Category Archives: Medieval Stuff

Drifting Thoughts

  • I think modern Christianity simply doesn’t get “allegorical” interpretation as practiced by the Church Fathers & Mothers and their early medieval interpetive heirs. At its heart, allegorial/spiritual/mystical (the last two were the terms they most frequently used of their own activities…) is an intellectually engaged form of spiritual play. It’s a game—but a reverent, thoughtful one. Spiritual Sudoku. A couple of passages here from Augustine that ground this for me:

7. But hasty and careless readers are led astray by many and manifold obscurities and ambiguities, substituting one meaning for another; and in some places they cannot hit upon even a fair interpretation. Some of the expressions are so obscure as to shroud the meaning in the thickest darkness. And I do not doubt that all this was divinely arranged for the purpose of subduing pride by toil, and of preventing a feeling of satiety in the intellect, which generally holds in small esteem what is discovered without difficulty. For why is it, I ask, that if any one says that there are holy and just men whose life and conversation the Church of Christ uses as a means of redeeming those who come to it from all kinds of superstitions, and making them through their imitation of good men members of its own body; men who, as good and true servants of God, have come to the baptismal font laying down the burdens of the world, and who rising thence do, through the implanting of the Holy Spirit, yield the fruit of a two-fold love, a love, that is, of God and their neighbor—how is it, I say, that if a man says this, he does not please his hearer so much as when he draws the same meaning from that passage in Canticles, where it is said of the Church, when it is being praised under the figure of a beautiful woman, Your teeth are like a flock of sheep that are shorn which came up from the washing, whereof every one bears twins, and none is barren among them? Song of Songs 4:2 Does the hearer learn anything more than when he listens to the same thought expressed in the plainest language, without the help of this figure? And yet, I don’t know why, I feel greater pleasure in contemplating holy men, when I view them as the teeth of the Church, tearing men away from their errors, and bringing them into the Church’s body, with all their harshness softened down, just as if they had been torn off and masticated by the teeth. It is with the greatest pleasure, too, that I recognize them under the figure of sheep that have been shorn, laying down the burthens of the world like fleeces, and coming up from the washing, i.e., from baptism, and all bearing twins, i.e., the twin commandments of love, and none among them barren in that holy fruit.

8. But why I view them with greater delight under that aspect than if no such figure were drawn from the sacred books, though the fact would remain the same and the knowledge the same, is another question, and one very difficult to answer. Nobody, however, has any doubt about the facts, both that it is pleasanter in some cases to have knowledge communicated through figures, and that what is attended with difficulty in the seeking gives greater pleasure in the finding.— For those who seek but do not find suffer from hunger. Those, again, who do not seek at all because they have what they require just beside them often grow languid from satiety. Now weakness from either of these causes is to be avoided. Accordingly the Holy Spirit has, with admirable wisdom and care for our welfare, so arranged the Holy Scriptures as by the plainer passages to satisfy our hunger, and by the more obscure to stimulate our appetite. For almost nothing is dug out of those obscure passages which may not be found set forth in the plainest language elsewhere. (Augustine, On Christian Teaching 2.6.7-8; copied from New Advent’s edition)

14. In all these books those who fear God and are of a meek and pious disposition seek the will of God. And in pursuing this search the first rule to be observed is, as I said, to know these books, if not yet with the understanding, still to read them so as to commit them to memory, or at least so as not to remain wholly ignorant of them. Next, those matters that are plainly laid down in them, whether rules of life or rules of faith, are to be searched into more carefully and more diligently; and the more of these a man discovers, the more capacious does his understanding become. For among the things that are plainly laid down in Scripture are to be found all matters that concern faith and the manner of life—to wit, hope and love, of which I have spoken in the previous book. After this, when we have made ourselves to a certain extent familiar with the language of Scripture, we may proceed to open up and investigate the obscure passages, and in doing so draw examples from the plainer expressions to throw light upon the more obscure, and use the evidence of passages about which there is no doubt to remove all hesitation in regard to the doubtful passages. And in this matter memory counts for a great deal; but if the memory be defective, no rules can supply the want. (Augustine, On Christian Teaching 2.9.14; copied from New Advent’s edition)

For Augustine, the interpretation of obscure parts of Scripture is about pleasure and delight—that’s the language he’s using here. The thrill of intellectual discovery comes when you figure out the puzzle. Have you learned something you didn’t know before? Well, no—not as he sees. it. The obscurities teach nothing that isn’t already said plainly; but it’s a lot more fun to find it in the obscurities!

The other key thing here is the place of memory. Read so as to memorize, and then you can ruminate on those passages that are obscure to you (or, sometimes, that you choose to treat as obscure even if they may have some easier referents…). Spiritual readings are the result of a lengthy process of mental mastication; you have to chew on them for a long time with great attention to detail.

There’s a lot more to say on this topic, particularly with regard to the aims and boundaries of interpretation—i.e., keeping readings on track and what constitute valid and invalid spiritual readings, that I won’t get into except to note that Augustine explicitly orients all good reading on an axis of either 1) promoting charity or 2) restraining vice and that he envisions it within a community of practice bounded by worship: the creeds and sacraments are the ultimate controls.

  • I’ve seen a number of references on Facebook and elsewhere to a Guardian piece on Matthew Crawford that you should definitely read if you haven’t already.   The key pull-quote here is: “Distraction is a kind of obesity of the mind.” When I read this, my mind jumped immediately to John Cassian’s Institutes. In his treatment of the eight principal vices and the corresponding virtues, he starts with Gluttony. I’ve been struck by this. Gluttony is one of the sins this least discussed yet most openly practiced by Western consumer culture. While Cassian tends to speak of it in the literal sense with regard to fasting and such, I read it in the broader sense to include all forms of unnecessary consumption. Yes, some consumption is necessary for life—this isn’t gluttony. Gluttony, the vice, is when consumption occurs for its own sake or for a purpose other than the legitimate needs of the corpus (whether individual or communal). I haven’t thought through this yet, but my subconscious informs me that there’s a deep link between what Crawford is saying about distraction and the spiritual ill that is Gluttony.
  • I saw a great image on Twitter today that I had to retweet.

    First, I love this page, its type, and layout! This is from 1896 and I see it in line with the whole pre-Raphaelite/Arts & Crafts/Morris movement that has ties into Victorian medievalism that buoyed catholic sensibilities in the C of E as well as the graphic arts. I can’t see this page without finding in it a great debt to the late medieval Books of Hours tradition. Again—it makes one think…

Psalms and Monastic Education

It’s impossible to overstate the intimate connection between early medieval monastic education and the early medieval monastic liturgy. Learning was about acquiring the skills to participate within the liturgy, to comprehend the depths of the liturgy, to incorporate it into monastic practice, and—in turn—to enrich it.

At the heart of this educational program was mastery of the psalms.

You have to imagine what it would be like entering a monastery in 10th century England. A child, somewhere between the ages of 7 and 11 would be taken from their family, mother tongue, and the world of fields and woods and home handcrafts, and would be placed within an utterly alien environment. The central experience would be that of trooping into the oratory many times a day to sing unknown songs in an unknown tongue. One scholar of the period has reckoned that, in summer time, the monks would be awake for nineteen hours of the day; about eleven of these would be spent in song!

At first, no doubt, new boys and girls would be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of unfamiliar material. They would mumble along, trying to follow the pitch and to throw in a word or two when they could. At least they would have the benefit of singing alongside a number of other people—strong voices from whom they could take their lead. As daunting as this sounds, children are adaptable, and the presence of music itself would be a help.  It would be something like the experience of singing along to the radio in a foreign language. A number of times my wife and I have been surprised to hear our daughters (ages 8 and 10) singing along to a new song that we don’t remember hearing before—how, we wonder, could they have learned it so quickly!

Furthermore, once the initial tsunami of unfamiliar experiences had passed, the children would discern (perhaps with the help of their peers or teachers) that certain songs show up far more frequently than the others. In a Benedictine Reform monastery, the seven penitential psalms were sung several times every day as part of the payers for the king, queen, and benefactors (the trina oratio). Too, the Night Office invariably began with a recitation of the fifteen gradual psalms (Pss 120-134). Indeed, it would be a slow monk who didn’t quickly learn Psalm 51: during Lent, it would have been sung at least 8 times a day! Charting out the liturgical provisions of the Regularis Concordia, there were 35 psalms that would be sung every single day. Surely the young novices would have learned these quickly, at least to the point where they could confidently sing them in the midst of a group who knew them well. Naturally, they would have the additional impetus of knowing that those who made faults in the singing of the songs were subject to punishment during daily Chapter!

Thus, the constant liturgical cycle was a means for passive education. The children would sing along as they were able, and would absorb a massive amount of Latin. But—it would only be meaningless sounds to them without further help. The Old English of Ælfric’s Colloquy opens with this exchange between teacher and student:

Teacher: What is your work?

Student: I am presently a monk and I sing seven times each day with my brothers, but meanwhile, between them, I want to learn how to speak in the Latin tongue.

Both monastic rules and surviving educational books help give us a sense of how this mass of memorized sounds was converted into useful language. First, memorization of the psalms outside of the choir was an essential activity. A song you think you know well, that you can can belt out at the top of your lungs alongside the radio, can have some embarrassing sections of mumbling the first few times you try to sing it by yourself. In a similar fashion, despite the passive learning of the choir, the monks worked with teachers, other students, and by themselves to memorize the psalms. Benedict’s Rule specifically identifies the time after the Night Office in winter and after None throughout the year as a period to learn the psalms and readings. (A bit later in the text, Ælfric’s Colloquy clarifies that it is taking place after None.)

Benedict’s source, the Rule of the Master, describes the process in detail demonstrating that the active memorization of the psalms occurs in parallel with the learning of literacy. The passively memorized sounds are transformed into written words as the process of active memorization unfolds:

During these three hours [between Prime and Terce] the boys, in their deanery [groups of ten], are to learn letters on their tablets from someone who is literate. Moreover, we exhort illiterate adults up to the age of fifty to learn letters. Again, we wish it kept in mind that during these same periods the psalms are to be studied by those who do not know them, directed by the deans in their respective deanery. So during these three hours, they are to read [aloud] and listen to one another, and take turns teaching letters and psalms to those who do not know them. (RM 50:12-15)

And throughout [the] summer season, whether the meal is at the sixth hour or at the ninth, for whatever time remains between None until time for Vespers to begin, the various deaneries having been separated from one another in different places, some as directed by their deans are to read, others listen, others learn and teach letters, others studied psalms which they have transcribed. When they have mastered and memorized them perfectly, let their deans take them to the abbot to recite by heart the psalm or canticle or lesson of any kind. And as soon as he has recited it in its entirety, let him ask prayers for himself. Then when those present have prayed for him, the abbot concludes and the one who has done the reciting kisses the abbot’s knees. Either the abbot or the deans immediately order something new to be transcribed [for memorization], and after anything has been transcribed, before he studies it, let him again ask those present to pray for him; and in this way the learning of it is to be undertaken. (RM 50:62-69)

Now, there’s one other factor we have to account for. The Rule of the Master was written in the early sixth century somewhere in the region of Rome or Campania. The Latin of the psalms would still be largely comprehensible to the monks. To the 10th century English novices, it would have been a completely foreign tongue.

The manuscript British Library, Royal 2 B V gives us a fascinating perspective into how this challenge was addressed in England. The manuscript is a liturgical psalter that includes all 150 psalms plus the monastic canticles. It does not seem to have been used in choir as it lacks the psalm divisions necessary, but was a classroom book. The psalms are written in clear large letters. Above these, between the lines, is a running gloss in Old English explaining the meaning of the Latin words. In the margin are excerpts from Cassiodorus’s commentary on the Psalms. Working through this book a student would be learning to read Latin, learning to read Old English, acquiring an understanding of the Latin text, and beginning to learn how the psalms were interpreted by an important monastic author. A companion book written by the same scribe and presumably used alongside it (or at least in the same classroom) contains Jerome’s 59 homilies on the psalms.

This initial stage of education—the passive acquisition of the psalms, their active memorization, and an introduction to the exegetical method of the Church Fathers—provided a foundation that the monks and nuns would use the rest of their lives. This childhood memorization would be reinforced daily as the psalms were sung in the Daily Office. Too, psalm verse and portions were sprinkled throughout Office and Mass in the form of prayers, responsaries, and minor propers. Furthermore, the monks were to continue running through these memorized psalms outside of the oratory as well. The Regularis Concordia, in harmony with longstanding monastic tradition, recommends that the psalms be silently recited and meditated upon during the periods of work when the monks were at work in the fields or in the workshops.

This initial stage of education would be complete once the entire psalter and canticles were committed to memory. Exactly how long that would take depends entirely on the student, but contemporary sources do give us a sense of the range. In speaking of an early medieval saint, Gregory of Tours expresses his wonder that the saint was able to memorize the entire psalter in only 6 months instead of two or three years. It’s hard to say if two to three years was normal or if Gregory was exaggerating slightly for the sake of promoting the saint. Either way, this does give us something to go on—exceptional students might be able to get through this process in six months to a year while more ordinary students could take as long as three years.

[To Be Continued…]

Little Hours and Lay Devotion

A few random thoughts coming together here…

Books of Hours and prymers were the pre-eminent expressions of lay devotion in the pre- and early Reformation period. As I’ve written before, these books had quite a variety of things in them but the key elements tended to be Little Offices—most invariably the Little Hours of the BVM and the Hours of the Dead, frequently one or more of the Little Hours of the Cross, Passion, Holy Spirit, All Saints or Trinity—psalms, litanies, and invocations of the saints.

I want to spend a little bit of time on the Little Hours.

Medieval devotion went in a variety of directions, but there was always at least one strain that looked to monastic models. The first liturgical books in the hands of the laity were psalters. Psalters deserve a number of posts dedicated to them, but for the moment, I’ll go with a quick and dirty overview. A liturgical psalter contained more than psalms. Containing the variable material outside the ordinary of the Daily Office, it contained the psalms, a number of canticles, sometimes hymns, and the additional devotions of the monks used before, after, or between the main offices. This is where we see the Little Offices appearing.

In the early medieval period—so, we’re talking AD 700-900—devotions to particular persons and doctrines began to appear in the continental monasteries. Their form varied, but generally, they were modeled on the regular choir Offices (Matins, Lauds, Prime, Terce, etc.)  except that they tended to be shorter, use fewer psalms, and have fewer variable elements. These were recited in addition to the regular choir Offfices. As the Benedictine rule became normative throughout the lands under Carolingian sway as interpreted by Benedictine of Aniane and his comrades, and as the Cluniac ideal of the choir-based monk spread concurrently, these offices popped up all over the place. It was through their incorporation into the psalters, that they spread into lay hands and became features of lay devotion.

Completely skipping over lay use of psalters and the transition into books of hours, as we enter the hey-day of books of hours in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, we notice some patterns. Out of the many versions of the Little Offices of various sorts, there has been a certain amount of consolidation and simplification. That is, the Little Office of the BVM and the Office for the Dead have moved to a central position, others have receded a bit.

Take the Hours of the Holy Spirit as an example… There are 11th and 12 century Hours of the Little Spirit that are full-fledged offices in their own right.  Thus, the offices outside Matins have an opening, a verse from the Veni Creator Spiritus, a variable psalm with antiphon (reversed at Lauds and Vespers—the psalm coming first), a chapter with a response, and a concluding collect. (Matins is more involved, has 3 readings and responsaries in proper Matins fashion…)

By the 15th century, the variable psalm has dropped and the chapter and response have shortened into something more like a basic verse and response. Thus, the later hours are chiefly, opening, hymn verse, verse/response, and collect. Instead of standing on their own, they were joined to the end of the Hours of the BVM. This becomes a standard pattern. The hymn verses and collects change each hour, but there is no variation from day to day and season to season. As a result, these become eminently memorizable. As books of hours spread and become status objects even among those classes with questionable literacy, the static form makes these offices easier to read (fewer changes).

By the time of the first English language prymers, the Hours of the BVM had quite a number of these “memorial” forms consisting on an anthem/antiphon, a verse/response, and a collect appended after Lauds and Vespers. With the coming of the Books of Common Prayer and the suppression of antiphons and v/r patterns, most of these disappeared, but some of their collects linger. In fact, you ought to be familiar with one of them—the collects “for Peace” in the section after the Collect of the Day at morning and Evening Prayer are remnants of the Memorial for Peace.  Too, the collect used at the Little Hours of the Passion is tucked at the end of the Good Friday liturgy on page 282:

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, we pray you to set your passion, cross, and death between your judgment and our souls, now and in the hour of our death. Give mercy and grace to the living; pardon and rest to the dead; to your holy Church peace and concord; and to us sinners everlasting life and glory; for with the Father and the Holy Spirit you live and reign, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Ok—so that’s a real quick fly-by of the history of the Little Hours. In fact, I’ll make it even shorter:

  • They started out as focused versions of choir Offices
  • Over time, most were reduced to invariable forms through the day consisting of a verse-length hymn, a versicle/response, and a collect
  • By the time of englishing the liturgy, they entered as collects alone.

The trend for these ancillary devotions is a move to become shorter and less variable. Ergo, they were easier to memorize and to use throughout the day.

What are the implications for lay devotions in our own day?

Do we want to create things that are as variable as possible with as many moving parts as we can find—or does it make more sense to follow the fundamental channels that lay devotion seems to have followed in previous ages?

It seems to me that if I wanted to create intermediary offices as a supplement to the BCP’s Morning and Evening Prayers, I would go with the base pattern: hymn verse, versicle/response drawn from the psalms, collect. Some of the Little Hours, like those of the Holy Spirit and of the Passion, explicitly referred to the time of day and connected the devotion to biblical events that happened at that same time of day. Perhaps that strategy might still retain some utility today.

I wonder if the average hymn verse and/or collect has more or less than 140 characters…?

Just Because…

Here’s the front image for the Hours of the Holy Trinity in the Taymouth Book of Hours according to the Sarum Use (f. 32v). The whole thing can be found here at the British Library: (http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Yates_Thompson_MS_13&index=2) Why? Because it’s awesome!

Sarum_Trinity_Taymouth

Totally Random Thought on Processions

Processions as a liturgical movement within the church are not a common feature of current church life and worship. They were a much bigger deal in the medieval period and, when considering the liturgical life of a typical medieval cathedral or abbey, a specialized book called a processionale is an important resource. Naturally, there is a Sarum processional and there were some in the late 19th/early 2oth Sarum Revival who were interested in bringing back the custom of processions, noticably Percy Dearmer.

I want to make on quick, rather random note on processions and their use in the modern church… I’ll do so by introducing this image that I just ran across and that reminded me of what I wanted to say on this topic. From the British Library, here’s a miniature of a bishop preaching from Harley MS 4425, f. 167v:

Note where he’s preaching from: a platform set on barrels… 

What does this have to do with processions? Furniture. More specifically the kind of furniture that did and didn’t exist in major medieval worship spaces vs. the furniture that exists in American churches.

A cathedral is quite different in size than a modern American church. Too, the furniture did not have the same relationship to the space that ours does now. Namely—pews, pulpits, and other kinds of fixed furniture. Processions as envisioned in medieval sources work a heck of a lot better in a big space without fixed pews! Many of the modern processions I’ve seen or participated in end up with a long trail of people squeezed between a wall and long lines of set pews with very few being able to effectively “group” at a station. So—if we’re going to do this, how do we do it better?

Benedictional of St Aethelwold up!

A couple of posts in the pipeline dealing with church politics stuff are sidelined for a most important announcement: the British Library has put on line the splendid Benedictional of St. Æthelwold!

Æthelwold was the teacher of Aelfric, the chief guy my dissertation was about, so this is a big deal for me. The manuscript illustrations are simply beautiful—they’re definitely worth the time to look through.

Late Medieval Thoughts on the Office: Purpose

I always like to get a little perspective on questions of liturgy from different periods by looking at vernacular catechetical sources. That is, rather than looking at the conversations that clergy and the learned were having—because they were operating with shared assumptions—take a look at what they were teaching to the unlearned and hopefully were revealing just what those assumptions were!

So—here are two late medieval English vernacular texts that explain the purpose of the Office. The first is from the Myroure of Oure Ladye, the second is from the Henrican Rationale of Ceremonial from the early 1540’s.

The Myroure

Chapter 1: how and why God’s service is said each day in seven hours.

Sepcies in die Laudem dixi tibi. These are the words of the prophet David saying thus to our Lord: “Seven times in the day I have said praises to you.”

All reasonable creatures were made to know, to love, and to praise God and therein to have their endless joy. While our souls are imprisoned in these deadly bodies, we cannot – due to corruption and heaviness of these same bodies – continually accomplish that godly praising as they do who by death are made free from thralldom to the flesh and have come to the end of their joy, that is, the presence of God. Therefore our mother holy church ruled by the Holy Ghost, knowing the frailty and feebleness of her children, has set us every day seven hours. At least in these we ought to be occupied in the service and praise of God that is to say: matins, prime, terce, sext, none, evensong, and compline.

What Solomon says is true, that a righteous man falls seven times a day, and the number of all wickedness is named under seven deadly sins against which the holy church has ordained seven sacraments and is given seven gifts of the Holy Ghost. Therefore, to get remission of our sins, and to thank God for his gifts, we say praises to him in the said hours, seven times each day. Since God made all things in six days and fulfilled them in the seventh day and rested, therefore doing thanks to God for all his works and for all that he made, each day we praise him seven times. Also because the life of man is divided into seven ages where we have spent our time idly or evilly therefore we thank God for our life and seek recompense for such negligence; seven times a day we do service to God. All of this life passes under seven days where the people of this world who are given to active life are occupied in getting their livelihood – and ours – so that they may not freely attend each day in all these times to praise God with their tongues. Therefore we who are called to contemplative life ought to praise God for them – and for us – every day seven times that we may say to our Lord with David, “Lord God, I praised you seven times in the day.”

Chapter 2: why these seven hours rather than others.

But now, you might ask why these seven hours – that is to say, matins time, prime time, and so forth – are assigned by the holy church for the praise of God rather than other hours since there are so many more hours in the day and in the night than seven. To this I answer that these hours are more specially privileged than others because of the great works that God has wrought therein for which he is everlastingly to be praised. Therefore we read that Saints both in the old law and in the new praised God in these hours. For David the prophet says to God this concerning himself: Media nocte surgebam ad confitendum tibi, that is, “Lord, at midnight I rose to praise you.” He also says this: Vespere, et manet meridie narrabo et annunciabo. That is, “At morning, at prime time, at noon, and at evening time, I shall tell and show your praises.” Also Daniel the prophet worships God three times in the day kneeling, according to the exposition of St. Jerome, at terce, sext, and none. Also Peter and John went up into the temple to pray at the hour of none, as it is written in the Acts of the Apostles. St. Paul and Silas, being in prison, prayed to God at midnight, and then the earth quaked and all the prison doors opened and all the fetters and bonds of the prisoners were loosed. Our Lord Jesus Christ also prayed, not only in one part of the night, but all the night he remained awake in prayer as the gospel tells. At the beginning of the holy church, the clergy and the common people – both men and women – rose to praise God four times in the night. First, at the beginning of the night when people are accustomed to go to bed. Second, at midnight. The third, a little before daybreak, and the fourth time at the morning. At evening, our Lord was taken by the Jews, bound and scorned. At midnight he was born. Before day he despoiled hell, and in the morning he rose from death to life. Therefore on some feasts matins are yet said at evening, and in some orders at midnight, and in some before day, and in others, at various times of the night. In some churches they say matins in the morning time.

At prime time, our Lord Jesus Christ was led to Pilate and accused. In the same hour after his resurrection, he appeared to Mary Magdalene, and another day he appeared to his disciples as they were fishing at the same hour. At the hour of terce, our Lord Jesus Christ was scourged, crowned with thorns, and scorned. The same hour, after his resurrection he appeared to the women coming from the sepulcher. On Pentecost Sunday at the same hour he sent the Holy Ghost down upon the apostles. At sext, our Lord Jesus Christ was nailed on the cross, and fed with vinegar and gall. At the same hour after his resurrection, he appeared to the apostle St. James, and on Ascension Day at the same hour he sat and ate with his apostles. At the hour of none, our Lord Jesus Christ cried and he gave up his soul to death. At the same hour, a knight opened our Lord’s side with a spear and smote through his heart from which came water for our baptism and blood for our redemption. On Easter day, he appeared at the same hour to St. Peter. At evening time, our Lord Jesus Christ on Shere [Maundy] Thursday ate with his apostles and ordained the holy sacrament of his holy body and blood. At the same hour on Good Friday, he was taken down from the cross. On Easter day at the same hour, he met with two of his disciples going toward Emmaus, and made himself known to them in the breaking of bread. At compline time, our Lord Jesus Christ on Shere Thursday at evening prayed and sweat blood. At the same hour on Good Friday, he was buried. On Easter day at the same hour, he appeared to his disciples gathered together in a closed place for fear of the Jews, and said to them, “Peace be with you.” Thus you may see that not without great cause are these hours set and ordained to be specially occupied in the serving and praising of our Lord God rather than other hours of the day.

The Rationale

The service used in the Church daily in some places or upon the Sundays and other feasts in all places, that is to say to have matins, prime, hours, evensong, and compline, whereof the most part is of Scripture, as the Psalms, and many times the legends (certain things added by man well reformed) are very godly and expedient both for that the ministers prayeth and giveth and thanks to God for themselves and for the people, and also that by the example of their prayers, they move and excite the people to pray with them. And therefore, for the adorning of the same service, surplices, copes and other vestures and ceremonies in the doing thereof are very laudable and comely.

The sober, discreet and devout singing, music and playing with organs used in the church, for the service of God are ordained to move and stir the people to the sweetness of God’s word the which is there sung [and not understanded (contained but struck out in one of the two manuscripts…)], and by that sweet harmony both to excite them to prayers and devotion and also to put them in remembrance, of the heavenly triumphant church, where is everlasting joy with continual laud and praise to God.

Some Thoughts…

Coming to these texts with the classic distinctions between “monastic” and “cathedral” ringing in my ears, I’m struck at how “cathedral” these descriptions appear—particularly the second. The emphasis on prayer/praise and on the the visual aspect of the ceremonies figure quite large in the standard definitions.

Note the comments in both that the singing of the hours is a means of joining the chorus of the Church Triumphant. Not just joining an angelic chorus, but particularly the saintly dead.

The offices are seen as edifying, but—particularly in the second—edifying by means of their example rather than their content. Seeing and hearing the song of the Offices should put the people in mind to pray themselves and join the saintly chorus. Of course, at this point, the services remained in Latin as Henry retained the Sarum Rite even after his separation from Rome.

Language Comprehension Check

I need to level-set on what’s considered normally comprehensible English.

Here’s the question… Given the samples below, where do we reach the point where an intelligent, literate person would benefit from having a modern language paraphrase? Or, conversely, at what point would the same person have difficulties given archaicisms and technical terms that would be unfamiliar?

Sample 1

Say fyst this psalme with loke dyrecte to heuen
Iudica me deus with hole herte entere
Theyr conscyence purge fro the synnes seuen
Or they presume to go to the awtere
The same psalme sette in the sawtere
For a memoryall of the captyuyte
How Iherusalem stode in grete daunger
At Babylon that frowarde fell cyte.

Sample 2

After Ite missa est. the prest stondeith in the mydes of the Awter . and so blyssyd the people.

Then call to your remembrance thys holly medytatyon . how owr sauyour standyng in the mydes of hys disciples at the movnte of Olyveite . blyssing thaym . dyd ascend to hewyn . where he ys now resydent . and euer more schall be . syttyng on the ryght hond of hys father this Ascensyon of our Lord . ys signefyed by the wordes . which [fo. 25.b.] the prest saith at the end of the masse . that ys to say Ite missa est which wordes doith sovnd after thys Exposytyon of Doctoures . Goo and departt, for our Lord ys send and offerd vp to hys Eternall Father In oblatyon and sacryfyce.

Sample 3

when þo auter is al dight,
& þo preste is reuysht right,
þen he takes in bothe his hende
a clothe o-pon þo auter ende,
and comes obac a litel doune,
dos hit o-pon him al a-boune.
alle men knelen, bot he stondes,
and haldes to god vp bothe his hondes;
þere, or he þo messe bi-gynne,
wil he meke him for his synne;
til alle þo folk he shryues him þare
of alle his synnes lesse & mare:
so dos þo clerk a-gayn to him
shryuen hom þere of all hor synn,
and askes god forgyuenes,
or þai bigynne to here þo mes.

Where do things break down as far as your concerned for the average reader–so, not just did you have problems with it, but where do you think a normal college level English speaker would?

Thoughts on Liturgical Categorization

Introduction

I’ve recently been pondering the ways that we categorize and analyze liturgy. What are the various bits, bobs, and elements that  we can use to make sense of liturgical texts that retain meaning across time? To put a finer point on it, how would we go about creating a taxonomy for liturgical texts that could apply equally well to a 9th century Anglo-Saxon liturgical miscellany and the ’79 Book of Common Prayer? Specifically, can one be created that can be used for the analytic markup of liturgical materials for digital use?

The best way to begin is to not reinvent the wheel. Other, wiser, and better-informed minds than mine have worked around this issue even if the scope was not entirely the same. People who work on manuscripts have already had to do a lot of this work, as have the pioneers who began the work of digitizing the material that’s available on the web in a variety of forms. Whenever we encounter someone who has done both, we know that we’re in the right company! As a result, the best conversation partner for this work is Andrew Hughes, author of the magisterial Medieval Manuscripts for Mass and Office: A Guide to their Organization and Terminology (MMMO) and the ground-breaking Late Medieval Liturgical Offices (LMLO) digital project which is only partially online through this search resource.

The MMMO presents a set of abbreviations and symbols used both within it and in the LMLO. These are presented and discussed on pages ix-xxv. The two questions we need to answer are these: 1) do his temporal restrictions (the years 1200-1500) invalidate his scheme for this proposed general use that hopes to expand out to include material produced 4 centuries in each direction? 2) to what degree can his material be adopted and where must it be adapted?

I’d suggest, first, that the bones of the schema here can be preserved with the important caveat that this taxonomy is only appropriate to Western liturgies that have their basis in the Latin-speaking tradition. That is, I think it’s helpful and useful as long as we don’t try to apply it to Eastern Orthodox liturgies or various modern protestant liturgical traditions that eschew the historic liturgy. With this caveat in mind, I do believe that there is sufficient continuity within the historic western liturgy that question 1 can be answered satisfactorily.

Moving to the second question, a certain amount of adaptation will be required. While Hughes uses abbreviations that sometimes overlap and must be distinguished by typeface or other methods, abbreviations are no longer necessary in a scheme intended for use within a modern markup situation. Indeed, not only are they not necessary, they’re not desirable either as their use hampers the natural-language legibility of a marked-up document. (That is, you have to refer to a key instead of just looking at the source text and understanding what’s going on…)

Too, as is perfectly appropriate for his project, Hughes uses technical liturgical terms appropriate for the high medieval period. Given the much wider span that we’re looking at, not all of these terms may possess or retain the particular technical definitions they had in Hughes’s span. As a result, while I think most can be used as is, it’s worth considering where we might need to build in tolerances to handle this situation. (This is one I’m holding in reserve—I can’t think of any cases like this at the moment but reserve the right to discover some…)

When I read through Anglican prayer books, I see a number of elements that don’t seem to fit properly within the elements that he offers. In order to maximize meaningful tagging within these documents, we will need to add elements that go outside the scope of the texts Hughes was considering. For instance, an enduring heritage of the 1552 book is lengthy addresses by the presider to the congregation; I don’t recall these in earlier liturgies nearly to the degree that we have them now.

One of the most helpful aspects of Hughes’s scheme is that it offers, by means of several lists, different levels of elements necessary to distinguish between whether you’re talking about a specific section of a book or a service itself or about an event within a given service. This aspect definitely needs to be retained and will be reflected in how we present and order our proposed elements.

Proposals

I envision this categorization scheme at use within the TEI P5 guidelines for xml markup of humanities texts. Thus, the section-level and service-level elements would appear as “type” descriptors within <div> elements; intra-service elements would be noted as types within <seg> elements tied to <interp> and <interpGrp> sections.

Section Level Elements

This level would identify sections within a book and be located within <div> tags. The following list is a modification of Hughes’s List 1e with the inclusion of some items from 1f.

  • Aspersion
  • Common of saints
  • Dedication feast
  • Hymnal
  • Invitatorium
  • Kalendar
  • Ordo
  • Ordinary of the Mass
  • Kyriale
  • Psalter
  • General rubric (as a section rather than a specific direction)
  • Sanctorale
  • Temporale
  • Votives
  • Tonary
  • Prayers (as a collection/grouping of prayers of the same sort)

Service Level Elements

These labels would identify the specific rituals or services being described and would operate at the <div> level. This is a substantial expansion of Hughes’s List 1c.

  •  Office
    • First Vespers
    • Compline
    • Matins
    • Prime
    • Chapter
    • Terve
    • Sext
    • Nones
    • Vespers
    • Morning Prayer
    • Noon Prayer
    • Evening Prayer
    • Lamp Lighting
  • Eucharist
  • Baptism
  • Confirmation
  • Confession
  • Unction
  • Marriage
  • Burial
  • Procession
  • Exorcism
  • Rite (Thinking specifically, of the ’79 BCP, the alternation between Rites I & II is a service-level phenomenon and needs to be captured at that point.)
  • Service (This is a generic catch-all for anything else not covered. Differentiation would appear in a subtype.)

Liturgical Elements

These items would appear within interpretive  <seg> elements. This is a modification of Hughes’s List 1a, List 1b, and 1f

  • antiphon
    • invitatory
    • gospel canticle
    • psalm
  • lesson
    • chapter (a brief, generally one sentence bit from Scripture in an Office)
    • first lesson
    • second lesson
    • prophecy
    • epistle
    • gospel
    • announcement
    • conclusion
  • psalm
    • invitatory
  • canticle
    • invitatory
    • gospel
  • dialogue
    • versicle
    • response
  • intercession
    • petition
    • response
  • litany
    • section
    • petition
    • section response
  • orison (the English term for an oratio—basically any kind of a number of relatively short prayers typically found in early medieval mass-sets and most commonly encountered in Anglican books as collects. However, not all so-called collects fit the formal criteria for collects; preserving “orison” as a general-use term conveys the concept even when the contents fall short)
    • collect
    • secret
    • post-communion
  • sermon
  • hymn
  • anthem
  • canon
  • proper preface
  • consecration (not just of Eucharistic elements but of baptismal water, etc.)
  • distribution (again, could be Eucharistic elements, baptismal water, ashes, etc.)
  • fraction anthem
    • agnus dei
  • creed
  • communion chant
  • gloria
  • doxology
  • gradual
  • introit
  • kyrie
  • offertory chant
  • sanctus
  • tract
  • responsory
    • verse
    • repetenda
    • doxology
  • benediction
  • rubric
  • prayer (this is a generic catch-all when the presider addresses God when none of the above seem to fit.)
  • address (this is a generic catch-all when the presider speaks to the people and nothing above seems suitable.)
  • response (this is the generic catch-all when the people speak and nothing above seems suitable.)

Concluding Thoughts

I believe this lays out a useful initial plan for liturgical tagging. That having been said, I’ve done enough liturgical research and enough coding to know that this represents only a tentative beginning. As well defined as things seem to be at the beginning, the true usefulness of the scheme is revealed in the coding itself. As a result, this provides a framework. Now some coding actually needs to be attempted to determined where this works, where it fails, and where the framework needs to be reconceived.