medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
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Received: Mon, 09 Apr 2012 01:38:49 PM EDT
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Subject: TMR 12.04.03 Revised: Boynton and Reilly, The Practice of the Bible
(McCarthy)
The following review is being republished with corrected header information:
Boynton, S., and D. J. Reilly, eds. <i>The Practice of the Bible in
the Middle Ages: Production, Reception and Performance in Western
Christianity</i>. New York: Columbia University Press, 2011. Pp. 376.
PB $29.50, HB $89.50. ISBN: 978-0-231-14826-9.
Reviewed by T. J. H. McCarthy
New College of Florida
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This book is a collection of fifteen essays on the Bible and its
multifaceted uses in the Middle Ages. A good indication of its scope
is provided by comparing it with volume 2 of the <i>Cambridge History
of the Bible: The West from the Fathers to the Reformation</i>
(Cambridge, 1969). Although the two works necessarily cover many of
the same topics--the Bible in liturgy, biblical exegesis or vernacular
translations, for example--each also reflects the scholarly trends of
its time. Thus the <i>Cambridge History of the Bible</i> devotes
considerable space to the history of the Vulgate and biblical exegesis
with a strong emphasis on textual criticism and philology, whereas
<i>The Practice of the Bible</i> focuses more on the different forms
of the medieval Bible and how it was used, whether that be in
monasteries, by historians, in homiletics or--in the case of the
volume's final essay--as "a linguistic and textual space" where the
Christians, Jews and Muslims of Iberia "might find intersections of
their canonical traditions" (331). This, of course, is only a rough
and ready comparison for the purposes of orientation; indeed, to
suggest that the one is all text and the other all context would be to
do each a disservice.
The collection's broad scope is partially a response to the
simultaneous ubiquity and heterogeneousness of the Bible in the Middle
Ages. The reader is quickly disabused of the error of seeing the
Bible as the monolithic textual institution it has become today. For
much of the Middle Ages there were few pandects (complete sequences of
all the biblical books) and <i>The Practice of the Bible</i> does an
admirable job of showing in what varying forms the medieval cleric and
layperson encountered the Bible: in books of extracts collected
together to provide the readings used at Mass; personified by monks
who "made the Bible alive for everyone to see and learn from" (61); or
filtered through the scholastic media of gloss and <i>questio</i> in
the thirteenth-century university.
The subject matter of the volume's essays may be grouped into five
categories as follows. First, the Bible in and as a catalyst for
liturgy (Chapter 2: Susan Boynton, "The Bible and the liturgy";
Chapter 3: Richard Gyug, "Early Medieval Bibles, Biblical Books and
the Monastic Liturgy in the Beneventan Region"; and Chapter 4:
Isabelle Cochelin, "When the Monks were the Book: The Bible and
Monasticism [6th-11th centuries]"). Secondly, the Bible as a source
for the writing of history (Chapter 5: Jennifer A. Harris, "The Bible
and the Meaning of History in the Middle Ages"). Thirdly, distinct
forms of the medieval Bible (Chapter 6: Diane J. Reilly, "Lectern
Bibles and Liturgical Reform in the Central Middle Ages"; Chapter 7:
Lila Yawn, "The Italian Giant Bibles"; Chapter 11: Laura Light, "The
Bible and the Individual: The Thirteenth-Century Paris Bible"; and
Chapter 12: Stella Panayotova, "The Illustrated Psalter: Luxury and
Practical Use"). Fourthly, the Bible as the focus of exegetical and
pastoral theology (Chapter 8: Frans van Liere, "Biblical Exegesis
through the Twelfth Century"; Chapter 9: Bert Roest, "Mendicant School
Exegesis"; and Chapter 10: Eyal Poleg, "A Ladder Set Up on Earth: The
Bible in Medieval Sermons"). Fifthly and finally, aspects of the
Bible in translation (Chapter 13: Richard Marsden, "The Bible in
English in the Middle Ages"; Chapter 14: C. R. Sneddon, "The Old
French Bible: The First Complete Vernacular Bible in Western Europe";
and Chapter 15: Emily C. Francomano, "Castilian Vernacular Bibles in
Iberia, c. 1250-1500"). The volume's first chapter is a preliminary
"Orientation for the Reader" by Susan Boynton and Diane Reilly. The
dominant focus of <i>The Practice of the Bible</i>, therefore, is on
questions of materiality: eight of the book's fourteen essays discuss
different forms of the medieval Bible and the context of those forms,
whereas six discuss the broader impact of the Bible on particular
forms of literature, theology or the Christian life.
<i>The Practice of the Bible</i> does not claim to introduce new
research. It is very much in the genre of the "companion" volume and
thus most of its essays are essentially surveys of particular topics--
of English translations of the Bible from the Anglo-Saxon period to
the sixteenth century in the case of Richard Marsden's article, or of
the defining aspects of Franciscan and Dominican biblical exegesis in
that of Bert Roest. Almost inevitably, therefore, material in the
book will sometimes cover the same ground as earlier works, as can be
seen by comparing Susan Boynton's clear overview of the western
liturgy and John Harper's <i>The Forms and Orders of Western
liturgy</i> or Jennifer Harris's essay and M. I. Allen's article on
universal history in <i>Historiography in the Middle Ages</i> of 2003.
[1]
The nature of the volume, however, does not prevent its contributors
from making valuable points that suggest new and thought-provoking
ways of understanding the Bible and its medieval uses. Isabelle
Cochelin, for example, discusses not only how monks used the Bible but
also how their lives personified it and offers stimulating thoughts on
reorienting our view of certain liturgical rites: building upon the
work of Nils Petersen, she suggests that the liturgical and
paraliturgical rites of Easter were designed not to "educate the [lay]
population" but to "enable the laity and the monks to relive the
events that had taken place in the first century" (70). [2] Clive
Sneddon's fine essay on the medieval period's first complete
vernacular translation of the Bible--an Old French translation dating
from the thirteenth century--should make us question the simplistic
and all too-prevalent historiography that juxtaposes "progressive"
reformers and translators with a "conservative" church. As Sneddon
points out, the Old French translation was "doctrinally orthodox, not
inspired by heretics and not suppressed by the church authorities"
(297). Richard Gyug's study of Beneventan Bibles is more than just a
regional case study, for he uses the sources of a single repertory to
illuminate wider themes. Thus, for example, he shows how liturgical
concerns were a guiding principle in the making and organization of
Beneventan Bibles. His conclusions are well supported and the chapter
benefits from the provision of relevant tables and figures. Another
example of a corpus-based study is Lila Yawn's essay, which in
combining historical and art-historical approaches provides an
excellent overview of eleventh-century giant Italian Bibles from the
perspectives of origin, production, locale, patronage and the
eleventh-century reform movement.
One of the challenges of surveying a topic is that of providing an
accurate outline while being forced to omit so much material that
could be useful; this challenge is even more formidable in addressing
a text as fundamental and omnipresent as the Bible. Doubtless,
readers will be able to think of areas that could have received more
attention, but the volume's editors and authors cannot be held
responsible for not covering everything. Nevertheless, <i>The
Practice of the Bible</i> does contain occasional omissions or
oversimplifications, such as Jennifer Harris's claim that "the end of
Carolingian rule ushered in a lengthy period without substantial
history writing," (93) which sees her attempt to draw a direct line
from Carolingian historical writing to the "twelfth century and the
renewal of history." It is unfortunate that this surprising claim
overlooks the existence of substantial bodies of eleventh-century
historical writing from Germany, Italy and Normandy, which has been
ably explored by Anna-Dorothee von den Brincken, David Warner, I. S.
Robinson, Patrick Healy, Graham Loud and Elizabeth van Houts among
others. [3] This omission is regrettable, for in different ways the
Bible plays an important part in the chronicles of Dudo of St-Quentin,
Landolfus Sagax, Amatus of Monte Cassino, Herman of Reichenau, Bernold
of St Blasien, Hugh of Flavigny, William of Jumièges, Sigebert of
Gembloux and Frutolf of Michelsberg.
One might also question some of the distinctions drawn between the
approach of monastery and cathedral school to the Bible in the essays
by Cochelin and van Liere. While Cochelin makes the valuable point
that monks and secular clerks often approached the Bible differently
because they sought different things from it, she over-simplifies
matters with the claim that "monks...aspired not to learning but to
spirituality" (67). This was indeed true of some monks but not of
all, as recent studies have begun to show. [4] Similarly, van Liere
sees the progress of biblical exegesis to the twelfth century as a
process of transformation "from a mainly meditative practice for monks
into a scholarly discipline in the service of a life of ecclesiastical
administration and preaching" (173). In essence, these
interpretations are based upon the eloquent work of Richard Southern,
Jean Leclercq and other eminent historians, which classified monastic
theology as fundamentally meditative in contradistinction to the
scholastic theology that grew out of so-called twelfth-century
renaissance. This approach presupposes a particular and restrictive
definition of what amounts to "learning," and erects a barrier between
what is today considered "meditative" or "spiritual" and what is
considered "scholarly." [5]
Despite such caveats as these, <i>The Practice of the Bible</i>
remains a valuable collection of genuinely interdisciplinary essays.
Its straightforward style makes it uniquely suitable for teaching. It
would form an excellent textbook and should seriously be considered by
anyone contemplating teaching an undergraduate course on the Bible in
the Middle Ages.
----------
Notes:
[1] J. Harper, <i>The Forms and Orders of Western Liturgy from the
Tenth to the Eighteenth Century: A Historical Introduction and Guide
for Students and Musicians</i> (Oxford, 1991); and M. I. Allen,
"Universal History 300-1000: Origins and Western Developments," in
<i>Historiography in the Middle Ages</i>, ed. D. Mauskopf Deliyannis
(Leiden, 2003), pp. 17-42.
[2] N. H. Petersen, "The Representational Liturgy of the Regularis
concordia," in <i>The White Mantle of Churches: Architecture, Liturgy
and Art around the Millenium</i>, ed. N. Hiscock (Turnhout, 2003),
esp. pp. 113-14.
[3] A.-D. von den Brincken, <i>Studien zur lateinischen Weltchronistik
bis das Zeitalter Ottos von Freising</i> (Dusseldorf, 1957), pp. 141-
207; <i>Ottonian Germany: The Chronicon of Thietmar of Merseburg</i>,
trans. D. A. Warner (Manchester, 2001); <i>Die Chroniken Bertholds von
Reichenau und Bernolds von Konstanz, 1054-1100</i>, ed. I. S.
Robinson, MGH SSrG NS 14 (Hanover, 2003); <i> Eleventh-Century
Germany: The Swabian Chronicles</i> (Manchester, 2008); P. Healy,
<i>The Chronicle of Hugh of Flavigny: Reform and the Investiture
Contest in the Late Eleventh Century</i> (Aldershot, 2006); <i>Amatus
of Montecassino: the History of the Normans</i>, ed. G. A. Loud and
trans. P. N. Dunbar (Woodbridge, 2004); and <i>Gesta Normannorum Ducum
of William of Jumièges, Orderic Vitalis and Robert of Torigni</i>, ed.
and trans. E. M. C. van Houts, 2 vols (Oxford, 1992-5).
[4] A. S. Cohen, <i>The Uta Codex: Art, Philosophy and Reform in
Eleventh-Century Germany</i> (University Park, Pa., 2000); and A. I.
Beach, <i>Women as Scribes: Book Production and Monastic Reform in
Twelfth-Century Bavaria</i> (Cambridge, 2004).
[5] Recent studies have begun to reassess the usefulness of the
paradigm of the "twelfth-century renaissance," especially for regions
other than northern France. See the works cited in note 4, as well as
<i>Manuscripts and Monastic Culture: Reform and Renewal in Twelfth-
Century Germany</i>, ed. A. I. Beach (Turnhout, 2007). See also the
recent review (TMR 12.02.14 Warntjes, <i>The Munich Computus</i>) by
Professor Contreni, which characterizes early medieval computistical
writing as "an important field of medieval intellectual history"
possessing "a scientific mentality that valued proof, rigor, and
precision well before the twelfth century."
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