Greetings to you all on Medieval Religion List,
I am an MA student at Trent University, Peterborough, Canada. I am doing
my degree in Anthropology with a focus on medieval culture. More
specifically, I am interested in ritual events and the processes of
liminality. This has led me to a look at saints, relics, reliquaries and
pilgrimage. As part of my undergrad work I did an honours thesis paper
looking at Sir Gawain and the Green Knight as a descriptive of a rite of
passage - from an anthropological viewpoint.
More recently I have become interested in a somewhat elusive ritual
object: the liturgical comb. Perhaps some of you noticed my request on
AnSaxL which was forwarded to your list. In any event, I am hoping there
will be sufficient resource materials to be found which will enable me to
focus on these combs for my MA thesis paper.
As a brief recap, information so far has indicated that these combs,
usually ivory, were indeed used in liturgical ritual to comb the hair of
the bishop either before, or apparently, sometimes during Mass. There is
some indication they were used in anointing ceremonies for both Bishops
and Kings. Archaeological evidence associates liturgical combs with the
burial of at least one saint, St. Cuthbert, and Lasko's chapter in
_The Relics of St. Cuthbert_ points out that the comb's association with that saint can be linked to the original
burial, not the Translation. Liturgical combs can, from such information
be looked up as a sign of office, perhaps similar to the ring or crozier.
With that said, I would like to post my first question to my new list:
Is anyone aware of the use of liturgical combs in the ceremony of the
Medieval *Byzantine* church? And whether such use would have been
contemporary with that recorded in the West?
Happy to be on Medieval-Religion,
Best to you all for '97
Kendra
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