medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

Lots of questions here, George!

> I've managed to get myself into a situation where I need to do a bit
> of liturgical history research, specifically the history of
> celebrating Mass and other Christian rituals while facing East.

One has to be a bit careful about celebrating Mass "facing East".  Until about the 12th 
century, the priest stood to the east of the altar, facing West.  It was only at that time that the 
priest began standing west of the altar, facing East.  I believe it was only Vatican II that 
wheeled the priest back again to the earlier position.
> 
>  - at what point does the practice of facing East become dominant?  I
>  seem to recall some arguements that Christians ALWAYS faced east when
>  celebrating 
> the liturgy, but cannot verify that. 

I think you actually mean to ask whether altars were always located at the east end of 
churches.  The problem here is that there are so few liturgical sources, or archaeological 
remains of "churches" before the 4th century.  Added to this problem, permanent, fixed altars 
did not become the norm in churches until as late as the 6th century, and it is pretty difficult to 
fix the location of portable altar tables.  It is perhaps not fair to cite an unpublished 
dissertation on this, but this issue has been thoroughly investigated by Marica Christine 
Cassis, "Mensa, [Greek word], [Syriac word]: The Evolution of the Permanent Altar in the 
Early Christian Church," Ph.D. diss., U. of Toronto, 2006.  It does point out, though, that there 
are no easy answers, as yet, to your question.  She emphasizes the "non-linear" character of 
altar development in three distinct regions she has pinpointed: the Roman west, the Syriac 
east, and the Byzantine sphere, all of which present different lines of development.  As far as 
the eastern orientation of churches is concerned, it was not even an issue with, for example, 
the 3rd-century house-church at Dura-Europos, which was a converted house, aligned with 
the street in front of it and the city wall behind it (same goes, by the way, for the synagogue 
there).  Several of Constantine's early 4th-century basilicas, such as St Peter's and the Holy 
Sepulchre, actually had a western orientation (if one is allowed to say that!).  I have not yet 
run across any very handy scholarly treatment of the eastern orientation of churches, but I 
believe that it characterized, inter alia, temples to Sol Invictus, the cult of which profoundly 
shaped 4th-century Christian practice (e.g. "Sunday" as the Christian day of rest; main feast 
day 25 December).  It is a complex problem, and I'm afraid anything you are likely to read in 
an art history survey text like Jansen will be about as authoritative as what one hears on the 
proverbial street corner.

>  - What sources are there which shed light on the character of the
>  ante-Nicean Liturgy? 

I am far from being a liturgical scholar, but I do not believe that many such sources survive.
> 
>  - Finally, it is my impression that some developments in liturgical
>  art and architecture emerge in direct continuity from the immediate
>  past (Gothic out of 
> Romanesque, Early Byzantine out of Late Antique) but other times there
> is a conscious and almost radical break with the previous era
> (Renaissance from Gothic).  Is there any basis for this impression or
> is that more the subject for a thesis/dissertation?

I rather doubt whether such tired, old formalistic periodization will actually say anything about 
liturgy.  It is striking, in fact, how little the appearance and even the form of churches conform 
to their liturgical functioning.  The Carolingian period, however, might be said to present a 
"radical break" with its previous era in the significant proliferation of altars in churches, a 
phenomenon furthered, once again, in the "Romanesque" period, with the rise of private 
masses (and concurrently, the rise of the "ambulatory with radiating chapels" plan for 
churches).  On the other hand, the Renaissance/Gothic divide, beside being somewhat 
illusory, was not primarily liturgical in character.  One medieval architectural historian I know 
actually claimed once that, in fact, the Renaissance was a purely local development!  
Through the 15th century, in any case, while "Renaissance"-looking churches were being 
built in parts of Italy, "Gothic"-looking ones were being built everywhere else in Europe, and 
both are characterized, among other things, by the plethora of private chapels that 
accumulated in them: however different they may look, they appear to have functioned quite 
similarly in a liturgical sense.  Perhaps one prominent "Renaissance" exception is the 
centralized church; this used to be related primarily to a resurgence of neo-Platonic 
metaphysics at the end of the 15th century, but more recent studies have emphasized how 
frequently they functioned as pilgrimage churches.  This is indicative of what one hopes will 
amount to a sea-change in the study of pre-modern churches: until very recently, formalistic 
concerns monopolized the interests of architectural historians, to the point where we actually 
know embarrassingly little about how medieval churches functioned in detail.  The way 
forward towards a more detailed liturgical understanding of churches, in fact, has recently 
been indicated not so much by architectural historians as by musicologists, who know the 
liturgical sources well and are concerned to relate them to actual church buildings.  
Architectural historians are beginning to catch on, though, and I believe we can expect more 
and more answers to the sorts of questions you are posing here in the near future (you might 
recall, in fact, discussions on this very list on such topics as processions in churches and the 
use of Lady Chapels).
Cheers,
Jim Bugslag

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