medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Just for clarification, note that the prayer appealing to the saints whose relics are "here" is said at the altar, after the prayers at the foot of the altar. Putting a microphone at the altar would pick up everything said at the altar in a voice loud enough for the servers to hear. We do this for our Tridentine rite at our parish, but much depends even so on how clearly the priest enunciates etc. Ours is a huge building and adequate microphoning to permit the congregants really to hear well is very difficult.
I mention this for another reason. How much did people in a parish church in the Middle Ages hear and understand of what was going on is a frequently asked question I don't intend to answer here. But much (as Eamon Duffy pointed out in _Stripping of the Altars_) depends on the architecture and shape of the space in which the Mass is being said. If Susan? Robey's parish church is relatively small with an excellent microphone system, it may be possible for congregants to hear clearly all that is said at the altar. (With a wireless collar microphone, I suppose the prayers at the foot of the altar could also be heard, but I would agree with Lisa? Canning that that would be inappropriate. The prayers at the altar said sotto voce would probably not be intelligible, even with an altar microphone.
In a small parish church in the Middle Ages, again, with much depending on the pace and articulation of the priest, congregants might have heard a lot or a little. How much they understood would again have depended on how much effort they put into it--one could learn the meaning of the Latin, since it was so similar from week to week, even with a smattering of Latin literacy. But how many did? Probably nearly impossible to say.
In the immense parsh churches characteristic of American immigrant communities (ours once had 20,000 parishioners attending 12 Masses on Sundays and its interior space is larger than Chicago's cathedral church), before microphones, a Low Mass was largely unhearable to the congregants and they came to expect that. Some preferred that to sung High and Solemn Masses. Surely in medieval Europe similar variations occurred. Of course, most Masses even in large basilicas or cathedrals were probably celebrated at side altars with few congregants if any.
Obviously placing a microphone at the altar implies a wish that the congregants could hear what is said, which also encourages the celebrant to speak up more than probably was the case "in the old days" when everyone assumed that the congregants would not be able to hear what was being said. But even there I must caution against the conclusion that they did not know what was going. Those who wished to (clearly a small minority) did follow along in hand missals and because the rubrics were there, could know what the priest had to be saying even if they could not hear it. They could then read the vernacular translation and know what was being said "up there." How much of a parallel to this was there in the Middle Ages, for those who cared, in the form of oral "hand missals" and then, of course, later John Mirk's missal and its equivalents? We'll never be able to say for sure, but the above are some of the complexities that would have to be taken into consideration.
Dennis Martin
>>> [log in to unmask] 02/08/02 17:43 PM >>>
medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Well, I still attend Tridentine. And, since we mike the priests, we do hear
this quite clearly each Sunday.
That is ridiculous, the prayers at the foot of the altar are the personal prayers of the priest!
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