The old technical term for such an office was Historia, with or without an additional "rhytmata" or rimata, an expression that frequently caused misunderstanding on the part of later writers.
The reason for the name lay in the fact that originally the antiphons or the responses, and sometimes the two together, served to amplify or comment upon the history of a saint, of which there was a brief sketch in the readings of the second nocturn.
In the Middle Ages the word "rhythmical" was used as the general term for any kind of poetry to be distinguished from prose, no matter whether there was regular rhythm in those poems or not.
And for that reason it is practical to comprise in the name "rhythmical offices" all those other than pure prose, a designation that corresponds to the Historia rhytmata.
Apart from the predilection of the Middle Ages for the poetic form, the Vitœ metricœ of the saints were the point of departure and motive for the rhythmical offices.
79), where all the antiphons are borrowed from that saint's Vitœ metricœ, presumably the work of Hucbald of St. Amand; the office itself was composed by Bishop Stephen of Liège about the end of the ninth century: Antiphona I:
Hic fuit ad tempus Hildrici regis in aula, Dilectus cunctis et vocis famine dulcis.
Rictrudis sponso sit laus et gloria, Christo, Pro cuius merito iubilemus ei vigilando.
Hæc femina laudabilis Meritisque honorabilis Rictrudis egregia Divina providentia Pervenit in Galliam, Præclaris orta natalibus, Honestis alta et instituta moribus.
There is no doubt however from Saint-Amand and the monasteries in Hainault, Flanders, and Brabant, came the real starting-point of this style of poetry, as long ago as the ninth century.
Poets involved are: Julian von Speyer was director of the orchestra at the Frankish royal court, afterwards Franciscan friar and choir master in the Paris convent, where about 1240 he composed words and music for the two well-known offices in honour of Francis of Assisi and of Anthony of Padua (Anal.
The other German poets whose names can be given belong to a period as late as the fifteenth century, as e. g. Provost Lippold of Steinberg and Bishop Johann Hofmann of Meissen.
Next to him are worthy of mention Cardinal Adam Easton (died 1397) and the Carmelite John Horneby of Lincoln, who about 1370 composed a rhymed office in honour of the Holy Name of Jesus, and of the Visitation of Our Lady.