Responsories for Holy Week Responsories for Holy Week Responsories for Holy Week (Latin: Responsoria pro hebdomada sancta) are three sets of nine responsories, for Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday respectively, the three days of the Holy Week preceding Easter Sunday. They are also known as the Tenebrae responsories, and were set to music for instance by Carlo Gesualdo ("Responsoria et alia ad Officium Hebdomadae Sanctae spectantia", 1611) and by Jan Dismas Zelenka (ZWV 55). The Night Hours ("preceding" the Little Hours) of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday consist of matins (each with three nocturns) and lauds. The lessons of these
Holy Week in Braga 313, and the determinations of the Council of Nicaea on the celebration of Easter. The first major testimony of the celebration of Holy week in Jerusalem, and the likely start of his imitation in multiple other places in the Christian world, is the travelogue Peregrinatio ad Loca Sancta or Itinerarium ad Loca Sancta (Pilgrimage / Itinerary to Holy Places) or, simply, Itinerarium Egeriae (Itinerary of Egeria) written by Egeria or Aetheria. This pilgrim was a woman of Gallaecia, probably even of Bracara Augusta (nowadays the city of Braga), that made his own pilgrimage to the Holy Land between 381 and