Category Archives: Medieval Stuff

Modern Day Sarum Prymer

I’ve idly considered for some time now producing a usable version of the prymers that I’ve been studying. I do intend to do a lot more with them in my research—they’re fascinating subjects on their own terms as examples of biblical interpretation at work in liturgy and popular devotion as well as important precursors to the Books of Common Prayer. While I’ve put a few scripts together and have done some devotional offices allied with the breviary (for which I need to create a landing page with links), I haven’t done the full-on work due to so many other balls in the air.

However—my procrastination has not been in vain! While I have slept, others have labored!

Fr. Michael Shirk, a priest of the Independent Catholic Christian Church, is a friend of the blog and frequent correspondent. He’s also done yeoman’s work in pulling together liturgical materials for the publishing arm, the Rene Vilatte Press.

Michael’s latest labor is, in fact, a Sarum Prymer!

It contains:

The Kalendar
Hours of the BVM
Hours of the Cross
Memorials (with chant notation for the primary common memories)
The Gradual Psalms
The Litany (with chant notation)
The Penitential Psalms
The Passion
Psalms of the Passion
Offices of the Dead (with chant notation)
Prayers–a lot of prayers including the classic Marian “O intemerata” and “Obsecro te”, the original XV Oos of St. Bridget and many, many others

It’s all in traditional Coverdale English and, when feasible, many of the prayers have been adapted from Anglican prayer book materials to be consonant with the originals. And that’s one of the things I love about this project—Michael has put in the hard work to make sure that it is faithful not only to the original Sarum prymer tradition but that it also partakes of the spirit of the Anglican continuations and translations within that tradition. The postcript identifying the works he used and consulted is an excellent hand-list of the the best current resources and classic Anglican adaptations of this body of material. We also corresponded several times about it, and he graciously asked me to write the foreword. This is what I said:

The great Anglican spiritual writer Martin Thornton once wrote a profoundly true passage about the chief hallmark of Christian catholicity. While we may argue over interpretation of the Scriptures, the sacraments, the creeds, the finer points of apostolic succession and such, the purest and simplest test of a catholic and orthodox faith classically understood is the pattern of its spirituality: “the common Office (opus dei) supporting private prayer (orationes peculiares) both of which are allied to, and consummated by, the Mass” (Thorton, English Spirituality, 76). In the churches that keep this pattern of spirituality, the rites of the Office and Mass are fixed within the authorized books—whether those be missals and breviaries or the Books of Common Prayer of the Anglican traditions. However, all too often clergy and laity alike are left to their own devices when it comes to the practice of private prayer. While the authorized books serve as models and tutors of prayer, while the psalms remain the pedagogues of prayer par excellence, the faithful need resources for guidance, direction, and an informed understanding of how their private, individual prayers join the prayer of the Church Universal.

We now have just such a resource. In this volume, Fr. Michael Shirk has done a great service to all who seek to join themselves to the Church’s rule of prayer. In his instruction on prayer he offers useful, practical, comments about three principle means of praying; the body of the work, however, is the Sarum prymer and associated devotions. This work has been carefully researched and skillfully connected with temporally later but spiritually complementary Anglican materials which were selected for their linguistic excellence rather than any alteration to the theology of the original. It contains that rare blend of fidelity to the historical tradition and pastoral sensitivity to the modern context. Fr. Shirk’s effort enables us to join the great stream of lay devotion that undergirds the English spiritual tradition.

As the great Victorian liturgist Edmund Bishop demonstrated, the materials that would appear in the books of hours and prymers emerged as additional devotions added in and around the Office within early medieval monastic houses. As literacy and devotion grew among the laity, they desired to imitate monastic practice but within a form suitable to their active lives. Thus the little hours—devotional cycles modeled on the structure of the breviary hours but with fewer and shorter elements and minimally altered by the seasons and saints’ days—were the ideal choice. By the late medieval period, the Books of Hours were the chief devotional aid for the literate. Even the illiterate were edified by them as well as their frequent illustrations depicted the central scenes of the life and passion of Christ. Meditation upon both the texts and images of these books was a central practice of the anchorite mothers of the medieval church and the writings of Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe (to name just two) are the fruits of these devotions.

Four practices in particular represent the spiritual centers of gravity of the Sarum prymer: the Hours of the BVM, the Hours of the Cross, the Litany, and the Office of the Dead. While medieval Books of Hours and the English-language or bilingual Latin-English prymers which developed from them often incorporated a range of different elements, these four elements were virtually universal. In them, personal devotion and the Church’s theology are united.

The Hours of the Blessed Virgin Mary are an extended mediation upon the mystery of the Incarnation. The honors afford to the Virgin approach from several different directions the many paradoxes inherent in the Incarnation—a virgin giving birth, the Lord who spans heaven and earth enclosed in a womb, a creature bringing forth from her body that body’s Creator. The images that historically accompanied the hours progressed through the story of Christ through the lens of his mother: the Annunciation, the journey to Bethlehem, the Nativity, the Presentation in the Temple, etc. As we pray through this devotion, the theological prescriptions of the Chalcedonian formulation are translated into the relationships between mother and Son.

The Hours of the Cross—each hour frequently prayed immediately after the associated hour of the BVM—are a constant reminder of the mystery of Redemption. As the Hours of the BVM move through the life of Christ, the Hours of the Cross move through the events of the Passion. The hymn of each hour associates the time of day with the sufferings of Christ at that same hour.

The Litany is the devotion that explores the scope and directly participates within the mission of the Church. An extended sequence of alternating prayer that works equally well with others or alone, the Litany begins by calling to mind—through requests for intercession—the scope and extent of the Church; the Church at prayer with us is not restricted to the bodies we see in our immediate vicinity but consists of all those baptized into the mystery of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ and is preeminently figured by those worthies who have demonstrated their excellence in the imitation of Christ and unity with his divine life. Thus we name the saints and we call to mind the great divisions of the Church Triumphant. Now, with the Church arrayed around us, we undertake the Church’s great work of intercession, praying for ourselves, for the Church, and for the whole world.

The Office of the Dead and related devotions originally tapped into the deep-set late medieval concerns of dying unprepared and the fates of the souls in purgatory. While these concerns no longer have the hold on the popular consciousness that they once did, these Offices continue to play an important role within the devotional life of the Church. In a society that attempts to sanitize death, hiding it from sight and mind (yet simultaneously glorifying casual violence in its entertainment), the Office of the Dead is a stark reminder of the inevitability of death. It oscillates between the pains of death and the promise of redemption, between human anxiety and divine consolation.

For generations, these devotions have fed the English spiritual tradition. Thanks to the efforts of Fr. Shirk, they have been given a new life in our time. May they enrich your devotion, bless your practice, and lead you deeper into the mysteries of Christ.

So—while you’re waiting for the Saint Augustine’s Prayer Book revision to come out, and if you’re concerned at all that it will be too “modernized,” this is a truly classic supplement that deserves a space on your bookshelf! Here’s the link again: a Sarum Prymer (and no, I don’t get a kick-back from this one). I’m looking forward to using mine quite a bit this Lent.

A word on a digital edition… Due to the font that Michael used to type-set the volume, it can’t be released in a PDF format so there is currently no digital copy. If there is sufficient interest, ways might be found to do an e-book version, though.

The XV Oes of St Bridget

One of the most common and consistent texts in the late medieval Books of Hours and early Reformation prymers was the XV Oes of St Bridget. This unusual title is derived from the fact that this devotion contains fifteen prayers that all begin “O Jesus…” and is attributed to St Bridget of Sweden. It was most likely not written by her personally, but by the English strand of the Brigittine tradition (which is no stranger to these pages as the source of the Myroure of Our Layde and having strong ties to the English Anchorite tradition). It partakes of the same kind of late medieval affective devotion to the passion as the Man of Sorrows, the Image of Pity, and the Stations of the Cross all grounded in the affective theological tradition best represented by St. Bonaventure. Stylistically, I find the prayers similar to the Good Friday Reproaches in that they draw the participant into the Passion imaginatively, inviting parallels through the techniques of either ironic juxtaposition or reversal.

Since we’re speaking of a manuscript devotion, it should be no surprise to any of my regular readers that they have circulated in multiple versions. There are at least two very early English versions; William Caxton printed a version in one of his prymers, and Richard Day printed a protestantized version in his 1578 “Booke of Prayers.” I’ve not been able to locate either of these. (Though I haven’t looked terribly hard either…)

The version that I first encountered in English and seems to have a solid back story to it is this version at the ThesarusPrecum Latinarum.

Using that as a starting place and looking at a few other versions as well, I’ve come up with this text that I think both respects the traditional intent and structure while conforming to prayer book theology.

Thoughts, questions, and comments welcome.

From St Bridget’s Prayers on the Passion

[Traditionally, each prayer after the first was preceded by the Lord’s Prayer and a Hail Mary.]

O Jesus, eternal sweetness to those who love you, joy surpassing all joy and desire, Salvation and Hope of sinners, who has shown your desire to be among humanity, call to mind the sufferings endured in your Incarnation, especially the pain of your bitter Passion. In memory of these pains which you suffered for my redemption, grant me true repentance, amendment of life, and the grace and consolation of your Holy Spirit. Amen.

O Jesus, the Glory of Angels and the paradise of delights, call to mind the blows, the spitting, and the tearing of your flesh before your Passion. In memory of these torments, O my Savior, deliver me from all my enemies, visible and invisible, and to bring me, under your protection, to the perfection of eternal salvation. Amen.

O Jesus, Creator whom nothing in heaven or earth can encompass or limit, who enfolds and embraces all within your loving power, call to mind the pain you suffered when your hands and feet were stretched out and nailed to the hard wood of the cross. In memory of the suffering of the cross, O my Savior, grant me the grace to love and fear you as I should. Amen.

O Jesus, Heavenly Physician, raised high on the cross to heal our wounds with yours, call to mind the bruises you suffered and the pain of your rent limbs as you were held in torment on the cross, yet you did not cease praying for your enemies saying, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” In memory of this suffering, O my Savior, grant that the remembrance of your bitter passion may spur me to true contrition and the remission of all my sins. Amen.

O Jesus, Mirror of everlasting love, call to mind the sadness you felt when you looked down from the cross to see a world awash in its sin and the goodness you displayed to the thief to whom you said, “This day you shall be with me in paradise.” In memory of the depth of your pity, O my Savior, remember me in the hour of my own death, not weighing my merits but pardoning my offenses. Amen.

O Jesus, Beloved and most Desirable King, call to mind the grief you suffered when, naked and shamed upon the cross, all of your relatives and friends abandoned you but for your beloved mother whom you entrusted to your faithful disciple. In memory of the sword of sorrow that pierced your mother, O my Savior, have compassion on me in my afflictions, corporal and spiritual, and aid me in the time of trial. Amen.

O Jesus, Boundless Fountain of Compassion, who by a profound gesture of love said from the cross, “I thirst,” call to mind your suffering from the thirst for the salvation of all humanity. In memory of your mercy, O my Savior, grant that, though placed among things that are passing away, I may hold fast to those that shall endure. Amen.

O Jesus, Savor of hearts, delight of the spirit, of whom we taste and see that the Lord is good, call to mind the flavor of the gall and vinegar you tasted on the cross for love of us. In memory of this bitterness, O my Savior, grant me grace always to receive the sweetness of your Body and Blood worthily as a remedy and consolation for my soul.

O Jesus, Royal virtue, joy of the mind, call to mind the desolation of abandonment you endured at the approach of death as you cried in a loud voice, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” In memory of your anguish, O my Savior, do not abandon me in the terrors and pains of my death. Amen.

O Jesus, the beginning and end of all things, life and virtue, call to mind the length and breadth of your sufferings for our sake. In memory of your endurance, teach me to endure in the way of your commandments and cross, whose way is wide and easy for those who love you. Amen.

O Jesus, Unfathomed Depth of mercy, call to mind your grievous wounds that penetrated to the marrow of your bones and the depths of your soul. In memory of your piercings, O my Savior, turn the face of your anger from me and hide me in your wounds as wrath and judgment pass over me. Amen.

O Jesus, Mirror of truth, symbol of unity, link of charity, call to mind the torn flesh your body, reddened by your spilled blood. In memory of your rent body, O my Savior, teach me to live in unity and godly love with all for whom you suffered and bled. Amen.

O Jesus, Strong Lion of Judah, King invincible and immortal, call to mind the grief you endured when strength was exhausted and you bowed your head, saying: “It is finished.” In memory of your anguish, O my Savior, have mercy upon me at the hour of my death when my mind shall be troubled and my strength fail. Amen.

O Jesus, Only Son of the Father, splendor and figure of the Father’s glory, call to mind the humble commendation of your soul as with body torn, heart broken, and bowels of mercy opened to redeem us, you gave up your spirit. In memory of your precious death, O my Savior, comfort me and help me resist the deceits of the world, the flesh, and the devil that, being dead to the world, I may live to you in the world and, at the hour of death, be welcomed as a pilgrim returning home. Amen.

O Jesus, True and Fruitful Vine, call to mind the blood and water mingled that proceeded from your pierced side. In memory of the flowing of your blood, O my Savior, may all creation be washed clean from the stains of sin and find its reconciliation in you. Amen.

Pierce my heart, Saving Jesus, that tears of penitence and love may be my food and drink day by day that I may be converted entirely to you, my heart a constant dwelling for you, my words and works a constant witness to you, my passing a final return into you. Amen.

Books of Hours: Scripture Content

I’m taking a quick break from posting on the images of the Books of Hours to say a little about the scriptural content of the books. This is, of course, one of the “protestant” questions about the BOH—how much “pure” Scripture was contained within these quintessentially catholic devotions in the late medieval period.

Again, levels will vary based on what items are included. That having been said, here’s a run-down based on Leroquais’ categories:

Essential

Little Hours of the BVM: [Matins] Pss 95, 8, 19, 24 (Ps 51 was printed here in the Sarum books as well as a Lenten alternative to the Te Deum); [Lauds] Pss 93, 100, 63, 67, 148-150; Dan 3:34-67 (Benedicite); Luke 1:68-79 (Benedictus) [Prime] Pss 54, 117, 118; [Terce] Pss 120-122; [Sext] 123-125; [None] Pss 126-128; [Vespers] Pss 122-126; Luke 1:46-55 (Magnificat); [Compline] Pss 13, 43, 129, 131, 130; Luke 2:29-32 (Nunc Dimittis)

The Penitential Psalms: Pss 6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, 143

Office of the Dead: [Placebo] Pss 116, 120, 121, 130, 138, 146; Luke 1:46-55 (Magnificat); [Dirige] Pss 5-7, 25, 27, 40-42, 51, 65, 63, 67, 148-150, 30, 142; Job 7:16-21; 10:1-12, 18-22; 13:23-28; 14:1-6, 13-16; 17:11-15; 19:20-27; Isa 38:10-20 (Song of Hezekiah); Luke 1:68-79 (Benedictus)

Secondary

Sequences: John 1:1-14; Luke 1:26-38; Matt 2:1-12; Mark 16:14-20

John’s Passion: John 18:1–? (I’ve found the incipit, but the three books I’ve looked at don’t contain it…)

Hours of the Holy Spirit: TBD?

Hours of the Cross: TBD? (For these two, I haven’t found any clear references. When I turned to one of the books to glance at the Psalms of the Holy Spirit office I found what looked like the incipit of Ps 1—but not the rest of it. Where would that be? I can’t imagine you’re only supposed to use the incipt. I think these two will require some additional investigation…)

Accessory Texts

The Gradual Psalms: Pss 120-143

The Commendations: Pss 119, 139

Psalter of (Ps.) St Jerome: Extracts from all of the psalms, but containing Ps 51 in its entirety.

Psalms of the Passion: Pss 22-31:5

Initial Thoughts

Clearly, there are a lot of psalms going on! Not all of them, but certainly most. Furthermore, there’s a certain amount of repetition going on. (Note the overlap between the Vespers & Nones of the BVM with the Gradual Psalms.) This is a reminder that specific sections were used for specific devotions—no page turning was needed to flip to a psalm contained elsewhere in the book.

In terms of non-psalm content, there’s not a whole lot; there are extracts from Job for the Offices of the Dead and then the bits from each Gospel. As far as bits go, though, they’re not bad choices: we get the pre-existent Christ from John, the Incarnation from Matthew and Luke, the promises of the Post-Resurrection Christ from Mark, and the Passion itself from John. Again, as we see in the creeds and elsewhere, there is an emphasis on the narratives that relate to the core doctrines—less on teaching materials.

The English prymers tend to follow these selections. Some of the early protestant works add in quite a few more biblical canticles, though. There’s one very interesting outlier that deserves additional study: while the psalms in the protestant Marshall and other books mirror those of the classic catholic books, the psalm choices of Bishop Hilsey in his moderately catholic work are quite different. I don’t know why yet…

Books of Hours: Images II

Last time we talked broadly about illustration issues and design elements in the Books of Hours. Today, let’s look more specifically at illustration content. As we saw with textual contents, the French Roman Catholic master of the field Leroquais identified a set of essential texts: “the Calendar, the Little Office or Hours of the Virgin, the Penitential Psalms, the Litany, the Office of the Dead, and the Suffrages of the Saints” (Harthan, The Book of Hours, 14). Over the centuries, a fairly stable set of illustrations—or at least themes upon which to base illustrations—became standard in the various Books of Hours. We’ll start by making a quick survey of these.

Again—we can properly use the language of “fairly stable”; whenever we’re dealing with medieval manuscript culture, there’s no such thing as “invariable” or “always” and you’ll find occasional exceptions to these if you look hard and broad enough.

The Calendar

[image from the Little Hours of John de Berry (Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, ms. lat. 18014) f. 6v]

Kalendars are, at base, a simple list of dates and feasts. However, it’s never been quite that simple. Due to the calculations necessary to determine when Easter falls, locating Sundays, and establishing the hours of day and night all before reliable clocks, a variety of astronomical entries are common in kalendars certainly in the early medieval period and likely earlier. While passages of the sun into the various heavenly houses tends not to appear in the kalendars of the books of hours, the zodiac certainly does. Alongside zodiacal symbols are a set of vignettes drawn from late medieval pastoral life. Thus, these are the standard images:

January: Feasting
February: Sitting by the fire
March: Pruning
April: Garden scene
May: Hawking or boating
June: The hay harvest
July: Reaping the wheat
August: Threshing
September: Treading the grape
October: Ploughing and sowing
November: Gathering acorns for pigs
December: Killing the pig or baking bread (Harthan, The Book of Hours, 24)

In many books of hours, because of the small size, one month will take up two pages. Thus, the occupation will often appear on the first side of the month, the zodiacal symbol on the other. In cases like the one above where the whole month appears on one page, one image may be at the top and the other at the bottom. In our example, however, the artist has already laid out a much more ambitious artistic program which he has followed through the kalendar: in the upper left is a saint in the month preaching to an eager audience (except for January depicting the conversion of St Paul which falls then); in the bottom is a paired prophet and apostle holding hands, the prophet pointing to the ruin of Jerusalem/the Temple/synagogue. In the top center is a combination of the zodiacal sign and sometimes (but not always) the occupation of the month seen through the arch. Both are here in the case of December: the killing of the pig, and a capricornian goat emerging from the tower.

Needless to say, much of the attention given to books of hours by medievalists focuses here—they get to see how medieval artists depicted the occupations of daily life, how they dressed the people and portrayed them going about their business. Too, it gives us an idea of how the wealthy consumers purchasing such books wanted their artists to portray such activities…

As a liturgist, what I find both interesting and useful here is the color scheme used for writing the saints’ days. Red and blue alternate to provide visual contrast, but gold identifies the greater feasts from the lesser. Note the gold for St Nicholas, Our Lady (yes—the kalendar is written in French, not Latin…) , St Thomas (Ap.), Christmas, St Stephen, St John, Holy Innocents, and St Thomas (M.). Books of hours can be tied (sometimes only tenuously!) to times and/or dioceses through a careful investigation of the specific saints appearing in the kalendars.

The Little Hours of the BVM

[image from the Little Hours of John de Berry (Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, ms. lat. 18014) f. 21r]

These are likely the illustrations and manuscript prints that medieval-leaning church folk are most familiar with. I know I’ve got a bunch o these waiting to be hung around the house that M acquired from various museums even before we met.

The way that this pattern works is that each hour is preceded by an illustration from the life of the BVM relating to the Incarnation:

Matins: The Annunciation
Lauds: The Visitation
Prime: The Nativity
Tierce: The Angel’s Announcement of the Nativity to the Shepherds
Sext: The Adoration of the Magi
None: The Presentation in the Temple/Purification of the BVM
Vespers: The Flight into Egypt and/or Massacre of the Innocents
Compline: The Coronation of the Virgin (Harthan, The Book of Hours, 28)

The Annunciation tends to be the first picture in most books after the kalendar and is one of the most elaborate. Too, it’s quite common for the historiated initial below the miniature to feature the book’s commissioner at his/her devotions, looking up to experience the Annunciation. You can see Duke de Berry in the one above if you squint… Harthan notes that the Announcement to the Shepherds is often also an interesting one because, as with the occupational images, it provides an opportunity for the artist to create a classic pastoral image.

If you’re used to looking at medieval liturgical books and looking at feasts, you’ll notice something interesting here: the hours appear in a ferial pattern. Remember that a feast will begin with a First Vespers so the first office encountered will be Vespers, then Compline, and only then Matins. Since the cycle here starts with Matins, it’s a reminder that the Hours of the BVM were a daily exercise, used without regard to feast or ferial days.

The Penitential Psalms

[image from the Little Hours of John de Berry (Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, ms. lat. 18014) f. 53r]

There’s quite a variety in the images before the penitential psalms. However, you can usually count on finding David somewhere in the scene. Typically, he’s the crowned figure holding a harp. In the example above, he’s hanging out in the historiated initial and there’s also a David & Goliath match-up occurring at the bottom of the page. (I’ll pass on commenting on the cardinal riding a rooster at the side of the page.)

The main miniature in this case is, of course, Christ surrounded by images of the four evangelists with their respective symbols. Given my own perspective, I’d interpret this choice of images as a reference to the medieval understanding of the omnipresence of Christ in the psalms, but that’s speculation on my part.

As the years wind on, one particular incident in the life of David does indeed become a standard image for the penitential psalms, which I happened upon by accident in some of my earlier research.

This is due, we’re told, to the superscription of Psalm 51: “To the leader. A Psalm of David, when the prophet Nathan came to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.” As a guy, I’d say that’s a reason but not the reason… I’m sure there’s a lovely dissertation waiting to be written on piety, lust, and the imaging of the female body in late medieval/renaissance devotional materials.

The Litany

[image from the Little Hours of John de Berry (Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, ms. lat. 18014) f. 59r]

Harthan notes that it’s unusual to find miniatures connected with the Litany unless it’s a rare illustration of Pope Gregory leading a litany through the streets of Rome against a plague, or perhaps a saint hiding in the margin or in an initial.

There are none in the one we’re looking at, and the main decorative feature seems to be the spacer between the personage/saint being invoked and the abbreviated response on the far side of the page. Here’s another view from the next page:

Hours of the Dead

[image from the Little Hours of John de Berry (Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, ms. lat. 18014) f. 217r]

Unlike the Hours of the BVM and some of the other supplementary hours, there are only three Offices of the Dead: Vespers [Placebo], Matins [Dirige], and Lauds [Requiem]. As Harthan notes, there can be quite a lot of variability with the images here. The first one that Harthan mentions is the one I’ve seen the most, an image of the Vigil of the Dead, the service that occurs in the church in the presence of the catafalqued body. Here’s another:

I love the corpse in the historiated initial below the miniature…

The Suffrages of the Saints

[image from the Little Hours of John de Berry (Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, ms. lat. 18014) f. 105v]

The Suffrages section is, after the Hours of the BVM, “the most profusely illustrated section in the book” (Harthan, The Book of Hours, 31). It’s a series of prayers that, certainly in this example, have a miniature of the class of saint being invoked parallel with the prayer. This is also the source of the awesome miniature of the martyrs that I put up the other day.

Concluding Thoughts

The effect and impact of the images in the Books of Hours form an integral part of the piety that they shaped. These are only the essential texts. When we added in the secondary and accessory texts, we’ll find even more images that specifically went with them. While there are certain scenes and stories from the Bible that are familiar to us, I think it’s hard to calculate how much of the late medieval popular biblical knowledge came from looking at these images. Particularly once we add in the Hours of the Cross/Passion, there is a cycle of incarnational moments and a cycle of passional moments that serve to communicate in pictures the work of the Incarnation and Redemption in a way that has dropped out of modern Anglican piety. Likewise, the images around death serve both as a reminder of mortality and a means of bringing to mind the dead who remain inextricably linked with us—through Baptism—in the Body and Mystery of Christ.

Miniature for the Martyrs

In preparation for a follow-up post on the standard pictorial sequences for the books of hours, I was leafing through the aforementioned Little Hours of John de Berry (Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, ms. lat. 18014). In wandering through, attempting to decipher the artwork and seeing which prayers were present and which absent, I came across this terrific miniature that I couldn’t not share immediately:

This comes from a sequence of prayers to various saints and groups of saints. This one is to all the holy martyrs and, while several of the saints pictured are holding the implements of their demise, the center figure with the strangely full halo is holding his head as blood continues to squirt from his neck!

I’ll say more about this later but I do think that the martyrs are rather seriously neglected, particularly in our proposed calendrical revision. Consider for a moment two categories, one which feels more highly favored than the other under the new scheme: “martyr” and “prophetic witness”…

Here’s the thing: looking at the above image, is there any way that you can see martyrdom as anything other than “prophetic witness”?!

Books of Hours: Images I

After having discussed the texts of the Books of Hours, we’ll now turn to the images. Ironically, most people who study the Books of Hours are more interested in this facet than in the texts themselves as most students are going after the art-history angle rather than late medieval devotion. (Go figure!)

There are several different ways to lay this topic out and to work through it. At the moment I’m relying mostly on the art-historical data from Harthan (totally worth picking up if you’re interested at all either in the topic or in pretty medieval pictures…) cross-referenced with images from a variety of the digitized Books of Hours linked to in a previous post.

First, we’ll take a look at major kinds of images and where they appear on the page, then (likely in a subsequent post), we’ll take a look at the various possible contents of these images. Needless to say, our focus here will be primarily on the deluxe manuscript Books of Hours. That’s not to say or imply that there weren’t images in the printed Books of Hours and prymers however—there were, and I do hope to touch on those but exactly how and when that’ll happen, I can’t say.

In his section on “Decoration,” Harthan states, “The varying stress laid at various times on decoration and illustration, the problems of reconciling the inventive fantasy of the artist with the demands of the text, and the several solutions adopted for combining the separate units of text, initial, miniature and border into a decorative ensemble, represent book illumination considered as an art form” (Harthan, Books of Hours, 19). His identification here of four fundamental units on the page: 1) text, 2) initial, 3) miniature, and 4) border is quite important. Unfortunately, he leaves one of these out as he begins his explication of the illuminated elements: “The basic elements in illumination are the initial, the miniature and the border” (Harthan, Books of Hours, 19-20). While he’s correct that most of the text is not technically illuminated, we’ll keep an eye on it as we go…

So, before looking more at Harthan, let me throw up an image that contain all three (four) elements. Here we have a page from the beginning of Matins of the BVM from the British Library’s fifteenth-century Royal MS 2 A XVIII (f. 25r):

We have the picture of the Annunciation above the text. That’s the miniature. We have the big “D” with a woman with her own Book of Hours looking up at the scene. (Chances are this is the person for whom the book was commissioned). That’s an initial—but so are the smaller ones done in blue, red, and gold sprinkled down the page. We have an outline that bounds the text, containing lots of flowery stuff between the boundary and the page; that’s the border. Text-wise, notice that we have a rubric—the text in red—and a fine, clear, easy-to-read Gothic text containing the aforementioned smaller initials.

In manuscript terms, “miniature” doesn’t technically refer to size but to the practice of painting; the Latin miniare means to paint with vermillion. Basically, it’s any large free-standing picture whether bordered or not. In the later books we see this become full page illustrations as in this great one standing before Sext from Bibliotheque nationale, Latin 1173:

Miniatures are miniatures and there’s not a lot to say about them until we start discussing content. Next up are the initials.

There are two fundamental types of initials in Books of Hours (as in other medieval manuscripts), decorative and historiated. Decorative are those initials that are decorated and embellished with backgrounds and various kinds of pen-strokes; historiated means that there is an image inside of it. In Books of Hours whether you’ll see one or the other tend not to be an either/or situation but a both/and. Thus, on the page with the Annunciation on it, we have a large historiated initial (with the woman in it), and a number of smaller decorative initials. Here’s another example from an earlier period, coming from Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, 288 (f. 17r) from the first quarter of the 14th century:

Again—a both/and; we have a historiated initial of Jesus with bloody sweat in the Garden, then a number of decorated initials. Note the alternation of colors in the decorative initials. The most typical scheme is blue and red but I’ve seen gold or green instead of red in some and, occasionally, a three color alternation with blue, red, and gold. These denote sense-breaks and indicate when different elements begin. As you know, the Offices were originally communal affairs with alternation between individuals and groups or between two parts of a choir. The colors provide indications of hen each “part” changes, but does not assume either private or public use. We know from contemporary writings, however, that people (often women) would use their books of hours in pairs with a companion; the colors would give an indication as to when one person was to stop and the other start.

On the text, note that we have three different kinds of visual cues in the text-block: We have a “regular” text for the bulk of the material, we have rubrics (those in red) identifying the parts of the Office, but then we also have a “lesser” text identified by the smaller writing used for the invitatory antiphon. Directly after the rubric “Invitatorium” is the text “Regem xpm crucifixu: venite adoremus [the last word appears just under the “venite,” at the right ogf the new line rather than the left]” in a smaller font than the surrounding text. This becomes visually important as we move down the page because we will consistently be able to identify the antiphon even when it’s not marked because it will remain visually smaller as we see here when the second half of the antiphon is repeated after the blue decorative initial “V” (that does look sort of like a “U” if you’re not used to this script):

As for borders, they are often visually outgrowths from initials. For instance, if you look at the images above, you’ll see that the line in the left border of the second picture begins as a line coming off the historiated initial in the first. Citing Harthan:

Originally introduced to enclose the miniature and separate it from the text, the rectangular frame-border in Anglo-Saxon and Romanesque manuscripts (for example, in the English Winchester School of illumination) was often enlarged to form wide panels around the miniature, which were filled with a variety of closely packed acanthus ornaments or an interlace of foliage with climbing beasts and human figures. Towards the end of the Middle Ages, in the Gothic period of the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, a second type of border appeared with irregular edges. Beginning as a tail-like extension of the initial into the margin, it developed into the prolific ivy- or vine-leaf border composed of curling tendrils from which sprouted tiny leaves picked out in gold. The ivy-leaf border was to become one of the most characteristic decorative features of northern Books of Hours in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. (Harthan, Books of Hours, 20)

He describes how images started escaping their initials and how miniatures would likewise escape their borders, and around 1420 would become full-fledged paintings with perspective, movement, etc. as opposed to the more cartoon-like look that we saw in the image of Jesus in the garden…

Parallel with the miniature, the borders are undergoing a similar evolution. At first, the blank margins of the text are filled only sparsely by the tail-like extension of initials from which sprout the first shoots of vine- or ivy-leaf ornament. But when these ‘tails’ extend to the corners they throw out cusped bars at right angles which provide platforms to support drolleries, grotesque figures, monsters, birds, and animals. Playful secular imagery of this kind is sometimes said, on not very clear grounds, to indicate the artists’ emancipation from clerical control. It derives more immediately from the natural inventiveness of artists and from the willingness of their clients to be diverted from their religious texts during long services in church or periods of private devotion; Books of Hours were taken to church as well as read at home. In the late fourteenth century the emphatic ‘bar borders’ supporting drolleries and little human figures gradually give way to lighter and more graceful ivy-leaf designs which now completely frame the miniature and text with a dense but delicate mass of foliated scrolls or rinceaux. (Harthan, Books of Hours, 21)

Alright—enough citing…

The Little Hours of John de Berry (Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, ms. lat. 18014) is a delightful book that shows a wide variety of decorations including most everything talked about here. What Harthan can’t always give a sense of is the balance of illustration. Some pages get lavish attention artistically; in others it’s quite scant. However, this set of hours demonstrates how decoration on a variety of levels was deployed within the same text and how beautiful results were achieved on all levels.

First, a page virtually devoid of decoration:

We have vernacular French prayers with just a couple of decorated initials and no border at all. The regularity of the text and punctuations of color make it work.

Now, decorative initials moving towards a pseudo-border in Psalm 8:

or this one:

Then there’s the full-on ivy-leaf border of which Harthan speaks deployed at the start of the Lauds of the BVM:

That’s enough for now—more on the content later.

And this is why I’ve always said that the breviary doesn’t live up to my dreams of what a well-crafted electronic text could live up to…

Books of Hours: Contents

Medieval Books of Hours were manuscript devotional texts. The two most significant words here are “manuscript” and “devotional”; both of them remind us that the contents of these books were largely based around the desires of the people who commissioned them or the sense of the market by those who produced them. Therefore, in considering both the Books of Hours and the prymers that developed from them, we need to gain a sense of what elements were typical, and what sort of devotional material was expected.

One of the resources that will help us get a sense of this terrain is the landmark study of the Books of Hours conducted by Abbe Leroquais, Les livres d’Heures. Manuscrits de la bibliothèque nationale in three volumes. Not having this readily to hand (or the thousand or so bucks on hand to pick it up off the used market), however, I rely on John Harthan’s work, The Book of Hours, for Leroquais’s classifications of contents:

The Abbe Leroquais established a basic classification of the contents of Books of Hours. Three elements are distinguished: essential, secondary, and accessory texts. The essential texts are those extracted from the Breviary: the Calendar, the Little Office or Hours of the Virgin, the Penitential Psalms, the Litany, the Office of the Dead, and the Suffrages of the Saints. Like the Breviary, the Book of Hours in its turn attracted further texts which extended its devotional scope as well as increasing the variety of its contents.

These secondary texts comprise the Sequences, which are the passages from the four Gospels in which the Evangelists Matthew, Mark, Luke and John describe the coming of Christ; the account of the Passion given in the Gospel of St John; two special prayers to the Virgin which enjoyed great popularity, the Obsecro te (‘I implore thee’) and O intemerata (‘O matchless one’); a number of shorter alternative Offices, the Hours of the Cross, of the Holy Spirit and (less often) of the Holy Trinity; the Fifteen Joys of the Virgin; and the Seven Requests to the Saviour.

Even this substantial addition was not enough to satisfy the yearning for devotion among the laity. It was increased by Leroquais’ third element, the accessory texts. These comprise more extracts from the Psalter, and miscellaneous prayers. The Fifteen Gradual Psalms (also present in the Breviary in this form) and the Psalter of St Jerome represent a further appropriation of the inexhaustible riches of psalmody. The Gradual Psalms comprise numbers 119-33 [Vulgate numbering], the short and beautiful psalms sometimes considered to be those recited by Jewish pilgrims ‘going up’ (gradus, a step) to Jerusalem. The Psalter of St Jerome is an anthology of 183 verses from the Psalms compiled for the use of the sick by an unknown writer but traditionally associated with St Jerome, the translator of the Bible into Latin and author of three versions of the Psalms. The miscellaneous prayers were of widely diverse character. Many were of venerable antiquity, going back to the prayer books (libelli precum) of Carolingian times. Most were anonymous, but some were attributed to major saints or Fathers of the Church to give them status and perhaps greater efficacy.

The arrangement of a ‘typical’ Book of Hours is given below. Only the essential and secondary texts are included. It must always be remembered that no two manuscript Books of Hours are exactly alike. Except for the Calendar at the beginning, the order of the seperate parts was never fixed, and the number of texts included could vary as much as their position in the Book.

Calendar

Sequences of the Gospels

The prayer Obsecro te

The prayer O intemerata

Hours of the Virgin

Hours of the Cross

Hours of the Holy Spirit

Penitential Psalms

Litany

Office of the Dead

Suffrages of the Saints

(Harthan, The Book of Hours, 14-5)

As a practicing medievalist without access to the text of Leroquais, I immediately grant his specific grouping of elements a conditional status accounting for time and place. Even the most cursory glance through the holdings of the BN (which, to be fair, is all I’ve given it…) notes that there appears to be a predominance of Books of Hours from the Diocese of Rouen. We will thus note but bracket the possibility that Leroquais’ assessment of contents might reflect local use and may differ from English norms—either Sarum or York.

Duffy in his Marking the Hours: English People and Their Prayers is wisely reticent on the exact contents of the French and English books that he surveys, remarking on the development of the form “All the earliest books contain the Little Hours of the Virgin, but their consistency ends” (Duffy, Hours, 10). In speaking of the 15th century hours and their proliferation with the advent of printing he allows himself to become a bit more specific and, indeed, produces a list that accords well with the observations of Leroquais:

All these people, then, high and low, aristocratic and plebeian, were using the same book. That book contained a standardised selection of psalms, antiphons, hymns and prayers arranged for recitation in honour of Mary at each of the eight monastic divisions or hours of the day. To these ‘hours’ of the Virgin were added the Office for the Dead or Placebo et Dirige (Vespers, Matins, and Lauds for the dead), the short Hours of the Cross, which in books for the English market were usually inserted between the Hours of the Virgin, the long Psalm 118 (119) called the Commendation of the soul, the seven Penitential Psalms and the Litany of the Saints, the fifteen Gradual Psalms, and a series of individual ‘suffrages’ or short prayers to saints, especially to the Virgin Mary. These made up the core contents of the Book of Hours, which by the later fifteenth century had expanded to become a compendium of popular devotions. By then most included also a series of devotions (with accompanying illustrations ) to the Trinity, the Wounds, the Passion and the Veronica or Holy Face of Jesus, prayers to the Virgin such as the popular prayers beginning Obsecro Te and O Intemerata, hymns to and about Mary, such as the well-known poem on the Passion, the Stabat Mater, or the Marian hymn against the plague Stella Coeli extirpavit. Many also included eucharistic devotions like the Anima Christi (‘Soul of Christ, sanctify me, Body of Christ, save me…’), designed to be recited at Mass, and almost all contained the shortened version of the Psalter known as St Jerome’s Psalter, which included almost 200 verses from the psalms including the whole of Psalm 50 (51), the Miserere, and which normally carried a prefatory legend which guaranteed the user protection against the devil and untimely death (Duffy, Hours, 28).

Note that Duffy includes the Commendation among the standard contents, agreeing (against Leroquais’ essentials) with what I’ve seen in the English sources.

We gain an even clearer picture of the types and variety of what Leroquais dubs secondary and accessory materials when we look at the survey in Hoskins’ introduction on English Books of Hours:

Six primers of the thirteenth century which are known to exist show that taking one book with another the Primer uniformly contained (a) A Kalendar, (b) The Hours of the Virgin from Purification to Advent, (c) The seven penitential psalms, (d) The Litany of the Saints, (e) The Office for the dead, (f) The Psalms of commendation, (g) the fifteen or gradual Psalms, and (h) The prayers of St. Bridget commonly called the 15 Oes; while one Primer or another has, “Hore de S. Trinitate,” “Hore de passione,” or, “Heures de Nun Jesu,” “Hore de S. Johanne Baptista,” “Hore de S. Katherina,” “Hore de S. Spiritu,” Rubrics in French, and pictures with prayers on the sacred mysteries (Hoskins, Horae, xi).

The list gets even more interesting and diverse as we go later and make the language jump into English:

The contents of thirteen Primers in English of the end of the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth centuries which are known to exist are the Hours of the Virgin from Purification to Advent with the Hours of the Cross, a Kalendar, the Seven penitential psalms, the Fifteen or Gradual psalms, the Litany, the Office of the dead, the Psalms of commendation, devotions to the Virgin, the psalm De profundis, Psalms of the passion, A Christian man’s confession, Misereatur, Pater Noster, Ave Maria, Credo, the Ten commandments, Six manners of conscience, Seven deadly sins, Five witts outward and inward, Seven works of mercy bodily and ghostly, Seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, Seven words, Sixteen properties of charity; together with instructions on many of the above subjects, and the words of Paul (Hoskins, Horae, xiv).

My sense is that a fuller investigation will prove and make explicit what seems nascent here: the Latin books—and Latin texts within mixed-language books—consist primarily of the standardized liturgical devotional material; the shift into vernaculars (notably French and English for the scope of my curiosity) introduces not only additional devotional material but a greater influx of catechetical contents.

Digital Manuscripts of Books of Hours

Consider this a digital sticky note so I remember where these things are. More will appear as I find them. Feel free to use it yourself, of course…

British Library

Add MS 50001 (The Hours of Elizabeth [of York] the Queen) [ca. 1440]

Harley MS 273 (Composite manuscript including psalter, Hours of BVM, Office of the Dead) [15th cent.]

Harley MS 3814 b (latter half of Italian prayer book) [?]

Royal MS 2 a xvi (The Psalter of Henry VIII) [ca. 1540]

Royal MS 2 a xviii (The Beaufort/Beauchamp Hours) [ca. 1405]

Royal MS 2 a xxii (The Westminster Psalter–contains Office of the Dead) [1200-1250]

Paris, Bibliotheque nationale

Horae ad usum Aurelianensem [ca. 1475]

Horae ad usum Matisconensem [ca. 1475] (partial Hours of BVM)

Livre d’heures, en latin et en français, à l’usage d’un diocèse de l’est de la France [ca. 1300] (Begins with Hours of the Cross, then goes to Hours of the Holy Spirit)

Horae ad usum Constantinensem [ca. 1450]

Horae ad usum Parisiensem (Heure de Charles d’Angoulême) [ca. 1475]

Horae [livre d’heures] [ca. 1400]

Psautier de Jean de Berry [ca. 1380]

Livre d’heures à l’usage de Troyes (Ms 3897) [ca. 1460]

Livre d’heures à l’usage de Rome (coll. Bouhier) (Ms 3900) [ca. 1425]

Livre d’heures à l’usage de Troyes (Ms 3901) [ca. 1470]

Livre d’heures à l’usage de Troyes (Ms 3896) [ca. 1460]

Livre d’heures [Heures de la Passion du Christ, Office du Saint Esprit, Heuresde la Vierge] (Ms 1905) [15th cent.]

Livre d’heures à l’usage de Troyes (Ms 3713) [ca. 1410]

Livre d’heures à l’usage de Troyes (Ms 3890) [ca. 1500]

Horae ad usum Parisiensem ou Petites heures de Jean de Berry [ca. 1410]

I don’t have time to put in all the items from the BN—suffice it to say they’ve got a bunch and this is just a few…

There seems to be a serious lack of books of hours in the German collections which suggests that I’m not looking for them in the right way…

Medieval Liturgy Web Resource: Dreaming Dreams

The web is a fantastic tool for studying medieval liturgy and it keeps on getting better every day. With the continuing flow of out-of-copyright books via Google Books and the Internet Archive, good early stuff is appearing from the Surtees Society and the Henry Bradshaw Society; furthermore, more and more libraries are digitizing their manuscript collections. I headed over to the British Museum site yesterday (not having been there in a while) and was blown away by some of the material there I hadn’t seen before. So—important material for specialists is become more widely available.

But how useful is that for everybody else? (And when I say “everybody”, I’m obviously referring to the rather minute subset of people to whom this is interesting!) There are quite a lot of barriers to profitably utilizing some of this terrific material that’s appearing. Most medievalists, even western European or England focused people, have a difficult time keeping in their heads the sometimes confusing inter-relations of Offices, Masses, Chapters and so forth. What’s an antiphoner and when do you use it? Well—do you mean an office antiphoner or a mass antiphoner; since Hesbert the same term gets used for two very different books. When was some little bit of text used and how and where would it have been used or experienced within a service? Who would have been able to hear it said or sung and how intelligible would it have been? These are just a few of the difficulties and many interested people don’t even know that these questions exist to be asked and wrestled with.

So what’s the answer…?

If I had an unlimited amount of time, money, and research minions, I have a vision for a project that could address this difficulty. My chief model is, naturally, the St Bede’s Breviary. The breviary performs two simple tasks:

First, it pulls together the disparate elements that make up the Daily Office of the Episcopal Church. Using a framework from the static/ordinary elements, it draws from database tables the changeable/proper elements and seamlessly integrates them into an organic whole. Thus you have at your finger-tips the complete office without a need to flip or click back and forth among different resources.
Second, it provides an array of options (within certain parameters). Thus, you can vary the language, the kalendar, and the embellishments to the Office.

What if a framework were developed to put this sort of material at the hands of medievalists? The project would need to move in a series of stages. First, it would tackle the Mass, then build to the Office, then to the various supplementary liturgies. Chapter could be fit in either before or after the Office based on time and inclination.

The reason for starting with the Mass is simple—far fewer moving parts. To present a Mass properly you would need to bring together a minimum of four parts:

Sacramentary/Missal: This is the most obvious piece. It will provide our ordinaries (the canon and such), the kalendar, and the collects. Depending on how developed it is down the missal line it may or may not be able to provide minor propers and Scripture readings.
Gradual/Mass Antiphoner: This would certainly give the minor propers whether the missal/sacramentary contained them or not.
Lectionary: I’m collecting two things here under one roof as epistolaries and evangelaries were typically different physical objects—at least from my early medieval perspective.
Ordo: Did you forget about this one? I would argue that, if you’re looking for a big-picture sense of what was going on and how your particular text as being used, you ignore this one at your considerable peril. Indeed, the basic structure of the liturgy and its presentation would not be defined by the missal/sacramentary as you might expect—rather, I’d embed all of the missal texts within the structuring context of an ordo. Now, granted, as missals developed, some ordo-type matters were inserted into the missals themselves.

Once these blocks are in place things like tropers could be added.

That’s the conceptual framework. Text-wise, I would attack this from three different directions and time-periods. First, I’d hit the English Late Anglo-Saxon period by entering Ordo I*, the Missal of Robert of Jumiege, and the (Oxford) Winchester Troper. Lectionaries are less of an issue—Lenker’s work has demonstrated how firmly established the type 3 and type 3-alt lectionaries were established in late Anglo-Saxon England. Since my copy of her dissertation is currently in a box, I don’t have access to it to pull out a suitably representative lectionary. Second, I’d use a late Sarum printed missal. The obvious benefit here is that the necessary elements are already pulled together; little would need to be tracked down. Third, there is an excellent collection of well-preserved (and well-known) texts at San Gall that offer ordines, missals, graduals, and most anything else you’d want in the 10th-11th century range. Between the three, most of the issues could be raised, if not fully solved, and a base set of major, useful liturgical texts would be established.

The key is establishing an open architecture where user inputs could select specific manuscripts texts (once a sufficient body were entered). Thus, you could select specific manuscripts (or categories like “Gelasian”) for your ordo, missal, gradual, etc. in order to get the closest possible picture of the liturgical environment that you’re seeking to re-create.

Furthermore, homing in on the “open” word, it would be absolutely ideal if the manuscripts were encoded in a standardized format, allowing others to submit manuscript files that could be integrated with a minimum of effort. Clearly, this would suggest the TEI using whatever their latest structures are for liturgy in conversation with some of the other existing liturgy projects out there.

So—that’s the dream. What’s the reality and scope for something actually do-able? As awesome as TEI is, it’s an XML derivative. It’s totally possible to use XSLT and XPath and other technologies to do exactly what I’m describing in terms of text merging and manipulating. Unfortunately, I don’t know XML. While I do have some basic experience encoding manuscripts with TEI parameters, I wouldn’t know what to do with it from there. Instead, I’d use my old fall-back, the classic PHP/MySQL combo that drives the breviary.

Text-wise, it’s a toss-up and would really depend on the driving needs of the project. I could begin with the Missal of Robert of Jumiege and accompany it with the Loefric Missal. While the Leofric Missal is a mess in terms of being a very composite text, it’s got incipts for the minor propers and lectionary entries; as I know of no modern edition of the Oxford Winchester Troper that I can get my hands/eyes on, the Leofric Missal is the next best thing. Alternatively, the Sarum material is already gathered and—thanks to the work of our Victorian Sarum Revival friends—could be presented in both Latin and English translation. Lastly, text files of Herbert’s Antiphoner are floating around the Internet. While there are no English materials included, San Gall materials are meaning that a big chunk of transcription work would already be done.

That’s how I’d conceive and tackle this kind of a project.

* IIRC, the earliest ordines we have from Anglo-Saxon England are those of the Romano-German Pontifical which we normal slot around 1050. That’s a little late, so Ordo I is used as a general guess. Again—more could be entered as time and research went on…

Myroure of Our Ladye: the Venite

Concerning the Invitatory.

It is not sufficient for you to praise and rejoice in God alone unless you stir up others to the same. Therefore after Alleluia or Laus tibi, you begin the Invitatory, that is to say, a calling or a stirring. Through this each of you stirs and exhorts one another to the praise of God and of our lady also. You call to those who hear you, and desire others who are absent to come and praise with you. This accords with the Psalm Venite that follows and is sung with the Invitatory. Now the Invitatory is sometimes sung in its entirety, and sometimes partially. For some come entirely to God’s service to praise him with body and soul and all their strength, and some come partially for though their body is there, their hearts are on other things as our Lord says both by his prophet and in his gospel: Populus hic labiis me honorat, cor autem eorum longe est a me. This people worships me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. Five times it is sung entirely, for those who wish to be entirely in our Lord’s service must carefully keep their five senses, both the outer senses and the inner. And three times it is sung partially, for there are three kinds of people who were called to our Lord’s supper and did not come because of pride, because of worldliness, and because of fleshliness. But you who are free from such hindrances must come with a whole heart and a fervent will to the praise of the blessed Trinity and of the Queen of heaven and say, Trinum deum et unum pronis mentibus adoremus. Virgini que matri gratulantibus animis iugiter iubilemus. That is, we worship with humble and eager souls God who is three and one. That is to say, three in persons and one in substance and in Godhood. And we praise fully and intensely the virgin mother with joyful hearts.

VENITE. The Psalm is written in the Psalter and it contains five verses. In the first verse we are called and exhorted to come to praise God. In the next two verses is expressed the reason why we should praise him. In the last two verses is told the peril of those who will not come to love him and praise him.

Then you begin and say, Venite. Come, you. To whom do you speak? They who are absent cannot hear you. Whom do you bid, and why? Our Lord is present everywhere and ever more ready to hear them who pray in churches, but all have not come to him who are in church. For he says of some who worship him with their mouths that their heart is far from him. Therefore to them you say, Venite. “Come, you” as if you said, “Gather together all the thoughts and strength of your heart, and set them only upon him and so come to him in reverent fear and devotion.”

Exultemus domino. We outwardly rejoice with all the service of our bodies in our Lord and in nothing else.

Iubilemus deo salutari nostro. We rejoice in God our Savior, that is Jesus Christ, with all the powers of our souls so that our love and devotion are so great in him that we may neither hide it nor fully show it. For thus means this word Iubilemus that we may the better rejoice thus in him.

Preocupemus faciem eius in confessione. We come before his face in confession. There is confession of sins and also confession of praise. Our Lord Jesus Christ shows now his face of grace and of mercy, but at the day of judgment he will show his face of righteousness. Because we do not know how soon the judgment will come at our own death, therefore come now before he shows the face of righteousness and let us come before the face of his mercy and of grace, in confession, acknowledging our sins and unkindnesses against him, and his goodness and manifold benefits and kindnesses to us. Let us come before his face before the fiend comes into our hearts with any vanities that should distract us from him.

Et in psalmis iubilemus ei. And let us joyfully sing to him with Psalms. We sing to him and not for the pleasure of the hearers. But why should we do this?

Quoniam deus magnus dominus. For God is a great Lord in power and Lordship above all things.

Et rex magnus super omnes deos. And the great King above all gods. Angels and Saints and all good men and women, especially those who are in dignity and estates of power, are called gods because God has shared with them of his virtues, power, or grace. But all these are subject to him, and may not do anything except by his lead. Therefore he is a great King above all gods. Although he is so great in power, he is nevertheless great in love and mercy through which we know: Quoniam non repellit dominus plebem suam. The same Lord shall not forsake nor cast from him his people no matter their evil if they will be his through repentance no matter what sect or country they are from: heathen or Christian, Saracen or Jew.

Quia in manu eius fuerunt omnes fines terre. For in his hand and power are all the countries of Earth. And amongst them all, he takes heed of those where ever they be who humble themselves in faith and penance, love and devotion.

Therefore this follows: Et altitudines moncium ipse conspicit. The height and depth of the mountains he beholds. As high as a mountain is in the sight of him who stands under it, as deep as it is to the sight of him who stands above and looks down, thereby a mountain is both high and deep. Those who make themselves deep and low to God through humility, he beholds by his mercy and lift them up and makes them high mountains by his grace. Therefore the prophet says here that he beholds the height and depth of the mountains.

Quoniam ipsius est mare et ipse fecit illud. For the sea is his and he made it. For just as the bitter sea is kept within his boundaries by the power of God and may not flow upon the earth except at his permission, just so no tribulation nor temptation may come to man but by the sufferance of God who tempers all things to his servants as they may bear to their greatest profit. He has great care of them and therefore shows it.

Et aridam fundverunt manus eius. And the dry earth his hands have established. For those who are dry and thirst only for the love of God and reverence towards him he establishes and strengthens in such stability of virtue and grace that no fierceness of the sea of temptation nor tribulation may prevail against them.

Since he does all of this, even if you did not before, at least now: Venite adoremus, et procidamus ante deum. Come, you, and let us worship and fall down before God. Come for love and worship him, with the singular reverence that belongs only to God and let us fall down through humility of body and soul before God, beholding his reverent presence. Ploremus, let us weep, yielding ourselves up as guilty not for the thanks of men but Coram domino, before our Lord, qui fecit nos, who made us. For there is a great homeliness and trust of the thing made by the maker who knows what it is and why he made it. For according to our bodies we are made frail and therefore our Maker will spare us and help us and grant us mercy. According to our souls, we are made in his likeness and therefore we should and ought to desire to be like him by grace. According to both the soul and the body he made us to be partners of his joy and therefore we ought act accordingly and seek and desire to have him for our reward forever.

Quia ipse est dominus deus noster. For he is our Lord and we may surely desire that he is ours and we are his, for we are his people: Nos autem populus eius. And the sheep of his pasture: Et oves pascue eius. For he feeds us with the pasture of his holy sacraments and of his comforting grace. He has ordained us to have himself to our endless rest in joy if we become his true sheep, fruitful in the wool of virtues, in the milk of piety, in the lambs of good deeds, in the dung of humility, in the flesh of love and devotion.

But since our Lord shows this many benefits to us we must be careful that we do not lose them by our own willful unkindness and therefore we are exhorted in the following verse when he says, if you hear his voice this day, harden not your hearts or do not desire to harden your heart against his voice: Hodie si vocem eius audieritis, nolite obdurare corda vestra. , Do not harden your hearts. The time of the old law which was before the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ was likened to the night; the time after his holy incarnation was likened to the day as the apostle Paul said. We are in this day, and in the day of this grace we hear our Lord’s voice both in the holy gospel and in his Scripture and by the inspiration of his Holy Ghost. If you will not obey them, then we deserve that his grace should be withdrawn. On account of that withdrawal, our hearts become hard and obstinate against all goodness. Thus is given to us the example of the people of Israel who God brought out of Egypt in a dry way through the sea and gave them his law and fed them with manna in the desert. When water failed them he made water out of a hard stone to give them drink, and showed them many other marvels and provided for them and always they rebelled against him. They provoked his wrath for 40 years so that our Lord swore that they should never come into the land of rest to which he had called them. Nor did they. For all who came out of Egypt died in the desert except two who obeyed the will of God. By this example we are exhorted by our Lord in the Psalm to be careful lest by misuse of our free will we fall into blindness and hardness of heart as they did and so be barred from the land of endless rest, that is the joy of heaven.

Therefore since God has spoken to us and showed us many more marvels than he ever did them, he says now to us: Nolite obdurare corda vestra sicut in exacerbatione secundum diem temptationis in deserto. Harden not your hearts as they did, provoking me to wrath in the desert upon the day of temptation. Ubi temptaverunt me patres vestri probaverunt et viderunt opera mea. Where your fathers tempted me, tested me, and saw my works.

Quadraginta annis proximus fui generationi huic. 40 years long was I near to this generation. By this 40 years is understood to us all the time of our life which ought to be in penitence. This is understood by the number 40, for our Lord fasted 40 days and hallowed that number for the doing of penance. All the time that men live on the earth, our Lord is near to them and ready to receive them with mercy if they would repent.

Et dixi semper hii errant corde. But I said always they err in their heart. For though anything appears well on the outside, the inward heart is evermore wandering from the fear of God.

Ipsi vero non cognoverunt vias meas. For they knew not my ways from the blindness of their own sin.

Quibus iurari ira mea, si introibunt in requiem meam. Of whom I swore in my wrath, they shall never enter into my rest. God has sworn; he cannot be untrue. If we do as they did, we must have as they had – and worse for we have received more to account for.

This Psalm begins in joy but it ends in fear. If we will not serve him for love of his benefits, at least we should come to his service for fear of his righteousness. Fear, therefore, and be not reckless in his service, but both in fear of his righteousness, and in love and joy of his goodness, you should always end his praise saying: Gloria patri, etc.

This verse Gloria Patri was first made in one of the general councils. Afterwards, St. Jerome made for it the second verse that is sicut erat etc. and wrote them both to the Pope named Damasius to be said after Psalms in the divine service then the same Pope ordained and commanded that it should be done.

The St. Bede Blog

Formerly haligweorc; Liturgical Spirituality for the Episcopal Church