medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
John Wickstrom wrote:
>
> Cyrille Vogel's Medieval Liturgy as revised by William Storey and
> Niels Rasmussen (1986) is the best one volume presentation of
> medieval liturgy I've seen.
Thanks - I've ordered a copy, although why the keenest price should be in
Rochester, NY is one of mysteries of life! But Harper (Forms and Orders)
says that Vogel concentrates on the Mass, and doesn't really deal with the
Office.
> Andrew Hughes, Medieval Manuscripts for Mass and Office has a good
> introductory section (1982).
I'm struggling with this. It seems to be a besetting sin of liturgiologists
to devise their own complicated mnemonic systems of abbreviations, symbols
and typefaces (cf Frere).
> Another volume, the best for detailed discussion of the medieval
> office (despite its specialized title) is volume VI of
>
> J.B.L. Tollhurst, The Monastic Breviary for Hyde Abbey (1942)
> subsequently published (1993) as a separate volume: Introduction to
> the English Monastic Breviaries.
I'm *really* struggling with that one. I think that Tolhurst had spent so
long with the medieval liturgy that he had absorbed the scholastic cast of
thought, and was incapable of writing any other way. (I find this problem
with Frere, as well.) I find that Tolhurst explains things in considerable
detail, but with an almost complete absence of clarity. Not to mention
neglecting to explain *why* he is explaining what he is. Obviously, a lot
of knowledge is assumed - but there is not much clue as to what that might
be!
Where simple things *are* explained clearly, the authorities don't always
agree. Take the liturgical day, which is where we came in. Tolhurst baldly
states that the liturgical day starts the evening before. No exceptions. No
suggestion that ferias might be different. Hughes states that by the end of
the medieval period, the liturgical day was regarded as starting at
midnight. Which leaves him at a bit of a loss to explain why feasts might
still behave as they do. Harper states (with admirable clarity) that ferias
start at midnight, that simple feasts start with their vespers the day
before, and that double feasts have first vespers the day before, and second
vespers on the day itself. This is all well and good, but one is left with a
nagging suspicion that it might be an oversimplification! Nobody seems
confident about compline...
Hughes says that Harper's Forms and Orders is a book that he wished he
himself had written. Given the complexity of his own book, one might
perhaps be permitted some scepticism... Of course, Harper may not have been
overburdened with knowledge when he wrote his book. Many years later, at a
meeting this year of the Plainsong and Medieval Music Society, he gave a
dazzling virtuoso presentation of the results of his recent research into
reconstructing the choral forces for the whole liturgy of Rochester
Cathedral c.1544 - and succeeded in confusing everybody, including himself!
I am still staring at the handout and can't decide whether two columns have
become interchanged or not!
John Briggs
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