Issues in Medieval Liturgy

Convener: Daniel J. DiCenso (ddicenso@holycross.edu) is Associate Professor of Music at the College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, Massachusetts. Anne Yardley served as Convener pro tem for the meeting.

Members in Attendance: Katie Bugyis, Margot Fassler, Pawel Figurski, Barbara Haggh-Huglo, Walter Knowles, Richard Rutherford, Tyler Sampson, Anne Yardley

Visitors: Alison Alstatt, Jesse Billett, Donna Bussell, Elaine Stratton Hild, C.J. Jones, Samantha Slaubaugh, Innocent Smith, Kate Steiner

Description of Work: Our seminar’s work in 2023 was divided between online and in-person presentations. We heard 14 diverse presentations, some of them work that is ready for publication and others “work in progress.” As usual, our discussions were lively, and each presenter got helpful feedback.

Papers and Presentations:

• Alison Altstatt, “Virtual Pilgrimage in Reginold of Eichstätt’s Trilingual Prosa terminus et idem interminus.” This paper reconsidered the meaning and performance practice of the work’s proper office for Saint Willibald in the context of another, lesser-known prosulated Alleluia for Saint Willibald from Oxford Bodleian Supra Selden 27, whose provenance was recently reassigned to Eichstätt.

• Samantha Slaubaugh, “The Beguines of Marseille: Douceline of Digne and the Liturgy of Dedication for the House of Roubaud.” This paper argues that the hagiography for Douceline of Digne crafted a narrative of Douceline’s ecstasy to portray the episode as the dedication of the beguine House of Roubaud in Marseille.

• Margot Fassler, “St. Mary Magdalene in Prague: Work in Progress.” This presentation laid out some of the problems of working with office responsories in transition for the feast of Mary Magdalene at the Benedictine Abbey of St. George in Prague.

• C.J. Jones, “Translating Ordinals for Religious Women in the Fifteenth Century.” This paper explored how the different late medieval German translators of the Dominican ordinal handled the prohibition against women proclaiming the gospel when adapting the ordinal’s instructions for use in women’s communities.

• Katie Bugyis, “Goscelin of Saint-Bertin’s Matins Lessons for the Abbess-Saints of Barking Abbey.” In this paper I prove that the late eleventh-century itinerant Flemish Benedictine hagiographer Goscelin of Saint-Bertin composed a set of Matins Lessons for the three abbess-saints of Barking Abbey, and these texts are preserved in London, British Library, Cotton MS Otho A.xii. Paleographical analysis of these Lessons further reveals that the scribe responsible for copying them also copied the Lives of Sts. Aethelburh and Wulfhild in Dublin, Trinity College, MS 176 (E.5.28), a late eleventh-century book of certain Barking provenance.

• Barbara H. Haggh-Huglo, “Foundations by Lay and Clergy for Chant and Liturgy in Northwest Europe: A Logical Approach to this History through Archives.” Charters, obituaries, accounts, aldermen’s registers, tax records, and chronicles attest to the many foundations made across northern Europe for liturgy and music. Using a foundation history of the Marian feast of the ‘Recollectio festorum beate Marie virginis’ of Cambrai, I show how it is of broader consequence for dating manuscripts, interpreting paintings, and reconstructing a broader history of worship after 1300.

• Tyler Sampson, “Liturgical Rubrics, the Eucharist, and Theology in the Early Middle Ages.” Through manuscript analysis, this paper considers the ritual directions for making the sign of the cross in the Canon of the Mass in the early Middle Ages to argue that eucharistic consecration was seen as a process of the whole canon.

• Kate Steiner, “The Mass According to W1: Tropes at St Andrews.” This paper examined the use of poetic and musical form to express the anaphora in the music manuscript held in Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek 628 Helmst.

• Anne B. Yardley, “Work-in-Progress: Office of St. Melor.” This presentation described preliminary work on a full monastic office (late 13th-early 14th century) for St. Melor at Amesbury Priory in England.

• Donna Bussell, “Work-in-Progress: The Magdalene Liturgy in England.” This presentation is part of a larger project on Magdalene feasts in England and explores variations in the Sarum rite and illustration programs in select legendaries.

• Pawel Figurski, “The Eucharistic Liturgies and the Forging of Sacramental Kingship in Europe (c.800-c.1200): Introductory Chapters.” Pawel shared the introductory chapters of his forthcoming monograph with the seminar ahead of time and led a discussion of salient issues during his presentation.

• Elaine Stratton, “Hild Medieval Liturgies for the End of Life: Determining the Practice(s) of Rome.”

• Innocent Smith, “Bible Missals and the Franciscan Liturgy.” Building on my forthcoming monograph Bible Missals and the Medieval Dominican Liturgy, I gave an overview of the phenomenon of bible missals and focused on a set of three 13th-century Franciscan manuscripts which provide texts for the entire liturgical year.

• Walter Knowles, Research Report. Walter presented the first stages of his research into the insights that North West Coast Indigenous practices of reconciliation provide on the early medieval practices of the sacrament of Confession (and vice versa).