Yesterday, I spent some time trying to look up the Divine Office or Daily Office. (I'm not even sure that's the right name for it; the information I found was inconsistant.) What I wanted to know about was the ancient practice of dividing the day with prayer breaks. I knew about it as a child, and a person a generation older than me knew that some Catholic orders in Lafayette, Louisiana (where I grew up) maintained the tradition.


Yesterday, I was curious about the names accorded each break in the day because I could only remember a couple - matins and vespers. I'm now also curious about how, in the centuries before clocks, they determined when to ring the bells for each division of the day. Was there some mechanical set of steps? Was one person assigned the role of timekeeper and he or she just intuitively divided the day, knew it was time for Terce? Was that role passed on in an apprenticed kind of way? And were the times of day in synch with the orders in other parts of town, or other parts of the world?


I'm also curious about the language of the names. I believe they are Latin, but I'm not sure all of them are Latin.


The names and order of the names and the number of divisions that I found yesterday again were not consistent. But here is a list that works both with what I found, and my weak memory. The list however may not be 100% accurate.

Lauds
Matins
Prime
Terce
Sext
None
Vespers
Compline
Vigils