Editing Roman Breviary (section)

===Early printed editions===
[[File:Aberdeen Breviary, Opening Page.jpg|thumb|Title page of the Aberdeen Breviary (1509)]]
Before the advent of [[printing]], breviaries were written by hand and were often richly decorated with initials and miniature illustrations telling stories in the lives of [[Christ]] or the [[saint]]s, or stories from the [[Bible]]. Later printed breviaries usually have [[woodcut]] illustrations, interesting in their own right but with poor relation to the beautifully [[illuminated manuscript|illuminated]] breviaries.

The beauty and value of many of the Latin Breviaries were brought to the notice of English churchmen by one of the numbers of the Oxford ''[[Tracts for the Times]]'', since which time they have been much more studied, both for their own sake and for the light they throw upon the English Prayer-Book.<ref name=EB1911/>

Early printed Breviaries were locally distributed and quickly worn out by daily use. As a result, surviving copies are rare; of those editions which survive at all, many are known only by a single copy.

In Scotland the only one which has survived the convulsions of the 16th century is ''[[Aberdeen Breviary]]'', a Scottish form of the Sarum Office (the [[Sarum Rite]] was much favoured in Scotland as a kind of protest against the jurisdiction claimed by the diocese of York), revised by [[William Elphinstone]] (bishop 1483–1514), and printed at Edinburgh by [[Walter Chepman|Walter Chapman]] and [[Androw Myllar]] in 1509–1510. Four copies have been preserved of it, of which only one is complete; but it was reprinted in facsimile in 1854 for the Bannatyne Club by the munificence of the [[Walter Montagu Douglas Scott, 5th Duke of Buccleuch|Duke of Buccleuch]]. It is particularly valuable for the trustworthy notices of the early history of Scotland which are embedded in the lives of the national saints. Though enjoined by royal mandate in 1501 for general use within the realm of Scotland, it was probably never widely adopted. The new Scottish ''Proprium'' sanctioned for the Catholic province of St Andrews in 1903 contains many of the old Aberdeen collects and antiphons.<ref name=EB1911/>

The Sarum or Salisbury Breviary itself was very widely used. The first edition was printed at Venice in 1483 by Raynald de Novimagio in folio; the latest at Paris, 1556, 1557. While modern Breviaries are nearly always printed in four volumes, one for each season of the year, the editions of the Sarum never exceeded two parts.<ref name=EB1911/>