Staging The Liturgy

TABLE OF CONTENTSTABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE INTRODUCTIONFORMINTRODUCTION Status quaestionis The morphology of the medieval retable in western Europe The retable: definition and origins The panel retable The winged retable THE ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE MEDIEVALRETABLE IN THE IBERIAN PENINSULA The ancestry of the Iberian retable (600-1200)The decoration of the mensa and stipes Ciboria and baldachins Reliquaries combined with altars Objects above and on the mensa Wall and vault paintings SummaryRomanesque altar retables (1000-1250) The oldest known retables SummaryThe retable under French influence (1250-1400) Painted retables Carved retables SummaryThe painted retable under Italian influence (1330-1400) Contacts with Tuscany Catalonia Other parts of Spain SummarySculptured retables in Catalonia (1325-1430) Stone retables in ltalo-Gothic style The Lleida SchoolInternational Gothic SummaryInternational Gothic in retable painting (1380-1450) Catalonia Valencia, Mallorca, Aragon and Navarre Castile SummaryThe import of retables from northern Europe (1390-1520) English alabasters Triptychs from the Southern Netherlands Foreign sculpture, Spanish structure SummaryPainted retables in the Spanish-Flemish style (1430-1510) Catalonia, Valencia and Aragon Castile and Navarre Portugal Summary Sculptured wall retables in the Late Gothic style (1470-1530) Cathedrals Other churches Summary The transition to the Renaissance retable (1490-1530) Painted retables Sculptured retables Summary Relationships to other traditions and genres (1470-1540) Relationships to other traditionsRelationships to other genres SUMMARY THE MEDIEVAL CHOIR IN THE IBERIAN PENINSULA:FORM AND LOCATION General characteristics The form of the choir Choir stalls Choir partitions The location of the choir The Romanesque coro in Santiago de Compostela The church of St James and its choir Reasons for the nave location Possible antecedents Gothic nave choirs Monastic churches From mosques to cathedrals Other cathedrals Collegiate and parish churches Exceptions that prove the rule The exceptions Burgos and León The coro alto Monastic churches Secular churches Possible antecedents Summary BETWEEN THE TWO CHOIRS: THE CROSSING AS ACROSSROADS OF ACTIVITY Between the two choirs The crossing as a place for preachingThe high altar visible for both clergy and laity CONSEQUENCES FOR THE RETABLE II. ENVIRONMENT III. MESSAGE INTRODUCTION Word and image in the medieval church interiorThe main features of medieval retable iconography in western Europe INTRODUCTION Status quaestionis The choir in the medieval church interior of western Europe The Office The location of the choir in the church interior Consequences for the use of the church ICONOGRAPHY OF THE MEDIEVAL RETABLE IN THEIBERIAN PENINSULAGeneral tendencies The Eucharistic message The hagiographical message The narrative messageTHE RETABLE IN ITS RELIGIOUS AND HISTORICCONTEXT Backcloth to the Mass From communal celebration to clerical spectacle Enrichment of the ritual and its decor Changing attitudes to the Sacrament Background to the sermon The development of the sermon References to retables in sermons Other uses of imagery by preachersDevotional image The individualisation of devotion Illustrated devotional literature The devotional book and the retable Prestige object The secularisation of the retable Private founding of high altar retables Retable rivalry Mirror of the Reconquest The Reconquest as a holy war From coexistence to Inquisition The Reconquest and the retable Expression of reform The 'Reform of the Catholic Monarchs' Correspondences with the retable Cardinal Cisneros, reformer and Maecenas SUMMARY GENERAL CONCLUSIONS BIBLIOGRAPHYINDEX OF PLACES AND PERSONSPLATES.

Examining the history of altar decorations, this study of the visual liturgy grapples with many of the previous theoretical frameworks to reveal the evolution and function of these ritual objects. Using an interdisciplinary approach, this book uses traditional art-historical methodologies and media technology theory to reexamine ritual objects. Previous analysis has not considered the in-between nature of these objects as deliberate and virtual conduits to the divine. The liturgy, the altarpiece, the altar environment, relics, and their reliquaries are media. In a series of case studies, several objects tell a different story about culture and society in medieval Europe. In essence, they reveal that media and media technologies generate and modulate the individual and collective structure of feelings of sacredness among assemblages of humans and nonhumans. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, medieval studies, early modern studies, and architectural history.

EVERY MOMENT HOLY, Vol. 2: DEATH, GRIEF, & HOPE, is a book of liturgies for seasons of dying and grieving--liturgies such as "A Liturgy for the Scattering of Ashes" or "A Liturgy for the Loss of a Spouse" or "A Liturgy for the Wake of a National Tragedy" or "A Liturgy for the Weighing of Last-Stage Medical Options." These are ways of reminding us that our lives are shot through with sacred purpose and eternal hopes even when, especially when, suffering and pain threaten to overwhelm us. -over 100 liturgies for seasons of dying and grieving -beautiful leather-bound hardcover -over 20 illustrations by Ned Bustard -silk bookmark -gilded edges

This is a study of the social construction and the impression management of the public forms of worship of Catholicism and Anglicanism. Interest centres on the dilemmas of the liturgical actors in handling a transaction riddled with ambiguities and potential misunderstandings. The study is an innovative effort to link sociology to theology in a way that serves to focus on an issue of social praxis.

Theology in the modern era often assumes that the consummate form of theological discourse is objective prose—ignoring or condemning apophatic traditions and the spiritual eros that drives them. For too long, Kierkegaard has been read along these lines as a progenitor of twentieth-century neo-orthodoxy and a stern critic of the erotic in all its forms. In contrast, Hughes argues that Kierkegaard envisions faith fundamentally as a form of infinite, insatiable eros. He depicts the essential purpose of Kierkegaard’s writing as to elicit ever-greater spiritual desire, not to provide the satisfactions of doctrine or knowledge. Hughes’s argument revolves around close readings of provocative, disparate, and (in many cases) little-known Kierkegaardian texts. The thread connecting all of these texts is that they each conjure up some sort of performative “stage setting,” which they invite readers to enter. By analyzing the theological function of these texts, the book sheds new light on the role of the aesthetic in Kierkegaard’s authorship, his surprising affinity for liturgy and sacrament, and his overarching effort to conjoin eros for God with this-worldly love.

Embodied Liturgy marks a “return to the body” in thinking about Christian liturgy and sacramental practice. Rooted in phenomenology and incarnational theology, the book gives primary focus to the body as it considers the prayer offices and the liturgical calendar, sacrifices and sacraments, initiation and vestments, ritual theory and play, word and meal, fasting and feasting, penance and celebration, rites of passage, cultural perspectives, and the role of art, music, dance, and drama in worship. The author invites readers to return to the experience of their own body through guided yogic exercises. As a text for students and liturgical practitioners, the volume gives fresh voice to the experience and practice of worship as bodily acts. Embodied Liturgy is a dynamic, accessible new resource in liturgical and sacramental theology from one of the premiere scholars in the field. Frank C. Senn distills an established legacy of expertise in an innovative and inviting perspective on bodily acts of worship.

Romano Guardini's The Spirit of the Liturgy "helped us to rediscover the liturgy in all its beauty, hidden wealth, and time-transcending grandeur, to see it as the animating center of the Church, the very center of Christian life.... We were now willing to see the liturgy as the prayer of the Church, a prayer moved and guided by the Holy Spirit himself, a prayer in which Christ unceasingly becomes contemporary with us, enters into our lives." — Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger In the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council wrote that liturgical reform and renewal must accord with what they called "the spirit of the liturgy". But what did they mean by this? Popes had written and spoken about this spirit in the decades before the council, but another important source is the 1918 book The Spirit of the Liturgy by Romano Guardini, which Pope Benedict XVI credits with sparking the liturgical movement in Germany. The Seven Gifts of The Spirit of the Liturgy is a study of Guardini's watershed text. With contributions from Bishop Arthur Serratelli, Cassian Folsom, O.S.B., Michon Matthiesen, David Fagerberg, Daniel Cardó, Bishop James Conley, Emery de Gaál, and Susan Benofy, as well as Christopher Carstens, it analyzes each of the seven core features of the liturgical spirit as Guardini defined it: objective, corporate, universal, symbolic, meaningful, beautiful, and logical. The Second Vatican Council saw each of these seven characteristics as integral to authentic liturgical reform. Too often they remain absent from liturgical celebrations even today, when subjectivism and individualism take the place of an objective, corporate spirit; when custom-made liturgies neglect the dimension of universality; when frivolous, anemic symbols stand in for a robust symbolism that truly manifests Christ; when beauty and seriousness fade into the background. We hold back the spirit of the liturgy if we don't know what it is, if we don't desire it, and if we don't work to let it animate liturgical prayer and practice. For this reason, nine experts on the liturgy recall in this book Guardini's key spiritual insights, showing how these can deepen our liturgical understanding and practice today.

Worship is at the heart of the Christian faith. This applies equally to all denominations. For that reason it is all the more important that the ordering of worship and its place in the life of the church is regularly rewritten and reinterpreted. This volume—based on the third, completely revised German edition from 2013 by two of the foremost liturgical scholars in Germany—offers a contemporary, comprehensive introduction to the foundations for the study of liturgy today, one from which scholars and students in the English-speaking world can also profit. Beyond appealing to students of liturgy and theology, this book reaches out to everyone who wants to know more about the liturgical essence and dimensions of the church.