Category Archives: Medieval Stuff

On Monastic Interpretation

A junior colleague of mine stopped me in the hall after a class we teach together and wanted to get my advice on the history of New Testament interpretation. He’s in the usual graduate seminar that surveys such things. Now, my program is such that it actually gives an entire semester to the pre-Reformation history of interp. I don’t think most other programs do this, considering such “pre-critical” readings as not useful for modern NT scholars. Anyway, he’s been assigned to present on medieval monastic interp and want to pick my brain for a bit. His first question was essentially that which any NT scholar would ask: “They’re just reading the Fathers and using that, right?”

My answer was a classic yes–but no. It took a while…

In the aftermath, I was thinking through how I would go about teaching medieval monastic exegesis to try and communicate just what was going on. Here’re some initial thoughts:

  • Give them a sense of monastic life as life within an intentional liturgical community.
    • Yes, have the students read the section in the Rule on the Offices to give them a sense of Benedict’s concept of the monastic cursus.
    • Then, have them read a corresponding section from the 10th century Regularis Concordia to show them how different and how much more complicated the monastic liturgical life was than Benedict had ever envisioned.
    • Then give them some photocopies from the Breviary to reinforce that a) all liturgy is not just your Sunday morning liturgy; b) Scripture is constantly in juxtaposition with other Scripture and with non-Scriptural texts; c) this is far more complex in practice than it sounds.
  • Give them a sense not just that the patristic authors were used but how and in what contexts
    • Remind them about manuscript production costs, then emphasize and re-emphasize that the monastics didn’t have the Patrologia Latina at hand. Or even the Ante/Post Nicene Fathers. No–Paul the Deacon’s homiliary for the Night Office & Cassiodorus on the Psalms really were the sources for 90% of what 90% of medieval monks knew of the Fathers.
    • Yes, some monks probably read the Fathers for study material but the paradigmatic encounter with them was in the liturgical setting. The sermons, homilies, or commentary extracts would be interrupted four times for responsaries thematically tying the third Nocturn back into the main biblical content of the first Nocturn as determined by the liturgical season… The main point being: their encounter with the patristic interpretation was in a far different setting than either ours or even the works’ original contexts–and that would effect how they would hear it.
    • Have them read a homily by Bede or Gregory–then have them read the corresponding “adaptation” by somebody like Aelfric. Highlight, too, that what was on the page was not necessarily what was heard…
  • Give them a sense that biblical interpretation in this setting is not fundamentally about data and information. Rather, it was about experiencing the text and its transformative potential through an elaborate and interconnected system designed for this purpose.
    • This is underscored and reinforce by how the many lectionary cycles fit together. The way (as I was saying before) the Mass Epistle shows up in the versicles & responses for the Little Hours and verses from the Mass Gospel appear as the Canticle antiphons through the week…
    • Guiding and directing a lot of this is the liturgical year. The seasons themselves are interpretations of biblical events and texts and the texts within the seasons were chosen to fit within them–but, at the same time, their actual content nuances the meaning of the seasons. Furthermore certain kinds of interpretive material either appear or disappear based on the season…

It’s complicated. And, in many ways, this is my chapter 3–to lay all of this out in a (more or less) comprehensible fashion.

One of the major themes that I see running through my pedagogical attempts is interpretation and appropriation through recontextualization. That is, yeah, they used patristic material–but in a different way from which it was intended which has the effect of altering its purpose so the same text is acting in a new way and producing a new result.

Another major theme I see is reinforcing the alien nature of the interpretive culture. This kind of interpretation is not about a guy at a desk with a book. Its about a communal experience and embodiment of the text. There’s a reason why so much of the monastic exegesis can be classified as “moral”–it’s because a major focus was not on “thinking thoughts” about the text but rather on how to put the text into practice. Maybe what we label the “moral sense” might be better labeled “the sense capable of being embodied”…

 

Poetry for Triduum

One of the quintessential reflection pieces for me on Good Friday and Holy Saturday is the Old English poem Dream of the Rood. We’re not really sure when or where it was written; bits of it appear in runes on the Ruthwell Cross–but we’re not sure when they were carved on it. Its purpose may be the same as the great hymn of yesterday, the Pange Ligua which Fortunatus wrote to celebrate a piece of the true cross coming to Frankland.

In any case, here’s the original, and here’s a Modern English translation.

Plainchant Thoughts: Medieval and Modern

M and I spent some time yesterday pointing Gospel texts for the Feast of the Ascension. Doing so brought some things to mind I thought I’d mention.

On Gospel Tones
First, plainchant in general and Gospel/Lection tones in particular are often less about music and more about punctuation. Do you remember Victor Borge’s famous “Phonetic Punctuation” skit? In a way, that’s precisely what the Gospel and Lection tones are for. The moevements let you know when a pause in the sense happens, where the end of a sentence occurs, where questions are, and when the reading as a whole is about to end. Very helpful for listeners. I don’t know how many public readings of St Paul make no sense because of readers who don’t correctly articulate the pauses or tone changes necessary in order to comprehend Paul’s clause-laden style; singing them would be quite a help in these cases…

Now, one of the problems that I’ve encountered in pointing texts is that the instructions that I’ve seen say very unhelpful things like: “apply the metrum at a natural sense break…” Hmm. Natural to whom? I’ve tried pointing texts on the fly and let me tell you, deciding when an upcoming comma should be honored with a flex or metrum on the spur of the moment is not always an easy decision… In thinking about it, I’ve come to the conclusion that this is one of the great benefits of Jerome’s direction to write out the Scriptures per cola et commata. Essentially, this system doesn’t use punctuation but rather line divisions break the sense. (Think this sounds hard? Hah! Try this… [oops–the publically available user and pwd are any and any] No punctuation, no line divisions–no spaces between words…)More on this can be found here. This system uses a lot of space and so–if I recall correctly–tends to be found only in a few deluxe Gospel Books as well as Codex Amiatinus. Anyway…I think it’d be *much* easier to point these on the fly than not; you’d just need to figure out what’s a pause and what’s a full stop and with appropriate colored initials even that wouldn’t be a problem.

On Psalm tones
It’s never a bad idea to know your psalm tones. Memorizing them is easiest with a good strategy. One handed down from my chant teacher is this–memorize each tone by point the following text: Tone [number] begins thus, and here it flexes, and thus it comes to the middle; and this is how it finishes. When you mention each part of the tone, you put the appropriate cadence. I’d say more…but I’m still hoping that my musical betters, bls or Charlotte, will post promised chant intro…

OE Easter Vigil

Okay–read over the RC and LME on the train. Here’s the thing…both the RC and the LME (Ae’s adaptation or customary-on-the-customary of the RC) both mandate Easter festivities “According to Gregory” and in line with OR I. In the secular office (supposedly written by Gregory the Great), the Easter Vigil has *4* readings. The twelve reading schema we’re used to was just appearing at the time. So, of the top two missals that we use as indicators of A-S liturgical practice one, the missal of Robert of Jumièges has the four reading system but the Leofric missal has the twelve!

Thus, while Ae could have known about the 12 reading system (and must have *if* the core of the Leofric missal is Dunstan’s missal) both he and his metor legislated the four reading system. (As does Amalar–Ae’s favorite go-to guy on the liturgy…)

Curioser and curiouser…

OE Question

For the medievalists in the house…

I’m puzzled by some lines (ll. 150-152) in Pope XIa on Easter.

And we wurðiað þa tid wurðlice mid sangum
Seofon niht on an, swylce hit an dæg sy,
For ðære micclan mærðe manncynes alysednysse.

Literally:
And we celebrate the time worthily with songs
[?seven nights in one, as if it were one day?]
for the great joy of humanity’s redemption.

What’s up with line 151? The combination of the prep ‘on’ and the swylce+subj. leaves me unsettled (my grammatical skills in OE still suck…). As a liturgist I immediately think that he’s talking about the extraordinary length of the Easter Vigil but, not having neither the RC or the LME close to hand, don’t remember how long their Vigil was…

Thoughts?

Gaudeamus

Christus vincit!
Christus regnat!
Christus imperat!
Exaudi Christi…

M and I had this in our heads all day yesterday–it’s the refrain from the petitions of the prayers from a 12th century Easter mass from Autun. I absolutely love it especially since so many of the prayers were for high-ranking politicos. The image I get is of the crowned Sephanus and Robert looking around nerveously… Even while they and their reigns are being prayed for, the canons burst out into enthusiastic song to proclaim the conquest and rule of a far greater Lord. He is risen indeed.