medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Dear Cecilia,
You've touched a bit of a raw nerve with me in this question! I have for years been trying unsuccessfully to find a book or even an article that confronts the problems of "necrologies" (my preferred term) as I see them. [A book by Patrick Geary entiled
"[Somethings] of Remembrance" greatly disappointed me.]
A Necrology is essentially a working document. It lives in a church or chapel, often open at the appropriate day and is there for the use of the priest who celebrates the principal mass of the day when prayers are offered for the repose of the soul of
any person(s) named on that day.
After messing about in a (small) number of necrologies for a number of years I have come to certain opinions. Please note the undernoted are no more than that - my personal conclusions - and my sample was small. With that caveat, I have concluded that
the persons commemorated in any given necrology fall into three categories:
(1) Members of that community. ie the monks, lay-brothers and members of the community's "familia".
(2) Local notables and patrons, some of whom may have had the right to be buried in the community's graveyard.
(3) National or international notables: counts, kings, emperors; bishops, archbishops, popes.
In spite of how these dates are frequently used by genealogists and historians, only in the case of members of (1) is there any real likelihood that the day of the commemoration is the same as, or the day following, the death-day of the person listed.
What IS listed is the day the death is commemorated and this will only be the same as the day of death if the person died
on the premises.
Where (2) is concerned, you often find members of the same family - or names that suggest the same family - are commemorated on the same day. It is unlikely that they all died in some common calamity!
[Even without supporting documentary evidence of charters, if I find a entry like the following
"Ides Sept. Hamo & Ida his wife, Hamo and Bona his wife; Radulphus, arminger, Hamo and Isabeau his wife and their sons Hamo, arminger, Radulfus and Bernard and their daughters Maria and Bona." [Fictitious example.]
I would conclude that the first couple are the grandparents, the second couple are the parents, that the stray Rudolph is the second Hamo's younger (unmarried) brother, and the final group comprises the son of the second Hamo and his family. And my bet
would be that only the first Hamo actually died on the ides of September, but that all the family were commemorated in a batch and that the next generation might well visit the monastery for a bean-feast annually on that day.]
That the day of commemoration is not necessarily the day of the death is evidenced by the fact that
the same person may be commemorated on different days at different institutions - often several weeks if not months apart.
To take the real example from my own work:-
Abbot Astralabe of Hauterive (a Cistercian abbey in Switzerland) is commemorated on August 4th.
[Peter] Astralabe son of Abelard is commemorated in the necrology of the Paraclete on 30 October.
Serious historians have used these facts to declare positively that A of Hauterive and A son of Abelard must be two different men.
I profoundly disagree. I maintain that Astralaber actually died on either (depending the time of day when he died) August 3rd or 4th, and that it took just over eighty days for the two monks bearing the obituary scroll to walk the three hundred or more
miles from Hauterive to the Paraclete, pausing for two or three days at significant Religious houses and churches en route. When an obituary scroll arrived at a monastic house the natural thing to do would be for a requien mass to be held for the dead person
on the following day, for this fact to be commemorated on the obituary scroll and for a note to be made in the particular house's necrology. After all, when the obituary scroll and its bearers arrived, the Superior was NOT going to ask them when the death
occurred and say, "Right, we'll hold a mass for x on the anniversary of his death"; he would say, "We will pray for x straightaway." Therefore the dates in the necrology are liturgical not bureaucratic.
I believe that someone somewhere has done a study of a number of surviving obituary scrolls and plotted the routes on a map and worked out how long the journeys would have taken. I cannot now find the citation - I only know I saw a copy of the work - 3
vols in all - in the British Library.
The practice of commemorating the anniversary of a person's death is, of course, a contemporary practice in many Catholic and Anglican churches including my own. ( I tease my vicar by referring to the document as the "necrology" when the official name
for it is "The Book of Remembrance.") Since we do not have a daily Celebration, these former members of the congregation or relatives of members of the congregation, are remembered by name at a special weekday Requiem Mass which is held each month. It is expected
that the relatives of persons so commemorated attend their Celebration if they possibly can.
Abbot Astralabe is still parayed for at High Mass on August 4th in the Cistercian Abbey of Hauterive.
As I said, the above are my conclusions. I hope they may be of some help / interest.
Brenda,
Brenda M Cook,
Independent Scholar
"I care not if you bridge the sea,
Or ride secure the cruel sky,
Or build consummate palaces,
Of metal or of masonry;
But have you wine and music still,
And statues, and a bright-eyed love,
And foolish thoughts of good and ill,
And prayers to them who sit above ?"
James Elroy Flecker: "To a poet a thousand years hence." (1915)
----- Original Message -----
From: [log in to unmask]" href="mailto:[log in to unmask]" target="_blank">
Cecilia Gaposchkin
Sent: Saturday, June 22, 2013 2:40 PM
Subject: [M-R] "obits" in calendar
medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Hello all,
Does anyone know a literature on the use and practice of the "obit" in liturgical calendars in the Middle Ages? We use these often to date and localize manuscripts, but I've gotten interested in them and am wondering really what the parameters, function, and
meaning of these inclusions are. What were the intended to convey? Was it simply a day marker in the calendar, or did it (necessarily?) indicate some further practice or observation? What other than feasts were/could be marked in a calendar? (besides the
astrological indicators and the dates themselves)? For a personal obit (i.e., the death of a person who wasn't a saint), did this indicate a special office for the dead? or some kind of memoria? And etc. Anyone who either has ideas or knowledge about this,
or a literature on it (doubtlessly in German!), please please please let me know.
As ever, thanks to everyone. I love this list.
cecilia
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