medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
George R. Hoelzeman wrote:
>
> This is much appreciated - I may not have clearly
> identified what I was looking for, however. What I'm
> interested in is the actual rites for Dedication of a
> Church including, but not limited to, euchology,
> theology, historical context and specific gestures, etc.
> What piqued my curiousity with the work mentioned was
> that it had the (a) Carolingian ritual with
> commentary/discussion. On the surface, that would be
> something of particular interest - but if the work has no
> scholarly value, then it has. . . well, no value ;-)).
No, no - it's not that it has no scholarly value, it's just that it's not
very substantial - as I said, I think it would make a very good journal
article. I don't have the book to hand, as I have given it back to the
library: it gave references to other work on the history of the dedication
rites, but I got the impression that hardly anything else has been written.
It seems to be a subject that scholars just aren't interested in - or at
least haven't been since Victorian times. [And they are probably right -
Repsher shows that the whole church dedication rite is just cribbed from
baptismal ceremonies. There is a huge literature on Baptism and Initiation,
as there is considerable Protestant interest in that...]
I suppose one place to start is W.H. Frere's "Pontifical Services".
> I'd also be interested in knowing if there is a source of
> the Roman Ordines, etc. and some of the medieval
> pontificals. . . with the caveat that unless I get a
> government bailout to finance my book habit, anything too
> expensive is out of my league anyway.
There are inexpensive digital reprints available of Victorian editions of
medieval pontificals, e.g.:
C. Wordsworth, The Pontifical Offices used by David de Bernham.
Liber Pontifical Chr. Bainbridge Archiepiscopi Eboracensis
The pontifical got pretty well standardised by Durandus, but there wasn't
that much variation before then. Various early pontificals have been edited
by the Henry Bradshaw Society - and work is underway on others!
As for the Ordines, start with:
C. Vogel (trans Storey & Rasmussen), Medieval Liturgy: An introduction to
the sources (1986).
John Briggs
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