primarily for that purpose.

To create the breviary itself, James sought out William Elphinstone, Bishop of Aberdeen, who had received the king’s permission to establish the University of Aberdeen twelve years before. To help him with the undertaking, Elphinstone, in turn, tapped the man who had helped him found the university, Scottish philosopher and historian Hector Boece. The two began their work in 1509, and the first copy, produced as a small octavo, came off the press in 1510.

Like the Sarum Rite, which had been in use since the twelfth century, the Aberdeen Breviary contained brief lives, or biographies, of the saints as well as the liturgy and canonical hours which were to conform to Roman practice and serve as the standard of Christian worship throughout the country. The saints’ lives, or biographies, in the breviary were all written by either Elphinstone or Boece.

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