Late Medieval Liturgies Enacted

This book critically explores ways in which our understanding of late medieval liturgy can be enhanced through present-day enactment. It is a direct outcome of a practice-led research project, led by Professor John Harper and undertaken at Bangor University between 2010 and 2013 in partnership with Salisbury Cathedral and St Fagans National History Museum, near Cardiff. The book seeks to address the complex of ritual, devotional, musical, physical and architectural elements that constitute medieval Latin liturgy, whose interaction can be so difficult to recover other than through practice. In contrast with previous studies of reconstructed liturgies, enactment was not the exclusive end-goal of the project; rather it has created a new set of data for interpretation and further enquiry. Though based on a foundation of historical, musicological, textual, architectural and archaeological research, new methods of investigation and interpretation are explored, tested and validated throughout. There is emphasis on practice-led investigation and making; the need for imagination and creativity; and the fact that enactment participants can only be of the present day. Discussion of the processes of preparation, analysis and interpretation of the enactments is complemented by contextual studies, with particular emphasis on the provision of music. A distinctive feature of the work is that it seeks to understand the experiences of different groups within the medieval church - the clergy, their assistants, the singers, and the laity - as they participated in different kinds of rituals in both a large cathedral and a small parish church. Some of the conclusions challenge interpretations of these experiences, which have been current since the Reformation. In addition, some consideration is given to the implications of understanding past liturgy for present-day worship.

This volume seeks to address the needs of teachers and advanced students who are preparing classes on the Middle Ages or who find themselves confounded in their studies by reference to the various liturgies that were fundamental to the lives of medieval peoples. In a series of essays, scholars of the liturgy examine The Shape of the Liturgical Year, Particular Liturgies, The Physical Setting of the Liturgy, The Liturgy and Books, and Liturgy and the Arts. A concluding essay, which originated in notes left behind by the late C. Clifford Flanigan, seeks to open the field, to examine liturgy within the larger and more inclusive category of ritual. The essays are intended to be introductory but to provide the basic facts and the essential bibliography for further study. They approach particular problems assuming a knowledge of medieval Europe but little expertise in liturgical studies per se.

This book provides an introduction to current work and new directions in the study of medieval liturgy. It focuses primarily on so-called occasional rituals such as burial, church consecration, exorcism and excommunication rather than on the Mass and Office. Recent research on such rites challenges many established ideas, especially about the extent to which they differed from place to place and over time, and how the surviving evidence should be interpreted. These essays are designed to offer guidance about current thinking, especially for those who are new to the subject, want to know more about it, or wish to conduct research on liturgical topics. Bringing together scholars working in different disciplines (history, literature, architectural history, musicology and theology), time periods (from the ninth to the fifteenth centuries) and intellectual traditions, this collection demonstrates the great potential that liturgical evidence offers for understanding many aspects of the Middle Ages. It includes essays that discuss the practicalities of researching liturgical rituals; show through case studies the problems caused by over-reliance on modern editions; explore the range of sources for particular ceremonies and the sort of questions which can be asked of them; and go beyond the rites themselves to investigate how liturgy was practised and understood in the medieval period.

In 1879, the late medieval poem now known as The Lay Folks' Mass Book - a guide to the Mass -- was edited for the Early English Text Society by Canon Thomas Frederick Simmons. It remains the standard edition of what, to modern tastes, can seem a simple work of conventional Middle English devotion. Yet, as this book shows, the poem had a remarkable afterlife. The authors demonstrate how Simmons' interest in and presentation of the text was related profoundly to contemporary concerns and heated debates about worship in the Church of England, at a time when Anglian clergymen could be imprisoned for their ritual practices. Simmons, educated at Oxford during the height of the Oxford Movement, was recognised by contemporaries as a leading authority on liturgy, a topic that troubled prime ministers as well as archbishops, and the authors bring out the ways in which Simmons himself used his medievalist researches as the basis for what was to be the most important attempt at Prayer Book revision between the Reformation and the twentieth century.

Originally published in 1997, Medieval Liturgy is a unique and interesting collection of nine essays that explores medieval liturgy from three distinct perspectives: historical, liturgical, and theological. The book includes contributions from eminent scholars of the time and discusses the development of 9th to 11th century ordines, the meaning of the Mass in the 12th and 13th centuries, medieval preaching, ordination practices, popular penance practices, marriage rites, the role of music in Eucharistic liturgy, and the relationship between liturgical architectural space and theology.

Until recently, research on the late medieval English Office liturgy has suggested that all manuscripts of the same liturgical Use, including those of the celebrated and widespread Uses of Sarum and York, are in large part interchangeable and uniform. This study demonstrates, through detailed analyses of the manuscript breviaries and antiphonals of each secular liturgical Use of medieval England, that such books do share a common textual core. But this is in large part restricted to a single genre of text--the responsory. Other features, even within manuscripts of the same Use, are subject to striking and significant variation, influenced by local customs and hagiographical and textual priorities, and also by varying reception to liturgical prescriptions from ecclesiastical authorities. The identification of the characteristic features of each Use and the differentiation of regional patterns have resulted from treating each manuscript as a unique witness, a practice which is not common in liturgical studies, but one which gives the manuscripts greater value as historical sources. The term 'Use', often employed as a descriptor of orthodoxy, may itself imply a greater uniformity than ever existed, for the ways that the 'Use of Sarum', a liturgical pattern originally designed for enactment in a single cathedral, was realised in countless other venues for worship were dependent on the times, places, and contexts in which the rites were celebrated.

This volume offers a new, synthetic overview of the structure and ritual shape of the Roman Mass from its formative period in late antiquity to its post-Tridentine standarisation. Starting with the Last Supper and the origins of the Eucharist, Uwe Michael Lang constructs a narrative that explores the intense religious, social, and cultural transformations that shaped the Roman Mass. Lang unites classical liturgical history with insights from a variety of other disciplines that have drawn attention to the ritual performance and reception of the mass. He also presents liturgical developments within the broader historical and theological contexts that affected the celebration and experience of the sacramental rite that is still at the heart of Catholic Christianity. Aimed at scholars from a broad swathe of subjects, including religious studies, history, art history, literature, and music, Lang's volume serves as a comprehensive history of the Roman Mass over the course of a millenium.

The liturgy, the public worship of the Catholic Church, was a crucial factor in forging the society of early medieval Rome. As the Roman Empire dissolved, a new world emerged as Christian bishops stepped into the power vacuum left by the dismantling of the Empire. Among these potentates, none was more important than the bishop of Rome, the pope. The documents, archaeology, and architecture that issued forth from papal Rome in the seventh and eighth centuries preserve a precious glimpse into novel societal patterns. The underexploited liturgical sources in particular enrich and complicate our historical understanding of this period. They show how liturgy was the ’social glue’ that held together the Christian society of early medieval Rome - and excluded those who did not belong to it. This study places the liturgy center stage, filling a gap in research on early medieval Rome and demonstrating the utility of investigating how the liturgy functioned in medieval Europe. It includes a detailed analysis of the papal Mass, the central act of liturgy and the most obvious example of the close interaction of liturgy, social relations and power. The first extant Mass liturgy, the First Roman Ordo, is also given a new presentation in Latin here with an English translation and commentary. Other grand liturgical events such as penitential processions are also examined, as well as more mundane acts of worship. Far from a pious business with limited influence, the liturgy established an exchange between humans and the divine that oriented Roman society to God and fostered the dominance of the clergy.