medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Jon Cannon wrote:
> John Briggs said:
>
>> A Votive Mass may also be said as an extra Mass. On a Saturday, the
>> Votive Mass is of Our Lady. I am going out on a limb here, but I
>> would suggest that Lady Chapels were built because of the daily Lady
>> Mass - or the other way around, of course.
>
> I'm not sure what point you are making here. These masses were surely
> all at the high altar? I am taking it as read that the daily Lady Mass
> was said at a separate Lady Altar, and trying to get closer to the
> connection between the development of such elements of the Marian
> liturgy and that of Lady Chapels as separate buildings.
I am just trying to situate (as they say...) the Lady Mass. Liturgically,
it would be an extra Votive Mass (especially if everyone is supposed to take
part). Thinking about it more, I would be inclined to say that the Lady
Chapel came first, and that led to the daily Lady Mass. I am thinking here
about Chichester, where the Lady Chapel pre-dates the retrochoir!
> The assumption that Daily Lady Masses and Lady Chapels go together is
> unproved, worth investigation - but also widespread and not
> unreasonable. To explore this further, I am interested in such
> questions as, 'who attended the daily Lady Mass?' and 'when did the
> practice of this Mass become common?' and 'to what extent was the
> Lady Chapel used during greater Marian feasts, and who attended
> these?'.
>
>> It is said that the cathedral choirs of today descend from the Lady
>> Chapel choirs, rather than the main choirs. Don't forget that monasteries
>> (probably including the cathedral priories) would only have had lay
>> singers and boys in the Lady Chapel choir (e.g. Thomas Tallis at Waltham
>> Abbey).
> I understood the development of these 'professional' choirs, employing
> choir boys and lay singers, was linked to the use of polyphony, and
> took place in the c14 and (especially) in the c15 - when many
> cathedrals had them (Lincoln and Canterbury are further examples).
> Much but not all of such singing took place at Lady Mass and thus in
> the Lady Chapel. But surely the c13 and earlier Lady Masses would not
> have been polyphonically embellished and would have used members of
> the community (in a secular church, choir boys, vicars, perhaps a
> handful of canons), albeit a small-ish group of these people? Was
> there any other kinds of embellishment or elaboration that set these
> services apart?
I think we have to decide which is the cart and which the horse. I would
say that the creation of the Lady Chapel choir came first, and aided the
development of polyphony - certainly at monasteries and cathedral priories,
where the monks would have formed the main choir.
John Briggs
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