For the "nocturns" of matins see Clarence Miller, Studies in English Literature, 6 (1966), 77-86.
Then at the very end he turns this version of an ancient religious observance (for the "nocturn" was part of the ancient service of Matins, in strict usage performed at midnight) toward a transformation of that Petrarchan language that he had long before used in a secular sonnet that speaks of "the Saint of his affection": (17)
(45) More common is the monastic division of the Psalms into eight groups or
nocturns, which provided the sets of Psalms to be performed during the offices of each day of the week.
This woman had devoutly attended
nocturns and lauds on the Kalends of November when the holy festival of All Saints is celebrated.
Lucies Day" and the
Nocturns of Matins', Studies in English Literature, 6 (1966), 77-86, and Peter deSa Wiggins, Donne, Castiglione, and the Poetry of Courtliness (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000), pp.
(31) The bishop's men supposedly entered the monastery during
nocturns while the monks were saying the office, and then proceeded to attack all on whom they could lay their hands before pillaging and setting fire to the monastery.
(78.) In secular use (i.e., in non-monastic churches), the Office of Matins, also known as the Night Office, is comprised of one, two, or three
nocturns, depending on the solemnity of the feast.
(19) A monastic Matins service requires twelve responsories, four chants in each of three sections (or
nocturns), while a cathedral or nonmonastic church requires only nine responsories, three chants in each of three
nocturns.
Only at the completion of the antiphon does the prior then involve the whole congregation in singing the Te Deum, the ordinary hymn sung at the end of every Sunday's
Nocturns. (28) With the Visitatio Sepulchre contained in the Regularis Concordia, we may have crossed the bridge between liturgical trope and dramatic or semi-dramatic text.
The midnight setting may be powerfully and plausibly aligned with the monastic hour of
nocturns;(14) yet as John Fleming observes, we cannot take the poem's points as 'uniquely monastic'.(15) According to Gregorian dream-theory, this circumstance of night-time silence, however interpreted or achieved, is what makes a divine vision possible, making room for a divine voice that can in turn inspire the authoritative voices of worshippers and visionary poets.
The role of the boy singers is also glimpsed in the order of service, item 4, which specifies that one boy was to sing the first lesson of the first
nocturn of Matins.