International Publishing and Local Needs: The Breviaries and Missals Printed by Plantin for the Spanish Crown

Abstract

The last session of the Council of Trent was held in December 1563. After twenty years of meetings, the Council of Trent seemed to have fulfilled its mission, reaffirming Roman Catholic dogma and papal authority, formalizing the instruction and roles of clergy and universalizing the cults and rites of the Church. Trent entrusted the Pope with the tasks of the unification of liturgical books and of the correction of the alterations which had been introduced into them over time. The unified Roman Breviary was established in July 1568 and the unified Roman Missal in July 1570.1 Only those churches which possessed two-hundred-year-old liturgies approved by the Pope were exempted from the obligation to use the Roman Breviary and Missal. In December 1570, the Spanish Crown, at the request of Philip ii, was allowed to make some changesto the Roman Breviary and Missal to preserve the rites and ceremonies of Toledo’s Church (afterwards ‘the Spanish Church’). It was also granted the rights to print and sell them.