Like the
Sarum Rite, which had been in use since the twelfth century, the Aberdeen Breviary contained brief lives, or biographies, of the saints as well as the
liturgy and
canonical hours which were to conform to
Roman practice and serve as the standard of
Christian worship throughout the country. The saints’ lives, or biographies, in the breviary were all written by either Elphinstone or Boece. However, unlike the Sarum Rite, the Aberdeen work also contained lives of the nation's saints—
Scottish saints such as
Kentigern,
Machar, and
Margaret of Scotland. Indeed, historian Jane Geddes has gone so far as to call the Aberdeen Breviary a work of “religious patriotism,” pointing out Scotland's sixteenth-century efforts to establish its own identity. She writes that both Elphinstone and the king “were attempting to direct the apparently growing interest in local cults ... toward a range of saints that they identified as Scottish.” Along with focusing on Scottish saints, Elphinstone sometimes “Scotticized”
Irish and
continental saints, one of the most interesting being the office of an Irish missionary in
France named
Fiacre. Historian Steve Boardman speculates Fiacre appealed to the Scots because of their traditional military alliance with France and long history of wars against the English Crown. Furthermore, the Irish-born French saint is associated with the death of England's invading King
Henry V. After the
Battle of Agincourt, Henry had allowed his army to pillage Fiacre's monastery and
Christian pilgrimage shrine in the
town bearing his name, but Fiacre supernaturally prevented the English soldiers from carrying their loot beyond the boundaries of his
monastery. Henry V died of
haemorrhoids on 30 August, St Fiacre's
feast day. Boardman points out, however, that there are a few cases in which Elphinstone and Boece included saints associated with Scotland, but introduced as otherwise. One example is St
Constantine the Great, for whom there were dedicated places of worship in Scotland—at
Kilchousland in
Kintyre and at
Govan—and whom
Glasgow even claimed as a native son. The breviary, which was composed in Latin, includes at the back a small, 16-page book entitled
Compassio Beate Marie, which has readings about the relics of
St Andrew, Scotland's
patron saint.
Hymns,
responsories, and
antiphons were composed for most of the saints in various
metres and styles. There are
poems as well, although, except for the poem for the office of St Fiacre, they are not high in quality. All these were to be used as acts of
worship. ==Extant copies==