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MEDIEVAL-RELIGION  May 2006

MEDIEVAL-RELIGION May 2006

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Subject:

Re: ely jube/pulpitum thing

From:

Christopher Crockett <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

medieval-religion - Scholarly discussions of medieval religious culture <[log in to unmask]>

Date:

Fri, 5 May 2006 12:19:25 -0500

Content-Type:

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medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

From: John Briggs <[log in to unmask]>

> Christopher Crockett wrote:
> > From John Briggs:

>>> Introducing the term 'gospel ambo' just presents us with another
undefined entity!

>> p'rhaps, but, since "gospel ambo" is more or less self-explanitory,

> No, my point is that it is *not* self-explanatory.

?

which one of those words don't you understand, John?

>> the problem with this word [_pulpitum_] --as used in the sources-- is that
it acquired, at a certain point, a somewhat ambiguous meaning.

>> originally, it appears indeed to have meant "a standalone
structure designed to enclose a preacher", with a lectern (by which i
mean simply the thingie which held the book which was to be read)
and, sometimes, extensive decoration.

>> cf. DuCange --whose definition and examples of use are (curiously)
confined to this one sense.


> I would keep an open mind: it means 'lectern' or 'pulpit' 

my point is to keep an open mind: 'lectern' or 'pulpit' is only the
[chronologically] original meaning.

by the 13th c. (if not before --that's the original issue which coerced me to
start this thread), _pulpitum_ means, essentially, "jubé".

this is, as understand it, because (at Chartres at least) the jubé happened
to have a [the?] _pulpitum_ on top of it.

>- I wouldn't like to say which is the primary meaning.

viday soupra, if by "primary" you mean "chronologically prior".

>> though the Ravenna example is screenish in form, since there is no
allowance for a doorway or passage through it, i assume that it did
*not* act as a screen seperating the choir from the nave and was
probably positioned between two piers of the nave.

> But is the Ravenna example in the "nave" or "choir"?  

i don't know.

for the purposes of this discussion, i don't see what difference it might make
--as long as the "ambo of Ravenna" was *not* a *jubé*, i.e., in addition to
being a "pulpit", it was a screen which closed off the choir from the nave.

which, given the absence of any doorway(s) or passage(s) in it, appears to
have been the case.

>I would expect a "pulpit" to be in the nave, but an "ambo" in the choir.  

this is a distinction which i did not pick up on in Leclerq's "Ambon" article
in the DACL, nor in any other source i've seen.

is it based on any specific textual references?

>But we have to make allowance for changes in the liturgy, cf the introduction
of choir screens, for example.

yes.

precisely.

and the placing of the _pulpitum_ atop the "jubé" which, apparently, led to
the latter structure being called (in some contemporary french sources at
least) a _pulpitum_.

for reasons which i attempt to Mare's Nest below.

>> both of those are "pulpits" and, i assume, were referred to in
contemporary sources as a _pulpitum_.
 
> Yes, but do allow for the fact that contemporaries may have been referring
to the reading-desk rather than the structure.

viday soupra.

>> however, at some point --apparently during the course of the 12th
c.-- we have what appears to have been an innovation: a screen built
across the eastern end of the choir, pierced with doorway(s) to allow
access to the choir, and upon which was a pulpit/lectern and
(frequently) a large crucifix or crucifixion scene.

>> this is what we had at Chartres, from the 1230s:
 
> Do remember that the pulpit/lectern would have faced into the choir.  The
Rood wouold have faced into the nave.

yet another distinction.

in your Insular terminology, is the "jubé" at Chartres

http://ariadne.org/cc/jube/reconstruction-mallion.jpg

a "Rood"?

as i say (repeatedly) the 13th c. ordinal contemporary with the construction
of the thing calls it a _pulpitum_.

i have added all of the mentions of it in the ordinal i could find below.


>> the problem is that when we find mention of this structure in the
contemporary sources (in the case of Chartres, in the precisely
contemporary 13th c. ordinal of the cathedral), it is called a
_pulpitum_.

>> which is to say, the word used for it is *not* based on what *we*
would now think of as its most important feature --or even its most
important function.

> Well, strictly speaking, that is its only active function -  the division
function is a passive one.

my point, eggsactly.

the ordinal is a working liturgical script, not an architectural or aesthetic
treatise.

>> we call it a "screen", or, perversely, a "jubé" --which latter term
originally comes from its use as a *pulpit*, but which now, to us,
means, literally, a screen which seperates the choir from the nave.

> Well, the [[word/term]] "jubé" comes from its use as a lectern, 

"lectern", apparently, in the sense of a structure from which the _lectio_ is
given; rather than the smaller do-hickey (yet another technical term) upon
which the book to be read from is placed.

>for chanting into the choir space.

is this distinction of "chanting [only] into the choir space" (as opposed to
the nave space) clear from the examples from the 13th c. ordinal which i've
included below??

>> (i'm keeping in mind Jim's earlier admonition to make a distinction
between the "choir screen" and the "jubé", the former a screen which
goes round the inner piers of the choir and ambulatory, the latter
only across the east end of the choir.)

> West end :-) 

touché.

i'm getting Punchy, it seems.

>And I still say Jim's admonition is a perverse one - "choir screen" is the
normal English term (especially for secular cathedrals, where 
it combined the functions of a pulpitum and a rood screen.)

i don't think you understand Jim's point.

using Chartres as an example, the "choir screen" ("cloture du choeur", in
French, i believe) survives: it is a tall screen which seperates the sides of
the choir and the "rond point" from the side aisles and ambulatory.

there is no _pulpitum_ on it, nor has there ever been one.

the jubé, which was built in the 13th c. and destroyed in the 18th, was a
screen which was built across the west end of the choir, seperating it from
the crossing bay/nave.

and it had a _pulpitum_ on it and is, therefore, referred to in the
contemporary documents as the _pulpitum_.

>> but, for the midevils, it was the *pulpit* atop the screen which was
its most important feature

> Or that the top of the screen *was* a pulpit, becuse it contained a 
lectern.

this should have a little smiley face after it, right?
 
>> obviously, they were thinking in terms of its functional aspect in
the context of the rituals described in the ordinal; while we are
thinking of the structural/architectural/aesthetic nature of the
beast.
 
> That is fair enough, there is some evidence that they didn't think in 
structural terms 

certainly not in the ordinal.

eg., in that the _portam regiam_ is simply the west portal(s) of the church
which one can process in and out of, perhaps stand in front of and say a few
appropriate words at the appropriate time.

>- that they didn't see screens as actually dividing the space, but rather as
symbolic boundaries: they wouldn't have understood our view that screens
ruined the aesthetic unity of a building.

the Jung article in the (2000?) Art Bulletin which Jim mentioned earlier (and
which i have some significant problems with, btw) discusses this, though
sometimes with insufficient circularity.

the evidence of the ordinal --again, which is not an aesthetic or
architectural treatise, but rather a liturgical script-- is silent on this
point.

"go here and do this" is its operative purpose.


below are the mentions of the _pulpitum_ in the ordinal:


Folio 89 : Matines de Noël : « Pergit processio in pulpitum cum cruce et
texto et thuribulis et candelabris et legitur evangelium.»

Folio 89 : Messe de minuit : « Diaconus lecturus evangelium ascendit
pulpitum. »

Folio 96 : Epiphanie. Matines : « Diaconus ascendit pulpitum cum processione
ad legendam generationem. »

Folio 133 : Jeudi Saint : « Evangelium ante diem festum quod legitur in
pulpito. »

Folio 140 : Samedi Saint : « Mox paratus sit qui légat in pulpito lectionem
in principio. »

Folio 142 : Samedi Saint : [Note marginale contemporaine du manuscrit] «
Processio in pulpitum cum uno candelabre et uno thuribulo cum cruce et uno
texto. Et in vigilia Pentecostes similiter. »

Folio 184 : Vigile de l'Ascension. Retour de la procession des Rogations : «
Clerici qui sunt in pulpito cantant preces... ebdomadarius cum subdiaconibus
et ceteris clericis inferioris ordinis qui respondunt illis qui sunt in
pulpito. »

Folio 186 : Ascension, retour de la procession : « Vexilla cum drachone
attollantur in pulpito. » Folio 199 : Fête de la Trinité : « Post
impletorium reponantur forme in choro et vexilla de pulpito auferantur. »

Folio 232 : Purification, retour de la procession : « Si vero aliam
benedictionem dixerit ibi [Episcopus] ut quidam volunt, tunc non ibit in
pulpitum cum diacono ante evangelium. »

Folio 239 : Annonciation : « Ad processionem in pulpito portentur tot cruces
quot texti et mox reponantur cruces in thesauro et texti super altare. »


c

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