Paper Summaries

Barbara Gaspar (University College London; Department of History)
Christian Liturgy and the Qur'an: Bernardino de Busti’s Office for the Feast of the (Immaculate) Conception of Mary (1480)

During the late Middle Ages the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, the belief that Mary was the only human creature ever to have been conceived without the stain of Original Sin, was an intense subject of contention between the Dominicans and the Franciscans. Although the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of Mary did not become an official dogma of the Catholic Church until the nineteenth-century, by the late Middle Ages it was widely popular and increasingly recognized as a legitimate belief.
Devotion to the Conception of Mary, whether subjected to the rules which governed human conception or not, had long been celebrated in Europe, and the approval of the feast of the Conception in 1477 bestowed upon this devotion the official endorsement of the Church. Two offices were subsequently composed for the feast: the first one composed by Leonardo Nogarolus in 1477, and the second, by Bernardino de Busti in 1480. Both openly supported the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, and both enjoyed the official approval of Pope Sixtus IV.

This paper will focus on the most striking and remarkable element of Busti’s version of the office for the feast of the Conception, namely the introduction of the Qur'an as a legitimate source supporting the belief on the Immaculate Conception of Mary. The use of Muslim authoritative sources to support the doctrine was not new within the context of the theological disputes surrounding the doctrine, and appears in earlier medieval works defending the Immaculate Conception of Mary. This positive recourse to Islam preceded, in fact, the disputes over the Conception of Mary and can be traced back to inter-religious polemics dealing mainly with Christian defences of the Incarnation and more specifically, to an anti-Jewish treatise: Raymond Marti’s Pugio Fidei.

In spite of the objections raised by the Dominicans regarding this recourse to Islam in debates surrounding the doctrine, or for that matter, any other Christian belief, this Qur’anic argument successfully entered Christian liturgy. This inclusion raises many questions regarding late medieval views of Islam as well as the connection between the development of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception and inter-religious polemics in medieval Europe.

Luise Marion Frenkel (University of Cambridge; Faculty of Divinity)
Liturgical settings for homilies in the First Council of Ephesus (431AD)

Late in 430, the emperor Theodosius II sent invitations to the metropolitan bishops and a few other Christian religious leaders, including a handful from the West, to gather for an Imperial Synod, meant to emulate in form and significance the Council of Nicaea. Fifty years had passed since such an Ecumenical Council had last happened. Smaller synods were frequent but did not happen regularly, and their decisions were not always universally recognised. In 431, the aims of the Council were theological and ecclesiastic problems which had flared up between the sees of Constantinople and Alexandria. Into the forefront had come the search for an orthodox apprehension of the Incarnation, and what it implied about the divinity and humanity in the Incarnate One. Behind the conflicting views were deeply rooted regional theological traditions. The bishops were meant to gather in Ephesus for Pentecost, but few managed it. They were not supposed to leave their dioceses before celebrating Easter there, and therefore many could not arrive on time. When most had arrived, but only a few days before the Oriental bishops were expected, a Majoritarian Council gathered on 22 June, led mainly by Cyril of Alexandria. It deposed Nestorius, the metropolitan of Constantinople. A few days later, the Oriental bishops and those linked to Nestorius met, and deposed Cyril and his allies. Both groups sought imperial recognition for their decisions, and had to stay in Ephesus for months. The scarce information suggests that the incoming bishops were not meant to lead liturgical celebrations before the Council. Especially the Oriental bishops complained about it. The same fact is witnessed by the joy the Cyrillians expressed when celebrating once again Masses, after they had held ‘the Council’. Counting with the support of the Ephesian metropolitan, the Cyrillian bishops had access to the churches, and could hold liturgical celebrations, while the Oriental bishops stayed deprived of the setting, which could have helped their pastoral activities. In the liturgies, several short and very polemic sermons were held, and other homilies were read. Among the latter were some of the texts which have received a greater recognition, mainly because they can be placed among those having ‘Marian content’. In common, these texts have attacks against the theological views of the ‘Nestorians’, references to the catch-phrases with which orthodoxy was being described, and several approaches to praise and enforce the authority and unity of the Church. Almost all texts which contain remarks about liturgy as well as the homilies themselves were included in Collections of Conciliar Documents. Other sources are not very related to these particular circumstances, and must be treated with great caution. The liturgical space was serving as an arena for the ecclesiastic power struggle. It provided space to strengthen alliances, to reinforce the key points of orthodoxy, not only among the conciliar members, but also among the clergy and population of the city. The joint evaluation of the homilies, taking into account the liturgical aspects within the conciliar setting, points once more to the priority of upholding the authority of the Fathers and of the church, defending the orthodoxy of certain views (Christological, and not Mariological), and aggressively condemning heterodoxy.

Francisco de Asís García García (Universidad Complutense de Madrid; Department of Medieval History)
Liturgical reform and artistic expression in the late eleventh century in Aragon: from dogma to the liturgy of war

The introduction of the Roman liturgy into the Spanish kingdoms, replacing the old Hispanic rite in the last third of the 11th century, first took place in the kingdom of Aragon in 1071. By adopting the new liturgy, the king Sancho Ramírez (1064-1094) sought to strengthen the new alliance with the Papacy in order to legitimate and give stability to his realm.
The cathedral of Jaca, the first capital of Aragon, was decorated with an ambitious sculptural program whose western portal, probably carved in the last years of the 11th century, shows one of the first sculpted tympana in the Spanish Romanesque style. In this paper I will study some of its iconographic peculiarities in relation to the introduction of the new liturgy and its political and religious implications for the Aragonese kingdom. I will focus on two main issues: first, the Trinitarian message of the portal’s tympanum as proof of orthodoxy, in the face of accusations of heresy and schism against Spanish Christendom that had liturgical differences at its centre; second, the relationship between the war against the Islam and the central image of the tympanum - a chrismon or christogram - in the framework of liturgical ceremonies that reinforced the sacred role of the monarch.
The monumental chrismon of the tympanum proclaims the faith in the Trinity, as indicated by inscriptions. The extraordinary dogmatic precision of these verses, according to the strict observance of orthodoxy, makes us think about the interest in the affirmation of dogma. Papal missives sent by Alexander II (1061-1073) and Gregory VII (1073-1085), who demanded the introduction of the Roman rite, highlighted the propensity to heresy of the religious and liturgical Spanish peculiarities, taking them as the basis for ancient deviations and conceiving them as a potential germ of new errors. Thus, the illustration of the dogma of the Trinity expresses the commitment of Aragon and its rulers to the recently adopted reform.

As it has been pointed out, the Reconquest context in which the Kingdom of Aragon was involved may have motivated the monumental representations of the chrismon, the ancient monogram of Constantine. Moreover, in my opinion, the image and function of the chrismon was related to a liturgical rite characteristic of the High Medieval Spanish Church in which the labarum was given to the king before going to battle: the Ordo quando rex cum exercitu ad prelium egreditur, included in the Spanish Liber Ordinum. Liturgical fragments attesting to the ceremony are present in the Sacramentary and Pontifical of Roda (c. 1100), which was used in the times of Sancho Ramírez. The meaning of this ancient ceremony was updated in the imagery of the tympanum in the context of the Roman reform, thus demonstrating the dynamics of change, continuity and renewal that characterized this moment in Spanish culture. I will support this hypothesis with additional artistic evidences that will enable us to relate the labarum with the chrismon.

Therefore, the tympanum of the cathedral of Jaca offers an interesting material testimony to the ecclesiastical and political implications of liturgical reform in the emerging kingdom of Aragon.

For an overview of the cathedral’s west tympanum and its inscriptions see: http://www.romanicoaragones.com/0-Jacetania/06-Catedral04a.htm

Claire Taylor Jones (University of Pennsylvania; Department of Comparative Literature and Literary Theory)
Liturgical renewal as spiritual renewal: a fifteenth-century hymnary from the Dominican convent of Adelhausen

This paper presents a literary-historical approach to a fifteenth-century glossed and translated hymnary of the Dominican liturgy from the Observant reformed convent of Adelhausen in southwest Germany. My thesis concerning the use of the hymnary is supplemented by another manuscript from the same convent, containing an autograph copy of Johannes Meyer's Book of Offices of the Sisters of the Order of Preachers.

The Dominican Observant Reform in the fifteenth century demanded an intensely devout spirituality from the nuns in reformed convents. This renewed spirituality, however, was emphatically not to take the form of individual ecstatic mysticism, which had been the measure of female religiosity in the fourteenth century. The style of devotion promoted by Dominican spiritual advisors in the fifteenth century was intended to foster and enrich the communal life of the convent rather than to support the extraordinary female mystic. One of the means of channeling the spiritual impulses of the nuns was to insist on a critical engagement with the texts which informed their devotional life, in the hopes of thereby curtailing the ecstatic production of “devotional texts” in the form of visions.

The main chronicler of the Observant reform, Johannes Meyer (d. 1485), was assigned by the order as spiritual advisor to reformed Dominican nuns in southwest Germany and Alsace. In this capacity, Meyer undertook massive Latin-to-German translation projects with the explicit goal of providing appropriate devotional literature for the sisters, whose poor Latin prevented them from reading the literature produced for the brothers of the Order. Meyer intended his own efforts, however, to be merely temporary measures, complemented by a long-term program of high-quality Latin instruction of the novices. As he suggested in his Book of Offices, the most productive manner of accomplishing this would be to assign the choir-mistress as the school-mistress. This sister herself should already have had a deep comprehension of the liturgy and would have been expected to instill in the novices the importance of these texts and the necessity of Latin proficiency to appreciate them.

I argue that this reform of female spirituality was accompanied by an at least implicit reclassification of the texts of the liturgy as a form of devotional literature. The liturgy was henceforth understood as a (para-)literary production intended for repeated reading and meditation. In a manner similar to table readings, the convent would be brought together in simultaneous contemplation of a single text. The contemplative experience of the liturgy would be correspondingly more intense, since the nuns would all sing the text together and not simply listen. This effect was, of course, contingent on adequate comprehension of Latin. The effort to gain this appreciation of the Latin is demonstrated in a glossed hymnary from the Dominican convent Adelhausen. The glossed Latin text is followed in each case by a German translation formatted in order to facilitate direct reference to the Latin. These translations not only provide summaries of the content of the liturgical texts, but act as bilingual study aids.

Anna-Laura de la Iglesia (University of Freiburg; Department of Christian Archaeology and Byzantine History of Art)
The Descent from the Cross in Late Medieval liturgy and related uses of activated images

In the Late Middle Ages, the liturgical rite of the depositio – the deposition and burial of a cross or the Host on Good Friday, symbolizing the entombment of Christ – is transformed into a literal re-enactment by the introduction of a life-size corpus with movable arms, which is actually taken down from the cross and placed into a sepulchre. Without being part of the official Roman rite, the act enjoyed enormous popularity in Central Europe. More than eighty sculptures of Christ on the cross with movable limbs have been preserved in Germany, Austria and Italy, while several sources give a detailed account of the varying but always highly elaborated Late Medieval deposition rites.

The main sources for the medieval depositio are the order from the monastery of benedictine nuns at Barking (London), dating from c. 1370; a similar order from the benedictine monastery of Prüfening (near Regensburg, Germany), of 1489; and a document containing the regulations of a donation by Prince-Elector Friedrich III of Saxony for the Good Friday rites at All Saints Church at Wittenberg (Germany) from 1517. According to those sources, the cross with the detachable image of Christ is placed in the middle of the church. At the end of the mass, two (or sometimes four) priests, representing Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, take down the image from the cross and place it on a bier, with its arms folded down. The image is carried in procession to the Holy Sepulchre situated within the church, where it is buried, often together with the Host. The performance does not contain dialogue, but is accompanied by sung antiphons. On Easter morning, the Sepulchre is used again – but now it is an image of Christ resurrected that is elevated from the tomb.

At first glance, the Descent from the Cross of a crucifix with movable arms which is still being performed today by Spanish confraternities during their Holy Week procession (Semana Santa) seems to represent an almost identical rite. However, a comparative analysis by means of written and pictorial sources shows that despite the comparable use of sculpture, there are fundamental differences between both rites. The Spanish Descent from the Cross does not predate the 16th century; in contrast to Middle Europe, there are neither sculptures nor sources indicating a similar Spanish medieval deposition rite. It is only from the last quarter of the 16th century onwards that Spanish lay confraternities start commissioning crucifixes with movable arms for their Good Friday processions.
The Spanish deposition rite takes place in the course of a sermon, but does not contain any liturgical rites and is often performed in the town square to accommodate larger audiences. As the narrative of the highly emotional sermon reaches the deposition, the actors follow the preacher's words and take down the image of Christ from the cross, first presenting it to a statue of the Virgin before placing it in the so-called urna, an ornately carved and gilded glass sarcophagus. After the procession through the streets of the town, the image of the dead Christ will remain visible throughout the year in its glass urna in the confraternity chapel as a constant reminder of the Passion of Christ. The deposition rite of the Spanish confraternities is basically a Baroque dramatization of passionary sermons and should therefore be seen as separate from the medieval depositio, where the image of Christ transforms the inherently abstract symbolism of a liturgical act into the vivid visualization of Late Medieval liturgy.

Kamil Kopania (University of Warsaw; Institute of Art History)
Sculpture and Theatrical Liturgy in Medieval Poland

Medieval figures of Christ on a donkey, crucified Christ which can be detached from the cross and laid in the temporary or permanent Easter Sepulchre as well as the sculptures of the Resurrected Christ and Ascension Day effigies of Christ have been the subject of many broad studies by Western scholars. Unfortunately, almost none of such studies takes into consideration the sculptures from the territory of Medieval Poland. The texts of Processio in Ramis Palmarum, Depositio Crucis, Elevatio Crucis and other manuscript sources concerning medieval theatrical liturgy in Poland were passed over as well.

The main aim of my paper is to present Polish examples of sculptures of the mentioned types and meticulously analyze them in the context of liturgical and historical sources dating back to 10th to 16th century. I would like to present i.e. fragments of two Missale Cracoviense (1. XVth century; 2. 1449), Breviarium Can. Reg. S. Augustini (XVth century), fragments of Stanislai Sarnicii Annales sive de origine et rebus gestis Polonorum et Lithuanorum libri octo, fragments of a polemical treatise of a Polish Calvinist Krzysztof Kraiński, quotations of poems of renaissance writer Mikołaj Rej and several financial records from XVth century preserved in Polish archives. I am interested in the way such images functioned as well as in the “Polish” specificity of using them – my aim is to emphasize their importance in an individual piety and official liturgy. Taking into consideration their numerous functions my paper will be devoted to the issues of history of art, history of liturgy, religiousness and theater.

Olivia Robinson (University of Oxford; Faculty of English)
Liturgical drama or dramatic use of the liturgy? The Nativity play of the Carmelite convent of Huy

main argument

The main argument of my paper will be two-fold: principally, that ‘liturgical drama’ as a concept is rather nebulous, covering what are, in fact, often very different uses of the liturgy in a dramatic (or principally dramatic) context; and secondly, that the particular uses made of the liturgy (and, indeed, of religious drama) within convents in the Middle Ages repay closer scrutiny.

sources

My principal source text will be the first Nativity play preserved in Chantilly, Musée Condé, MS. 617, a fifteenth-century playbook known to have been copied within a Carmelite convent in Huy, modern-day Belgium. All this manuscripts’ plays have been edited by Gustave Cohen, Mystères et moralités du MS. Chantilly 617 (Paris: Champion, 1909).

dates

Mid to late fifteenth century.

important names

My work is particulary informed by: Gustave Cohen (see above); William Tydeman (The Theatre in the Middle Ages [Cambridge: CUP, 1978]); Kate Matthews (“Textual Spaces/Playing Spaces: An Exploration of Convent Drama in the Abbey of Origny-Sainte-Benoite”, European Medieval Drama 7 [2003], 69-85); Richard Pfaff (The Liturgy in Medieval England [Cambridge: CUP, 2009]) and Graham Runnals (“Towards a Typology of Medieval Play Manuscripts”, P. E. Bennett and G. Runnals, eds, The Editor and The Text: Essays in Honour of A. J. Holden Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1990), 96-113. I shall also be drawing on discussions with Matthew Cheung Salisbury and Peter Happé.

emphasis - history, musicology, art history, etc. or multiples of those

My primary emphasis is on theatre, particularly ‘liturgical drama’ as a genre or definition. I will also be considering music and its function within the drama I consider.

theoretical framework

My approach to medieval drama in general is summed up in the phrase ‘page to stage’: I endeavour to consider the dramatic, visual and aural implications of written play scripts. I also bring a knowledge of the context in which particular plays were performed (where this is known) to bear on my readings of them. In the case of the Huy Nativity, this involves considering both the use made of the liturgy within my chosen Nativity play, and the implications this may have when consideration of the convent performance milieu is factored in. I also pay particular attention to the written formats and manuscript contexts of play scripts, seeking to relate an understanding of the ways in which scripts may have been copied and presented to their performance contexts and possible staging.

Nausica Morandi (University of Padova; Department of Art History and Musicology)
Studying the Officium Stellae liturgical drama: tradition and innovation in a multidisciplinary approach

The liturgical drama Officium Stellae, is a kind of liturgical drama developed between X and XIV century from Epiphany liturgy, it consisted in a religious dramatized deed, sung on Latin text. It belonged to the celebration of Epiphany and represented Magi’s coming to Jerusalem and their adoration in Bethlehem. Until today are known about thirty sources of Officium Stellae in a large geographic expanse: from Spain to Hungary and from United Kingdom to south insular Italy.

My paper examine this drama under a multidisciplinary approach that combines disciplines and methodologies traditionally employed in the study of liturgical drama (liturgical, literary, musical, dramaturgical) with new ones (semiotic, axiological, cultural, communicative).
Special attention is given to musicological topics, in particular about employed medieval compositional techniques and modality.

The study of the Officium Stellae reveals inner elements of newness and originality, such as an uncommon interaction among different communicative codes. The interaction between text, notation and rubrics shows:
- establishment of character through music and notation : musical identity and musical unity, characters’ connotation (good, evil), characters’ dynamics (similarity or contrast);
- distinction between narrative and dramaturgical ties;
- stressed importance of some words or key passages.
The dramatic plot and dramaturgical ties are also considered from particular rubrics, an 'intertextual' notation beyond notation, fundamental not only for representation, but also giving prescriptions to: music executives, expressive mimic code, characters’ rules and their characterization, theatrical costume and its connotations, scenic sub-codes, over-coding of voice projection, proxemic and kinesic codes.
In a system of synchronic and diachronic comparisons, are presented also considerations about text tradition, a synopsis of the chants’ succession and musical analysis taking the problems of adiastematic sources into consideration.

Christine Phillips (University of York; Department of English)
‘For as many of you have been baptised in Christ, have put on Christ’ (Gal 3.27): The Virgin Martyr as a Male Monastic Exemplum in Bede’s Hymn Illuxit alma saeculis

Principal texts under discussion:
Pseudo-Ambrose, Passio Sanctae Agnetis (BHL 156), composed in Rome c. 500 A.D.
The Venerable Bede (c. 673–735 A.D.), Illuxit alma saeculis and Expositio Apocalypseos

Summary of argument:
As part of the conclusion to his Historia Ecclesiastica, the Venerable Bede appended a list of his literary works, which includes:
‘A book of hymns in various metres or rhythms’
Throughout the Middle Ages many hymns were erroneously attributed to Bede’s pen and it was only in 1993 that Michael Lapidge’s pioneering Jarrow lecture established the authenticity of eleven individual texts. Bede’s hymns remain one of his least studied works; however, due to the low survival rate of liturgical manuscripts from the early Anglo-Saxon period, these texts provide an important and rare glimpse into the worship of the early Northumbrian Church.

This paper will focus on just one hymn: Illuxit alma saeculis, which celebrates the late antique virgin martyr St Agnes of Rome. Few scholars have looked at this work in detail and this presentation will focus on three main areas: sources, structure and interpretation. First, it will establish that the principal source for Bede’s hymn was the late antique Passio Sanctae Agnetis (BHL 156), a prose hagiographical narrative composed in early sixth-century Rome for a community of ascetic women. Illuxit alma saeculis, however, was written for the male monastic community of Monkwearmouth Jarrow and thus provides a fascinating opportunity to explore how the fluid figure of the virgin martyr could be reshaped to speak to different audiences and cultures.

This theme will be pursued in the second part of the paper, which moves on to explore how Bede restructured and adapted his hagiographical source through an analysis of the Biblical allusions employed in both works. The Passio Sanctae Agnetis contains a diverse range of Scriptural echoes that allow the text to function as a complex meditative tract on the nature of spiritual marriage. In contrast, Bede focused on the passion’s references to just one book: Apocalypsis. Not only did he maintain those found in the late antique legend, but also augmented almost every verse of his hymn with a further reference to this work. Bede’s alignment of Agnes’ tale with imagery from Apocalypsis provides an intriguing insight into the spiritual purpose of his hymn, due to the survival of his commentary: Expositio Apocalypseos. Through reading select passages of Bede’s hymn alongside his exegesis, this paper will examine how his version of Agnes’ legend moves away from the image of the Bride of Christ and creates a figure whose trials and tribulations reflect those of all who strive for virginal perfection. In addition, my analysis hopes to establish the close relationship between this hymn and Bede’s theological teaching and indeed to highlight the sophisticated nature of Christian worship in seventh-century Northumbria.

Henry Parkes (University of Cambridge; Faculty of Music)
‘Une intention concertée de liturgistes’: Reappraising the tenth-century Pontifical Romano-Germanique

In his widely-read handbook on medieval liturgy, Cyrille Vogel charts the history of episcopal ritual with the help of a simple flow diagram. At the centre of this diagram is a single point, through which all others pass: a single moment in history when the shape of pontifical liturgy changed forever. In the German city of Mainz, some time between 950 and 962, monks at the monastery of St Alban were toiling away on a vast project of assembling, reconciling and disseminating the ritual texts used by bishops. The name of this project, chosen by Michel Andrieu in 1924 on account of the collection’s diverse origins and far-reaching significance, was the Pontifical Romano-Germanique (or PRG for short).

For the first time, a liturgical book had been created which provided bishops with everything they needed to fulfil their office; and, for the last time, the shape of so many episcopal rituals was established. It is often said, and indeed it is explicitly shown in Vogel’s diagram, that the PRG was the forerunner of the very book still used by the bishops of the Catholic Church today. The reasons for the success of this project, it was suggested, were twofold: in part, the sheer utility of the collection made it immensely desirable; and in part, it had an imperial seal of approval. Otto I, in conjunction with his ally William, Archbishop of Mainz, sponsored this project of reform, and helped disseminate the text, taking the book with him on his travels, using it for his son’s coronation at Aachen in 961, and, ultimately, introducing it to Rome.

This, in a nutshell, is the story of the PRG. It is a story which is retold with alarming frequency, in literature which reaches far beyond the scope of merely liturgical study. Perhaps for this very reason it has rarely met with reasoned opposition. Several years ago, however, Roger Reynolds strongly questioned any relationship between Otto’s travels to Rome and the shape of the liturgy there, and more recently Sarah Hamilton has showed that the PRG (specifically the penitence rituals) had little impact outside a limited area of southern Germany and Austria. So perhaps the PRG was not an imperial project after all. But its existence as a fully-fledged and influential episcopal document, albeit one which appeared spontaneously and for which no original source survives, has never been in doubt.

This paper seeks to challenge further this established PRG narrative. In particular, it seeks to question the editorial methods of Cyrille Vogel and Reinhard Elze in their much-quoted edition (1963-72), and to contextualise the PRG, by showing how the many other episcopal and other liturgical documents from tenth- and early eleventh-century Mainz appear to represent a quite different tradition. In so doing, I hope to open up wider discussion about the methodologies of liturgical scholarship, and to suggest new ways in which we can productively understand wider changes in the conception, transmission and performance of liturgy at this pivotal point in the Middle Ages.

I hope to make reference to some or all the following sources:
- Troyes, Bibliothèque Municipale 2141 (Pontifical, ?s.x/xi, ?Worms)
- Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek 7.2 Aug. 4o (Pontifical, s. x2, Mainz)
- Paris, BNF lat. 13313 (Pontifical, s. xex, ?Mainz)
- Vienna, ÖNB cod. 1888 (Cantor’s miscellany, s. x3/3, Mainz)
- Vienna, ÖNB cod. 701 (‘PRG’ pontifical, s. xiin, Mainz)
- Vienna, ÖNB cod. 694 and Wolfenbüttel 83.21 Aug. 2o (Sister manuscripts containing Regino of Prüm and ordines for the convening of synods, s. x/xi, Mainz)

Franz Fischer (Royal Irish Academy Dublin)
What is all this about? – William of Auxerre on Liturgy

The Summa de officiis ecclesiasticis of the Parisian Master William of Auxerre († 1231) is part of a rich literary tradition of medieval interpretations of Christian liturgy. It is attested by 15 extant manuscript witnesses and has never been printed or edited before. Its influence spread widely by means of the two most popular compilations of the 13th-century: William Durandus of Mende’s Rationale and Jacobus de Voragine’s Legenda aurea. The paper will discuss William’s general understanding of liturgy as well as methodological impacts of a digital edition of his liturgical sum.

William was born in about 1160. After education at Auxerre and Paris he soon became one of the leading theologians of his time and he was very much involved in the foundation of the University of Paris. Among his students he was considered »le maitre le plus en vogue« – the most popular teacher. William died in the autumn of 1231 in Rome.
William of Auxerre is known as the author of three works that were probably written during his Parisian tenure:

a commentary on the Anticlaudianus, an encyclopaedic poem by Alan of Lille; this commentary has never been printed and is preserved in only one extant manuscript;
a theological scholastic Summa, which was highly regarded among his contemporaries and successors and for this reason was called Summa aurea (the Golden Sum);
the text here in question, namely the Summa de officiis ecclesiasticis, his treatise on liturgy, which has never appeared in print and which now for the first time is accessible in a scholarly digital edition.

Within his treatise on liturgy, William intends to describe and interpret aspects of all parts of Christian liturgy: of the mass, of the liturgy of the hours, of feasts and holidays, et cetera. Apart from the apparent function of praising God and creation, all manifestations of liturgy – the oder of ceremony, texts and prayers, gestures, objects and music – are supposed to bear a symbolic truth. This truth have to be revealed by the theological masters.

The first edition of William treatise on liturgy is intended to cover all aspects of textuality and provides different representational levels of the text:

a critical text, with apparatus notes for the different readings in the manuscripts, notes for sources, liturgical and biblical texts, and notes for the passages used in the compilations by William Durandus of Mende and Jacobus de Voragine;
a very close transcription of the principal manuscript witness, with the recording of codicological and palaeographic phenomena, such as column and line breaks, marginal text and rubrics, as well as original orthography, abbreviations and punctuation et cetera;
a transcription of a contemporaneously revised text version preserved in only one manuscript copy;
facsimiles of all extant manuscript witnesses located within a virtual archive of the entire manuscript tradition.

All the text layers are closely interlinked by chapters and manuscript pages, enabling the reader to pass from each text version to each page of each manuscript witness.
The edition also includes:

a description of each manuscript, both in a short version and in an extended version, divided into description of layers, content, origin, physical material, texts and citations and closely interlinked with the reproductions of the whole manuscript (thus every statement or observation regarding the document can easily be verified by the reader);
indexes of words, of biblical quotations, of the sources and the reception, all closely interlinked with the relevant passage of the critical text;
a print version of the philological introduction; and
a print version of the critical text, with lemmatised apparatus notes for readings, sources and reception.

For a preliminary verion of the edition see: F. Fischer (ed.), Wilhelm von Auxerre. Summa de officiis ecclesiasticis. Kritisch-digitale Erstausgabe, PhD, University of Cologne 2007: http://www.thomasinst.uni-koeln.de/sdoe.

Fañch Thoraval ((Université Paris-Sorbonne/Ca’ Foscari Universitá, Venice)
The Italian polyphonic lauda: a musical testimony of the Ave Maria's elaboration

The actual form of the Ave Maria prayer – in which citations of the Salutation (Ave Maria gratia plena, Dominus tecum, Luke I,28) and the Visitation (benedicta tu in mulieribus et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Luke I,42) are associated to the clausula “Jesus (Christus)” and the litany-based formula “Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc et in hora mortis nostræ, amen” – is known to have been definitely integrated in the Roman breviary in 1568, with the reformed edition of Pius V. Before this last stage, the Marian prayer underwent a long-term evolution which is quite well known, thanks to monumental works as Giovanni Chrysostomo Trombelli's Mariae sanctissimae vita ac gesta cultusque illi adhibitus (Bologna, 1761-1765) or Jean-Jacques Bourassé's Summa aurea de laudibus beatissimae Virginis Mariae (Jacques-Paul Migne, Paris, 1866) that includes and completes the work by Trombelli.

While such studies provide many evidences that the clausula was already in use – even if not systematically – before the 30 days indulgence conceded by Sisto IV (†1484), the process of emergence of the second part remains somewhat unclear. Though they allude to an anterior case in Roman sources – Trombelli mentions a late 14th / early 15th century breviary from the library of San Salvatore in Bologna (Bourrassé, t.4, cl.235), but doesn't give any reference – no occurrence could be identified in liturgical sources but in non-Roman breviaries. Giovanni Chrysostomo Trombelli found some litany-related formulas in a few breviaries and Marian offices – either Carthusian, Camaldese, Trinitary or Franciscan – published from 1503 on. However, none of these sources seems to have enjoyed a great diffusion.

Beside some rare and sporadic allusions – among which a sermon by San Bernardino di Siena might be the most famous – some rimed acrostic paraphrases of the Marian prayer are known to be the only 15th century evidences for the presence of the second part of the prayer. In this poetical devotional tradition that can be traced back to Petrus Damiani (Ave David filia sancta mundo nata, etc.), the prayer appears as an acrostic, and until the early 15th century always ends on the words “ventris tui”, eventually with the clausula “Jesus Christus”. Trombelli and Franz Joseph Mone (Lateinische Hymnen des Mittelalters,Herder, Freiburg in Breisgau, 1853) collected some cases – either Latin or vernacular, all dating of the middle 15th century and the 16th century (excepted Correr, Cod Cic.1930, of 1430) – in which the acrostic include a litany-based formula. Though these devotional texts testify to the relationship between the Angelic Salutation and the litany, they don't transmit a stable version of the litany formula, and hardly provide a clue as to how this relationship developed.
An important musical repertory that give evidence for that relationship and could partly explain the prayer's evolution seems to have been overlooked. Some of the most important collections of Italian polyphonic lauda settings, such as the two Petrucci prints (Laude Libro Primo and Laude Libro Secondo, 1508) and some late 15th/early 16th century manuscripts as I-Fn Panciatichi 27 (Firenze, Biblioteca Nazionale) or ZA-Csa Grey 3.b.12 (Cape Town, South African Library) contain a great number of pieces based on the Marian prayer, among which an important part have the same text as that found in the 1568 breviary. Beside these major collections, similar pieces can be found in contemporary manuscripts of various kind, like the Ms. Musicale IV of the modenese cathedral (Modena Archivio capitolare) or the famous frottole collection Rés Vm7 676 (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, 1502).

First of all, it should be emphasized that these polyphonic settings bring fundamental information for the chronology of the Marian prayer's history. Whatever the source is, the whole polyphonic repertory is dating of the 15th century's last decade or the first years of the 16th century. As such, it is shortly anterior – or contemporary – to the few non-Roman breviaries quoted by Trombelli. Since no anterior source is known to provide a literal version of the text, and as long as the early 15th century Roman breviary he mentioned won't be identified, and no source anterior to the Carthusian Officium parvum of 1503 will be found, these laude have to be considered as the first effective testimonies of the Ave Maria's “modern” form.

Furthermore this repertory represents an articulation between the devotional and liturgical world, not only from the chronological point of view, but also social. Indeed, the lauda repertory and the devotional poetry are deeply related. They are both the result of an interaction between the lay confraternities and the urban religious environment, either secular or regular. When not composed by famous lay frottolists as Bartolomeo Tromboncino or Marchetto Cara, the polyphonic laude are mostly works of clerics (for instance : the regular canon Innocentius Dammonis, the canon Ludovico milanese, the unknown D. Nicolo, Fr. Petrus, etc.). As the music, the poetry used in these laude is mostly produced in clerical environment. The main sources for the Marian acrostics (Correr Cod. Cic.1930, Correr, Cod. Cic. 2336, Biblioteca Brera Ms. AD IX 43, Deuotissime et sanctissime laude le quale compose [...] Leonardo Iustiniano, Venezia, 1474, Fioreti de laudi, Brescia, 1505, etc.) all contain texts written by famous clerics as Jacopone da Todi, Feo Belcari, Leonardo Giustinian, and so on. But the destination of these productions wasn't limited to the clerical sphere and was also (mainly) intended for devotional and ritual lay activities.

Since it is possible to consider the later developments of the Ave Maria as a result of this cultural exchange, a closer look at the polyphonic settings can provide some clue about the mechanism of this interaction. Like the devotional poetry, they transmit simultaneously the two versions of the prayer (with or without the litany). The rubrics in the sources confirm the identical laudatory function of both, but one can wonder about the presence of the litany-related formula, since it reveals a clear propitiatory value. In its long version, the Ave Maria seems to express a change of intention, adding a prayer to the praise. This new affirmation of the Virgin's status as an intercessor has been interpreted as the “spontaneous” expression of the 15th century popular faith. Nonetheless, the analysis of these polyphonic settings makes it possible to find a more convincing hypothesis. While they virtually ignore the monodic liturgical chant of the Marian sequence, most of these laude use a melodic material borrowed from a litany chant that was still in use in monastic environment around the mid 16th century (Cantorinus, Venezia 1550). Furthermore, this material is not only used to elaborate polyphonic Ave Marias. It is also present in the rogation-related “Sancta Maria” (ending with “Kyrie eleyson, qui pretioso sanguine mundum eripuisti de maledicti fauce draconis”) found in the two laude prints of 1508 and in Motteti de Passione de Cruce... (Petrucci 1503). Related melodic material can also be identified in some Litany-motets like the one by Loyset Compère found in Motteti A (Petrucci 1502). These various musical citations testify for the coexistence of the Ave Maria prayer and the litany in a much more concrete context than the informal “popular faith”. Indeed, it exists in Italy one specific context in which both laude and litanies were sung at the same time, by the same persons : the ritual flagellation concluding the offices of the disciplinati confraternities, which is reported with precision in the libri da compagnia ovvero di battuti (first print, Apud Sanctum Jacobum de Ripoli, Firenze, 1477).

Though this has to be considered just as a conjectural hypothesis, the nature of the sources in which the complete form of the Ave Maria develops (as soon as the 15th century), and the performance context of the repertory they transmit – that is the context of the lauda – always point to the dynamic relationships that links both lay and urban clerical institutions. Moreover, the fact that this development seems to be virtually ignored by the Roman production until 1568 – following Trombelli's research, I couldn't find any mention of it in a Roman breviary, excepted the rare case of the Parisian edition by Thielmann Kerver of 1520 (Breviarium romanum t.2 f.4) – provide an excellent example to understand the attitude of the Counter-Reform towards the “popular” religion. The reformation process seems sometimes to have to be considered more as an “absorption” than an “imposition”.

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