R. C. Ch. See also TENEBRES. [L. tenebræ darkness; in med.L. in the eccles. sense: see Du Cange.] The name given to the office of matins and lauds of the following day, usually sung in the afternoon or evening of Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday in Holy Week, at which the candles lighted at the beginning of the service are extinguished one by one after each psalm, in memory of the darkness at the time of the crucifixion. Also attrib.
1651. in Morris, Troubles Cath. Foref., I. vi. (1872), 304. We were forced to read our Office and even the Tenebræ Matins in the work chamber.
1656. Blount, Glossogr., s.v., The service or mattins used in the Roman Church … cal’d tenebræ (thence tenebræ wednesday, thursday, &c.).
1671. Mme. de Sévigné, Lett to Dau. (1811), 26 March, I. 153. The deep solitude, the awful silence, the melancholy office of the day, the devout singing of the tenebræ, and the solemn fast, added to the beauty of the gardens.
1708. Ozell, trans. Boileau’s Lutrin, IV. (1730), 192. Others more sad and phlegmatick than he Guess’d it the Toning of the Tenebrae.
1753. Challoner, Cath. Chr. Instr., 219. Called the Tenebræ Office.
1820. Mariana Stark, Trav. Cont., viii. 380. On Wednesday, in the Holy Week, at four in the afternoon, the Tenebræ and the Miserere are sung by the Pope’s Choir in the Cappella-Sistina, and likewise in S. Peter’s.
1864. J. H. Newman, Apol., i. (1904), 21/1. We attended the Tenebræ, at the Sestine, for the sake of the Miserere.
