Readers and Hearers of the Word: The Cantillation of Scripture in the Middle Ages (Ritus Et Artes, 10) 9782503592879, 2503592872

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Readers and Hearers of the Word

Ritus et Artes Volume 10

General Editor Nils Holger Petersen, University of Copenhagen Editorial Board Gunilla Iversen, Stockholm University Richard Utz, Georgia Institute of Technology Nicolas Bell, Trinity College, Cambridge Mette B. Bruun, University of Copenhagen Eyolf Østrem, University of Copenhagen

Readers and Hearers of the Word The Cantillation of Scripture in the Middle Ages

by

Joseph Dyer

F

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

© 2022, Brepols Publishers n.v., Turnhout, Belgium. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. ISBN: 978-2-503-59287-9 e-ISBN: 978-2-503-59288-6 DOI: 10.1484/M.RITUS-EB.5.122066 ISSN: 2030-3130 e-ISSN: 2566-0039 Printed in the EU on acid-free paper. D/2022/0095/158

Table of Contents List of Illustrations

6

Abbreviations

10

Introduction

11

Chapter 1 ‘Lay Folkes’ and the Mass

15

Chapter 2 Readers of the Word: Lectors, Subdeacons, Deacons

27

Chapter 3 Reading, Writing, and Punctuating the Word

39

Chapter 4 Cantillating the Epistle and the Gospel

63

Chapter 5 Hearers of the Word

97

Chapter 6 Direction of Prayer, Siting of Churches, and Chanting of the Gospel

115

Chapter 7 Places for the Readings

131

Chapter 8 Vestments

163

Chapter 9 Sacralizing the Word

181

Appendix 1 Isidore of Seville, De ecclesiasticis officiis 2. 11

199

Appendix 2 Bilingual (Latin/Greek) Readings

201

Appendix 3 Amerus, Practica artis musice, cap. 26

205

Appendix 4 Ceremonial of Cardinal Giacopo Stefaneschi, cap. 28

209

Biblio­graphy

211

Index

247

List of Illustrations Figures Figure 3.1. Capitulare Evangeliorum, Paris, BnF, MS lat. 266, fol. 208, St Martin of Tours, 849–851.

38

Figure 3.2. Book of Gospels, Paris, BnF, MS lat. 8849, fol. 23; Salzburg, between 831 and 836.

45

Figure 3.3. St Cuthbert Gospel, BL, MS Add. 89000, fol. 23, Wearmouth-Jarrow, between 810 and 830, written per cola et commata.

46

Figure 3.4. Gospel book, Basel, Universitätsbibl., MS B II 11, p. 115, probably from Marmoutier (Tours), ninth century.

49

Figure 3.5. Evangeliary, Zurich, Zentralbibl., MS C 77, fol. 126, St Gall, c. 900/10.

54

Figure 3.6. Lectionary of Alcuin, Paris, BnF, MS lat. 9452, fol. 16v, Saint-Amand-en-Pévèle, 670/80.

56

Figure 4.1. Evangeliary of Henry II, Munich, Bayerische Staats­ bibliothek, clm 4452, fol. 14, from Reichenau, c. 1007–1012.

80

Figure 6.1. Church with west-facing apse.

127

Figure 6.2. Church with east-facing apse.

127

Figure 7.1. Hagia Sophia, ambo, mid-sixth century.

135

Figure 7.2. Ravenna, Cathedral, ambo of Archbishop Agnellus, 557–70.

138

Figure 7.3. Rome, Old St Peter’s, plan of Tiberio Alfarano, detail showing the placement of the ambo (no. 7).

140

Figure 7.4. Deacon in ambo at the beginning of the Exultet, BAV, Archivio San Pietro, MS B 78, fol. 3r, thirteenth–fourteenth century.

142

Figure 7.5. Plan of St Gall (detail), Stiftsbibliothek St Gallen, Cod. 1092, between 819 and 826.

144

Figure 7.6. Aachen, Cathedral, ambo of Henry II, early eleventh century.

145

list of illustrations

Figure 7.7. Rome, San Clemente, marble choir and pulpits, early twelfth century.

147

Figure 7.8. Rome, S. Lorenzo fuori le mura, cosmatesque ambo, early thirteenth century.

150

Figure 7.9. Torcello (Venice), S. Maria Assunta, double ambo, twelfth/thirteenth century.

151

Figure 7.10. Havelberg, Cathedral of St Mary, choir screen (Schrankenlettner), 1395–1411.

154

Figure 7.11. Naumburg, Sts Peter and Paul, east choir screen (Hallenlettner), c. 1230.

156

Figure 7.12. Walcourt (Belgium), Basilica of Saint-Materne, jubé of Charles V, 1531.

159

Figure 8.1. Rome, Sant’Agnese, via Nomentana, St Agnes with Popes Honorius I and Symmachus(?), second quarter of the seventh century.

164

Figure 8.2. Rome, Lateran Baptistery, Oratory of S. Venanzio, apse mosaic, second quarter of the seventh century.

165

Figure 8.3. Augsburg, Dommuseum St Afra, chasuble (planeta) of St Ulrich, second half of the tenth century.

166

Figure 8.4. Juvenianus the subdeacon presenting to St Lawrence the Gospel book he had copied, Rome, Bibl. Vallicelliana, MS B 25 II, fol. 2r, beginning of the eleventh century.

166

Figure 8.5. Ravenna, San Vitale, Archbishop Maximianus with two deacons, mid-sixth century.

168

Figure 8.6. Rome, San Marco, Pope Gregory IV with the deacons Sts Felicissimus and Agapitus, mid-ninth century.

170

Figure 8.7. Dalmatic, Wittichen Abbey, Baden-Württemberg, c. 1750.

173

Figure 8.8. Dalmatic of Pope Clement II (Byzantine silk), Bamberg, Diözesanmuseum, first quarter of the eleventh century.

178

7

8

l i s t of i llustr ation s

Musical Examples Example 4.1. Prudens lector, Troyes, Bibl. munic., MS 1154, fol. 123, Clairvaux, second half of the fourteenth century.

69

Example 4.2. Lector ut intento, Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, Cod. Guelf 316 (Helm­stedt 350), Mainz, S. Jacob vor den Mauern, fol. 8v, second half of the fifteenth century.

73

Example 4.3. Tone for the prophecy, adapted from the Processionarium Sacri Ordinis Praedicatorum (1949).

77

Example 4.4. Tone for the epistle, Processionarium Sacri Ordinis Praedicatorum (1949), pp. 432–34 (abbr.).

78

Example 4.5. Tone for the gospel, Processionarium Sacri Ordinis Praedicatorum (1949), pp. 439–40 (abbr.).

79

Example 4.6. Tonus epistolarum ordinis minorum, Compendium musices / Cantorinus (1513), pp. 30–31.

83

Example 4.7. Tonus evangelii, Compendium musices / Cantorinus (1513), pp. 31–32.

83

Example 4.8. Tonus antiquus epistolarum, Compendium musices / Cantorinus (1513), p. 32r–v.

84

Example 4.9. Tonus [antiquus] evangeliorum, Compendium musices / Cantorinus (1513), p. 33r–v.

84

Example 4.10. Tones for the epistle and the gospel, Giuseppe Guidetti, Directorium Chori (1589), pp. 566–68).

86

Example 4.11. Tone for the epistle (beginning), Martin Luther, Deudsche Messe (1526).

86

Example 4.12. Tone for the gospel (beginning), Martin Luther, Deudsche Messe (1526).

88

Example 4.13. Gospel reading (beginning), Martin Luther, Deudsche Messe (1526).

89

Example 4.14. Two versicles, Hélie Salomon, Scientia artis musice (1274), fol. 16r–v; ed. and trans. by Dyer, p. 94.

90

in honorem

Sible de Blaauw

qui nexus plurimos inter sacram liturgiam et architecturam splendide illustravit

Abbreviations CCCM

Corpus Christianorum: Continuatio Mediaevalis (Turnhout: Brepols, 1971–)

CCSL

Corpus Christianorum: Series Latina (Turnhout: Brepols, 1953–)

CSEL

Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiae Latinorum (Vienna: C. Geroldi filium and successors, 1866–)

Lib. Off. Amalar of Metz, Liber officialis, ed. by Jean Michel Hanssens, Amalarii episcopi opera liturgica omnia, vol. ii, Studi e Testi, 139 (Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1948) LP

Le Liber Pontificalis: Texte, introduction et commentaire, ed. by Louis Duchesne, 2 vols (Paris: Thorin, 1886–1892); supplemented by Cyrille Vogel, Additions et Corrections, vol. iii (Paris: E. Bocard, 1957) [cited as volume:page]

MGH

Monumenta Germaniae Historica (online at the dMGH, )

OR

Ordo Romanus, numbered according to the edition of Michel Andrieu, Les Ordines Romani du haut moyen-âge, 5 vols, Spicilegium Sacrum Lovaniense, 11, 23, 24, 28, 29 (Louvain: Spicilegium Sacrum Lovaniense, 1931–1961)

PG

Migne, Jacques-Paul, ed., Patro­logiae cursus completus: Series graeca, 161 vols (Paris, 1857–1868) [cited as volume:column] (online at )

PL

Migne, Jacques-Paul, ed., Patro­logiae cursus completus: Series latina, 221 vols (Paris, 1844–1855) [cited as volume:column] (online at )

SC

Sources Chrétiennes (Paris, 1942–)

Introduction Mακάριος ὁ ἀναγινώσκων καὶ οἱ ἀκούοντες τοὺς λόγους τῆς προφητείας καὶ τηροῦντες τὰ ἐν αὐτῇ γεγραμμένα. Beatus qui legit et qui audiunt verba prophetiae et servant ea quae in ea scripta sunt. Blessed is the reader and the hearers of the words of the prophecy and [who] keep those things that are written in it. This verse from the book of Revelation (1. 3) about ‘readers and hearers’ introduces this volume devoted to the public reading (more properly, chanting or ‘cantillating’) of Scripture in the medi­eval Latin liturgy, principally the Mass, and how it was received by ordinary ‘hearers’. My translation of the Greek text is intentionally literal in order to bring out the inherent contrast between the ‘reader’ and his or her ‘hearers’. The Revised Standard Version — ‘Blessed is he who reads aloud the words of the prophecy, and blessed are those who hear and who keep what is written’ — highlights that the ‘words of the prophecy’ will be read aloud to a group of ‘hearers’. When the author of Revelation set down these words — and for many centuries thereafter — books were rare and the ability to read them rarer still. Communication was oral, and reading aloud was the normal mode of communicating a text: ‘hearers’ needed the service of ‘readers’. In Beyond the Written Word William Graham commented that, with regard to the Scriptures, ‘oral reading and recitation were the primary means through which the written word was apprehended and reflected upon’.1 In a true sense it was an exemplification of Paul’s dictum ‘fides ex auditu’ (Romans 10. 17). Since ancient authors generally dictated their works to a secretary, reading those same works aloud returned them to their original modality.2 The stimulus that initiated the present book was an unexpected invitation to present a paper on cantillation of the Scriptures in the Latin West at a conference that included Christian, Jewish, Orthodox, and Muslim musicians and scholars. Due to a miscommunication, the organizer believed that I would not be able to participate. The programme being already full, I laid aside my prepared paper and busied myself with the completion of other projects before taking up ‘readers and hearers’ again.  1 Graham, Beyond the Written Word, p. 123.  2 Reading silently was not, contrary to what had been formerly believed, an uncommon way of accessing a text in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, the periods covered in the present volume. See Balogh, ‘Voces Paginarum’.

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My interest in the liturgical chanting (‘cantillation’) of the Scriptures was also prompted by the experience of beginning to attend a Roman Catholic church where the traditional Latin Mass is solemnly celebrated. I was disappointed that I could understand barely a word of either the epistle or the gospel chanted in Latin. Were the text merely spoken, I would have understood every word. I began to wonder: should not a chanted text enhance comprehension of a text rather than impede it? In this case the basic problems were not difficult to identify: indistinct pronunciation, dropping of final syllables, too rapid a reading pace, and a less than ideal observance of the musical formulae to which the readings should be chanted.3 In addition, during the chanting of the gospel the deacon (or celebrant, if no deacon were available) faced into the left transept, the congregation to his left. The fact that the subdeacon or acolyte chanted the epistle towards the apse of the church with his back to the congregation did not help intelligibility very much either. Both postures are, to be sure, strictly in accordance with the rubrics of the Missale Romanum (1570). I was intrigued about how this curious directionality came about and what it implied about communication of a text. What began as a limited examination of the musical formulae used to cantillate the epistle and gospel at a Solemn Mass in the Middle Ages soon expanded to cover every aspect of the ritual of which cantillation of the gospel was the centrepiece. I was led to speculate on how ‘hearers’ of the early Middle Ages might have comprehended what they heard and how they experienced what they beheld. Chapter 1 will introduce the medi­eval Mass from the perspective of the laity and the books that provided practical guidelines for the laity’s devout participation in the Mass said (for the most part whispered) by the priest at the altar. Chapter 2 inquires into the office of lector in the Western church, the rite of commissioning a lector, and what was expected of the ‘ideal’ lector.4 Chapter 3 focuses on what subdeacons and deacons had on the page in front of them at Mass as they chanted the epistle and gospel, respectively. This involves not just the books themselves, but also the arrangement of the text on the page and the punctuation systems that assisted the reader-chanter to convey the sensus of the text. Punctuation signs not only set apart elements of the sentence according to level of completeness, but also indicated places where the musical gestures of the cantillation formulae were to be inserted. These are the subject of Chapter 4, which analyses the formulae used for the cantillation of the epistle and gospel transmitted from the high Middle Ages, when pitch-specific information about them first emerges, up though the Reformation (Martin Luther’s Deudsche Messe).5  3 On a visit to a ‘Medeltida konst’ exhibit at the Historiska Museum in Stockholm in October 2019 the background music was a recording of a Mass — perhaps sung by a monastic choir. Every word of the chanted readings could be easily understood.  4 At an early date the lector was replaced at Mass by the subdeacon (for the epistle) and the deacon (for the gospel).  5 There can be little doubt that even this comparatively late evidence enshrines much older

i nt ro d u ct i o n

Chapter 5 addresses the difficult problem of how long the biblical text cantillated in Latin at Mass might have been comprehended by ordinary laity after the Romance vernaculars moved away in their phono­logy and morpho­logy from the Latin sermo humilis of Late Antiquity.6 On the basis of historical and philo­logical arguments I will propose a rather extended time frame for those areas where Latin was spoken or understood in Late Antiquity. Familiarity with Latin was, moreover, not uncommon among higher social classes, especially in the later Middle Ages. At first glance, Chapter 6 may appear to be an agglomeration of disparate topics, but it provides an important background for understanding rubrics and liturgical commentaries that prescribe a northerly direction for the chanting of the gospel. Chapter 7 explores the variety of physical arrangements that facilitated audibility and enhanced the dignity and sacrality of the chanted text. Places from which the epistle and gospel were proclaimed ranged from simple platforms with a lectern to the large cosmatesque ambos of twelfth- and thirteenth-century Italy and the monumental choir screens (jubés) that divided churches in two — a part for the laity and a separate part for the choir to chant the Divine Office. These screens also included an altar on the nave side and a pulpit. Chapter 8 describes the vestments worn by ‘readers of the Word’ that heightened the solemnity of the moment. The final chapter (9) coordinates themes covered in earlier chapters with a more detailed examination of the ceremonial surrounding the cantillation of the gospel at Mass.7 I will be concerned exclusively with the Latin liturgy (mainly the Mass), not practices specific to Eastern Christian churches (Greek,8 Russian, Chaldean, Egyptian), nor with the cantillation of the Torah, for which the term ‘cantillation’ was coined in the early twentieth century.9 Even with this restriction, I cannot presume to have covered adequately all dimensions of the history of the cantillation of Scripture from Late Antiquity through the Middle Ages and beyond.

practices that had been transmitted orally.  6 The question cannot be asked of regions in which all of the inhabitants spoke languages with Germanic roots.  7 Women religious will not figure in the present study, devoted to the cantillation of the Scriptures at Mass. Only commissioned (lector) or ordained (subdeacon, deacon) ministers were permitted, even in female monasteries, to chant the epistle or gospel at Mass. They did chant the prescribed biblical, patristic, and hagio­graphical texts of the Divine Office, but that is not the central theme of this book. I have not had access to Bugyis, The Care of Nuns.  8 On cantillation of Scripture in the Byzantine liturgy, see Høeg, La notation ecphonétique; Martani, ‘Heilige Schrift und Ekphonesis’; Martani, ‘The Theory and Practice of Ekphonetic Notation’.  9 Johann Forkel cited the term in this connection in his Allgemeine Geschichte der Musik, i, p. 150. See Bayer and Shiloah, ‘Cantillation’, p. 436 (‘closer to solemn declamation than to structured, organized singing’); Edelman, ‘Cantillation ( Jewish)’. Attempts to connect the Christian declamation of biblical texts to Jewish practices lack sufficient documentation; on this topic, see Engberg, ‘Greek Ekphonetic Neumes and Masoretic Accents’.

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I have attempted throughout to imagine how medi­eval ‘readers and hearers’ alike might have engaged with the sacred text chanted at Mass. I will avoid imposing elaborate interpretations based on modern theories that are not always particularly well informed about the medi­eval liturgy. The liturgical cantillation of the Scriptures will not, moreover, be considered a ‘performance’, nor will those present within the walls of a church be considered an ‘audience’ or as ‘spectators’, gazing on something that was utterly beyond their understanding. In reality, the Mass was ‘understood’ in many different ways. Though Readers and Hearers is primarily a historical survey, it might have a practical aspect in some quarters, when the traditional Latin Mass seems to be making a comeback after decades of official neglect.10 I have endeavoured, despite the presence of a generous number of footnotes and substantial biblio­graphy, to present a book that does not require specialist knowledge of the book’s readers. I did not possess much of that on the varied topics covered in this book when I started the voyage of discovery that produced Readers and Hearers of the Word. The project could not have been brought to a conclusion without the resources of the libraries of Harvard University. Special thanks go to Eleanor Giraud (University of Limerick) for valuable advice about manu­script sources, to Amy Williamson for assistance with images and for the indexing, and to Brandon Wild for preparing the musical examples. Deborah A. Oosterhouse provided invaluable assistance for which I am most grateful during the copy-editing phase. I am also indebted to Dr Eva-Maria Bongarat (Diözesanmuseum St Afra, Augsburg) and Dr Ludmila Kvapilovà-Klusener (Diözesanmuseum, Bamberg) for kindly permitting the publication of images of vestments from their museums’ collections. Other libraries and sources are mentioned in the captions. The late Thomas Gordon Smith, eminent architect, kindly provided me with a copy of his book on Vitruvius. My thanks to Nils Holger Petersen and the editorial board of ‘Ritus et Artes’ for accepting my book as a part of this distinguished series. Finally, the present modest contributon is dedicated to Sible de Blaauw (Radboud University), who in his many publications on sacred architecture has done more than any other scholar to unite ‘ritus et artes’. Joseph Dyer January 2022  10 Virtually abolished in the Roman Catholic Church in the early 1970s, this venerable ritual continued to be celebrated in a few parishes (often in the face of the local bishop’s displeasure) and by priests of the Society of St Pius X, which had broken away from papal oversight a few years after the Second Vatican Council. A wider use of the Latin Mass was authorized and encouraged by the apostolic letter Summorum Pontificum, promulgated by Pope Benedict XVI in July 2007. On 16 July 2021, Pope Francis issued a motu proprio, ‘Traditionis Custodes’, that summarily revoked the provisions of Pope Benedict’s Summorum Pontificum and moved to curtail or supress celebration of the traditional Latin Mass. A range of further restrictions was imposed in December 2021. Francis’s actions were met with consternation and resistance, but the future of the traditional Latin Mass (and that of Gregorian chant as a living tradition) is uncertain.

Chapter 1

‘Lay Folkes’ and the Mass bothe þo reders & þo herers has mykil nede, me þenk, of lerers, how þai shulde rede, & þai shulde here, þo wordes of god, so leue & dere The Lay Folkes Mass Book

The Medi­eval Mass Understanding the Mass as celebrated in the Middle Ages constitutes a necessary starting point for understanding the place occupied by Scripture readings at Mass and the laity’s encounter with them. Until about the year 800 all of the Mass prayers (including the Canon with the Words of Institution) were said aloud, not whispered by the priest standing at the altar, as later became the norm for this and most other prayers the priest said at the altar.1 Ordo Romanus 4, a Frankish adaptation of the papal Mass of Ordo Romanus 1, dated towards the end of the eighth century and hence a century later than its model, assumes that the Canon of the Mass will be audible, at least to some extent: ‘dicit pontifex canon ut audiatur ab eis’ (the bishop says the Canon so that it might be heard by them [priests standing to his right and left]).2 Ordo Romanus 3, another Frankish adaptation of Ordo Romanus 1, and of roughly of the same date as Ordo Romanus 4, directs priests gathered around the altar to say the Canon along with the bishop-celebrant, whose voice must be heard more prominently (valentius) than theirs.3 Similarly, a capitulum in the Carolingian Admonitio generalis of 789 discouraged silent recitation of the Canon by the priest: ‘let the priest with the holy angels and the people of God sing with a single voice: “Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus”’ (Et ipse sacerdos cum sanctis angelis et populo dei communi voce: Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus decantet).4 The purpose of the injunction was to prevent the priest

 1 Lewis, The Silent Recitation of the Canon of the Mass, pp. 10–34. See also Franz, Die Messe im deutschen Mittelalter, pp. 618–37.  2 OR 4. 52; Les Ordines Romani, ed. by Andrieu, ii, p. 163; the edition’s ‘discit’ must be a typo­ graphical error. On the authentically Roman character of OR 1, see Vogel, Medi­eval Liturgy, pp. 159–60.  3 OR 3. 1; Les Ordines Romani, ed. by Andrieu, ii, p. 131. For the period before and during the introduction of the Roman liturgy into Francia, see Smyth, La liturgie oubliée, and Smyth, ‘Ante altaria’. Whether this is an early witness to what is known today as concelebration is difficult to say.  4 Capitularia regum Francorum, ed. by Boretius, p. 59 (cap. 76). This is repeated verbatim in the Collectio capitulorum Ansegisi, cap. 66; Capitularia regum Francorum, ed. by Boretius, p. 403. Cf. OR 15. 38: ‘et populo cum tremore et reverentia: Sanctus’; Les Ordines Romani,

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from beginning the Canon quietly during the singing of the Sanctus — a practice that was eventually to become the norm. The celebrant (bishop or priest) soon began to recite sotto voce the texts of all of the chants (Ordinary and Proper) sung by the choir. He read the epistle quietly as the subdeacon chanted it, but not the gospel, for which he (exceptionally) turned from his position at the altar towards the deacon and simply listened. This practice, eventually the norm of the Western liturgy, was already underway before the year 800, but such a significant development in the history of the Mass seems to have gone unnoticed. Aside from a few versicles (e.g. ‘Dominus vobiscum’), the chanted Scripture readings, and the Ordinary and Proper chants of the Mass sung by the choir, members of the congregation would have been able to hear only two brief prayers (collect and postcommunion), one at the beginning of Mass, the other at its end, the Preface that introduced the singing of the Sanctus, and the Pater noster.5 The validity of the Mass was henceforth guaranteed by the priest’s recitation of all of the prescribed texts; the contributions of assisting ministers of whatever rank and the singers became superfluous.6 The surrounding ceremonial, no matter how splendid, merely supplied ‘added value’. Its absence did not diminish the integrity of the Mass, and the presence (or absence) of a congregation mattered little. This development was facilitated by the creation of a new genre of liturgical book, the missal.7 Such was the way the Roman Catholic Mass was celebrated into the first half of the twentieth century and remains true of the traditional Latin Mass today.8 Medi­eval liturgical books almost never took notice of the laity, before whose eyes the clerical liturgy played out. Canonical legislation concerned itself mostly with broad externals: attendance at Mass (absenteeism seems to have been rife), annual confession and communion, and contributing to the support of the church. Protestant reformers railed against such ‘abuses’ that (in their view) disenfranchised the laity from participating in the Mass. Those of CalvinistZwinglian persuasion simply abolished the Mass and substituted a preaching service, but Martin Luther held to a more cautious view: that the Mass need not be abolished, but reformed and stripped of elements that made it ‘sacrificial’, this being an understanding of the Mass inconsistent with reformed

ed. by Andrieu, iii, p. 103 (MS G only). On the background, see Spinks, The Sanctus in the Eucharistic Prayer, pp. 93–103.  5 Lewis, The Silent Recitation of the Canon of the Mass, offers a balanced review of the theories that have been put forward to determine the history of and motivation for the inaudible recitation of the Canon. See also Taft, ‘Was the Eucharistic Anaphora Recited Secretly or Aloud?’, pp. 32–33. On lay participation in the sung parts of the Mass, see the end of the present chapter.  6 For reflections on this development, see Odenthal, ‘Von der Messfeier zur Messfrömmigkeit’.  7 This facilitated the celebration of ‘private’ Masses by a priest with a single altar server (acolyte).  8 At a spoken ‘low’ Mass in Latin almost the entire service can be inaudible.

‘ l ay fo lk e s’ and t he mass

theo­logy.9 The reformers were unanimous in insisting that all the prayers and readings used in the worship of God should be intelligible to all, not just whispered at a distant altar by the priest or chanted in a language unintelligible to most. In his Institution de la religion chrestienne John Calvin thundered: Qui est-ce donc qui se pourra assez esmeveiller d’une audace tant effrenée qu’ont les Papistes, et ont encore, qui contre la défense de l’Apostre chantent et brayent de langue estrange et incognue, en laquelle le plus souvent ils n’entendent pas eux-mesmes une syllabe, et ne veulent que les autres y entendent?10 (Who could not marvel enough at the boundless audacity which the papists have and still have, who, against the injunction of the Apostle sing and bray in a strange and unfitting language, of which they most often do not even themselves understand a syllable and do not want others to understand it?) It is curious, not to say ironic, that Calvin considered Latin a ‘langue estrange et incognue’, given that the first version of the Institution was published in that very language! Invited by Thomas Cranmer to comment on the 1549 edition of the Book of Common Prayer, Martin Bucer (1491–1551) set forth the principle that ‘things said and done in the sacred assemblies should be well understood by all present (i Corinthians 14)’.11 This was not a novel point of view. An ancient author known only as Ambrosiaster (a contemporary of St Ambrose) underscored the importance of intelligibility. If a non-believer were to enter a church where people were speaking in ‘tongues’ that no one understood, he might think them insane. If, on the other hand, all were confessing with a single, comprehensible voice, the visitor’s reaction would be very different: ‘cadens in faciem adorabit deum pronuntians quod vere deus in vobis est’ (falling on his face he will adore God, affirming that God is truly within you).12 But was comprehension of every single word sung or spoken really essential to the medi­eval laity’s active involvement in the Mass? Was there something the sixteenth-century reformers did not fully appreciate — or care to?

 9 See Lentner, Volskssprache und Sakralsprache, pp. 16–18, and Lang, ‘Historische Stationen zur Frage der lateinischen Liturgiesprache’, pp. 224–26.  10 Calvin, Institution de la religion chrestienne, ed. by Benoît, iii, p. 376. Relevant passages from the original Latin edition (1536, with 1559 emendations) and the French edition (1541, with emendations of 1560) are aligned in the introduction to Pidoux, ed., Le psautier huguenot du xvie siècle, i, pp. xiii–xiv.  11 As quoted in Addleshaw and Etchells, The Architectural Setting of Anglican Worship, p. 245. The same view was expressed by other reformers, like Thomas Becon in The Displaying of the Popish Mass (c. 1550), of which excerpts are discussed in Sheerin, ‘Sonus and Verba’, pp. 44–46.  12 Comment. in ep. 1 ad Corinthios 14. 24–25; Ambrosiastri qui dicitur Commentarius in Epistulas Paulinas, ed. by Vogels, p. 155.

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Lay Folkes’ Experience of the Mass Eamon Duffy demonstrated that it would be rash to accept uncritically the perspectives of sixteenth-century reformers and their apo­logists about what the Mass meant to medi­eval laity or how they joined themselves with the priest at the altar.13 In Stripping of the Altars he dissipated the myth that the imposition of the Reformation on the population of England brought welcome relief for worshippers alienated from the traditional liturgy. The central experience for the laity at Mass in the Middle Ages was gazing on the Host immediately following its consecration, as the priest held it high above his head.14 Such an experience was, as Duffy observed, ‘far more than the object of individual devotion; […] it was the source of human community’.15 He rejected the idea that there was a massive divide between a clerical ‘elite’ and ordinary Christians with respect to the liturgy16 As Virginia Reinburg has shown, the reformers, having little sympathy for the medi­eval symbiosis, assumed that clerical and lay experience of the Mass should be nearly the same. There was a difference: For the lay congregation, however, the mass was a series of collective devotions and ritual actions; […] it was less a ceremonial representation of eucharistic doctrine or Christ’s original sacrifice than a sacred rite uniting them with God, the Church, and each other.17 Individual details faded before that sublime goal. As Matthew Milner concluded, ‘liturgy was the site wherein collective and personal piety intersected’.18 Both the communal and the personal had a part in the medi­eval laity’s experience of the Mass. Augustine Thompson observed that ‘the lay faithful understood the rites enacted before them quite well; if not the words themselves, at least the meaning conveyed thereby’.19 Even Enrico Cattaneo, who rejected the idea that unlettered medi­eval laity enjoyed what he called a ‘partecipazione intima ai misteri celebrati’ (whatever that might mean), surmised that a genuine participation ‘con sicuri, anche parziali effetti, personali e interiori’ (with secure, even if partial, personal and interior affects) could have existed.20 At the conference where Cattaneo presented his paper, a respondent observed  13 On ‘praying the Mass’, see Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars, pp. 117–26.  14 Even with the erection of choir screens beginning in the thirteenth century (see Chapter 7) provision was made for allowing the Host to be seen at the Elevation.  15 Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars, p. 93, also pp. 95–102 (‘Seeing the Host’). Mainly concerned with the Elevation of the Host is Tanner, ‘Least of the Laity’.  16 For a perspective on lay involvement in the late Middle Ages, see Jungmann, Pastoral Liturgy, pp. 64–80 (‘The State of Liturgical Life on the Eve of the Reformation’).  17 Reinburg, ‘Liturgy and the Laity in Late Medi­eval and Reformation France’, pp. 531 and 541.  18 Milner, The Senses and the English Reformation, p. 93.  19 Thompson, Cities of God, p. 239.  20 Cattaneo, ‘La partecipazione dei laici alla liturgia’, on lay education, pp. 403–08. For a survey

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(in Latin!) that distinctions in this matter need to be made according to social class, and that the entire question ‘quoad modum participationis laicorum in liturgia saeculorum XI et XII in universa Europa valde difficilis est’ (as to the mode of lay participation in the liturgy of the eleventh and twelfth centuries throughout Europe [the problem] is exceedingly difficult). Edward Muir stressed that ‘late medi­eval Christians expected to find the sacred manifest itself in material objects that could be seen, touched, smelled, tasted, and ingested’, a statement that applies to the Eucharist, which the laity could see, taste, and touch with their tongues.21 But it can also apply to the elaborate ritual that permeates a Solemn Mass at which the gospel was chanted by the deacon of the Mass aloud from a lofty place. The entire ritual — candles, incense, vestments, the procession across the presbyterium, the ascent to the summit of the ambo, and the chanting of the gospel — engaged multiple senses. Since this did not accord with the reformers’ perspectives, it had to be discarded. Nathan D. Mitchell, acknowledging his debt to Muir, argued that in the wake of the Reformation both Protestant and Catholic leaders aimed to change the experience of the liturgy and to cultivate, naturally in very different ways, an ‘intellectually informed participation by layfolk’. On the Catholic side this was to be accomplished (but never was) by means of instructions (‘tutorials’) delivered by parish priests.22 Mitchell underscored that ‘Reformation worship focused much more intently upon cognitive access to the mystery of Christ [and] upon informed intellectual participation nurtured by meditation on the Word purely proclaimed and preached in the language of the people’.23 Cantillation of the gospel in Latin hardly fit into that picture.

Scripture Readings at Mass As testified by Justin Martyr, readings from the ‘memoirs (ἀπομνημονεύματα) of the apostles or the writings (συνγράμματα) of the prophets’ formed part of Christian gatherings for the celebration of the Eucharist by the mid-second century.24 Such gatherings took place in relatively small venues (‘house churches’ as they are called — not entirely accurately — by many architectural

of the Carolingian evidence, see Nickl, Der Anteil des Volkes, pp. 3–7 (‘Vom Verständnis der Liturgiesprache’) and Chapter 5 below.  21 Muir, Ritual in Early Modern Europe, pp. 155–81.  22 Mitchell, ‘Reforms, Protestant and Catholic’, pp. 310–11.  23 Mitchell, ‘Reforms, Protestant and Catholic’, p. 342. As Mitchell notes, the Council of Trent went along with this demand for greater intellectual understanding of what transpired during the liturgy, though there was virtually no follow-up.  24 Justin, Apo­logia prima 1. 67. 3; ed. and trans. by Minns and Parvis, pp. 258–59; also trans. by Falls, p. 106. A few lines earlier (66. 3), Justin said that these ‘memoirs’ were known as ‘gospels’ (εὐανγέλλια).

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historians). In many cases a celebration of the Eucharist followed the readings.25 The fictional Life of Polycarp (second quarter of the fourth century) says that the saint, who died in 155, ‘undertook the reading of the Scriptures in church, himself reading from his youth until his old age, and recommended others do the same’.26 The apostle Paul expected that his letters addressed to specific Christian communities would be passed on to other churches for public reading. Though they were not intended to be presented in a ‘liturgical’ context, the gatherings at which they were read were (or could be) part of a Christian communal meal of a type that developed into the Eucharist.27 The North African authors Tertullian (150/70–230) and Cyprian (d. 258) attest to public reading of the Scriptures, and numerous other witnesses confirm the universality of this custom, inherited from the synagogue, throughout the Christian world of Late Antiquity. Texts accepted and approved for liturgical reading became normative for inclusion in the canon of Scripture, thereby establishing which books were considered ‘inspired’ and which were not. As Augustine of Hippo described the practice of his day: ‘we have heard the first lesson of the Apostle; […] then we sang the psalm; […] after this the gospel reading’. He calls all three of these ‘readings’, a reasonable description, inasmuch as all of the texts, whether historical, prophetic, lyrical, narrative, or didactic, were drawn from Sacred Scripture.28 They may have also shared a similar mode of delivery. The psalm ‘reading’ of Augustine’s time consisted in the chanting of psalm verses by a soloist, to which the congregation answered with a sung response after every few verses. Most probably, the style of chanting the psalm verses did not differ markedly from the cantillation formula used for the readings from the Old and New Testaments. The lector responsible for the first reading may simply have continued on with the psalm, exchanging the office of lector for that of cantor.29 The Apostolic Constitutions, a compilation  25 Cianca, Sacred Ritual, Profane Space.  26 Vita Polycarpi 19, as quoted in Stewart-Sykes, ‘The Domestic Origin of the Liturgy of the Word’, p. 119.  27 For a comprehensive overview of the earliest developments, see Rouwhorst, ‘The Bible in Liturgy’.  28 ‘Primam lectionem audivimus Apostoli: “Fidelis sermo et omni acceptione dignus” […]. Deinde cantavimus psalmum, exhortantes nos invicem, una voce, uno corde dicentes, “Venite adoremus, et prosternamur ei” […]. Post haec, evangelica lectio decem leprosos mundatos nobis ostendit, et unum ex eis alienigenam gratias agentem mundatori suo. Has tres lectiones, quantum pro tempore possumus, pertractemus, dicentes pauca de singulis’; Augustine, Sermo 171. 1; PL, 38:950. Augustine expressed the same idea at the beginning of Sermo 165: ‘Apostolum audivimus, Psalmum audivimus, Evangelium audivimus; consonant omnes divinae lectiones, ut spem non in nobis, sed in Domino collocemus’ (PL, 38:902). In Sermo 45, preached on two readings, a prophetic reading and an epistle, both were delivered by a lector (PL, 38:262). See also Zwinggi, ‘Das Wortgottesdienst bei Augustinus’, pp. 96–103. The subject was first treated at length in Roetzer, Die heiligen Augustinus Schriften als liturgiegeschichtliche Quelle, pp. 100–108 (‘Schriftlesung und Psalmengesang’).  29 The office of cantor, however influential it might have been, never found a permanent place in the official clerical hierarchy.

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of Syrian provenance (c. 375–380), restricted the reading of the gospel to a deacon or presbyter, who stood on the same ‘high place’ from which the Old Testament reading was read.30 This was to become a universal observance.

Lay Participation and Deportment The ‘motto’ from The Lay Folkes Mass Book quoted at the beginning of this chapter is part of a lengthy instruction in verse designed to counsel members of the laity on how reverently and devoutly to attend Mass. As it asserts, both ‘reders’ and ‘herers’ were in need of instruction: ‘how þai shulde rede, & þai shulde here, þo wordes of god, so leue & dere’ (how they should read and they should hear the words of God, so faithful and noble). The Lay Folkes Mass Book was a Middle English translation, made in the late fourteenth century, of a text written in French about a century earlier in England.31 It explained what was happening at the altar, but also what gestures (e.g. kneeling, making the sign of the cross) were to be made by the laity, and what personal prayers were appropriate to each point in the Mass, whether sung or read: ‘if þai singe messe, or if þai saie, þi pater-noster reherce alwaie’ (if they sing the Mass, or if they say it, keep saying the Lord’s Prayer). While the recommended ‘default’ solution in this case was the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer quietly, many additional devotional aids were suggested. Before the chanting of the gospel layfolk were instructed to bless themselves and pray: ‘Bi gods worde welcome to me; ioy & louyng, lord, be to þe’ (By God’s word, welcome to me; joy and loving, Lord, be to thee). All were to remain standing in silence and ‘mikel dread’ while the priest or deacon chanted the gospel, quietly praying that the Redeemer would grant them amendment of life and the strength always to choose good over evil, keeping ever in mind ‘him þat dere þe boght’. A suggested text for a prayer during the gospel is provided. The Lay Folkes Mass Book supplied reflections and devotional exercises for each part of the Mass to assist those in attendance who did not understand Latin (mostly whispered inaudibly by the priest) to participate in the Mass.32 Since the suggested devotions paralleled what was happening at the altar, members of the congregation had to follow with some attention the progress of the Mass, thus forging a true connection between priest and people.33

 30 Didascalia 2. 57. 7; ed. by Funk, pp. 161–62; trans. by Donaldson, p. 84.  31 The Lay Folks Mass Book, ed. by Simmons, pp. 16–17. The passage (text B) may be compared with the ‘E’ version on the facing page. See the comments on people’s prayer books in Foley, From Age to Age, pp. 215–19, and Duffy, Marking the Hours, pp. 3–22 and 53–64.  32 The German Singmesse fulfilled the same goal. Short German sacred Lieder paralleled what was happening at the altar during a ‘low’ (i.e. spoken) Mass. Franz Schubert’s Gesänge zur Feier des heiligen Opfers der Messe (Deutsche Messe) is the best known example of the genre, but Michael Haydn’s Deutsches Hochamt enjoys popularity in Austria and South Germany.  33 That degree of attention was missing when children of my grammar school attended week­

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In order to benefit directly from the instructions of The Lay Folkes Mass Book one had to be literate in English (originally French). There were enough of such people among the laity at the time (late fourteenth century), but clergy could have (and probably did) use the material in the poem for instructing unlettered layfolk.34 In a well-to-do household this instruction may have been conveyed to the servants by a master and mistress, who were literate in English. The guidance provided by The Lay Folkes Mass Book would have allowed the faithful to enter into the spirit — if not the letter — of the medi­eval liturgy. The author of another devotional tract, How to Hear Mass (late thirteenth century), had a similar goal: ‘To calle on Christ wiþ mylde chere, lewed men, I shal ɜou lere’.35 Layfolk were admonished to remain ‘stille as ston’ during the entire Mass. While ‘clerkes’, entrusted with reading the Scriptures at Mass, were supposed to understand what they were reading, even ‘lewed men’ (i.e. the ‘hearers’ of our title, untutored in Latin) could be assured that it recounts the work of God.36 The author warned that the devil busied himself taking down the words of those who were so irreverent as to converse during Mass. He recounted a story about ‘seynt Austine’ (of Canterbury), who was chanting the gospel in the presence of Gregory the Great. Two women were conversing so incessantly that the devil ran out of space to copy down all their vain words: ‘þe foule fend so fel is, he writ ɜor wordes I-wis on a Rolle euerichon’. In a desperate attempt to lengthen the roll of parchment on which the words were written, the devil pulled it with his teeth, lost his grip, and banged his head against the stone wall of the church. Everyone heard the noise, but only Augustine actually saw what was happening and burst out laughing at the devil’s discomfit.37 Augustine’s behaviour did not please Pope Gregory, until he offered an explanation of what had happened. A similar manual, Langforde’s Meditations in the Time of the Mass (fifteenth century) offered instructions for proper deportment and reverence while the gospel was being chanted: ‘when the prest or Decan redyth the Gospell with hys faice agaynst the Northe’, a devout Christian should imagine that ‘the holly Apostles Sainct Peter and Paule wer present, which prechyd yt’. Reverence must be paid to ‘thos holly wordes, as the sone of God wer ther and

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day Masses in the 1940s. The rosary was recited and no notice taken of what was happening at the altar, except during the Elevation of the Host and chalice and at the last blessing. Eamon Duffy cautioned against too hastily assuming that there was a large difference ‘between literate and illiterate experience of religion’; see Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars, p. 121. On ‘The Devout English’ and explanations of the Mass, see Smith, Pre-Reformation England, pp. 91–104. How to Hear Mass, ed. by Furnivall, p. 498 (lines 181–82). The adjective ‘lew(e)d’ referred to members of the laity, whence derive the modern meanings of ‘coarse’ and ‘vulgar’. How to Hear Mass, ed. by Furnivall, p. 504 (lines 427–28). How to Hear Mass, ed. by Furnivall, pp. 499–503 (lines 277–372).

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rede thayme, which was the furst precher of thame’.38 Thus the devout Christian should remember that the words he is hearing, though not understood, are the Son of God’s transmitted through the Apostles. A similar exhortation to reverential fear is found in the anonymous fifteenth-century Merita Missae formerly attributed to John Lydgate: And whan the gospille shalle be rede Lestene as thoue adred For eury talle of a kyng Wold haue dredfulle lestnyng. (and when the gospel is read, listen as in fear, for every story of a king requires fearful listening.)39 A tract entitled Instructions for Parish Priests composed in the early fifteenth century by John Myrc/Mirk encouraged priests to remind their congregations to stand for the chanting or reading of the gospel (‘tech them þenne to stonde vp alle’).40 All of these manuals encourage noble standards of deportment and devotion, probably realized only under exceptional circumstances. A fifteenth-century English descendant of Archbishop Pecham’s constitution, De informatione simplicium (1281), beginning with the words ‘Ignorancia Sacerdotum’, complained bitterly about irreverent behaviour in church. Some people ‘heere no worde of the seruice, disdain the priest, and complain that the length of the Mass keeps tham from their brekefast’.41 Judging from what the author says, the only bright side was that they did not turn up every Sunday! Sadly, in some places deportment in church left much to be desired. The Lay Folkes Mass Book holds up an ideal that was not always attained. In an article entitled ‘Piety and Impiety in Thirteenth-Century Italy’, Alexander Murray painted a rather discouraging picture in this regard.42 Attendance was poor, and efforts had to be made to prevent unbecoming things from taking place in church. In The Shyppe of Fools (Basel, 1494) Sebastian Brant excoriated those who yielded to distraction in church (‘walkynge up and downe’), both showing disrespect and distracting their neighbours who wanted to pray.43

 38 Tracts on the Mass, ed. by Legg, pp. 19–29 (p. 22); Legg edits eleven tracts and ordinals. See also the comments of Gregory Dix on this ‘goostly exercyse’ in The Shape of the Liturgy, pp. 605–08. More will be said in a subsequent chapter about the northerly direction faced by the deacon while chanting the gospel.  39 The Lay Folks Mass Book, ed. by Simmons, p. 149.  40 Myrc, Instructions for Parish Priests, ed. by Peacock, p. 9 (line 279).  41 Hodgson, ‘Ignorancia Sacerdotum’. Given the opening words, it is obvious the laity were not the only group of Christians addressed. Pecham’s text is translated in Pastors and the Care of Souls in Medi­eval England, ed. by Shinners and Dohar. Cf. the related ‘Quinque verba’ edited in Pastors and the Care of Souls, pp. 132–38; also the review of instructional manuals for priests in Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars, pp. 53–63 (‘Priests, People, and Catechesis’).  42 Murray, ‘Piety and Impiety in Thirteenth-Century Italy’.  43 For this reference I am indebted to Milner, The Senses and the English Reformation, p. 120.

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Isidore of Seville (c. 560–636) said that the deacon admonished the people ‘clara voce’ to be silent, so that ‘while the reading is being pronounced, concord might be maintained by all, so that what is preached to all might similarly be heard by all’.44 While one can always pray, he admitted, such an opportunity to hear the very words of Scripture was not always present. One of the advantages of hearing the Scriptures was that prayer could be nourished by the imagines of divine things prompted in hearers’ minds by the inspired words.45 In early seventh-century Spain the Latin of the Scriptures could be easily understood by the population. In De institutione laicali, Jonas of Orléans (c. 780–843) assembled patristic admonitions about proper deportment in church. Invoking the authority of Augustine and Bede, he complained that in church ‘sunt itaque plerique quibus potius cordi est vanis et obscoenis confabulationibus vacare quam lectionibus divinis accommodare’ (not a few are occupied with vain and indecent bantering rather than paying attention to the divine readings).46 In like fashion, Bruno of Segni (c. 1045–c. 1123) lamented that ‘there are many in church who are bored listening to the chants, readings, and preaching. They also often grumble that the praises of God are not finished more quickly, because they derive more enjoyment from tales and chatter than in the praise of God’.47 The Council of Trent (1545–1563) had to confront the same problem of disorderly and disedifying comportment in church.48 The conciliar decree ‘concerning the things to be observed and avoided in the celebration of Mass’ required that ‘[bishops] shall also banish from the churches […] all vain and profane conversations, wandering around, noise and clamour, so that the house of God may be seen to be and may be truly called a house of prayer’.49 Inattention during the Scripture readings must have been high on the list of abuses the council aimed to correct.

 44 ‘Dum lectio pronuntiatur ab omnibus unitas conservetur, ut quod omnibus praedicatur aequaliter ab omnibus audiatur’; Isidore, De ecclesiasticis officiis 1. 10, ed. by Lawson (my translation). There is a published translation: Isidore, De ecclesiasticis officiis, trans. by Knoebel.  45 ‘Nec putes parvam nasci utilitatem ex lectionis auditu; siquidem oratio ipsa fit pinguior, dum mens recenti lectione saginata per divinarum rerum quas nuper audivit imagines currit’; Isidore, De ecclesiasticis officiis 1. 10.  46 Jonas of Orléans, De institutione laicali 1. 13; PL, 106:47.  47 ‘Multi in ecclesia sunt quos et cantus et lectiones et praedicationes audiri taedet, et non solum corde sed ore; quoque multitoties murmurant quod laudes dei non citius finiuntur, quia magis in fabulis et vanitatibus quam in dei laudibus delectantur’; Expositio in ps. 103 (PL, 164:1098), as quoted in Cattaneo, ‘La partecipazione dei laici alla liturgia’, p. 404, n. 33; for a specific case, see Marini, ‘La partecipazione dei fedeli alla messa negli scritti di sant’ Agostino’. See also Thompson, Cities of God, p. 255 n. 129. Children seem to have been a constant disruptive presence.  48 Chadwick, ‘The Roman Missal of the Council of Trent’, pp. 110–14.  49 Concilium Tridentinum, session of 17 September 1562.

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The Lay Folkes Mass Book and others of the same genre sought, as did the conciliar decree, to encourage the laity to adopt a properly devout behaviour consistent with presence at a sacred mystery only imperfectly understood. The point de départ for all of these endeavours was the conviction that intellectual comprehension of the Scripture readings at Mass was not the only path to sanctification.

The Laity and the Ordinary Chants of the Mass Although not central to the theme of the present book, it will be of interest to pass in review what medi­eval commentators reveal about the laity’s participation in certain sung parts of the Mass: (1) responses to the priest and (2) chants of the Ordinary of the Mass (Kyrie, Gloria, Sanctus-Benedictus, and Agnus dei).50 Layfolk were not all passive witnesses. The devotions proposed by The Lay Folkes Mass Book and other manuals of this type did not aim to institute a personal ‘liturgy’ parallel to what was happening at the altar. Members of the congregation were expected to respond to the versicles (‘Dominus vobiscum’, etc.) chanted by the priest, and they should sing the ‘Amen’ at the close of the Canon of the Mass (sung aloud by the priest, even though the Canon itself was recited silently).51 The Paduense, a papal sacramentary adapted in the late seventh century for the use of priests (at St Peter’s Basilica, it is thought), contains many ‘Respondit populus’ rubrics. The dialogue that introduces the Preface of one of the item alia Masses in the sacramentary alternates ‘et sacerdos’ with ‘et populus’.52 The ‘respondentibus omnibus’ of Ordo Romanus 15 implies a similar level of participation for the customary responses.53 Rupert of Deutz (c. 1075/80–c. 1129) interpreted the deacon’s introductory ‘Dominus vobiscum’ before the chanting of the gospel as an exhortation to attentive listening. Singing in response, ‘Et cum spiritu tuo’, all turn their faces and their hearts towards him. And further, ‘the highest reverence is indeed owed to listening to the gospel, which is the superlative word of God’ (summa vero reverentia debetur ad audiendum evangelium, quod maximum est verbum dei).54 Reverentia was expected regardless of how much was understood. Sicard of Cremona (c. 1155–1215) assumed that the laity would make responses to the priest (‘Domnus vobiscum’, etc.) and sing some parts of the Ordinary of the Mass.55 When the people turn to the east together with  50  51  52  53  54

Foley, ‘The Song of the Assembly in Medi­eval Eucharist’. Many references are gathered in Nickl, Der Anteil des Volkes, pp. 8–14. Sacramentarium Paduense, ed. by Catella, dell’Oro, and Martini, p. 376 and passim. OR 15. 26; Les Ordines Romani, ed. by Andrieu, iii, p. 100. ‘Attenti ergo et benevoli sunt illico et eo cordibus conversis et vultibus respondent “Et cum spiritu tuo”’; Rupert of Deutz, De divinis officiis 1. 36, ed. by Haacke, p. 30.  55 Sicard of Cremona, Mitrale 3. 4; PL, 213:101, 121, and 138 (Amen), 109 (gospel).

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the priest after the intonation of the ‘Gloria in excelsis deo’, they imitate the angels who announced Christ’s birth.56 Referring to a directive of Pope Sergius (687–701), Sicard encouraged the people to respond with ‘miserere nobis’ and ‘dona nobis pacem’ to the singing of the Agnus dei during communion.57 ‘Kyrie eleison’, being the response to a chanted invocation in a litany, would always have been shared by clergy and laity. The synod of Riesenbach-Freisingen (799) exhorted people to sing the ‘Kyrie eleison’ in litanies (i.e. processions), but warned that it should not be sung rustice, as had apparently been the case, but henceforth ‘better’ (melius).58 One of the capitula synodica of Herard of Tours (858) required that ‘Gloria patri ac Sanctus atque credulitas [Creed] et Kyrie eleison a cunctis canantur’.59 ‘Layfolkes’ at Mass in the Middle Ages were thus not the mute, uncomprehending bystanders they have sometimes been assumed to have been. If they chose, they could sing along with the Ordinary chants they had heard (and sung) since childhood. During Mass, they were encouraged to engage in devotions linked to each part of the Mass, either those suggested in the liturgical ‘guidebooks’ for the laity or those of their own invention. The Lord’s Prayer was only the default solution. Whatever their capacity to comprehend might have been, reverence was the watchword for entering into the spirit, if not the letter, of the great mystery taking place in their presence at the altar.

 56 ‘Gloria in excelsis Deo, solus sacerdos alte incipit, ad orientem conversus; quam populus concinendo recipit laetabundus’; Sicard of Cremona, Mitrale 3. 4; PL, 213:97. See further along: ‘ideo solus sacerdos incipit [Gloria], quia solus angelus in nativitate domini hunc hymnum incipit et militia coelestis exercitus congratulando concinit’.  57 ‘Quod inter communicandum, a clero et populo cantari Sergius papa decrevit’; Sicard of Cremona, Mitrale 3. 8; PL, 213:139. This is recorded in the Liber pontificalis (i:376); trans. by Davis, The Book of the Pontiffs, p. 89.  58 ‘Et discant Kyrieleison clamare, ut non tam rustice ut nunc usque, sed melius discant’; as quoted in Nickl, Der Anteil des Volkes, pp. 17–18.  59 Herard of Tours, Capitula 16; PL, 121:765. For this reference and others in this section I am indebted to Nickl, Der Anteil des Volkes, pp. 15–32. The Hungarian chant and folksong scholar Janka Szendrei published historic sound recordings of chants of the Ordinary of the Mass as sung among the isolated Csángós, Catholics of Hungarian and German descent living in Moldavia: ‘Gregorian Chants and Ballads among the Csángós’ (Hungaraton HCD 18230). What one hears on this recording was probably representative of many rural areas.

Chapter 2

Readers of the Word Lectors, Subdeacons, Deacons The Gospel according to Luke narrates an episode when Jesus himself served as a lector. Early in his ministry he visited the synagogue in his hometown, Nazareth, where he was handed the scroll of the prophet Isaiah to read.1 This he did, probably in a kind of ritualized, heightened declamation that might be regarded as ‘cantillation’. Afterwards, he made the astonishing statement that ‘today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing’ (Luke 4. 21). The ‘hearers’ in this case were not pleased by the ‘reader’; they formed an angry mob and attempted to hurl him to his death over a cliff.

The Office of Lector in Late Antiquity As mentiooned above, Justin Martyr, in his Apo­logia addressed to the emperor Marcus Aurelius, reported the practice among Christians of reading at their Sunday gatherings ‘the memoirs (ἀπογράμματα) of the apostles or the writings of the prophets’.2 Not yet ‘sacred’ texts, they were read aloud in whatever manner was traditional for the time and place by whoever could read proficiently. The ability to read satisfactorily in public, far from a universal skill at the time, would have sufficed. In Justin’s time the lectorate was not a permanent clerical office but a simple service to the community. This was destined to change, however. The Apostolic Constitutions (c. 230) transmit a prayer for the ‘appointment’ of a lector. The instructions for so doing are placed in the mouth of ‘Matthew, also Levi, once a tax collector’. The bishop is directed to lay his hand on the candidate, ‘who is being entrusted with the reading of the holy Scriptures to your people’.3 A specific title (ἀναγνώστης) is mentioned in the introduction to the prayer, and it is implied that the lector, typically a young man, may eventually be ‘worthy of a higher rank’ after exercising this office for a sufficient period. The Apostolic Constitutions prescribe that the lector, ‘standing in  1 The reading of the Law and prophets was a standard feature of Jewish gatherings on the Sabbath, as confirmed by the apostle James: the principles by which Jews were obliged to live were ‘read in the synagogues every Sabbath day’ (Acts 15. 21). See Perrot, ‘Lc 4,16–30 et la lecture biblique de l’ancien synagogue’.  2 Justin, Apo­logia prima 1. 67. 3; ed. and trans. by Minns and Parvis, pp. 258–59; trans. by Falls, pp. 106–07; trans. by Sheerin, The Eucharist, p. 35.  3 Apostolic Constitutions 8. 22, ed. and trans. by Metzger, iii, pp. 141–49 and 217–25. The Latin and Greek fragments are in Didascalia apostolorum, ed. by Tidner.

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the middle on a platform’, at a celebration of the Eucharist reads from the historical, sapiential, or prophetical books of the Old Testament. A psalm is sung, after which the readings continue with the Acts of the Apostles and the writings of Paul. The reading of the gospel is reserved to a priest or deacon.4 This assignment was to become the standard practice. Another ancient witness, the Apostolic Tradition, once believed to be the work of the Roman priest Hippolytus (d. 235), has a simpler rite for the appointment of a reader (again ἀναγνώστης): the bishop merely hands him a book, ‘for he does not lay hands on him’.5 The blessing or ‘institution’ of a lector was clearly distinguished in this way from ordination to a sacred order.6 The term ‘ordain’ was not usually employed in the case of a lector, but even when it was (Isidore, Ordo Romanus 35 — see below ‘Blessing of a Roman Lector’), it was not used in the same sense as ordination to the higher clerical orders (diaconate, priesthood, episcopate) for which the laying on of hands was an essential part — even more essential than the anointings later associated with priestly ordination. Commodianus, an author who lived in the middle of the third century, wrote a set of Instructiones, poems on various moral topics, several of which were addressed to members of the clergy. The first letters of the lines of Commodianus’s poems spell out either the subject of the poem or the class of persons addressed. The acrostic of the poem addressed to lectors reads ‘LECTORIBUS’. Commodianus encouraged lectors to be (inter alia) peaceable, sober, and humble. He compared them to ‘flores in plebe’ (flowers among the people) for whom they must be models of the virtuous life.7 A letter of Pope Cornelius (251–253) about the constitution of the Roman clergy, which is preserved in the Historia ecclesiastica of Eusebius, mentions fifty-two ‘exorcists, lectors, and door-keepers’, but how many of each is not made clear.8 These ranks may not necessarily have been permanent, but initial stages in a clerical career, as attested later. Lectors in the early Church (and later) were often boys of tender years. St Augustine (354–430), perhaps to score a rhetorical point (not without a touch of sarcasm), alleged that forged texts purporting to be works of Christ or the Apostles were so obviously bogus that they could be easily spotted and

 4 Apostolic Constitutions 2. 57. 1–2, ed. and trans. by Metzger, i, pp. 310–13.  5 Apostolic Tradition 11; La Tradition Apostolique d’après les anciennes versions, ed. by Botte, pp. 66–67; the passage is translated by Bradshaw, Ordination Rites of the Ancient Churches of East and West, p. 109. For a translation of the complete work, see Bradshaw and others, The Apostolic Tradition, reviewed by Nicolotti, ‘Che cos’è la Traditio apostolica di Ippolito?’.  6 The Council of Laodicaea (320) specifically forbade lectors (and cantors) to wear the stole (orarium), which has always been a priestly vestment (can. 23); Mansi, Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio, ii, p. 579.  7 Commodianus, Instructiones 2. 26, in Commodiani Carmina, ed. by Dombart, pp. 96–97. The ‘ad lectores’ poem is edited in Wieland, Die genetische Entwicklung, p. 99 n. 5.  8 Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica 6. 43. 111, ed. by Lawlor, trans. by Oulton, ii, pp. 118–19.

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ridiculed, even by young lectors ‘adhuc pueriliter in gradu lectorum’. This implies the presence at Hippo and in North Africa generally of a group of young boys authorized to read during public worship.9 The African bishop Victor of Vita (second half of the fifth century) mentions ‘lectores infantuli’ who had suffered during the Vandal invasion of North Africa.10 Paulinus of Nola (c. 355–431) praised St Felix (d. c. 250), a predecessor as bishop of Nola, who ‘primis lector servivit in annis’ (served as lector in his early years).11 Young adults were also appointed lectors.12 Bishop Cyprian of Carthage (d. 258) instituted as a lector a young man, Aurelius, who had confessed the faith at the peril of his life. In a letter to the clergy and people of Carthage, he explained why he made this appointment, predicting that Aurelius, ‘twice confessed and twice glorious’, was deserving of promotion and advancement ‘non de annis suis sed de meritis aestimandus’ (not on the basis of his years but on his merits).13 On the same basis Cyprian appointed another confessor of the faith, again a youthful one, Celerinus, as lector.14 A subsequent letter to the Carthaginian clergy announced the appointment as lector of a certain Saturus, and it suggests that some of them had heard him read at Easter.15 All of Cyprian’s statements assume that the lectorate was a specific rank within the Carthaginian clerical establishment — the initial step in a clerical career, as was the case at Rome. By the early fourth century the specialized office of lector was well established.16 In 303, during the persecution of Diocletian, the Christian community at Cirta (Algeria) was targeted by a local official, Munatus Felix, who confiscated precious vessels and other movable property belonging to

 9 Augustine, De consensu evangelistarum 1. 10, ed. by Weihrich, p. 15. Wunibald Roetzer believed that this remark implied the existence of a Klosterschule (monastery school) for lectors, but Augustine does not affirm this; Die heiligen Augustinus Schriften als liturgie-geschichtliche Quelle, pp. 197–98.  10 Victor of Vita, De persecutione vandalica 3. 5. 9, ed. by Petschenig, p. 89.  11 Paulinus, Carmina 15. 108, ed. by Dolveck; this is paraphrased in Bede’s bio­graphy of the saint in PL, 94:789.  12 Michel Andrieu (Les Ordines Romani, iv, pp. 6–7) lists the epitaphs of Roman lectors, whose ages were inscribed on their tombstones. The youngest was twelve; the oldest, forty-six. The typical lector would have moved up to a higher rank during his clerical career. On such young lectors, see Peterson, ‘Das jugendliche Alter der Lektoren’, pp. 437–42. For a treatment of the office of lector in the liturgy, see Jungmann, Missarum Sollemnia, i, pp. 524–27.  13 Cyprian, Ep. 38. I–II; ed. by Diercks, i, pp. 183–84; trans. by Donna, pp. 97–99. See Deléani, ‘Le clergé dans l’oeuvre de saint Cyprien’.  14 ‘Quid alius quam super pulpitum, id est super tribunal ecclesiae oportebat inponi, ut loci alterioris celsitate subnixus et plebi universae pro honoris sui claritatem conspicuus legat praecepta et evangelium domini quae fortiter ac fideliter sequitur?’ Cyprian, Ep. 39. IV, ed. by Diercks, i, p. 190. Cyprian does not specifically link the honour conferred on Celerinus to readings at Mass (supposing that the Eucharist was, in fact, preceded by readings at this time).  15 Cyprian, Ep. 29; ed. by Diercks, i, pp. 137–38; trans. by Donna, pp. 71–72. Cyprian mentions ordaining the confessor and lector Optatus to the rank of ‘hypodiaconus’.  16 Wieland, Die genetische Entwicklung, pp. 7–114.

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the local church.17 He insisted that he also wanted from the Christians ‘the scriptures of your law’. Bishop Paul explained that they were in the hands of the lectors, who were not present. A ‘very large book’ was eventually produced, but Felix was not satisfied. Two members of the church protested to the official: ‘we have no more [books] because we are subdeacons; the lectors keep the books’. This might incidentally provide evidence for the early existence of the rank of subdeacon in the Western Church, but this report of what happened during Diocletian’s persecution is not contemporary with the events described.

Blessing of a Roman Lector Ordo Romanus 35, entitled ‘Ordo quomodo in sancta romana ecclesia lector ordinatur’, describes how a young boy was appointed a lector at Rome.18 The title of the Ordo applies only to the rite for commissioning a new lector, which has a decidedly Roman ring to it. (This mainly ‘Romano-Gallican ordo’ includes ordination rites for higher orders up to bishop.19) The youthful candidate was already ‘sacris apicibus edoctus atque clericus iam legitima aetate adultus et ad legendum prudenter instructus’ (educated in sacred letters and a clericus, grown to a proper age and well instructed in reading).20 This description indicates that he had already received clerical tonsure, thus making him a member of the clerical estate. Whatever the child’s age, significant training would have been required before he could declaim a text adequately in public.21 This involved not simply reading a given text aloud, but also understanding its structure, so as to be able to apply the cantillation formulae properly. (These will be described in Chapter 4.) A boy could have achieved competence in the requisite skills through tutoring either by a local cleric or, if he came from a family of some financial means, by a professional teacher. There is no evidence that a formal ‘schola lectorum’ existed at Rome. According to Ordo Romanus 35, the boy’s father (or another relative, if his father were deceased) approached the pope (domnus apostolicus) and  17 This is reported verbatim from a preserved record of the event in Dix, The Shape of the Liturgy, pp. 24–27.  18 The unique manu­script (from Besançon) that contains this ordo (BL, MS Add. 15222) is dated c. 1000; Les Ordines Romani, ed. by Andrieu, iv, p. 29.  19 Vogel, Medi­eval Liturgy, p. 167.  20 OR 35. 1; Les Ordines Romani, ed. by Andrieu, iv, p. 33 and pp. 4–11; see also Andrieu, ‘Les ordres mineurs dans l’ancien rite romain’, pp. 260–68 (with epitaphs of clerici); Bradshaw, Rites of Ordination, pp. 47–49 and 136–38 (number of orders). Bradshaw, Ordination Rites of the Ancient Churches, pp. 93–96 and 101–03. See also the analysis of Gibaut, The ‘Cursus Honorum’, pp. 97–100.  21 A Roman council of 465 forbade the ordination of illiterati; as quoted in Lafontaine, Conditions positives, p. 229 and n. 31. Were this not being done, there would be little cause to legislate against it.

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asked that the young candidate be given an opportunity to read in the pope’s presence during the night office or at some other time. The pope promised that, if all went well, he would forthwith appoint the boy a lector.22 Ordo 35 describes how the boy, ‘petita benedictione’ from the pope, performs the reading.23 He then approaches the papal throne and kisses the pope’s feet, after which the pope pronounced a short invocation: ‘Intercedente Petro principem [sic] apostolorum et sancto Paulo, vas [sic] electionis, salvet et protegat et eruditam linguam tribuat tibi dominus’ (Through the intercession of Peter, prince of the Apostles, and of St Paul, the vessel of election, may the Lord save and protect and grant thee a learnèd tongue).24 The new lector would have then returned home with his family. At Rome, lectors were not part of the regional (i.e. papal) clergy, but attached to a particular church (titulus), most likely in the neighbourhood where their families lived. Gregory the Great mentioned a ‘lector s. Mariae’ (in Trastevere?).25 Ordo 35 also supplies a brief prayer for the blessing of a lector as carried out by ‘other bishops’ outside of Rome. This non-Roman blessing is also found in the Gelasian Sacramentary26 and the Missale Francorum.27 A rubric that introduces the formula directs the bishop to place his hand (‘imposita manu’) on the candidate’s head — a more solemn form of commissioning than the simple papal ritual.28 In addition, the Gelasian rite has a long rubric (‘Ordo de sacris ordinibus benedicendis’) which calls for the bishop to hand the new lector a ‘codicem de quo lecturus est’ (book from which he is to read). This is followed by the admonition: ‘Receive [this book] and be a transmitter of the words of God, destined, if faithfully and profitably you discharge the office, to have a share with those who have served the word of God’.29 It might

 22 ‘Veniat et audiamus eum in ecclesia legentem et, si, ita ut asseris, elimate doctus esse dignoscitur, fiat iuxta petitionem tuam’; OR 35. 2; Les Ordines Romani, ed. by Andrieu, iv, p. 33. See also, Les Ordines Romani, ed. by Andrieu, iv, pp. 4–11 on the blessing of a lector.  23 Perhaps adding to the young boy’s anxiety, members of the public were also present: ‘astante populo’; OR 35. 3; Les Ordines Romani, ed. by Andrieu, iv, p. 33.  24 OR 35. 4; Les Ordines Romani, ed. by Andrieu, iv, pp. 33–34. The reference to a ‘learnèd tongue’ may refer to a period when lectors had greater responsibility than just reading a text — perhaps expounding its meaning as well.  25 Gregory I, Epistolae, ed. by Ewald and Hartmann, ii, p. 436 (App. 1).  26 Sacramentarium Gelasianum 1. 98 (no. 751); ed. by Mohlberg, Liber sacramentorum, p. 118. The contents of the ‘Old Gelasian’ Sacramentary (c. 750) are of Roman origin. It was regarded by Antoine Chavasse as reflecting the practice of Roman tituli (parishes) in the mid-seventh century; Le sacramentaire gélasien. Charles Coebergh argued that it represents instead a compilation of authentic Roman materials made by Frankish monks or clerics; ‘Le sacramentaire gélasien ancien’.  27 Missale Francorum 4. 13, ed. by Mohlberg, p. 4. This eighth-century Gallican sacramentary (BAV, MS Reg. lat. 257) incorporates genuine Roman materials.  28 This gesture is specifically excluded from the blessing of a lector by the late fourth-century Apostolic Constitutions: οὐδὲ γὰρ χειροθεῖται, as quoted in Les Ordines Romani, ed. by Andrieu, iv, p. 9.  29 ‘Accipe et esto verba dei relator, habi[ta]turus, si fideliter et utiliter impleveris officium,

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seem from this that Frankish lectors were charged with reading the Scripture (verba dei) at Mass, presumably the epistle. In what follows I will use ‘lector’ in the generic sense of ‘he who reads’, understanding that the office could be filled by a cleric in higher orders: subdeacon or deacon. The privilege of reading the Scriptures at Mass was eventually taken from lectors and transferred to subdeacons (for the epistle) and deacons (for reading the gospel); the changeover seems to have take place quite early.30 Simple lectors still read the biblical and patristic readings of the night office (Matins), and those of the Ember Days, the Easter Vigil, and Pentecost, which latter three precede the beginning of Mass.31 According to the rite of the Romano-Germanic Pontifical the ordination of a subdeacon does not involve the laying on of hands. The new subdeacon receives from the bishop an empty paten and chalice and from the archdeacon a beaker and towel.32 Amalar of Metz remarked that this gesture, unlike the transmittal of a book, does not suggest any link between the subdiaconate and the office he then had of reading the epistle at Mass. In the traditional rite for the ordination of a deacon, on the other hand, the bishop presents the new deacon with the book of the Gospels saying: ‘Accipite potestatem legendi Evangelium in ecclesia Dei, tam pro vivis, quam pro defunctis; in nomine Domini. Amen’ (Receive the power of reading the gospel in the church of God, for the living as for the dead, in the name of the Lord. Amen).33 The reference is, of course to ‘ordinary’ Masses as well as Requiem Masses. The Second Council of Nicaea (787) commented critically on the practice of tonsuring young boys and putting them at a lectern (suggestum) to read, but it did not draw up a specific age for admission to the office of lector.34 The provisions of the canon might have had as much to do with parents’ ambitions for their offspring’s clerical career as it did with the candidate’s ability to carry out the role for which he was being commissioned. Some concern arose that boys of too young an age were being admitted to the clerical state as lectors. Pope Siricius (384–399), writing to Bishop

partem cum his qui verbum dei ministraverunt’; Sacramentarium Gelasianum 1. 95 (744); ed. by Mohlberg, Liber sacramentorum, p. 117.  30 At first, deacons’ roles were essentially administrative and instructional ones; see Vannier, ‘Les diacres d’après Sant Augustin’. Only the bishop, not other priests, laid hands on the deacon at his ordination. An essential reference with extensive biblio­graphy is Romano, ‘The Archdeacon, Power, and Liturgy before 1000’.  31 Amiet, La veillée pascale dans l’église latine, pp. 249–83 (‘Les prophéties bibliques’). On the Ember Days, see Fischer, Die kirchlichen Quatember.  32 Romano-Germanic Pontifical, ed. by Vogel and Elze, i, pp. 22–23.  33 Pontificale Romanum Summorum Pontificum iussu editum et a Benedicto XIV, i, p. 55. Further on diaconal ordination, see Gibaut, The ‘Cursus Honorum’, passim (there is no index). Oddly, Paul F. Bradshaw’s two books on ordination rites (Ordination Rites of the Ancient Churches and Rites of Ordination) have no index entries for deacons, only for deaconesses. A specialized study is Vannier, ‘Les diacres d’après Sant Augustin’.  34 Can. 14; Mansi, Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio, xiii, p. 753.

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Himerius of Tarragona, insisted on appropriate intervals of time between one clerical rank and promotion to the next higher one (the interstices) and what ranks were bound to celibacy.35 Siricius presented his letter as a statement of a universally recognized standard.36 A few years later, Pope Innocent I (401–417) reiterated the teaching of Siricius that a boy could be enrolled as a lector at an early age, but hardly as an infant incapable of giving assent to the decision.37 As a teenager he remained free to leave the clerical state altogether or to marry.38 In another letter Innocent expressed his dismay that individuals whose point of entry was the lectorate were being advanced too rapidly (cito) through the clerical grades.39 Candidates for promotion to any higher rank had to prove themselves by exercising their office worthily. Such a premature ‘imposition of hands’ (in the sense of the conferral of a spiritual office) was something that St Paul had sternly warned against: ‘impose hands hastily on no man’ (i Timothy 5. 22). Innocent’s successor, Pope Zosimus (417–418), reiterated Siricius’s regulations in letters to Bishop Patroclus of Arles (26 September 417) and Bishop Hesychius of Salone (21 February 418).40 Zosimus altered the length of a few of the interstices, permitting a boy to advance from the lectorate to a higher rank at the age of twenty, but he too made provisions for a young man who entered the clergy for the first time in his teens. Such young adults must not be hastily advanced, however, but spend a certain period of time in each grade, exercising the responsibilities of that office: lector or exorcist (five years), acolyte or subdeacon (four years), deacon (five years). An older

 35 Siricius, Ep. 1 (10 February 385); PL, 13:1142–45; Babut, La plus ancienne décrétale. For a recent assessment of the letter, see Ferreiro, ‘Pope Siricius and Himerius of Tarragona’. Of related interest in the same volume is Hornung, ‘Siricius and the Rise of the Papacy’. The relevant passages are quoted in Gibaut, The ‘Cursus Honorum’, pp. 82–85. It was Siricius’s view that his determination ‘ab universis post hac ecclesiis sequendum sit’; for which reason he is sometimes called the ‘first pope’. On his pontificate, see Kelly, The Oxford Dictionary of the Popes, pp. 35–36; Studer, ‘Siricius’, pp. 580–81.  36 Jasper and Fuhrmann, Papal Letters in the Early Middle Ages, pp. 20–22. I have not had access to Viviani i Vives, ‘La Decretal del Papa Sirici a Himeri de Tarragona’. Papal letters answering questions of Church teaching and discipline became one of the foundations of decretals and canon law.  37 Innocent I, Ep. 3 (Ad episcopos synodi Tolosane), 6. 10 (PL, 20:492), as quoted in Lafontaine, Conditions positives, p. 129 n. 16.  38 A council at Hippo (393) required that this choice be made at puberty (can. 18), as quoted in Lafontaine, Conditions positives, p. 131.  39 Innocent I, Ep. 37. 5; PL, 20:604–05; quoted and discussed in Gibaut, The ‘Cursus Honorum’, pp. 86–87.  40 Zosimus, Ep. 7. 2 (PL, 20:668–69) and Ep. 9 (PL, 20:669–73). Both are quoted (in Latin with commentary) in Gibaut, The ‘Cursus Honorum’, pp. 87–91. Canons concerning the office of lector in the African Breviarium Hipponense correspond to the principles enunciated by Siricius and Zosimus; these are edited in Concilia Africae, A. 345–A. 525, ed. by Munier, pp. 33 and 38. The same volume contains the Canones in causa Apiarii; on the office of lector, see pp. 105, 122, and 138–39.

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candidate for the clerical estate would remain a lector, presumably receiving biblical, theo­logical, and canonical instruction, for five years (Siricius had required only two). The lectorate was thus regarded at Rome as a long period of comprehensive initial training and service to the local church. The Romano-Germanic Pontifical includes an ordinatio lectorum.41 After a brief allocutio the bishop hands each new lector a book, encouraging all of them to be ‘verbi dei relatores’. Then follows a bidding prayer (‘Oremus dilectissimi […]’) and a blessing which prays that they be suitable to proclaim the ‘verba vitae’.

The Ideal Lector The principles of good singing and proper elocution are not dissimilar, for the chanting or ‘cantillation’ of a scriptural text is akin to singing. Monks, friars, and members of the secular clergy who belonged to cathedral chapters spent hours a day chanting the psalms of the Office and singing the Ordinary and Proper chants of the Mass. This had to have influenced phonation and hence the vocal mechanism brought into play in cantillation of sacred texts. In De ecclesiasticis officiis Isidore of Seville (c. 560–636) described the duties of a lector and the qualities that were expected in one who exercised that office.42 He traced the origins of the lectorate back to the Old Testament prophets, citing Isaiah’s exhortation: ‘Clama, ne cesses, quasi tuba exalta vocem tuam’ (Cry, cease not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet). In the Spanish (and Gallican) rite for the installation of a lector, which would have been familiar to Isidore, the bishop handed the candidate a ‘codex apicum divinorum’ (codex of the divine letters).43 Candidates had to be ‘doctrina et libris imbutus’. Isidore quotes Quintilian (c. 35–c. 100) to the effect that a lector had to understand the meaning of the text (‘sensuumque ac verborum scientia perornatus’) as well as its grammatical structure, so that ‘in the division of sentences he would know where a junctura is finished, where the sense continues, and where it arrives at a conclusion’.44 This array of skills, supported by specialized punctuation (positurae) and knowledge of the conventional musical formulae linked to these signs, was essential to the accurate cantillation of Scripture at Mass. Isidore attempted to describe in as much detail as he could the qualities of voice that should characterize the ideal lector.

 41 Romano-Germanic Pontifical, ed. by Vogel and Elze, i, pp. 15–17.  42 Isidore, De ecclesiasticis officiis 2. 11 (‘De lectoribus’); ed. by Lawson, pp. 70–71; trans. by Knoebel, pp. 81–83. I have provided my own translation of this chapter in Appendix 1.  43 Statuta ecclesiae antiqua 96; Concilia Galliae, 314–506, ed. by Munier, p. 98.  44 ‘Ut in distinctionibus sententiarum intelligat ubi finatur junctura, ubi adhuc pendet oratio, ubi sententia extrema claudarur’; Quintilian, Institutio oratorica 1. 8. 5 (my translation); Isidore, De ecclesiasticis officiis 2. 11. 2; ed. by Lawson, p. 70; trans. by Knoebel, p. 82. For more on this subject, see Chapter 4 below.

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Porro vox lectoris simplex erit, et clara, et ad omne pronuntiationis genus accommodata, plena succo virili, agrestem, et subrusticum effugiens sonum, non humilis, nec adeo sublimis, non fracta, vel tenera, nihilque femineum sonans, neque cum motu corporis, sed tantummodo cum gravitatis specie. Auribus enim et cordi consulere debet lector, non oculis, ne potius ex seipso spectatores magis quam auditores faciat.45 (The lector’s voice should indeed be simple and clear, and suitable for any kind of delivery [of a text]); [his voice] should be full of masculine vitality, shunning a boorish and coarse sound, neither [too] low- nor yet too high-pitched, not broken or weak and by no means feminine, not with movement of the body but rather with the appearance of gravity. The lector ought to take into account the ears and the heart, not the eyes [of his listeners], lest he make [them] spectators of himself rather than hearers.) In the Etymo­logiae Isidore distinguished among various vocal qualities (not all of them desirable), affirming that the perfecta vox must be ‘high, sweet and clear’, a definition applied by many later writers to their own times, because it was in fact an aesthetic ideal that needed to be upheld. The first quality guarantees secure access to the high register, the second gives pleasure to those listening, and the third assures sufficient volume (‘ut aures impleat’).46 Sadly, he adds that the reader must sometimes strive to be heard over a background of noise (‘ut exaudiri in tumultum possent’). This is something we have seen in Chapter 1. An unforced vocal production, whether from a lector or a singer, is more conducive to clear articulation of vowels and consonants — and hence intelligibility. I think this is what St Ambrose had in mind, when he maintained that Nam quid de voce loquar? Quam simplicem et puram esse satis arbitror; canoram autem esse naturae est, non industriae. Sit satis distincta pronuntiationis modo et plena suci virilis, ut agrestem ac subrusticum fugiat sonum, nam ut rhythmum adfectet scaenicum sed mysticum servet.47  45 Isidore, De ecclesiasticis officiis 2. 11. 5; ed. by Lawson, p. 71; trans. by Knoebel, p. 82. Isidore here echoes Ambrose’s De officiis (1. 19. 84): ‘vox ipse non remissa, non fracta, nihil femineum sonans, […] sed formam quamdam et regulam ac succum virilem reservans; […] sed ut molliculum et intractum aut vocis sonum, aut gestum corporis non probo; itaque neque agrestem ac rusticum’; PL, 16:53; ed. and trans. by Davidson, pp. 166–67. In a lengthy chapter (3. 11) of the Liber officialis, ‘De officio lectoris et cantoris’, Amalar of Metz contrasted one with the other; Lib. off., ed. by Hanssens, pp. 292–99; trans. by Knibbs, ii, pp. 68–85. For a study of Amalar’s allegorical reflections on the office of cantor, see Dyer, ‘The Image of the Cantor in the Writings of Amalar of Metz’.  46 Isidore, Liber Etymo­logiarum 3. 20. 14. In the previous lines Isidore reviewed positive and negative vocal qualities. The entire passage is quoted in Dyer, ‘The Voice in the Middle Ages’, p. 255 n. 6.  47 Ambrose, De officiis 1. 23. 104, ed. and trans. by Davidson, pp. 178–79, and 542 (commentary); the translation is mine. Isidore of Seville borrowed a few phrases in De ecclesiasticis officiis

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(What shall I say of the voice? All that matters, as I see it, is that [the voice] is plain and clear enough; a beautiful tone is a gift of nature, not the result of effort. Let pronunciation be distinct, of course, and full of masculine vitality, so that it might avoid a coarse or uncouth sound. Nor should it strive for a theatrical rhythm but let it serve the mystical.) A short chapter (133) of the Carolingian Institutio canonicorum entitled ‘Quales ad legendum et cantandum in ecclesia constituendi sunt’ (Who are to be assigned [the duties of] reading and singing in the church) concerns itself more with dignified deportment than with clarifying what is required of readers and singers, ‘in actu legendi vel cantandi’. Those assigned to the task of reading or singing should not be eager for ‘vanissimam adulationem’, but strive instead both to flatter (demulceant) the learned and at the same time to instruct the ‘minus doctos’. The Institutio also contains a long chapter entitled ‘De cantoribus’ (137) that holds up high moral ideals for singers, who are admonished to sing ‘cum compunctione cordis’ (with compunction of heart).48 Can expectations for Carolingian lectors have been anything less than those for singers? Something of what is known about the qualities of voice regarded as desirable by the Middle Ages derives from denunciations of improper or extravagant behaviour by singers — hardly an ideal source of information.49 Particularly offensive to monastic authors was anything that smacked of effeminacy. This issue was an especially sensitive one among the Cistercians: ‘men should sing with a virile voice and not stridently (tinnulis) in a feminine way’.50 The English Cistercian abbot Aelred of Rievaulx (1110–1167) famously caricatured the excesses of such miscreants in terms so flamboyant that he is often quoted in modern scholarship.51 Falsetto singing — the height of effeminacy — was frequently in the crosshairs of monastic reformers, but that could hardly have been (or should not be) a common problem with cantillation, for which the lector would have chosen a comfortable (non-falsetto) reciting pitch.52 Were he to do otherwise, the abbot of an observant monastery would surely have

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 50  51  52

2. 11. 5 (‘vox lectoris simplex erit, et clara, et ad omne pronuntiationis genus accom­ modata, plena succo virili, agrestem, et subrusticum effugiens sonum’ (PL, 83:729)). The Chrodegang Rules, ed. and trans. by Bertram, pp. 122–23 and 164–65. The reader must be cautioned that the English translation is far from accurate. A representative sampling may be examined in Dyer, ‘The Voice in the Middle Ages’, passim. See also Müller-Heuser, Vox Humana; and Fuhrmann, Herz und Stimme. Although the authors modestly claim to offer ‘more questions than answers’, an indispensable recent reflection by two eminent performer-scholars is Livljanić and Bagby, ‘The Silence of Medi­ eval Singers’. Statuta Capitulorum Generalium, ed. by Canivez, i, p. 30, as quoted in Waddell, ‘A Plea for the Institutio sancti Bernardi quomodo cantare et psallere debeamus’, p. 199. Aelred of Rievaulx, Speculum caritatis 2. 23; PL, 195:571; trans. by Webb and Walker, pp. 72–74 (‘The Pleasures of Hearing’). For many references to this topic, see Ravens, The Supernatural Voice.

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intervened. The cantillation formulae offered little room for extravagant display. They were, moreover, entrusted to ordinary monks or clergy, not to highly skilled singers, who might be tempted to ‘show off ’. Describing the sound of a voice, or even a category of voices, is an enterprise that is doomed to failure. Nevertheless, I would offer a few reflections on the ‘medi­eval voice’, well aware that even this phrase is not univocal. It must have been more narrowly focused, generally softer and more flexible than the large, vibrato-rich voices of today’s opera singers, expected to fill large auditoriums without amplification.53 While some people have naturally more resonant voices than others, exceptional vocal resonance and power became a universal desideratum only towards the last half of the nineteenth century. The musical demands of the operas of Wagner and Verdi were decisive in this regard. In an essay on ‘pre-Romantic’ singing techniques Richard Wistrich concluded that ‘singers [of that period] worked at achieving consistency of pure unmodified vowels in all parts of the range and above all of singing without any hint of force or pressure’.54 Though Wistrich here describes early modern (seventeenth–eighteenth century) instruction aimed at preparation for a professional singing career, his comments might apply mutatis mutandis to much earlier singing (and chanting) techniques. Anyone familiar with the history of recorded sound is aware of how much ideals of vocal beauty have changed since the late nineteenth century, even given the limitations of the acoustic method of sound recording. Singers whose voices have been preserved on wax cylinders and the earliest shellac discs were trained in the last third of the nineteenth century. Despite the limitations of the acoustic recording process — all that was available until 1925 — the very different vocal culture of the days of ‘bel canto’ is unmistakable. French baritones and basses heard on the early acoustic recordings sound very different from their modern, large-voiced counterparts.55 Some singers were treated more kindly by the acoustic recording horn than others, especially Enrico Caruso (d. 1921), who happened to have a voice ideally suited to the medium. Of course, the qualities of medi­eval voices — there must have been more than one type — will forever remain beyond our ken. Whether or not we would appreciate them is a matter that will forever remain unresolved.

 53 Distortion of vowels is often a consequent.  54 Wistrich, ‘Reconstructing the Pre-Romantic Singing Technique’, pp. 178–91 (role of the larynx). Although focused on a matter of translation, I have found useful the reflections in Haines, ‘Lambertus’s Epiglotus’, pp. 159–63.  55 As I write these lines (6 September 2020), I am listening to a performance of Verdi’s Aïda (2019). Both Ramfis and the King have the large, unfocused, and vibrato-rich voices favoured by modern audiences.

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Figure 3.1. Capitulare Evangeliorum, Paris, BnF, MS lat. 266, fol. 208, St Martin of Tours, 849–851 (used with permission).

Chapter 3

Reading, Writing, and Punctuating the Word Books for the Readings For centuries, books of the Bible were copied and circulated as single books, for example, a Psalter (most common), or as groups of related texts: prophets, sapiential books, Gospels, or epistles with Revelation.1 Single volumes containing all of the canonical books of the Old and New Testaments (known as ‘pandects’) began to appear in the ninth century and were not uncommon by the thirteenth.2 A Bible complete in one volume would have been rather unwieldy to be used for the readings at Mass. More frequently used was a book containing the text of all four Gospels. Such volumes, often sumptuously decorated, were not always intended specifically for liturgical use, though that might often have figured in their creation. They served as exquisite repositories for the Word of God in a format that accorded it all possible honour. Comparable books with the Pauline and ‘catholic’ epistles (i.e. those not addressed to any specific church) were also available, but fewer survive. What is possibly the oldest surviving book of the Latin liturgy is a lectionary, the manu­script Wolfenbüttel, Herzog-August Bibliothek, codex 4160 (Weissenburgensis 76; c. 500). Preserved now only as a palimpsest fragment, it was originally a gospel lectionary with the full texts of the three (Old Testament, epistle, gospel) assigned readings (called ‘pericopes’) for each Mass in liturgical order.3 This initiative of a specialized liturgical book was not immediately taken up. Rather, various methods were devised to enable the reader at Mass (subdeacon for the epistle and deacon for the gospel) to identify the scriptural excerpt prescribed for the day in a complete text of the Gospels or epistles.4 The evidence for these developments is so fragmentary and spread over so wide a geo­graphical area and span of time that few exact conclusions can be drawn.

 1 A well-illustrated survey (with extensive biblio­graphy) is De Hamel, The Book. More specialized is Van Liere, An Introduction to the Medi­eval Bible, pp. 80–109 (‘The Text of the Medi­eval Bible’) and 208–36 (‘The Bible in Worship and Preaching’); also on the liturgical use of the Bible, see Dyer, ‘The Bible and the Medi­eval Liturgy (ca. 600–1300)’.  2 Ganz, ‘Carolingian Bibles’; Light, ‘The Thirteenth Century and the Paris Bible’.  3 The uniqueness of the source has elicited considerable scholarly interest. I mention only Dold, Das älteste Liturgiebuch der lateinischen Kirche; and Carmassi, ‘Das Lektionar Cod. Guelf. 76 Weiss.’.  4 A specialized study is Martimort, Les lectures liturgiques et leurs livres, pp. 21–43. The topic is also covered in broader surveys: Vogel, Medi­eval Liturgy, pp. 314–55 (pp. 339–55; ‘Roman Lectionaries’); Palazzo, A History of Liturgical Books, pp. 83–105; Folsom, ‘Liturgical Books of the Roman Rite’, pp. 255–57; Chavasse, ‘Évangéliaire, épistolier, antiphonaire et sacramentaire’; Dyer, ‘Liturgy and Liturgical Books’. Also very useful is the survey of Vezin, ‘I libri dei salmi e dei vangeli durante l’alto medioevo’.

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Capitulare evangeliorum and comes

The Gospel narrative is a text that lends itself to division without interruption of narrative continuity. Based on this principle, a reference system was created by Eusebius of Caesarea (c. 264/65–c. 339/40), who divided the text of the four Gospels into relatively short units and devised a system that facilitated the identification of parallel passages, mainly among the three ‘synoptic’ Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke) that record many of the same episodes in Jesus’s life. Eusebius assigned numbers seriatim to text units in each of the four Gospels: 355 in Matthew, 233 in Mark, 342 in Luke, and 232 in John.5 The numbers were usually presented in ten tables according to whether a given passage was found in four, three, two, or only one of the evangelists. In many Bibles the Eusebian ‘canon tables’ were enclosed in decorative arcades separated by columns that aligned parallel readings by number. Corresponding numbers were inscribed in the margins of the texts of the Gospels (see Figure 3.2, below). These ‘Eusebian sections’ were the earliest ‘finder’s guides’ to the Scripture readings prescribed to be chanted at Mass. There was no comparable system to assist in locating epistle readings in the texts of the letters of Paul (or in Acts or Revelation).6 Two Roman lists of readings from the early and mid-seventh century, respectively, one for the epistles or Old Testament (comes lectionum) and the other for the gospels (capitulare evangeliorum), transmit lists for the temporal and sanctoral cycles of readings at Mass. Though both are bound together in a Wolffenbüttel manu­script, they are independent sources.7 The typical format of entries for the gospel pericopes in the capitulare evangeliorum runs as follows: (1) the name of the Sunday, Lenten weekday, or saint’s feast; (2) the number of the Eusebian section in Roman numerals; (3) the incipit and explicit of the reading. For example, the entry for the Major Litanies (25 April) reads: ‘sec. Luc. cap. CXXIIII. Dixit Iesus discipulis suis: quis vestrum habet amicum usq. quanto magis pater vester de caelo dabit spiritum bonum petentibus’.8 The ‘usq[ue]’ (until) links the conventional beginning of the passage (‘Dixit Iesus discipulis’) with its end. The deacon-lector would seek the passage in a book with the full text of the Gospel according to Luke. Some books (mainly Gospels) were adapted for liturgical use by inserting ‘cues’ in the margins. Such notes might be as simple as ‘in adventu’ at the beginning

 5 Cassiodorus devised a similar system, but the sections were much fewer, and hence larger.  6 Martimort, Les lectures liturgiques et leurs livres, pp. 27–28.  7 For the epistle list (Würzburg, Universitätsbibl., cod. M. p. th. f. 62, fols 2v–10v), see Morin, ‘Le plus ancien comes ou lectionnaire de l’Église romaine’; for the gospels (Würzburg, Universitätsbibl., cod. M. p. th. f. 62, fols 10v–16v); see Morin, ‘Liturgie et basiliques de Rome au milieu du viie siècle d’après les listes d’Évangiles de Würzburg’; also Martimort, Les lectures liturgiques et leurs livres, pp. 26–32; Vogel, Medi­eval Liturgy, pp. 314–18.  8 Klauser, Das römische Capitulare evangeliorum, p. 25.

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point followed by a ‘finis’ mark or a cross further along.9 These notations are of only limited help, since the biblical order is not the liturgical order in which the Scriptures are read. Figure 3.1 is a page from a capitulare evangeliorum that follows the full text of the Gospels in the ‘Gospels of Lothair’ (Paris, BnF, MS lat. 266, St Martin of Tours, 849–851). It begins with the first Mass of Christmas, rubricked ‘de nocte’. The folio reproduced as Figure 3.1 gives ‘cues’ to the readings from that date until the Epiphany (‘In theofania secundum Mattheum’) at the bottom of column 2. Each entry is set off by a capital in red. The first entry directs the deacon to the Gospel of Luke: the passage beginning ‘Exiit edictum a Caesare Augusto’, which extends to (‘usque’) ‘pax hominibus bonae voluntatis’ (2. 1b–14). The second and several subsequent Masses identify the Roman stational church of the day, if there is one.10 For the second Mass of Christmas this is Sant’Anastasia (col. 1, line 7); for the third Mass, St Peter’s (col. 1, line 11).11 The Octave (‘octaba’) of Christmas, 1 January, is entered in column 2 (lines 9–14). The stational church is S. Maria ad martyres (the former Pantheon). The reading (Luke 2. 21–32) includes the entire Presentation narrative, not just the circumcision and naming of the child Jesus as was later the case. During Mass the deacon would have used the Gospels that precede this capitulare in the Tours manu­script. Theodor Klauser identified 140 surviving capitularia evangeliorum from the ninth century, 96 from the tenth, and 101 from the eleventh.12 A list of readings in a manu­script from the abbey of Murbach (Besançon, Bibl. munic., MS 184, fols 57–73) blends epistle and gospel capitula in a single series.13 Apparently, the Eusebian sections directing the lector (subdeacon or deacon) to the appropriate scriptural pericope in a biblical codex proved to be a reasonably efficient solution. It did not require the creation — at considerable expense — of a bespoke book, which would have replicated material in biblical manu­scripts already at hand.

 9 For examples, see Morin, ‘Les notes liturgiques de l’Évangéliaire de Burchard’, and De Bruyne, ‘Les notes liturgiques du manuscrit 134 de la cathédrale de Trèves’. The first source is Roman; the second, Gallican.  10 The pope did not always celebrate Mass on important feasts at his ‘cathedral’, St John Lateran, but at various churches (‘stations’) across the city of Rome, on which see Baldovin, The Urban Character of Christian Worship.  11 This was later transferred to S. Maria Maggiore, site of the first Mass.  12 For a selective list, see Martimort, Les lectures liturgiques et leurs livres, pp. 28–31. The list of the readings in the celebrated ‘Gospels of St Cuthbert’ (London, BL, MS Cotton Nero D IV; seventh century) follows the order of the Gospels, not the liturgical calendar.  13 Edited in Wilmart, ‘Le Comes de Murbach’.

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Epistolaries and Evangeliaries

Lists of readings were gradually supplanted by single-purpose books — the epistolary and the evangeliary — with pericopes fully written out in the order of the liturgical year (Temporale) and for the feasts of the saints (Sanctorale).14 Epistolaries were less elaborate productions, but there were exceptions. The Liber pontificalis reports that, because the ornate cover of the epistolary used at papal stational Masses had been stolen, Pope Benedict III (855–858) ordered the preparation of a new binding adorned with ‘mireque operationis tabulis argenteis’ (silver panels of marvellous workmanship).15 The subdeacon usually held the epistolary in his own hands, but if it were of considerable weight, as this description implies, he may have needed the assistance of an acolyte to hold the book. Evangeliaries, like books of the Gospels, were treated with great reverence because they represented the presence of Christ, the Word of God, in his Church.16 They were frequently items of great value, copied with special care, with illuminated capitals, sometimes full-page illuminations, and finely bound in leather with inlaid silver, ivory, and semi-precious stones.17 Gleaming in the light of many lamps and candles, and seen through a cloud of incense, such a book must have evoked wonderment in people who may have rarely even seen a book outside of Mass. The Gospel book used in the papal liturgy was so precious an artefact that, after the gospel had been chanted by the deacon, it was immediately placed in a protective box (capsa) and returned to the safety of the Lateran palace.18 Some idea of its splendid appearance may be gathered by the description in the Liber pontificalis of the book of Gospels donated to St Peter’s by Pope Leo III (795–816). The book was ‘adorned all around with emeralds (gemmis prasinis), jacinths, and pearls of wondrous size, weighing seventeen [Roman] pounds, four ounces’.19 The ‘hearer’ would be impressed even before the ‘reader’ had opened the book to cantillate the text.  14 For a selection of ‘lectionnaires proprement dits’, see Martimort, Les lectures liturgiques et leurs livres, pp. 33–37.  15 LP ii:147 (n. 32); trans. by Davis, The Lives of the Ninth-Century Popes, p. 185.  16 On the many contexts in which the book of the Gospels was honoured, see Gussone, ‘Der Codex auf dem Thron’. Gussone provides an extensive description of the gospel reading at Mass from Ordines Romani 1, 5, and 10.  17 For numerous colour images of historic bindings and photo­graphs of the ceremonies surrounding the chanting of the gospel in the papal liturgy, see Ascaro and others, L’Evangeliario nella storia e nella liturgia.  18 OR 1. 65; Les Ordines Romani, ed. by Andrieu, ii, pp. 89–90; ed. and trans. by Romano, Liturgy and Society in Early Medi­eval Rome, p. 239; ‘Ordo Romanus Primus’, ed. and trans. by Griffiths, p. 44. The short recension (MS G) says only ‘ad locum suum’, but in a Roman document the Lateran would have been obvious. Griffiths translates the shorter version, Romano the longer (in which the Lateran is specified).  19 ‘Hic fecit beato Petro apostolo fautori suo evangelia aurea cum gemmis prasinis, atque iacinctinis et albis mire magnitudunis in circuitu ornata, pens. lib. xvii et uncias iiii’; LP ii:15; trans. by Davis, The Lives of the Eighth-Century Popes, p. 204 (alt.).

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The Written Word What kind of text did ‘readers’ (lectors, subdeacons, and deacons) have in front of them as they rose to chant the epistle or gospel at Mass? Not every script or page layout would be equally optimal for cantillating a liturgical text in public. ‘Hearers’ depended very much on ‘readers’, since they had no recourse to ‘instant replay’. If the meaning of an orally presented text was not clear, all was lost. Equal spacing between words, so important to our comprehension of a text, was rare in early medi­eval writing systems. The range of layout options available in a written text ranged from (1) scriptio continua, (2) division per cola et commata, or (3) ‘aerated’ scripts that grouped some related words together and inserted spaces between the groups, to (4) equal spacing between all (or almost all) words.20 The line between scriptio continua (no breaks between words) and ‘aerated’ texts can at times be blurred, but equal spacing, the system on which we are dependent, was not the norm. Scriptio continua

In ancient Greece and Rome texts were inscribed as an uninterrupted stream of letters, hence scriptio continua. Words might be set apart by small points, some added by owners of a scroll, the format in which texts were copied.21 Such marks can still be seen on ancient inscriptions: a familiar example is carved on the lintel of the porch of the Pantheon: M·AGRIPPA·L·F·COS·TERTIUM·FECIT (Marcus Agrippa, son of Lucius, built this in [his] third consulship.)22 Without points of separation between the words the appearance of a text written in scriptio continua was that of a solid block of letters — a ‘neutral text’ as it was called by Malcolm B. Parkes.23 William Johnson called it ‘a radically unencumbered stream of letters; […] the net effect is designed for clarity and beauty, but not for ease of use’.24 He cautioned, however, against concluding too hastily that for ancient and early medi­eval readers scriptio continua ‘with its lack of word spaces and punctuation [was] spectacularly, even bewilderingly, impractical and inefficient as a reading tool’.25 If such had been the case, he asks, why would the system have persisted for so many centuries? Eye and brain must have coordinated in the reading of such a text  20 Various mise-en-page systems can be studied in the plates published by Parkes, Pause and Effect.  21 Strictly speaking, these insertions are merely word separators, not punctuation.  22 Lansford, The Latin Inscriptions of Rome, pp. 374–75.  23 Parkes, Pause and Effect, p. 11.  24 Johnson, Readers and Reading in the High Roman Empire, p. 20. The introductory chapter (‘Pragmatics of Reading’) is an important consideration of the topic.  25 Johnson, Readers and Reading in the High Roman Empire, p. 22.

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in a manner that we cannot comprehend — and probably never will, given the impossibility of recruiting a ‘control group’ of people who have known only scriptio continua from birth. The lector who had a text written in scriptio continua in front of him or her had to contend not only with the absence of word separation but also with not being able to foresee where sense divisions, larger or smaller, would occur.26 Making these evident to the hearer is absolutely essential for comprehension of a text. A simple monotone will not do. A further challenge to reading and chanting scriptio continua was the Latin language’s dependence on inflection, not word order: words that belong together are not necessarily placed contiguously. Readers may have been helped in certain kinds of texts if the sense endings used the metric or rhythmic cursus. At the very least, a scriptural passage cantillated from a page written in scriptio continua would have to be delivered far more slowly than would be the case of a page with equally spaced words. Perhaps that was not a bad thing. Figure 3.2 is a leaf of a Gospel book in two-column format, possibly from Salzburg, copied between 831 and 836. It modifies the scriptio continua text block by setting the first letter of each verse outside the margin — a format conceivably dictated by the two-column format.27 The text is Matthew 3. 10b–17a. The first four lines read: ‘que non facit / fructum bonum / excidetur et in / ignem mittetur’, a text division that does not correspond very well to sense units. The end of each verse is marked by a colon. Some words are separated by points, which in some cases also divide the sense; some longer words are split between lines, for example, ‘calcia-menta’ (col. 1, lines 12–13) and ‘baptiza-bit’ (col. 1, lines 14–15). As befitting a nomen sacrum, Jesus (abbreviated IHS) is written in gold.28 Though it seems as if the aim of the scribe was g­ raphic elegance, a well-prepared lector might not have had undue trouble cantillating this text, even though places where melodic inflections or minor pauses within a sentence might be inserted are not indicated. Per cola et commata

St Jerome promoted a writing system that divided the text ­graphically ‘per cola et commata’. This laid out complete thoughts in subordinate sense units, generally two or three, readily perceptible to the eye by their alignment on the page. (Visually, it resembles the modern ‘hanging indent’.) The first unit of text (comma) was aligned with the left margin; successive commata were indented slightly to the right. The whole constituted a colon (pl. cola).  26 On the history of word separation, I am indebted to the observations of Saenger, Space between Words, pp. 1–17. A preparatory study was published as Saenger, ‘Silent Reading’. See also his ‘Coupure et séparation des mots’.  27 Note the references to the Eusebian sections on the margins of each column.  28 It occurs at the bottom of column 1 and at line 12 of the second column. Note also the same treatment of ‘d[e]i’ on the fifth line from the bottom of that column.

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Figure 3.2. Book of Gospels, Paris, BnF, MS lat. 8849, fol. 23; Salzburg, between 831 and 836 (used with permission).

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Figure 3.3. St Cuthbert Gospel, BL, MS Add. 89000, fol. 23, Wearmouth-Jarrow, between 810 and 830, written per cola et commata (used with permission).

Jerome explained the rationale for this arrangement in the preface to his translation of the book of Ezekiel.29 The purpose was not only that such a system ‘manifestiorem legentibus sensum tribuit’ (makes the sense clearer for readers), but also eliminates the possibility that a faulty division of words or phrases might inadvertently engender confusion, if not theo­logical error.30 The cola et commata arrangement was not exactly a system of punctuation, but it admirably clarified the structure of the text. How the cantillation formulae might have been used in conjunction with this layout was not addressed by medi­eval authors, since the cola et commata system had fallen out of use by the later Middle Ages, when the first guides to cantillation were written. Figure 3.3 is a brief section from the ‘St Cuthbert’ Gospel book (early eighth century), which contains the text of the Gospel of John only. The oldest European book with its original binding, it was discovered in the saint’s coffin when it was opened in 1104. The text is laid out generally per cola et commata,  29 Praefatio in librum Ezechielis, in Biblia Sacra (ed. maior), xv, p. 6; Biblia Sacra (ed. minor), ii, p. 1266. Cf. the preface to Isaiah (PL, 28:771); Biblia Sacra (ed. maior), xiii, p. 3; Biblia Sacra (ed. minor), ii, p. 1096. Jerome gave credit for the system to Demosthenes and Cicero. A modern edition of the New Testament with the text arranged per cola et commata is Novum Testamentum, ed. by Wordsworth and White. The same is true of the more generally available Stuttgart edition mentioned above.  30 The Roman orator Quintilian (c. 35–c. 100), following Cicero, spoke of divisions by cola, commata, and periodus in terms of verbal content and length of discourse, but also with respect to completeness of the sense. For example: ‘a colon […] is the expression of a thought which is rhythmically complete, but is meaningless if detached from the whole body of the sentence’; Institutio oratoria 9. 4. 121–30, ed. and trans. by Russell, iv, pp. 228–33.

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but the narrow column width limits absolute regularity.31 For example, it would have been preferable from the point of sense continuity to join ‘mare’ with ‘Galilaeae’ (lines 1 and 2). The text is not punctuated, but can be easily read without it. The passage demonstrates how insular scribes employed equal separation of words at this early period; ‘inmontem’ (line 8) is an exception, but a preposition + noun grouping was common — and not entirely illogical. The cola et commata layout certainly looked elegant on the page and facilitated reading, but it was not a particularly efficient use of precious parchment. Word Separation: ‘Aerated’ Script

The introduction of systematic or quasi-systematic word separation proceeded neither quickly nor uniformly in the medi­eval West.32 Not every word in a text was separated from its neighbour by an equal amount of space, as is the case on the page you are now reading. Peter Saenger, who devoted considerable research to the placement of spaces between words, distinguished among several levels of word separation, all of which shared the commonality of being what he called ‘aerated script’. Related words (e.g. preposition + noun) are often joined (‘clumped’) together, as in Figure 3.3 (line 8: inmontem), or a noun might be attached to a following monosyllable as an enclitic. Words were generally clumped in blocks of fifteen to twenty-five letters separated by larger or smaller spaces.33 Saenger cautioned, however, that ‘the inserted space delimits units that do not necessarily correspond to either units of meaning or rhetorical pauses’.34 Scribes could all too easily ‘clump’ together letters or words which do not syntactically belong together.35 (For example, were this sentence to be written in aerated script, it might look something like: ‘Scribes could alltooeasily clumptogether lettersorwords whichdonot syntactically belongtogether’.) Of course, if this sentence were read aloud, a listener might have no difficulty in understanding it, but would the reader be able so easily to make sense of more complex sentences? Moving slowly over the page, the eye had sometimes to double back, a process called ‘ocular regression’ or ‘saccade’, in order to confirm which letters were to be joined and which to be separated.36 (You may have had to do this, dear reader, as you read the sample aerated sentence in the previous  31 I have not reviewed the entire manu­script to confirm how thoroughly the per cola et commata arrangement is carried out.  32 Credit for introducing it goes to insular scribes. Parkes, ‘The Contribution of Insular Scribes’.  33 Bischoff, ‘Die Hofbibliothek Karls des Grossen’.  34 Saenger, Space between Words, pp. 32 and 18–51 (‘The Nomenclature of Word Separation’). Saenger’s conclusions that ‘spaces are necessary for fluent reading without subvocalisation [i.e. reading aloud]’ have been widely challenged; see ‘Reading Silently and Out Loud in Antiquity’, at [accessed 27 December 2018].  35 German is a language notable for ‘clumping’ words (e.g. Kontaktpersonennachverfolgung), but the process is not haphazard.  36 A saccade is defined as ‘quick, simultaneous movements of both eyes between two or more

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para­graph!) In such situations the eyes engaged in ‘the process of adapting the rate of information intake […] to the rate of cognitive procession’.37 The more familiar the text (the New Testament being the most familiar) the easier it would have been to cantillate the text.38 Even this degree of ‘aerated’ word separation, however imperfect it might seem, represented a significant step forward opening the way to the possibility of inserting punctuation in a text, a necessary precondition for indicating optimally how a scriptural text should be cantillated. Figure 3.4, a Gospel book of the ninth century written probably at Marmoutier Abbey (Tours), offers several examples of aerated script and word clumping: ‘Utaccusaretillum’ (line 3; ut accusaret illum), ‘supercaecitatemcordis’ (line 7; super caecitatem cordis), ‘admare’ (line 12; ad mare), ‘Itautirruerunt’ (line 18; Ita ut irruerunt). Line 11 (beginning ‘filium’) is an uninterrupted string of letters reminiscent of scriptio continua and not easy to decipher at first glance. There are, nevertheless, clear breaks between sentences. (The punctuation of the passage will be discussed below.) Aerated script was an improvement over scriptio continua, to be sure, but it might not have been optimal for a lector charged with the public cantillation of a liturgical text, in which sense units had to be clearly conveyed. In his Instituto oratoria Quintilian described a reading process applicable to aerated script (though he did not have this in mind): ‘one has to speak out what precedes even while keeping the eyes on what follows after. The result is that the voice is busy with one thing while the eyes are busy with another’.39 A better description of the process cannot be imagined. A proficient sight reader of music will appreciate Quintilian’s observations about how this works. While playing one measure, the performer must look ahead to the next one (or two) measures, assessing (dependent on the style or period) its harmonic structure and figuration, anticipating any shifts in rhythm or the introduction of accidentals.40 Whether a single melodic line or an entire complex (piano on two staves or organ on three) is involved makes some difference, but the visual and mental processes involved are the same.

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phases of fixation in the same direction’ (Wikipedia). English uses word clumping to a small degree: e.g. apropos, inasmuch as, etc. O’Regan, ‘Moment to Moment Control of Eye Saccades’, p. 49; note the examples on p. 52. Evelyn Wood, the high priestess of ‘speed reading’, now revealed as a scam, was unwilling to allow a speech professor at the University of Florida to photo­graph her prize students’ eye movements and test them for comprehension; Biedermann, Scan Artist. The Mass readings were on a one-year cycle. ‘Quoniam sequentia intuenti priora dicenda sunt et, quod difficillimum est, dividenda a intentio animi, ut aliud voce aliud oculis agatur’; Quintilian, Institutio oratoria 1. 1. 34, ed. and trans. by Russell, i, pp. 80–81. I follow the translation of Johnson, Readers and Reading in the High Roman Empire, p. 29. Admittedly, Quintilian might have been thinking of scriptio continua. Bar lines (conventional since the seventeenth century) break up the musical flow into ‘words’ of two or more beats.

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Figure 3.4. Gospel book, Basel, Universitätsbibl., MS B II 11, p. 115, probably from Marmoutier (Tours), ninth century (used with permission).

Excursus: The Earliest Mass Antiphoners

The earliest Mass antiphoners (without notation), published by René-Jean Hesbert as Antiphonale Missarum Sextuplex, are typical products of the late eighth and ninth centuries, inasmuch as they do not have consistent word separation.41 Were any of these manu­scripts intended to receive musical notation, the text layout would have had to be carefully planned in coordination  41 Antiphonale Missarum Sextuplex, ed. by Hesbert. A new edition with an expanded number of sources is being prepared by Daniel DiCenso for publication by the Henry Bradshaw Society.

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with the cantor or music scribe. Some syllables are sung to a single note; others receive melismas of more than a dozen notes, for which space must be allowed.42 None of these books present this layout. The cantatorium of Monza (a book of Mass chants for the solo cantor) is written in scriptio continua, as are the graduals of Corbie and Senlis (the latter containing only the incipits of the Mass chants). The text of the Rheinau and Mont-Blandin graduals is arranged in word blocks. The Compiègne manu­script seems similar to these, but in many places it comes close to scriptio continua. Such observations raise the question about the practical use of these books. Did the cantor have them in front of him as he sang and directed the other singers? One cannot imagine it would be of much practical help — and even confusing. More likely, they were, as many believe, repositories that reminded cantors of the texts required by the Mass liturgy of the day. They might never have been consulted during the singing of the prescribed chants.43 The scribes of the Sextuplex manu­scripts seem to have been utterly oblivious to the existence of musical notation — an argument against its existence at the time.44 They were evidently books of reference.

Punctuating the Word In a modern printed text punctuation reflects modern notions about where it should be inserted — mainly to set off syntactical elements (e.g. subordinate clauses). Not all modern languages agree on this point. German generally uses more than English, and English readers would expect commas in places where there are none in Swedish. In English there is generally a certain latitude with respect to personal choice. The purpose of medi­eval punctuation was not, however, to set off syntactical units, as modern punctuation does, but to separate units of sense — an important distinction when considering the oral delivery of a text.45 Malcolm Parkes estimated that liturgical texts (prayers, blessings, readings) have more punctuation than the norm.46

 42 For an example of what happens when this condition is absent, see the antiphoner León, Archivo de la Catedral, MS 8, which has been published in facsimile: Antifonario Visigotico Mozarabe de la Catedral de León.  43 I am not aware that this aspect of these unique sources, the earliest for the chant repertoire of the Mass, has been studied.  44 These observations do not lend much support to Kenneth Levy’s hypothesis of a neumed ‘archetype’ of the Proper chants of the Mass at this time: ‘Charlemagne’s Archetype of Gregorian Chant’. The matter has been thoroughly reviewed by Hornby, ‘The Transmission of Western Chant in the 8th and 9th Centuries’.  45 For general surveys, see Parkes, Pause and Effect; Parkes, ‘Punctuation and the Medi­eval History of Texts’; and Geymont, ‘Antichità greca e latina, cultura bizantina e latinità medi­ evale’, pp. 49–62. Punctuation and cantillation are covered in Dahan, ‘La ponctuation de la Bible au xiie et xiie siècles’, pp. 35–40.  46 Parkes, Pause and Effect, p. 35. The author here demonstrates ‘The Requirements of Public

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This is only what might be expected to guarantee the worthy public delivery of such texts. When a text is spoken aloud, the listener hears an uninterrupted stream of vowels and consonants — a kind of locutio continua, which the hearer must divide into syllables and words. A beginning-to-intermediate language learner will appreciate the problem: competence in reading does not translate into ready comprehension of the spoken language. In addition to being able mentally to separate sounds into syllables, something else is required to assist the hearer. He or she must be able to ascertain when a statement is incomplete, to what degree it is incomplete, and what is required in order to complete the thought. The text needs to be delivered in sense units, the flow of words not interrupted merely for the convenience of taking a breath. The importance of pauses — longer or shorter — in the right place, of course, should not be underestimated. They indicate hierarchical levels of separation. As Jan Ziolkowski aptly observed, ‘pauses were what mattered most in joining words into phrases and sentences’ and — one might add — separating one thought from another.47 This point is as true in normal speech as it is of a cantillated text. Distinctiones and positurae

Isidore of Seville promoted the ancient tradition of distinctiones (called positurae after the position of the signs used to indicate these ‘distinctions’) following the principles laid down by the fourth-century grammarians Diomedes and Donatus. Diomedes treated the two terms, distinctio and positura, as equivalents: ‘lectioni posituras accedere vel distinctiones oportet’ (it is necessary to add to the reading positurae (θέσεις) or distinctiones).48 He identified three signs: distinctio, subdistinctio, and media distinctio (for which he also supplied the Greek names). Strictly speaking, however, there were not three individual signs, but only one sign, a simple point (punctus = στιγμή), which had a different function depending on its placement, high, mid-level, or low (‘diversitas tribus punctis diverso loco positis indicatur’). The placement defined the level of separation: (1) high ‘when it concludes the meaning’ (cum sensum terminat), (2) mid-level, ‘which offers the reader an opportunity to breathe’ (cum respirandi spatium legenti dat), and (3) low, which signals a slight interruption. Donatus gives much the same description, listing the punctus in the order: high, low, mid-level.49

Worship’ (pp. 35–40).  47 Ziolkowski, Nota Bene, p. 87.  48 Diomedes, Ars grammatica 2 (‘De posituris’), ed. by Keil, i, p. 437. Diomedes also uses the term ‘nota’ for punctuation signs. For a succinct explanation of the distinctiones, see Brignoli, ‘L’interpunzione latina’, pp. 162–67.  49 Donatus, Ars grammatica 1. 6 (‘De posituris’), ed. by Holtz, p. 612.

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Isidore of Seville defined a positura as ‘a figure for distinguishing the sense through cola and commata and periods, which, provided that it is placed in its order, reveals to us the sense of the reading’, thus acknowledging the parallel syntactical function of the two systems: per cola et commata and positurae.50 Even earlier, Cassiodorus (c. 485–c. 580) recommended the use of these ‘positurae, which the Greeks call thesis’ (positurae, quod Greci thesis vocant) on the grounds that they ‘make the composition plain and clear; without them we could not read anything competently nor succeed in making it understood’ (quoniam illustrem et planissimam faciunt orationem; sine quibus neque legere quidquam competenter neque intelligere praevaleamus). Cassiodorus described them as ‘certain paths of meanings and lanterns to words’ (quaedam viae sensuum et lumina dictionum).51 In promoting this system Isidore had in mind both facilitating intelligibility for the reader and ensuring maximum clarity for the hearer.52 Inconsistency of word separation (aerated script) could, admittedly, hinder attainment of this goal, but this is not treated by either author. The table below displays the fundamentals of the system of positurae presented by Isidore in Book i of the Etymo­logiae.53 Column 1 relates the  50 Isidore, Liber Etymo­logiarum 1. 20 (‘De posituris’), ed. by Lindsay. The music theorist Johannes Afflighemensis compared the three distinctiones and their syntactical force to three kinds of chant cadences: ‘Vel certe toni dicuntur ad similitudinem tonorum, quos Donatus distinctiones vocat; sicut enim in prosa tres considerantur distinctiones, quae et pausationes appellari possunt, scilicet colon id est membrum, comma incisio, periodus clausura sive circuitus, ita et in cantu. In prosa quippe quando suspensive legitur, colon vocatur; quando per legitimum punctum sententia dividitur, comma, quando ad finem sententia deducitur, periodus est. […] Similiter cum cantus in quarta vel quinta a finali voce per suspensionem pausat, colon est; cum in medio ad finalem reducitur, comma est; cum in fine ad finalem pervenit periodus est. Ut in hac antiphona: Petrus autem colon, servabatur in carcere comma, et oratio fiebat colon, pro eo sine intermissione comma, ab ecclesia ad Deum periodus’; Johannes Afflighemensis, De musica cum tonario, ed. by van Waesberghe, pp. 79–80. ‘Or, very likely, the modes are called “tones” from a resemblance to the tones that Donatus calls distinctiones, For just as in prose three kinds of distinctiones are recognized, which can also be called “pauses” — namely, the colon, that is, “member”; the comma or incisio, and the period, clausula or circuitus — so also is it in chant. In prose, when one make a pause in reading aloud, this is called a colon; when the sentence is divided by an appropriate punctuation mark, it is called a comma; when the sentence is brought to an end, it is a period. […] Likewise, when a chant makes a pause by dwelling on the fourth or fifth note above the final, there is a colon; when in mid-course it returns to the final, there is a comma; when it arrives at the final at the end, there is a period’; trans. by Babb, p. 116 (cf. n. 30 above). The antiphon Petrus autem in the Worcester Antiphoner is a different melody but has the cadences cited by John; Worcester, Cathedral Music Library, MS F.160, p. 340; facsimile edition, vol. xii of Paléo­graphie musicale.  51 Cassiodorus, Institutiones, pref. 9 and 1. 15. 12; ed. by Mynors, pp. 48–49; trans. by Halporn, pp. 109–10 and 144.  52 Late antique texts that treat positurae have been gathered in Hubert, ‘Corpus stigmato­ logicum minus’.  53 Isidore, Liber Etymo­logiarum 1. 20. 1–2. See also the discussion of the ‘triades anciennes’ and ‘récentes’ in Hubert, ‘Le vocabulaire de la “ponctuation” aux temps médiévaux’, pp. 94–127. Hubert’s second triade of signs is composed of distinctio (finalis), media (distinctio), and subdistinctio.

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positurae termino­logy to that of the cola et commata system. Column 2 quotes Isidore’s description of what each sign represents in terms of the level of text articulation: whether the thought is held in suspense, half completed, or concluded.54 Column 3 indicates the placement of the punctus: (1) low (ima littera) for a less decisive break (subdistinctio), which also offered the reader an opportunity to breathe, (2) mid-level (media littera) for a sense pause (media distinctio), and (3) high (caput littera) for the conclusion of the sentence (distinctio).55 The latter is the reverse of the modern system, which places the period (full stop) at the base of the written or printed line. Isidore of Seville: De posituris

Placement of punctus

Name

Function

comma = subdistinctio

necdum plena pars sensus est ima littera et tamen respirare oportet

colon = media distinctio adhuc aliquid superest

media littera

periodus = distinctio

caput litterae

plena sententia

Figure 3.5, a page from a lectionary with epistles and gospels written at the monastery of St Gall (c. 900/910), displays the gospel for Easter Sunday. Beginning with the standard opening, ‘In illo tempore’, it uses only mid- and high-level points as punctuation, a not unusual practice. The mid-level point seems to function as the equivalent of the modern comma,56 but its presence between ‘quippe’ and ‘magnus’ in the next-to-last line seems a bit fussy. The high point signifies a full stop (line 8: ‘ihesum’; line 13: ‘magnus valde’) but also appears where we might place a colon (line 10: ad invicem’). The only novelty is the question sign (‘Quis revolvet nobis lapidem ab ostio monumenti?’), a sign not mentioned by the classical grammarians. Carolingian Punctuation

Simple points placed at different levels — even if only two — sufficed as long as the letter forms were large enough (uncials), but it did not work very well with the smaller Carolingian minuscule script.57 The points continued to be employed, but in combination with an upward- or downward-slanting virgula. Sometimes the virgula, a sign resembling a comma, was combined with a punctus on the same (lower) line (.,). Three punctus could be arranged in the shape  54 The cantillation system was based on such divisions of a sententia. The Gutenberg Bible (1454/55) uses a system of points for punctuation: (1) mid-level for a comma, (2) a colon for medial punctuation, and (3) a low point to mark the versus, just as in modern punctuation. The second printed edition of the Latin Bible (Albrecht Pfister, c. 1459/60) employs only the first two signs, reinterpreting the mid-point as the sign of the versus.  55 For examples, see Parkes, Pause and Effect, plates 14 (p. 187) and 50 (p. 249). The first includes the sign for a question mark.  56 See its use after ‘monumentum’ in lines 9 and 14.  57 Lowe, The Beneventan Script, p. 229 n. 4.

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Figure 3.5. Evangeliary, Zurich, Zentralbibl., MS C 77, fol. 126, St Gall, c. 900/10 (used with permission).

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of an inverted triangle, the lower punctus sometimes replaced by a virgula. In short, ‘a large combination of points and virgulas were created and used in bewildering variety’ (Bernhard Bischoff).58 It was by no means, as Giulio Battelli observed, ‘un sistema fisso, e l’uso dei segni di punteggiatura varia da manoscritto a manoscritto’.59 The punctus flexus (not always present) marked the weakest division, where the sense was incomplete; the punctus elevatus (like an inverted semicolon tilted to the right) corresponded to a break in the sense, though the thought (sententia) was still incomplete; and the punctus versus (;) concluded the sententia. A special sign, the punctus interrogativus, introduced in the late eighth century, was reserved for questions (Fig. 3.5, line 11; Fig. 3.6, line 10 (‘eius’ and ‘eum’)). The simple punctus remained omnipresent, and not all options are represented in every manu­script. Sometimes two punctuation signs, for example, mediatio and versus, sufficed. Figure 3.6, a passage from the prophecy of Malachy (3. 1–4) in the Lectionary of Alcuin (for Candlemas), illustrates the Carolingian punctuation system. Most of the sentences are short. The punctus versus (;), marking the end of a sententia, appears frequently (line 5: ‘meam’, line 9: ‘tuum’). The low point here marks the smallest division — the equivalent of a modern comma. The high point (line 13: ‘Levi’) seems to have the articulative force of a punctus elevatus. The mid-line point towards the bottom of the page separates ‘Dicit dominus’ from ‘omnipotens’. The punctus elevatus appears frequently, even in this short passage. Two questions are present: ‘adventus eius’ (lines 9–10) and ‘ad videndum eum’ (line 10). A letter of Hildemar, abbot of Corbie, to Ursus, bishop of Benevento (831), insisted on the importance of the positurae for the ars legendi as well as the importance of the accents (acute, grave, circumflex) for what he called the ‘ratio sonandi’.60 Though Hildemar posited a relationship between the two, he did not explain their interaction as clearly as might be desired.61 He assumed that Ursus already understood the virtus of the accents, so he passed on to the positurae, because these held the secret of the ‘ars distincte legendi’. The positurae identified the place of cola, commata, and periodus that allowed the lector to convey — and the reader to understand — the sensus lectionis.62  58 Bischoff, Latin Palaeo­graphy, p. 169; see also John, ‘Latin Paleo­graphy’, p. 46.  59 Battelli, Lezioni di paleografia, p. 213.  60 Hildemar of Corbie, Epistola ad Ursum, ed. by Dümmler, pp. 320–22. Hildemar included the letter in his long commentary on the Rule of Benedict, where it forms part of the commentary on Chapter 38 (‘De ebdomadario lectore’); Hildemar of Corbie, Expositio Regulae, ed. by Mittermüller, pp. 421–34; Hildemar of Corbie, Commentaire de la Règle de Saint-Benoît, trans. by Caillard, pp. 476–77. The translation covers only the beginning of the letter, omitting Hildemar’s explanation of his pointing of Beatus vir.  61 For a brief summary of the new system and the role of Hildemar (‘le principale témoin de cette confusion’), see Gilles, ‘La ponctuation dans les manuscrits liturgiques au moyen âge’, pp. 122–24; see also the remarks of Rankin, ‘Singing the Psalter in the Early Middle Ages’, pp. 279–87.  62 The placement of the punctus — low, middle, high — and the names of the positurae — distinctio, media distinctio, subdistinctio — follow the teaching of Donatus and Isidore.

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Figure 3.6. Lectionary of Alcuin, Paris, BnF, MS lat. 9452, fol. 16v, Saint-Amand-en-Pévèle, 670/80 (used with permission).

By way of demonstration, Hildemar supplied markings for the first verse of Psalm 1, which he split into three sense units: ‘Beatus vir qui non abiit in consilio impiorum / et in via peccatorum non stetit / et in cathedra pestilentiae non sedit’. He commented about it in the following terms: Non ergo miremini, quod in medio sensu notam acuti accentus fecerim, quoniam, ut ab eruditis didici viris, his tribus punctis tres aptantur accentus: id est, usque ad medium totius sententie sensum gravis; in medio quoque tantummodo sensu acutus; deindeque usque ad plenum sensum circumflexus.63  63 Hildemar of Corbie, Epistola ad Ursum, ed. by Dümmler, p. 321.

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(Do not be surprised, therefore, that at mid-sense I made the sign (nota) of an acute accent, because, as I have learned from erudite men, the three accents are fitted to these three points (punctis): that is, up to the mid-sense of the complete meaning the grave [accent]; likewise at the mid-sense the acute [accent]; then at the full sense, the circumflex.)64 Hildemar’s three gradations associate the grave accent (\) with the media distinctio, the acute (/) with the subdistinctio, and the circumflex (^) with the distinctio.65 The correspondence between accents and sensus/sententia is thus: (1) in medio sensus – acutus, (2) ad medium totius sententie sensum – gravis, (3) ad plenum sensum – circumflex. The difference between sententia and sensus is that, while the latter division expresses an intelligible thought, its full meaning cannot be discerned until the end of the sententia. Hildemar seems to attribute certain ‘musical’ properties to the accent, taking his cue from Isidore’s etymo­logy that ‘an “accent” is so called because it is close to chant’.66 Did he mean that there was a rising melodic movement at a pause, a descending inflection at the mid-point, and a more definitive melodic gesture, the circumflex (also descending), to close the sententia? Without musical notation, not widely in use at the time, one cannot be sure. A text (Hunc codicem) attached to the Lectionary of Alcuin and claimed to have been prepared ‘ab Albino [Alcuin] eruditissimo viro’ is now thought to be the work of Abbot Helisachar (d. 837). It states that the comes (here to be understood as a book with the full texts of the epistle pericopes) that precedes it should be provided with ‘distinctionibus artis grammatice pronunciandi gratia’ (for the sake of pronunciation).67 ‘Pronuntiatio’ embraced multiple aspects of the art of oral delivery. According to Helisachar, the goal of inserting distinctiones properly was ‘so that the text might spread out an unencumbered path before the reader of the same codex, and nothing jarring (inconsonum) might be presented to the ears of the hearers, lest simple folk be led astray’.68 This neatly encapsulates the binary function of punctuation (distinctiones):

 64 My translation. The passage has also been translated by Parkes, ‘Punctuation, or Pause and Effect’, p. 128. On the multiplicity of meanings of nota (but not musical notation), see Steinova, ‘Psalmos, notas, cantus’.  65 What kind of melodic gesture Hildemar had in mind by ‘circumflexus’ is not clear. The Lexicon musicum Latinum medii aevi, i, col. 505, suggests as a (tentative) second definition ‘? absteigend / ? descending’.  66 ‘Accentus autem dictus, quia iuxta cantum sit’; Isidore, Liber Etymo­logiarum 1. 18. 2; ed. by Lindsay. This is cited by Treitler, ‘The Early History of Music Writing in the West’, p. 270.  67 A list of the contents of the comes manu­script has been published by Wilmart, ‘Le lectionnaire d’Alcuin’. The text (from Paris, BnF, MS lat. 9452, fol. 126r–v) is edited in Vezin, ‘Les divisions du texte dans les Évangiles’, p. 59. On the authorship, see Martimort, Les lectures liturgiques et leurs livres, p. 35.  68 ‘Ut legentibus eiusdem codicis textus iter planum panderet et audientium auribus nihil inconsonum afferet, simplices quoque errare non sineret’.

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to facilitate the ‘reader’s’ task and thereby to promote the intelligibility of the Word for its ‘hearers’. Accentuation

Errors of accentuation on the part of the lector, in addition to their potential for distraction (or occasional amusement!), could all too easily become entrenched in a medi­eval monastic community, where the Scriptures were learned to no small extent ex auditu. Generally, the place of the Latin accent can be determined by the application of a few simple rules, but there are many ‘tricky’ words (e.g. those of three syllables or more), Hebrew words (considered to be accented on the last syllable), and enclitics.69 (Words of two syllables are always accented on the first syllable.) Obviously, ‘clumped’ texts would render it difficult to ascertain the constituency of the grouping. Even experienced Latinists could be uncertain about rarely encountered words. The accent of some words had, moreover, shifted. Only on the basis of such an assumption is it possible to explain the form of certain words in the Romance vernaculars.70 In words with a short penultimate syllable with an accent on the previous syllable, the accent might shift forward to the penult. Thus uncertainty in the matter of Latin accentuation might not be merely a sign of carelessness. Cistercians were among the first consistently to appreciate the need for uniformity in the public reading of the Scriptures and the books read at table throughout the extensive network of monasteries they had founded or reformed. According to the Cistercian constitution, Charta caritatis, approved by Pope Callistus II in 1119, model books were prepared, ‘so that all our monasteries should have the same usage in chanting, and the same books for divine office day and night and the celebration of the holy sacrifice of the Mass, as we have in the New Monastery’.71 (The ‘New Monastery’ was, of course, Cîteaux.) Correct accentuation was part of that programme. An anonymous Cistercian accentuation guide from the early twelfth century is preserved in four witnesses, one of which was written for Cîteaux itself. A methodically organized and practical collection of 135 rarely encountered ‘problem’ words, for example, similar enclitics (‘‑modo’, ‘‑modi’, ‘‑tenus’, ‘‑inde’), are grouped together and furnished with the proper accentuation.72

 69 That the problem is not exclusively a medi­eval one is evidenced by the publication in 1939 of Russo-Alesi, Martyro­logy Pronouncing Dictionary, with five thousand entries. A more modest, elementary selection of proper names is included among the many useful suggestions in Wallace, The Ministry of Lectors, pp. 84–89.  70 See Stotz, Handbuch zur lateinischen Sprache des Mittelalters, pp. 123–38 (pp. 128–30: ‘Akzent­wechsel’).  71 ‘Ut mores et cantum, et omnes libros ad horas diurnas et nocturnas et ad missas necessarios secundum formam morum et librorum novi monasterii possideant’; Charta caritatis 2 (‘Ut idem libri ecclesiastici et consuetudines sint omnibus’).  72 Adamo, ‘Usquemodo, aliquomodo, quoquomodo’ (with a colour facsimile and edition of the

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Fr Leonard Boyle drew attention to a treatise on correct accentuation of the Scriptures by Nicolas Maniacutius (d. 1145), a Cistercian of the Roman abbey of Tre Fontane (SS. Vincenzo e Anastasio).73 The influence of the treatise must have been negligible, since only a single manu­script survives (Montpellier, Bibliothèque interuniversitaire, MS H 294, fols 144–59v), but it may be construed as representing a serious concern among Cistercians. The Correctorium tocius biblie, attributed to Robert Grosseteste (c. 1168–1253), was another guide for lectors in the accentuation of difficult biblical words.74 Humbert of Romans, fifth Master General of the Order of Preachers, insisted in his Instructiones de officiis on correct pronunciation and accentuation, not to mention the necessity for the reader, first and foremost, to understand the text.75 In 1417, Oswald de Corda, prior of the Grande Chartreuse, produced in Opus pacis a manual directed to Carthusian copyists and correctors of manu­scripts. A need for uniformity among the charterhouses was imperative, given the fact that, as he claims, ‘una domus raro cum altera concordat’.76 The situation, which had worsened during a schism in the order, needed to be rectified. In addition to discussions of ortho­graphy, etymo­logy, and grammar, the Opus pacis deals explicitly with spelling, accentuation, and pronunciation. Oswald remarked that some houses inserted more punctuation than others (‘alia plus, alia minus habet de hiis’). Nevertheless, he thinks that an excessive amount of punctuation could conceivably impede understanding, but a ‘certa limitacio’ would be difficult to establish. He says nothing about cantillation formulae.

Scribes, Lectors, and Cantors Alcuin (c. 735–804), who as abbot of Tours promoted the work of the abbey’s scriptorium, laid out his expectations of scribes and explained why their work was so important. Per cola distinguant proprios et commata sensus et punctos ponant ordine quosque suo, ne vel falsa legat, taceat vel forte repente ante pios fratres lector in ecclesia.77

list from Moulins-sur-Allier, Archives départementales de l’Allier, MS H232, fol. 74v). See also Norberg, L’accentuation des mots dans le vers latin du Moyen Âge.  73 Libellus de corruptione et correptione psalmorum et aliarum quarundam scripturarum (c. 1140). The text was edited by Peri, ‘“Correctores immo Corruptores”’. See also Champagne, ‘Both Text and Subtext’, pp. 32–36.  74 This has been edited in Grosseteste, The Writings, ed. by Thompson, pp. 127–28.  75 Humbert of Romans, Instructiones de officiis ordinis fratrum praedicatorum, ed. by Berthier. It was, according to Leonard Boyle, ‘the most explicit statement […] on public reading for religious, albeit in a refectory setting’; Vox Paginae, p. 30.  76 Oswald de Corda, Opus pacis XV. a, ed. by Egan, Hubert, Corpus Stigmato­logicum, p. 160.  77 Alcuin, Carmen 94. 5–10, ed. by Dümmler, p. 232 (my translation). In a letter to Charlemagne

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(Let [scribes] distinguish proper senses according to cola and commata,78 and let them insert points, each in its order; lest the lector read something wrong or perchance fall suddenly silent in front of the devout brothers in church.) Negligent punctuation not only blemished the sacred text but engendered confusion by misleading the lector and (a fortiori) those listening to him.79 An ex tempore rendition of a sacred text was not to be recommended. In an attempt to aid lectors some manu­scripts were ‘scored’ for reading; the original scribe or a subsequent hand entered accent marks over words whose accentuation could be troublesome.80 This is not surprising: keyboard players pencil in fingerings and string players bowings to insure that a passage is played the same way each time. Organists must also include pedalling marks (heel/toe) and stop changes, which cannot always be left to the inspiration of the moment. The responsibility for achieving an impeccable cantillation of a sacred text did not rest solely on the shoulders of scribes. Alcuin assigned a complementary function to the lector: Quisque legat huius sacrato in corpore libri lector in ecclesia verba superna dei distinguens sensus, titulos, cola, commata voce dicat ut accentus ore sonare sciat.81 (Whoever as lector reads in church the sublime words of God from the sacred body of this book, distinguishing the sense(s), titles, cola, [and] commata with his voice, let him speak as he knows how the accents should sound in [his] mouth.) In Carmen 66, Alcuin addressed the lector directly, encouraging him to make his best efforts: Tuque valeto legens, tibi maxima cura legenti; Sit, precor, ut recto resones caelestia sensu Verba dei, Christi merces tibi magna manebit.82

(799) Alcuin complained about the neglect of ‘punctorum vero distinctiones vel subdistinctiones […] tamen usus illorum propter rusticitatem pene recessit a scriptoribus’ (Ep. 172); Epistolae Karolini Aevi, ed. by Dümmler and others, p. 285. The Bibles produced by the scriptorium of Tours were not deficient in this regard. For a list of Tours Bibles and fragments, see Ganz, ‘Mass Production of Early Medi­eval Manu­scripts’.  78 It seems unlikely that Alcuin would be referring to a page layout per cola et commata.  79 As David Ganz observed, statements like this indicate that the Bibles produced by Alcuin’s scriptorium at Tours were intended for liturgical use; ‘Carolingian Bibles’, p. 331.  80 Boyle, ‘Tonic Accent, Codico­logy, and Literacy’; Boyle, Vox Paginae, p. 27.  81 Alcuin, Carmen 69. 183–88, ed. by Dümmler, p. 292.  82 Alcuin, Carmen 66. 20–22, ed. by Dümmler, p. 285. For this reference I am indebted to Ganz, ‘Mass Production of Early Medi­eval Manu­scripts’, p. 55 (my translation differs slightly from his).

r e ad i n g , w r i t i n g , an d p u nct uat i ng t he wo rd

(Thou, O lector, be valiant, reading with the greatest care; May it be, I pray, that you sound out the heavenly words of God with the proper sense; the great reward of Christ will await you.) A customary (c. 1077) compiled for the monks of Christ Church, Canterbury, by Archbishop Lanfranc (c. 1005–1089) lists among the responsibilities of the cantor to supervise the readers and assign them their duties.83 He must first ‘audition’ them, if need be, ‘pay[ing] no attention to the order of their conversion [i.e. seniority] or their wishes, but according to what shall seem best to him, vigilantly weighing in this regard whatever is fitting and edifying’.84 A like principle had been laid down centuries earlier in the Rule of Benedict: ‘brothers will read and sing, not according to rank, but according to their ability to benefit their hearers’.85 This principle prevailed (or should have) in all monastic houses subject to the Rule. The Customary of Eynsham, based on the Liber ordinis of St Victor (after 1228) charges the cantor/armarius with ‘diligently emending and punctuating [books for singing or reading], lest any impediment confront the brethren in the church’s daily Office, whether in singing or in reading’, a statement that mirrors Alcuin’s concerns.86 Those assigned to read during the Office were expected to rehearse their parts beforehand — under the supervision of the cantor, if need be. They had to understand the structure of the sentences they were to read. If, for example, questions were read as ordinary sentences, that would indicate a serious want of preparation on the part of the reader and a source of distraction for hearers.

 83 On their duties, see Fassler, ‘The Office of the Cantor in Early Western Monastic Rules and Customaries’.  84 ‘Quicumque lecturus aut cantaturus est aliquid in monasterio. si necesse habet, ab eo priusquam incipiat debet [cantor] auscultare. […] Ipsius est omnes fratres in tabula ad omnia officia annotare, non considerato conversionis ordine aut voluntate eorum, sed secundum quod ei visum fuerit honestatem et aedificationem in hoc vigilanter consideranti’; Decreta Lanfranci 86; Hallinger, Corpus Consuetudinum Monasticarum, iii, p. 67. My attention was drawn to this by Webber, ‘The Provision of Books in Anglo-Norman England’, p. 185.  85 ‘Fratres autem non per ordinem legant aut cantent, sed qui aedificant auditores’ (Regula Benedicti 38. 12); ed. by Fry and others, pp. 238–39; ed. and trans. by Venarde, pp. 136–37. Cf. Regula Benedicti 47. 3: ‘they should not presume to chant or read unless they can fulfil that duty so as to edify listeners’, ed. and trans. by Venarde, pp. 158–59; Fry overlooked ‘ipsud officium implere’ in his translation of the passage (p. 349).  86 ‘Quos [libros] precipue cantor vel armarius diligenter emendare debet et punctare, ne fratribus in cotidiano officio ecclesiae sive in cantando sive in legendo aliquod impedimentum faciant’ (cap. 15. 10); The Customary of the Benedictine Abbey of Eynsham, ed. by Gransden, p. 167, as quoted in Webber, ‘The Provision of Books in Anglo-Norman England’, pp. 186–87.

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Chapter 4

Cantillating the Epistle and the Gospel Cantillation has been defined as ‘a form of semi-improvisatory recitative falling between speaking and song, most frequently employed in reference to the chanting of liturgical texts (especially the Bible) among Jews’.1 As Peter Jeffery explained Jewish cantillation: At some point in history the practice of reading the Bible out loud acquired a musical aspect, so that it was more like singing than speaking. This in-between character is called ‘cantillation’ in English. In the most important books of the Bible, the Torah (i.e., the first five books), and the excerpts from the prophets that are read in the synagogue (haftarot), each of the te‘amim is traditionally associated with a melodic phrase. It is the syntactical signs, the te‘amim (from a word meaning ‘discern’), that are used to assist the musical rendition, even though that is not their primary function. The disjunctive te‘amim indicate the endings of phrases, clauses, sentences, or verses, where the reader should pause.2 Solange Corbin, who made an extensive study of the cantillation of sacred texts in Christianity and other world religions, listed five caractères essentiels shared by all cantillation systems: (1) prose texts, (2) reciting pitch(es) of restricted range, (3) enhancement of the text, not its ornamentation, (4) rhythm of the text predominates, and (5) any ‘ornaments’ serve primarily as punctuation.3 Eastern practices ( Jewish, Islamic) differ from the Western tradition, which was recorded in detail for the first time in the mid-thirteenth century, by the greater extent to which reciting pitches are ornamented. At a solemn sung Mass in the Middle Ages the prescribed extracts from the Scriptures (‘pericopes’) were not merely read as they are today, but chanted or ‘cantillated’ according to a stylized mode of delivery that took into account both the sense of the text and the accent patterns of words at the ends of sense units, as described in previous chapters. Epistle and gospel at Mass were cantillated to ‘tones’ proper to each.4 Such a treatment both honoured the Word of God and (ideally) facilitated its hearing in a large space. The scriptural and patristic readings of the night office (Matins)  1 Gordon E. Truitt, s.v., in Foley and others, eds, Worship Music, p. 53.  2 Jeffery, ‘Musical Legacies from the Ancient World’, especially pp. 44 and 42. See also the substantial treatment of the subject (nearly a thousand pages) in Jacobsen, Chanting the Hebrew Bible. There is a ‘second, expanded edition’ (2017) available on the Internet through Project Muse eBooks.  3 Corbin, ‘La cantillation des rituels chrétiens’.  4 Huglo and McKinnon, ‘Epistle’; Huglo and McKinnon, ‘Gospel’; Jaschinski, ‘Epistel (A)’; Huglo, ‘Evangelium (A)’; Jeffery, ‘Lektionstöne’.

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were cantillated to a simpler ‘prophecy’ tone, employed also for a variety of non-scriptural purposes in monastic life: readings at table, benedictions, exorcism of salt and water, etc.

Speech vs. Song Termino­logy used in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages does not always distinguish clearly among speech, heightened speech (e.g. cantillation), and genuine song. In the case of the latter two the separation might not have been great. In the Confessions St Augustine reported what he had heard concerning the singing (of psalms) in the church of Alexandria during the time of Bishop Athanasius (295–373): that it was ‘pronuntianti vicinior esset quam canenti’ (closer to reading than to singing).5 This description applied exclusively to solo song, since choral recitation of the psalms was not introduced until centuries later.6 The fourth-century Alexandrian practice may not have been too far removed from what Cicero called ‘quidam cantus obscurior’, a rhetorical style that he contrasted with that of Phrygian and Carian rhetors, who finished off their speeches with an epilogue that was ‘almost sung’ (paene cantatum).7 Quintilian denounced as ostentatious exhibitionism an orator’s breaking into song to finish off a discourse.8 Cicero did not, of course, favour a monotonous presentation; words should be properly accented (melodically, it seems): ‘the superior orator will therefore vary and modulate his voice; now raising and now lowering it’.9 Though he was discussing an original oration, the recommendation could apply just as well to a fixed biblical text.

 5 Augustine, Confessiones 10. 33. 50, ed. by de Labriolle, p. 277 (also ed. by Verheijen, p. 182). Augustine may not have had any more information about what happened in Alexandria than we do. Nevertheless, he comments elsewhere that the reading of the Passion on Palm Sunday required some kind of special treatment: ‘solemniter legitur passio’; Augustine, Sermo 218. 1; PL, 38:1084.  6 Dyer, ‘The Singing of Psalms in the Early Medi­eval Office’.  7 ‘Est autem etiam in dicendo quidam cantus obscurior, non hic a Phrygia et Caria rhetorum epilogus paene canticum, sed ille quem significat Demosthenes et Aeschines, cum alter alteri obicit vocis inflexiones’ (there is, moreover, even in speech, a sort of singing — I do not mean this epilogue practised by Phrygian and Carian rhetoricians, which is almost like a canticum in a play — but the thing which Demosthenes and Aeschines mean when they accuse each other of vocal inflections); Cicero, Orator xvii. 57, ed. and trans. by Hubbell, pp. 348–49.  8 ‘Nos etiam cantandi severiorem paulo modum excessimus; […] nam nec cuiquam sunt iniucunda quae cantant ipsi, et laboris in hoc quam in agendo minus est’ (but by singing we have gone beyond the limits of any reasonably restrained style; […] no one dislikes the sound of his own singing, and singing is less hard work than making a proper speech); Quintilian, Institutio oratoria 11. 3. 57–61, ed. and trans. by Russell, iv, pp. 112–17. See JourdanHemmerdinger, ‘Fonction du chant dans les discours et lectures publics’. I once heard a female rabbi end a discourse in song. It seemed not only unnecessary, but egotistical.  9 ‘Ergo ille princeps variabit et mutabit; omnis sonorum tum intendens tum remittens

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The fine line between heightened speech and song is reflected in the ambiguity of medi­eval termino­logy. The verb ‘dicere’ (lit. ‘to say/speak’), for example, is frequently used in contexts where it cannot mean anything other than ‘to sing’.10 The familiar phrase ‘sine fine dicentes’ (saying without end) that closes many of the Prefaces of the Mass leads directly into the singing of the Sanctus.11 Other Prefaces conclude with the phrase ‘hymnum gloriae tuae canimus, sine fine dicentes’ (we sing a hymn to your glory, saying without end), thus mingling in a single phrase ‘canere’ (to sing) and ‘dicere’ (to say). The Sanctus was invariably sung. A passage from the Rule of Benedict (c. 530) fluctuates between two meanings of ‘dicere’ (underlined in the following passage). Describing the (sung) responsory that follows every reading of the night office (Matins), Benedict says: Duo responsoria sine Gloria dicantur post tertiam vero lectionem qui cantat dicat Gloriam. Quam dum incipit cantor dicere, mox omnes de sedilia surgant ob honorem et reverentiam Sanctae Trinitatis.12 (Let two responsories be said without Gloria; after the third reading, however, let whoever is singing say the Gloria. Which, as the singer begins to say [it], let all then rise from their seats out of honour and reverence for the Holy Trinity.) The Rule says that the first two responsories are ‘said’. Although a responsory was always a sung piece, the Rule associates ‘dicere’ with it. For the third responsory the monk ‘qui cantat’ says (‘dicat’) the Gloria. In the next sentence he is called a ‘cantor’, a term that did not in the early part of the sixth century designate a monastic officer assigned broad responsibilities for directing the choir and the conduct of the liturgy, as later became the case. The Rule’s use of ‘dicere’ — distressingly imprecise to us — was by no means uncommon in medi­eval liturgical texts. Most of the sources of Ordo Romanus 1, for example, indicate that the cantor ‘says’ (dicit/dicat) the responsorium (i.e. gradual) between the two Mass readings. The single dissenting source in Michel Andrieu’s edition of Ordo Romanus 1 uses the phrase ‘responsum

persequetur gradus’; Cicero, Orator xvii. 59, ed. and trans. by Hubbell, pp. 348–49.  10 See the entry ‘dicere’ in Thesaurus Linguae Latinae, v.1, cols 968–89. The various ways in which ‘dicere’ is employed in the music theory treatises of the Middle Ages are listed in the Lexicon musicum Latinum medii aevi, i, cols 958–60. In several cases liturgical usage is reflected, but in most others it is the saying (but simultaneously singing) of a sol-fa syllable.  11 Cf. for example, ‘clamabant, etenim hymnum dicent’ (Psalm 64. 14) and ‘psalmum dicite nomini eius’ (Psalm 65. 2).  12 Regula Benedicti 9. 5; ed. by Fry and others, pp. 204–05; ed. and trans. by Venarde, pp. 58–59. Cf. Regula Benedicti 11. 3 (‘dicitur a cantante Gloria’ (of the responsory following the reading)); ed. by Fry and others, pp. 206–07; ed. and trans. by Venarde, pp. 64–65. See the tables in Harper, The Forms and Orders of Western Liturgy from the Tenth to the Eighteenth Century.

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gradale cantat’.13 In either case, there can be no doubt that genuine singing of this elaborate chant was intended. It is into this field of ambiguity that we step when studying the liturgical cantillation of the Scriptures in the Western Church — a method halfway between speaking and singing. In what follows I will employ ‘cantillate’ when speaking specifically about the formulae used to chant the scriptural readings, though acknowledging that it is not a medi­eval term like ‘cantare’ and ‘dicere’. I will sometimes follow medi­eval usage in using ‘read’ when the context obviously means ‘chant’ or ‘cantillate’.

Cantillation Formulae Simply chanting a text on a single high pitch (recto tono) would make it more audible, but it would not satisfactorily convey the internal structure of a sentence. For this function a kind of ‘aural punctuation’ was needed. Hearers had to be able to sense where they were in a sentence. Was it concluded? Was there a significant ‘break’ in the meaning, even as the sentence continued? Was there some point that corresponded to where we might place a comma? How could the presence of a question be clearly signalled? These concerns were implied in the punctuation marks described in the previous chapter. Here we will explore their musical dimension. Neither a simple punctus nor later elaborations with added signs conveyed any fixed musical significance, that is, a given sign was not identified unequivocally with a specific musical gesture. The signs did, however, signal to the lector where to interpolate whatever melodic formulae were customary in his or her monastery, cathedral, or collegiate church.14 The signs were also inserted in the texts of the collects chanted by the priest at Mass, where their function was similar. They lent themselves well to the formulaic structure (protasis-apodosis) of the Roman collects with their utilization of the rhythmic cursus.15 The formulae are recorded in musical notation only in the mid-thirteenth century, but they must have existed for hundreds of years in the realm of local oral tradition.

 13 OR 1. 57; Les Ordines Romani, ed. by Andrieu, ii, p. 86 (the reading of the manu­script Rome, Biblioteca Nazionale Vittorio Emmanuele, 2096 (Sessor. 52)).  14 Mouchet, ‘Ponctuation du texte, ponctuation du chant dans le manuscrit médiévale noté’, pp. 104–07. A number of manu­scripts have ‘neume-like signs’ inserted into the text. Separate from the positurae, these signalled to the reader where a small melodic inflection (e.g. a two-note rising gesture) was to be sung. See Giraud, ‘Melodic Lection Marks in Latin Manu­ scripts for Mass’.  15 This is nicely illustrated by Malcolm Parkes with a Latin collect and its English adaptation from the Book of Common Prayer (Pause and Effect, pp. 76–79). For a historical survey, see Couture, ‘Le “cursus” ou rhythme prosaïque’.

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Cantillation formulae and rules for their application were passed down in secular cathedrals and monasteries from one generation to the next by this means.16 Little instruction from the cantor may have been needed, since young recruits to the clerical or monastic state, who participated in the daily recitation of the chanted Office, could have easily picked up the formulae and extrapolated the basic principles for adapting them to various accent patterns merely by hearing a great variety of texts chanted year in and year out. In fact, medi­eval ecclesiastics probably heard the Scriptures more often than (or at least as much as) they read them. The multiplicity of local cantillation traditions, secular and monastic, have yet to be investigated in a systematic way. I will begin coverage of the topic with three short tractatuli (Cistercian and Carthusian) and then proceed to the more detailed and well-documented Dominican cantillation tradition of the mid-thirteenth century.

Three tractatuli on Cantillation Although brief treatises on cantillation that survive from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries are late sources, they preserve much earlier practices. Framed as general guidelines intended to stabilize practice, they offer information about the melodic shapes of cadential formulae and guidance about how they were to be adapted to variable accent patterns at the ends of sense units, intermediate or final. Prudens lector

A Cistercian tractatulus beginning with the words ‘Prudens lector’ (Troyes, Bibl. munic., MS 1154, fols 122–23; second half of the fourteenth century, from Clairvaux) addresses itself to scribes and those charged with correcting manu­scripts as well as to the ‘prudent reader’ of the title.17 According to Nigel Palmer, ‘Prudens lector’ is the only Cistercian work of its type, and it testifies  16 Tones for the readings (with alternates) are printed in the modern Liber Usualis, pp. 102–09 and 120–22. On the Latin cantillation formulae, see Pothier, Les mélodies grégoriennes d’après la tradition, pp. 231–36 (‘Les recitatifs liturgiques’); Johner, Wort und Ton im Choral, pp. 229–43; Apel, Gregorian Chant, pp. 201–08. See especially Wagner, Einführung in die gregorianischen Melodien, ii, pp. 82–94 (‘Die lateinischen Lektionszeichen’) and iii, pp. 37–52 (‘Die Lektionen’). Wagner presented a thorough explanation of the principles with many examples from the manu­script Basel, Universitätsbibl., MS B V 29 (last third of the fifteenth century), fols 20v–22, 33v–34v (De accentibus lectionum …); Einführung in die gregorianischen Melodien, iii, pp. 39–52. On this source, see Meyer and Burckhardt, Die mittelalterlichen Handschriften der Universitätsbibliothek Basel, pp. 531–32. As of this writing the manu­script is not yet available online through .  17 The tractatulus is edited (with a German translation, transcription of the musical examples, and commentary) by Palmer, ‘Simul cantemus, simul pausemus’, pp. 521–29. It is available online through the ‘Bibliothèque virtuelle des manuscrits médiévaux’ (IRHT, ).

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to the general principles of Cistercian cantillation.18 Towards the end of the manu­script (fols 150–51) there are fully notated examples of epistle and gospel readings. The epistle tone is used also for Old Testament texts; the gospel tone applies not only at Mass but also to the gospel reading that follows the Te deum of Matins in monastic Offices of twelve lessons. In the following English translation of Prudens lector I have displayed the text line by line to facilitate comprehension. Let the prudent lector, having first of all understood the sense of the reading, attend to how many divisions (distinctiones) each versus has. At the distinctio which comes before the end of every versus let a metrum be made, unless a question follows, because before a question [only] a flexus should be placed. If there are only two distinctiones in a versus, there should be a flexus in the first [distinctio]; in the second let there be a metrum. If there are three distinctiones, [place a] flexus in the first two; in the third, let there be a metrum. A punctus is placed sometimes before a flexus, sometimes between two flexus. It should be understood, moreover, that, when a versus is quite long, we can sometimes fittingly put a punctus first and afterwards a flexus [and] then a metrum; and repeat them afterwards in the same order alternately through the whole versus. And thus, according to what was said, are books found punctuated. Rarely should it be found otherwise, especially if speech (oratio) is to be perfect. The ‘prudent lector’ will have first studied the text he or she is to cantillate in order to understand both its meaning and its syntax — first of all, the number of distinctiones in each sentence. If there are two distinctiones, the first could be divided, if necessary, by a flexus (a G) before the metrum (a G F a). This is illustrated in the first line of Example 4.1: Sic facies flexam / sic vero metrum / sic autem versum. The metrum falls at mid-point.19 The last distinctio (second or third) is terminated by the versus (a F G D). A punctus, whose placement is at the discretion of the ‘prudent lector’, carries no melodic inflection; it is merely a pause for breathing. In the case of a very long versus, the sequence  18 In the Troyes manu­script it follows the ‘Institutio sancti Bernardi quomodo cantare et psallere debeamus’. On this work, see Waddell, ‘A Plea for the Institutio sancti Bernardi quomodo cantare et psallere debeamus’. This brief text is available at .  19 These are transcribed by Palmer, ‘Simul cantemus, simul pausemus’, p. 522. I use standard nomenclature: capitals (A–G) for the lowest octave of the gamut, lowercase (a–g) for the octave above. The prohibition of putting anything but a flexus (la fa) in a question sentence prevented the rising gesture of the question formula (la sol fa sol la) to be undercut, and it preserved the uniqueness of an interrogation embedded in a narrative text.

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Example 4.1. Prudens lector, Troyes, Bibl. munic., MS 1154, fol. 123, Clairvaux, second half of the fourteenth century.

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punctus / flexus / metrum can be repeated, even three times, if required. Example 4.1 continues with illustrations of the treatment of a question (2 examples) and of a monosyllable at the end of a distinctio. The second half of Example 4.1 (after ‘Item’) is a reading from the night office. The lector requests a blessing (‘Domne jube benedicere’ [sic]), which would have been given by the hebdomadarian.20 Then follows a specimen text from Isaiah (40. 5–6), concluding with the standard closing formula (‘Tu autem domine miserere nostri’ – ‘Deo gratias’), both set to the versus formula. The Isaiah example illustrates the flexus (‘domine’), the ordinary metrum (‘pariter omnis caro’), the metrum ending with a monosyllable (‘locutum est’), and a versus (‘Vox dicentis’), which actually introduces a question. Line 10 is a curiosity: three versus in quick succession followed by a question (‘Quid clamabo?’). This frequent use of the versus dramatizes the ‘voice’ that exclaims ‘Cry out’, and the response, ‘Quid clamabo?’. A reciting tone on a, assumed by ‘Prudens lector’, is the more ancient of the alternative pitches, the others being F and c. The recitation on a has a whole tone below, while a recitation on F or c has a half tone below. Each imparts a different ‘colour’ to the reading, F or c sounding more tonal and arguably more ‘modern’ than the archaic recitation on a. Of course, these pitches are merely nominal. A relatively high reciting pitch allows the voice to ‘carry’ in a resonant building, but the acoustics of a large stone church mandates a deliberate pace and clear pronunciation, if the words are to be understood. A lector would choose a comfortable reciting pitch, one high enough for the voice to be able to project the words most effectively. The shift from a to F or c presented problems in retaining the melodic contour la fa sol re (a F G D) of the versus. G would become b and D would become F, two pitches that outlined an augmented fourth, a forbidden interval in medi­eval music theory. How was this to be negotiated? The late thirteenth-century music theorist Hélie Salomon was concerned about this anomaly. At the higher pitch, a b-flat would solve the problem, but this bothered him, since b-flat stood outside the theoretical boundaries of the fifth tone (mode) with a final on F. He does not resolve the dilemma.21 Instead, he denounces people who flatten b to avoid the tritone. Since it is fruitless to argue with such people, they might just as well be thrown into the sea with a millstone (mola asinaria) around their necks!22 Salomon offers written-out examples of epistle and gospel tones reciting on a. They are assigned to the first tone in his tonary on the basis of a comparison with the tone-one responsory verse tone.23  20 The hebdomadarian is the monk or priest whose duty it is to supervise the Office over the course of a week (lat. hebdomada). Members of the community took turns exercising this function.  21 Salomon, Scientia artis musice 24. 1–9, ed. and trans. by Dyer, pp. 126–29.  22 This is rather typical of Salomon’s method of dealing with adversaries, real or imagined.  23 Salomon, Scientia artis musice 13, ed. and trans. by Dyer, pp. 62–63. Additional on the

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Viso de sillabis

An anonymous Carthusian tract, Viso de sillabis, attached to the Opus pacis treatise of Oswald de Corda in a Trier manu­script from the second quarter of the fifteenth century (Stadtbibliothek, Hs. 1924/1471 8o, fols 195v–197), describes various punctuation resources, but it lacks musical notation.24 The author says that the Carthusian tradition makes use of the usual three ‘pausationes sive positurae’: the punctus circumflexus (la fa), the punctus elevatus (la sol fa sol la, if the last syllable is unaccented, and la sol fa la, if it is), and the punctus versus (la sol re, if the last syllable is unaccented, and la sol, if it is).25 These are linked in turn with the grammarian’s three distinctiones: (1) media distinctio, metrum or comma, (2) subdistinctio, punctus or colum, and (3) plena distinctio, versus or periodus.26 The author carefully explains the significance of the three levels of articulation: (1) incomplete sense, (2) complete enough (satis) sense, but more to be added, and (3) a completed sentence (oratio).27 In addition, the punctus interrogativus has its own formula (la sol fa sol la). Viso de sillabis provides a template for using the punctuation signs and the musical formulae they signify that covers four different situations — from two to five distinctiones. For example, if there are four distinctiones, the order of puncti should be elevatus, circumflexus, elevatus, versus. Concerning the order of the cadences there are three rules: (1) two punctus elevatus should not be used in succession, (2) a punctus elevatus always precedes a versus, and (3) an elevatus cannot precede a punctus interrogativus. As to the latter, one can understand why. Both end with a rising gesture, and the listener might be confused about where the question ends. The standard conclusion for an Old Testament prophecy (‘Haec dicit dominus deus noster’) is given along with two cadences (medial and final) for ‘Jerusalem’ and a medial cadence for ‘David’. Hebrew words are treated like monosyllables, since it was assumed that the accent fell on the last syllable. Finally, Viso de sillabis insists that punctuation marks entered into Carthusian books must be strictly observed. It would

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 25  26  27

cantillation formulae in the Scientia artis musice may be found in my ‘Gallici vs. “monaci” bei Elias Salomo’. Edited in Bohn, ‘Das liturgische Rezitativ’, pp. 51–52, 61–62 (Latin), and 62–66 (German), and Hubert, ‘Corpus stigmato­logicum minus’, pp. 163–68. On termino­logy, see Clemoes, ‘Liturgical Influence on Punctuation’. See also the discussion in Palmer, ‘Simul cantemus, simul pausemus’, pp. 531–35. Despite the term ‘circumflexus’ — derived from ancient punctuation termino­logy — there is no circular movement, just a descending leap of a third in cantillation systems. In many instances ‘flexus’ and ‘circumflexus’ are synonymous. As Palmer notes, the meaning of the first two is the reverse of Isidore’s definition; ‘Simul cantemus, simul pausemus’, p. 532. He repeats this in slightly different language: ‘Item nota, quod coma fit quando sententia est dependens et suspensiva; colum sive cola quando sententia est stans et perfecta, sed adhuc dependere videtur; periodus vero dicitur distinctio finitiva quando amplius sententia non dependet’; Bohn, ‘Das liturgische Rezitativ’, p. 51.

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be an offence against monastic discipline to cantillate readings ‘secundum voluntatem legentis’ (according to the whim of the reader). The goal of such detailed directions was to allow hearers to orient themselves to the structure of the cantillated sentence — a form of ‘aural punctuation’. Accentus orationis – Lector ut intento

An anonymous treatise that begins ‘Accentus orationis distinguitur’, preserved in a manu­script now in the Herzog August Bibliothek at Wolfenbüttel (Cod. Guelf 316 Helmstedt (350), fols 7v–8v; second half of the fifteenth century) presents itself as a supplement to Oswald de Corda’s Opus pacis, which precedes it in the manu­script, though there seems to be little foundation for the treatise’s claim that it derives ‘ex Opere pacis’.28 The principles presented in Accentus orationis are similar to those of the tractatuli just discussed. It furnishes the names the three punctuation signs (circumflexus, elevatus, and versalis) with their respective signs. Following this brief introduction there is an extended treatment on the employment of the punctuation signs, which guide lectors ‘in lectionibus autem tam chori quam refectorii’, that is, in choir or at table. If a monosyllable occurs at the end of a phrase, the monosyllable is simply sung to the reciting tone and a breath is taken. The circumflexus may be repeated in a long sentence, but not too often (‘non debet tamen apud nos in numerum multiplicari’). As in Prudens lector, the alternation of circumflexus + elevatus is recommended, but an elevatus should always precede the versalis. Accentus orationis closes with an admonition to the lector that he ought humbly to respect (‘debet humiliter obedire’) the punctuation inscribed in the books. If there is none, he should try to the best of his ability to apply the principles explained. Accentus orationis is followed by a series of musical examples introduced by the title Lector ut intento, which is also found (abbreviated) in a Göttingen manu­script (Niedersächsische Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek, 8o Cod. mus. theol. 236 1, fol. 15).29 There, however, the musical examples are transposed a fifth lower, the nominal reciting tone being G instead of d. Example 4.2 is a transcription of the version in the Wölfenbüttel manu­script with the higher reciting tone (d). The first four examples exemplify the four basic ‘accents’ (circumflexus, elevatus, versus, and questio). The following examples illustrate adaptations of these basic shapes to different accent patterns, for example, the two versus settings, ‘fínem déderis’ and ‘déderit dóminus’, that demonstrate  28 The text is edited by Köllner, ‘Die Opus pacis Handschrift im Lektionarium’, pp. 266–68; a facsimile of the opening folio on p. 267. The manu­script is inventoried in List, Die Handschriften der Stadtbibliothek Mainz, i, pp. 57–68.  29 For editions (in alphabetic notation under the words to which the pitches belong) from the Wolfenbüttel manu­script and Göttingen, 8o Cod. mus. theol. 236 i, fol. 25, see Köllner, ‘Die Opus Pacis Handschriften und ihre Zusätze’, pp. 35–37.

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Example 4.2. Lector ut intento, Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, Cod. Guelf 316 (Helm­stedt 350), Mainz, S. Jacob vor den Mauern, fol. 8v, second half of the fifteenth century.

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different accent patterns: /. / . . [vs.] / . . / . . (lines 4 and 6). Two examples demonstrate the treatment of a monosyllable within a sentence (‘in medio sic’) and at its end (‘finit conclusio sic’). The final four examples treat monosyllables and Hebrew proper names. Most of the musical examples are also supplied with the appropriate punctuation signs.30 There are a few notated specimen titles for the epistle and the gospel reading in an early twelfth-century (c. 1115) Cistercian homiliary (Dijon, Bibl. munic., MS 114(82), fols 102v, 114v).31 These are merely the standard introductory formulae and are thus of little help in establishing the full range of principles governing the cantillation of a text.

Dominican Cantillation Tones Beginning in the third quarter of the twelfth century the Premonstratensians (Norbertines) endeavoured to unify their liturgical observances, but the process took almost a century to complete.32 While the Cistercians may have been forerunners, the need for uniformity was especially urgent among the mendicant friars (Dominicans and Franciscans), orders established in the first half of the thirteenth century, whose houses stretched from England to Eastern Europe, and from southern Italy to Scandinavia.33 Itinerant friars moved from one province to another, as required by their ministry of teaching and preaching. They could not be asked constantly to adapt to different local liturgical practices, a demand that would have, at least for a time, shut them out from the liturgical prayer of communities to which they had been newly assigned or were merely stopping at for a short time while on a journey. The problem was especially acute in regard to the Office, since variant systems of psalmody would have made it difficult for visiting friars to join in the chanting of the psalms in choir, not knowing what (possibly unfamiliar) psalm tone to expect from one psalm to the next. To achieve the goal of uniform practice, the Dominican Constitutions of 1241 expressed the desire that ‘totum officium, tam nocturnum quam diurnum, confirmamus et volumus ab omnibus uniformiter observari, ita quod nulli liceat de caetero  30 The exceptions are ‘sic quoque’ and ‘stat monosillaba’.  31 This source, a prototype for liturgical manu­scripts throughout the order, has been inven­ toried in Grégoire, ‘L’homéliaire cistercien du manuscrit 114 (82) de Dijon’, pp. 154–79, nos 1–308. My thanks to Prof. Eleanor Giraud (University of Limerick) for drawing my attention to this manu­script, images of which are available online through the ‘Bibliothèque virtuelle des manuscrits médiévaux’ (IRHT, ).  32 Lefèvre, La liturgie de Prémontré, pp. 3–16.  33 On the reform of Haymo of Faversham, OFM, see Van Dijk and Walker, The Origins of the Modern Roman Liturgy. Although the Dominicans had established the commission of ‘four friars’ (1244–1245) to develop a standard liturgy, the goal was not achieved until 1256; Bonniwell, A History of the Dominican Liturgy; Urfels-Capot, Le sanctoral du lectionnaire de l‘Office dominicain, pp. 23–25 and 35–47 (‘La liturgie dominicaine dès Humbert’).

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aliquid innovare’ (the entire Office, nocturnal and diurnal, be observed by all uniformly, so that in the future it not be permitted to anyone to change anything).34 It took more than decade to realise that goal. The cantillation tones of the Dominican tradition were the first to be notated comprehensively in pitch-specific notation. They may serve as a coherent demonstration of how the cantillation formulae, solidified as a tradition, were applied in practice. The order’s mid-thirteenth-century practices are documented in the Correctorium sancti Jacobi, a collection of all the authorized liturgical books of the Order of Preachers preserved in the manu­scripts Santa Sabina, XIV L 1 (1256–1259), and in a copy in London, British Library, Add. 23935 (c. 1259–1262).35 The Santa Sabina manu­script was prepared as an editio typica to guide the copying and correction of all the liturgical books produced throughout the order. The British Library manu­script, which lacks the breviary and plenary missal, was prepared for the Master General of the order to carry about on his travels as a standard against which books in the dispersed houses of the order could be checked. He would have had his own personal copy of the breviary and missal with him. Concerning the cantillation of Scripture readings, the Correctorium proposes a few fundamental guidelines that take into account what would be normally encountered. One of them reads: The readings are divided by versus or sentences. Usually a versus of a reading is subdivided into three parts, after the first of which a flexus is placed; and after the second, an elevatio or mediatio.36 If the sentence is short, the flexus is omitted; if [it is] shorter, even the mediatio is omitted. If the sentence is longer (which is more rarely the case), [but] then only in readings (in lectionibus), the flexus and mediatio can be repeated in alternation according to the sense of the words.37 Obviously, none of this is inconsistent with what we have previously encountered in the treatises discussed above. The Correctorium prescribes a hierarchy of division (flexus before mediatio) and makes provision for very short sentences. The directions say nothing about the closing versus/ sententia, but that is illustrated in the written-out examples.38 The general rules, of which the above is only a sample, are supplemented by twenty-six musical examples divided into four groups, which take into account diverse stress-accent patterns at points of sense division in the text. Each group of

 34 Const., Dist. 1.4, as quoted in Gilardi, ‘Ecclesia laicorum e Ecclesia fratrum’, pp. 380 and 418–21.  35 The Santa Sabina manu­script contains ‘modus legendi’ for the Office (fol. 142r), for the epistle (fol. 422r), and for the gospel (fols 435v–436r). The equivalent sections in the British Library copy are Office (fol. 141r), epistle (fol. 526r), and gospel (fols 545r–546r). My thanks to Prof. Eleanor Giraud (Limerick) for this information.  36 Here there is a reference to what was said earlier under ‘Modus cantandi capitula’.  37 Processionarium Sacri Ordinis Praedicatorum, p. 422.  38 A sententia was a complete thought.

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examples is preceded by introductory remarks. The musical examples cover numerous special cases, most having to do with monosyllables and Hebrew words at the ends of phrases.39 The instructions are divided into three parts: 1. Modus cantandi benedictiones et lectiones in Officio et in mensa, prophetias in missa, et martyro­logium (way of chanting the blessings and readings of the Office and at table, the prophecies at Mass, and the martyro­logy);40 2. Modus legendi epistolam (the way of reading the epistle); 3. Modus legendi evangelium (the way of reading the gospel). Each division is subdivided into sections that exemplify the flexa (prophecy tone only), mediationes, fines versuum, interrogationes, and fines epistolae/evangelii. In each of these the nominal reciting pitch is F rather than the Cistercian a. (It should hardly be necessary to mention again that a higher pitch level would probably have been chosen by the lector for maximum effectiveness.) Before beginning a reading at Matins (Ex. 4.3), the reader asks for the usual blessing from the presiding priest-hebdomadarian: ‘Jube, domne, benedicere’ (Pray, sir, give a blessing). The blessing having been imparted (e.g. ‘Benedictione perpetua benedicat nos pater aeternus’), the reader announces the title of the book from which the reading is taken — here Isaiah — with a standard formula.41 (A blessing is not given for an Old Testament or epistle reading at Mass.) The reading is introduced by a conventional phrase used for Old Testament readings: ‘In diebus illis […]’ (alternatively ‘Haec dicit dominus’). The prophecy tone (Ex. 4.3), the most austere of the three, is remarkable for the lapidary, ‘trumpet-like’ descending fifth at the end of each verse (in other uses a fourth, as seen in Ex. 4.1).42 The mediatio has two preparatory syllables before the accented syllable. The terminatio has one preparatory syllable.43 Example 4.3 also illustrates a mediatio at the half verse (‘profundum inferni’) and a finis versus. The example does not have a flexus, which would be the reciting tone (F) falling a minor third to D. At the conclusion of the

 39 Processionarium Sacri Ordinis Praedicatorum, pp. 421–47. The 1913 edition is available online at . The later Tonorum communium iuxta ritum Ordinis Praedicatorum regulae also supplies written-out models for each of the three toni (pp. 39–63).  40 Old Testament readings at Mass occurred during Lent and for certain feasts of saints.  41 The titles of the prophecies read at the Easter Vigil — until the mid-1950s there were twelve in the Roman Rite — were omitted, thereby enhancing the timelessness of the prophetic utterance.  42 For this apposite phrase I am indebted to Mahrt, The Musical Shape of the Liturgy, p. 47. Guillaume Durand was probably alluding to this singular formula when he observed that ‘prophetias voce inferius deflexa’ (prophecies [are] bent down in the voice) in comparison with the epistle and gospel, in which ‘vocem exaltando finimus’ (we end by lifting up the voice); Durand, Rationale divinorum officiorum 4. 16. 11; ed. by Davril and Thibodeau, i, pp. 322–23; trans. by Thibodeau, Rationale, Book Four, pp. 164–65.  43 The termino­logy is that of the Dominican books.

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Example 4.3. Tone for the prophecy, adapted from the Processionarium Sacri Ordinis Praedicatorum (1949).

reading the reader chants ‘Tu autem, domine, miserere nostri’ to which the choir responds ‘Deo gratias’. The same general principles apply to the tone for the epistle (Ex. 4.4), which is apparently used for an Old Testament reading from the historical or sapiential books, if such replaces the usual epistle at Mass.44 There is no chanted blessing before Mass readings, nor is there a standard concluding sentence (like ‘Tu autem’). Following the title, the epistle is introduced by either ‘Fratres’ (Paul’s letters to churches), ‘Carissime’ (letters to individuals), or ‘Carissimi’ (for the ‘catholic’ epistles addressed to a general audience).45 The epistle tone is melodically more varied than the prophecy tone. Example 4.4 illustrates how the cadences are adapted to various stress patterns.46 The mediatio consists of one accent with two preparatory syllables;  44 One of the examples given for the ‘epistle’ tone is a reading from the Book of Wisdom: ‘Beatus vir qui inventus est sine macula’ (Ecclesiasticus 31. 8–11; ‘vir’ replacing the original ‘dives’). Technically, it is not a ‘prophecy’. OR 37A prescribes that the Old Testament readings ‘legitur in sensu lectionis sicut epistolae Pauli diebus dominicorum’ (be read as the epistles of Paul on Sundays); OR 37A. 7 and 12; Les Ordines Romani, ed. by Andrieu, iv, pp. 236–37.  45 If the reading begins with the first words of the letter, e.g. for the third Mass of Christmas (Hebrews 1. 1–12), the introductory phrase is omitted. The same is true of the Acts of the Apostles.  46 Cf. the tone for the prophecy (Ex. 4.3) at ‘in excélso’ and ‘tentábo dóminum’.

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Example 4.4. Tone for the epistle, Processionarium Sacri Ordinis Praedicatorum (1949), pp. 432–34 (abbr.).

the terminatio, of two accents. The final cadence usually covers the last two words. If one of the words is a proparoxytone (accent on the third syllable from the end), an extra pitch is inserted. The formula has no flexus, only a mediatio and terminatio. In Example 4.4 there are three mediationes: the title (‘Páuli apóstoli’), ‘certámen cetávi’ (line 3), and ‘coróna iustítiae’ (line 4). The finis versus formula appears at ‘ad Timótheum’, ‘fídem servávi’, and ‘iústus iúdex’. A special phrase is reserved for the conclusion of the epistle: ‘non solum […] adventum eius’ (lines 6–7). At the chanting of the gospel the deacon’s greeting, ‘Dominus vobiscum’, and the response ‘Et cum spiritu tuo’ precede the announcement of the title: ‘Lectio sancti Evangelii secundum N.’, to which the response is ‘Gloria tibi, domine’. The reading itself is introduced by the standard phrase, ‘In illo tempore’ (Fig. 4.1, line 3). The gospel tone (Ex. 4.5), less ornate than that for the epistle, has a range that does not exceed the interval of a minor third (F D). It has a mediatio of two accents (‘inter fratres’) preceded by one preparatory syllable. The terminatio consists of a single accent. It is curious that the more complex of the two cadences occurs in the middle of a sentence.

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Example 4.5. Tone for the gospel, Processionarium Sacri Ordinis Praedicatorum (1949), pp. 439–40 (abbr.).

In Example 4.5 a few lines of the reading are omitted after the title to illustrate the special treatment of questions. Jesus asks, ‘quid ad te?’ (line 3): ‘Thus I want him to remain until I come [again], what is it to you?’. When the question is repeated as part of the evangelist’s explanation (line 7), it is not treated as a question but as part of the narrative. Lines 5–6 demonstrate a

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Figure 4.1. Evangeliary of Henry II, Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, clm 4452, fol. 14, from Reichenau, c. 1007–1012; used with permission.

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mediatio (‘inter fratres’) followed by a finis versus (‘non moritur’). The gospel tone, like that for the epistle, reserves a uniquely occurring melodic phrase to signal the close of the reading (line 10). This passage from the Gospel of John (21. 23) demonstrates incidentally a point made more than once by St Augustine: the crucial role played by punctuation in preventing theo­logical error or even ambiguity in the understanding of a sacred text, whether read privately or chanted aloud.47 In Example 4.5 the chanted text is correctly punctuated: ‘Thus I want him to remain until I come [again], what is it to you? You follow me’ (Sic eum volo manere donec véniam, quid ad te? Tu me sequere). The line could conceivably (though not correctly) be read: ‘Thus, I wish him to remain. Until I come, what is that to you? You follow me’. The meaning is substantially different.48 Figure 4.1 shows the passage as it appears in the Evangeliary of Henry II (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, clm 4452, fol. 14), which dates from the first decade of the eleventh century. The punctuation here supports the correct reading of the text (lines 13 ff.) The standard introductory phrase, ‘In illo tempore’, may be seen at line 2.

Amerus, Practica artis musice The treatise Practica artis musice (1271) by the Englishman Amerus (Alfred) closes with a chapter entitled ‘De modo et forma legendi’ that includes a few musical examples illustrating the setting of medial and final cadences and a question.49 The Latin text of the chapter together with an English translation may be found in Appendix 3. Amerus anticipates the question posed in the Introduction to this book: Why should chanted pericopes not be easily understood, so as to enhance the meaning of the text? He says that, just as the chants are to be sung as notated, so should the reading be chanted according to the instructions he offers, which are admittedly far from complete. The lector should chant the Mass readings ‘aperte et distincte’ (plainly and distinctly), so that ‘litterati’ could understand them. He differentiated among the manners appropriate to various kinds of readings in the following terms: Et nota quod lectiones rotunde et viva voce legende sunt; epistule altius quam lectiones et in voce magis suspensiva et dulciori. Evangelium vero voce mediocri, dulci, adhuc magis suspensiva et humili, propter simplicitatem illius agni Dei qui humilitatem docuit.  47 Augustine presents a few examples in De doctrina christiana 3. 1–5, ed. by Green, pp. 77–79. On punctuation, see Chapter 3 above.  48 For a similar situation, see Isidore, De ecclesiasticis officiis 2. 11. 3; ed. by Lawson, pp. 70–71; trans. by Knoebel, p. 80. This is repeated in Hrabanus Maurus, De institutione clericorum 2. 52, ed. and trans. by Zimpel, ii, pp. 400–401.  49 Amerus, Practica artis musice (1271), cap. 26, ed. by Ruini, pp. 102–05.

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(And take note that the readings are to be read with a full and vigorous voice, the epistles higher than the readings and in a more sustained and sweeter voice. The gospel, however, [is read] in a lower voice — even more balanced and humble on account of the simplicity of that Lamb of God who taught humility.) This is an indication that different modes of delivery, going beyond pitch levels, were considered applicable to different kinds of texts.

Compendium musices / Cantorinus (1513) The anonymous Compendium musices […] qui Cantorinus intitulatur, published in 1513, includes a section entitled ‘De cantu epistolae et evangeliorum’, which supplies model written-out examples of epistles and gospels.50 Most of the syllables are set recto tono to undifferentiated longae without any hint of rhythmic differentiation. A cadential podatus (two-note rising melodic motion) or clivis (two-note descending melodic motion) appears on the first of the last two accents. The first epistle example is identified as the ‘Tonus epistolarum ordinis minorum’, that is, Franciscan (Ex. 4.6).51 It also provides specimens of music for the title. Internal cadences (on E) are preceded by a podatus (FG). As with the Dominican tones, the reciting tone on F must be merely nominal; a higher pitch is to be supposed for its carrying power. The text may have been chosen in part to illustrate the treatment of a question (lines 6–7: ‘Numquid parum […] deo meo’?), which is recited, as was usual, on the semitone below the reciting pitch, to which it rises only at the cadence. The text of this ‘epistle’ is not taken from the epistles of Paul or one of the Apostles but from the Old Testament (Isaiah 7. 11–15). It concludes with the standard formula set to the words ‘ut sciat reprobare malum et eligere bonum’. The ‘Tonus evangelii’ of the Compendium / Cantorinus (Ex. 4.7) is preceded by the usual preliminary material (‘Dominus vobiscum’, ‘Sequentia […]’, etc.).52 The mediatio (D-F-E-F) is melodically more distinctive than the terminatio, which descends a semitone from the reciting pitch (F to E). At lines 7–8 there is a specimen question (‘Et unde hoc mihi […] ad me’?) with the usual E-F melodic motion. An elaborate ‘Tonus antiquus epistolarum’ follows the gospel tone (Ex. 4.8). Lines 1–2 give examples of how possible titles (ad Romanos, etc.) are set. These also demonstrate possible accent patterns (. . / . — . / . . — . / .). The text is not a continuous biblical passage but a cento of verses (Romans

 50 Compendium musices / Cantorinus, pp. 30v–33v. The colophon refers only to ‘Cantorinus Romanus’.  51 Compendium musices / Cantorinus, pp. 30–31.  52 The ‘secundum Lucam’ introduction is applicable to the reading from the first chapter of Luke’s Gospel. The text is a cento of vss. 39, 42a, 43, and 46–47, to which is added Luke 3. 6 (‘et videbit omnis caro’) at the close.

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Example 4.6. Tonus epistolarum ordinis minorum, Compendium musices / Cantorinus (1513), pp. 30–31.

Example 4.7. Tonus evangelii, Compendium musices / Cantorinus (1513), pp. 31–32.

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Example 4.9. Tonus [antiquus] evangeliorum, Compendium musices / Cantorinus (1513), p. 33r–v. Example 4.8. Tonus antiquus epistolarum, Compendium musices / Cantorinus (1513), p. 32r–v.

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10. 10–11, John 12. 38, Romans 10. 17–18) with the conventional Pauline conclusion, ‘in Christo domino nostro’. This is not, therefore, a genuine liturgical pericope, but a demonstration model. Pitches are inserted to compensate for various accentual patterns. The reciting tone is E, but the melody is florid enough occasionally to obscure it, especially in the case of short sentences. See also the short questions: ‘Domine quis credidit auditui nostro?’ (lines 6–7) and ‘Numquid non audierunt?’ (lines 8–9). The example closes with a flourish on the words ‘domino nostro’. A second ‘Tonus evangeliorum’ follows (Ex. 4.9). Although not specifically designated as ‘antiquus’, it is related in its degree of elaboration to the antiquus epistle tone that precedes it in the Compendium / Cantorinus. Unlike the usual epistle/gospel pairs of tones, in which the epistle tone is more elaborate (even if only slightly so) than the gospel tone, this pair is comparable with respect to the degree of melodic elaboration. With so complex a melody the reading could not have been dashed off at a very rapid pace. The text is Jesus’s threefold questioning of Peter about whether or not he loves him ( John 21. 15–19 with the omission of verse 16, the second question), so there will inevitably be ‘question’ sentences.53

Guidetti, Directorium Chori (1589) Giuseppe Guidetti (1532–1592) developed a sophisticated system of hierarchically ordered rhythmic values for the cantillation of scriptural texts, which he explained in the introductory chapter, ‘De usu et modo utendi directorio’, of his compendious Directorium Chori, published in 1589.54 Guidetti described five rhythmic values: breve (▄), semibreve (♦), breve with a semicircle above, breve with a point inside the semicircle, and a breve tied to a semibreve (▄ ♦҇ ). He says that the breve represents the basic tempus; the semibreve receives half its value. The breve with a semicircle above has the length of a breve + semibreve; the breve with semicircle + point above equals the value of two breves (see Ex. 4.10). The breve ‘tied’ to semibreve indicates that the syllable to which it is attached ‘leni quidam spiritus impulsu pronuntiabitur’ (is pronounced with a gentle impulse of the breath), as if two identical vowels were written (doominus). It must be performed ‘cum decore et gratia’ (with elegance and grace). In Example 4.10 this is illustrated in line 5 (‘di-sci-pli-ne-e’) and in the penultimate line (‘e-te-er-na[m]’). With these subtle rhythmic gradations Guidetti is probably attempting to capture in musical notation the rhythmic flexibility that prevailed in the chanting of the Scriptures at Mass.

 53 Jesus’s response (‘pasce oves meas’) to Peter’s third affirmation is omitted (line 8), as is all of verse 18.  54 Guidetti, Directorium chori (1589). The Directorium was a collaborative project in association with Palestrina.

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Example 4.10. (left) Tones for the epistle and the gospel, Giuseppe Guidetti, Directorium Chori (1589), pp. 566–68).

Example 4.11. (above) Tone for the epistle (beginning), Martin Luther, Deudsche Messe (1526).

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He admits that the procedures recommended cannot be conveyed by a book in the absence of a teacher.55 Given the refinement of Guidetti’s system, this is no exaggeration. Guidetti provided short, written-out examples for each of the prophecy, epistle, and gospel tones to illustrate how the rhythmic values were to be realized in practice.56 Though the melodies of the tones themselves are simple, preparing a reading that took into account all the rhythmic nuances proposed would have required more than a little preparation. Guidetti’s rules were not necessarily a direct survival of medi­eval practice. Instead, they express Renaissance preoccupation with prosodic nuance, even humanistic sensitivity to text setting. Later editions of the Directorium simplified Guidetti’s overly complex system, employing only the breve, semibreve, and longa.57 The original model texts were retained in the revisions and renotated.

Martin Luther, Deudsche Messe (1526) In the Deudsche Messe (1526) Martin Luther, an accomplished musician, provided detailed instructions for cantillating the epistle and gospel in German, adapting the medi­eval cantillation principles.58 The syllables of the text are set to undifferentiated semibreves, leaving the rhythmic treatment to the lector. Luther prescribed that the epistle be chanted ‘inn octavo tono’ on the same pitch level as the collect, a provision that established a continuity between two successive parts of the service. He first defines (in Latin) periodus (end of a sententia), colon (part of a period), and com[m]a (part of a colon). The ensuing ‘Regule huius melodie’ exemplify concisely the melodic gestures proper to each (initium, coma, coma aliud, colon, periodus, questio, and finale).  55 On these notational symbols in chant, see Dyer, ‘A New Source for the Performance of Cantus Planus and Cantus Fractus’, pp. 591–92 (based on the 1642 edition of the Directorium). I have also consulted the 1737 edition.  56 Guidetti, Directorium chori (1589), pp. 565–68. The specimen ‘epistle’ reading is taken from the Book of Wisdom.  57 Guidetti, Directorium chori (1737), pp. cxlvii–cxlix (additional performance instructions are included). A full-colour facsimile may be consulted at . The nineteenth-century Pustet edition of the Directorium maintains the same three note values. The introduction to this edition comments that the brevis was essentially a tempus incertum, the value of a syllable. No more substantial ‘rule’ could be offered than ‘cantabis syllabas sicut pronuntiaveris’ (you shall sing syllables as you pronounce them); Guidetti, Directorium chori (1874), p. viii (with thanks to Jeff Ostrowski). The breve was called a tempus unum in other editions of the Directorium Chori.  58 Luther, Deudsche Messe und Ordnung Gottes diensts. The modern German equivalent of ‘fürgenomen’ is ‘vorgenommen’ (performed). The Messe is edited in Luther, Werke, xix, pp. 87–94. There is an English translation: Luther, ‘The German Mass and Order of Service’, ed. and trans. by Leupold; the musical examples are transposed down a fifth, allegedly because the reciting tone on c ‘would be far too high for the average male voice’ (p. 72 n. 11). The lower pitch may give a poor idea of what Luther intended.

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The following written-out example of an epistle, the beginning of which is reproduced in Example 4.11, illustrates how they are employed. Luther’s guidelines for the chanting of the gospel ‘inn quinto tono’, facing the congregation (‘mit dem angesicht zum volck gekeret’) are far more detailed than those for the epistle.59 Due to the terse labelling of the musical snippets Luther provides, it can at first be difficult to decipher his intent, which derives ultimately (it would appear) from the medi­eval tradition of singing the Passion, chanted at three pitch levels, though not necessarily by three separate singers, as was the later medi­eval practice.60 Luther’s regule differentiate among (1) the biblical narrative, (2) the ‘voices’ of interlocutors in the narrative (vox personarum), and (3) the words of Jesus (vox Christi). Example 4.12, the beginning of Luther’s exemplification of the principles, is the questioning of John the Baptist by emissaries from Jerusalem. The narration pitch is a (e.g. line 3). The pitch of direct discourse (vox Example 4.12. Tone for the gospel (beginning), personarum) is c (line 6: ‘ich byn nicht Martin Luther, Deudsche Messe (1526). Christus’; line 7: ‘ich bynß nicht’). The words of Jesus, which do not figure in Example 4.12, would have been recited on F. The range of the formula covers a fifth with an upper neighbouring tone (d), which occurs in the vox personarum part of the formula. This is not a challenging compass for a single person, and Luther assumes that the pastor will chant both the epistle and the gospel. Towards the end of the Deudsche Messe publication Luther provided completely notated examples of an epistle reading and a gospel reading according to his system.61 The gospel reading (Matthew 6. 24–34), of which the beginning is reproduced as Example 4.13, demonstrates the application

 59 The posture of the deacon during the cantillating of the gospel will be taken up in Chapter 7.  60 Due to the closure of libraries beginning in spring 2020, I was not able to carry out further research on this point.  61 Luther, Werke, xix, pp. 103–06 (epistle) and 106–11 (gospel).

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of the three regule presented earlier: (1) narration, (2) vox personarum, and (3) vox Christi. The ambitus covers an octave (f-c-F). Luther modified the usual Latin introduction to ‘Hoeret zu dem heyligen Euangelion / So spricht Jesus Christus zu seynen iuengern’ (Listen to the holy Gospel / Thus says Jesus Christ to his disciples). As can be seen from the example, the vox Christi formula uses F as a focal point, rising to b (presumably b ). Not shown are questions later in the discourse, which cadence on the pitches C-D-E-F (‘was werden wir trincken?’), contrary to the question formula given earlier. This may not be significant, since Jesus is here preaching against asking certain kinds of questions, not asking a question himself. The choice of the passage is curious; most of the text is a teaching of Jesus and thus lacks an opportunity to illustrate either the narration tone or the intervention of interlocutors.

Rhythm of the Cantillated Text Should the cantillation of a scriptural text reflect the natural accents of the words, either by stress accents or by the lengthening of stressed syllables, as Guidetti recommends in the Directorium Chori? The modern tendency (judging from recordings, many influenced by Solesmes) is generally to give each syllable equal weight, thereby imparting to the text a Example 4.13. Gospel reading (beginning), dispassionate, hieratic, timeless quality. Martin Luther, Deudsche Messe (1526). Isidore of Seville had said, however, that the lector ought to know ‘in qua sillaba vox protendatur pronuntiationis’ (on what syllable the word is

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Example 4.14. Two versicles, Hélie Salomon, Scientia artis musice (1274), fol. 16r–v; ed. and trans. by Dyer, p. 94.

to be lengthened).62 The verb that Isidore uses (protendere), implies a slight lengthening of accented syllables, thus supplementing the stress accent.63 Practically speaking, the lengthening of an accented syllable could have been a spontaneous phenomenon in a chanted text, the natural concomitant of a stress accent — the only kind of accent known to the spoken Latin language of Isidore’s day and later. A music theory treatise from the late thirteenth century, the Scientia artis musice (1274) written by Hélie Salomon, a native of southern France (Périgord), proposed lengthening stressed syllables in liturgical recitative, and he may have intended the same for cantillated texts.64 He supplies two notated versicles: ‘Ora pro nobis beate Francisce’ and ‘Resurrexit dominus’ (Ex. 4.14).65 Salomon recommended that the accented syllable of ‘dóminus’ be slightly lengthened (‘productum habet accentum’) and the following two syllables sung more quickly, but without undue hastening (‘corripientur […] sine aliquo espingamento’).66 The same treatment was applied to ‘Francísce’ (accented on the second syllable). This kind of rhythmic flexibility might have applied generally to cantillation, in which the word takes precedence over the music. On the other hand, as Salomon warns, it cannot be applied indiscriminately across the entire chant repertoire. Each note of a neumatic or melismatic chant must be sung with equal rhythmic value. For this very reason, he explains, Gregorian chant is called ‘plainchant’ (cantus planus), and it should thus be sung ‘planissime’. The implication is that not all singers observed this rule.

 62 This may be a narrower use of the term ‘pronuntiatio’. Isidore mentions the term in distinguishing between a reading and a psalm or hymn. See below on Isidore’s distinction between ‘modulatio’ and ‘sola pronuntiatio’ (‘Pronuntiatio and the Art of Cantillation’).  63 Isidore, De ecclesiasticis officiis 2. 11. 4 (PL, 81:791); ed. by Lawson, pp. 70–71; see also Chapter 2 (‘The Ideal Lector’). Hrabanus Maurus makes Isidore’s words his own; see De institutione clericorum 2. 52, ed. and trans. by Zimpel, ii, pp. 400–401.  64 Salomon, Scientia artis musice 21. 5–14, ed. and trans. by Dyer, pp. 94–97 and p. 203.  65 The responses are not given, but they would have simply replicated chorally the music (and rhythm?) of the solo versicle. The notation provided in the manu­script of the treatise, prepared under the supervision of the author, carries no rhythmic indications.  66 Cf. Italian spingere (to push).

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Tempo of the Reading None of the medi­eval sources I have come across addresses directly the tempo of the cantillation. Private reading was appreciably slower in the Middle Ages than in the present day. Not only was there far less to read even a few generations ago, but texts were more often read not just for information but for aesthetic pleasure or spiritual enrichment. Reading in public, moreover, imposed a natural constraint — or at least it should have — if listeners were to be taken into account, as is reasonable to hope. If it were the reader’s intent to communicate the meaning of the text he was reading, he could not read with undue haste. Simply ‘rattling through’ the words would not suffice.67 Some conclusions about the tempo of the readings may reasonably be deduced perchance from medi­eval recommendations about the speed with which chants of Mass and Office were sung, depending on the liturgical season or rank of a feast — more slowly on Sundays and great feasts than on weekdays — quite the reverse of today’s aesthetic, which identifies joy with lively tempos.68 The principle had both ritual and practical raisons d’être. In a monastery manual work was obligatory on weekdays, but on Sundays and feasts it was forbidden in order to reserve more time for liturgical observances and spiritual reflection.69 This principle was honoured not just by monastics but also by mendicant orders like the Dominicans, whose members were expected to spend many hours every day in study or in preparation for preaching. On ordinary days the Office was to be chanted breviter et succincte in the interest of devotion and to allow sufficient time for study.70 On Sundays and feasts a more relaxed pace prevailed. In his commentary on the Constitutions of the Dominican Order, Humbert of Romans warned against excessive rapidity in chanting the readings of the Office. Likewise, he recommended that the reader at table (lector mense) sing (sic) neither too softly nor too loudly nor with haste (nimis cursim): ‘in legendo debet cavere ne nimis demissa vel clamose legat nec nimis cursim, sed morose valde, et distincte, et sonore, et pausas faciat interdum competentes’.71 In his

 67 Before the switch to the ‘novus ordo’ Mass and the vernacular in the Roman Catholic Church, many priests dispatched the Latin prayers and readings in so rapid and perfunctory a manner that one wondered about their comprehension of what they were reading, especially the grammatically intricate collects or many passages in the epistles of St Paul.  68 This seems to be the point of the ‘three kinds of melody’ mentioned in Instituta patrum de modo psallendi sive cantandi; ed. by Bernhard, Clavis Gerberti, p. 5. There is an English translation by Shebbeare, Choral Recitation of the Divine Office, Appendix II.2.  69 At harvest time there was an urgency to bring in the crops from monastic farms. A provision of the Cistercian General Chapter of 1175 allows that ‘tempore quo conventus infra terminos laborat ore citius cantent[ur]’; Waddell, ‘A Plea for the Institutio sancti Bernardi quomodo cantare et psallere debeamus’, p. 196 n. 40 and 197.  70 ‘Hore omnes in ecclesia breviter et succincte taliter dicantur, ne fratres devotionem amittant et eorum studium minime impediatur’; Constitutiones antique, d. 1, c. 4, ed. by Thomas, p. 316.  71 Humbert of Romans, Instructiones de officiis ordinis fratrum praedicatorum, ed. by Berthier, p. 298.

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commentary Humbert espoused a happy medium: ‘sicut enim cavenda est protractio in cantando, ita et velocitas in legendo’ (even as dragging in singing is to be avoided, so also is haste in reading). He insisted that, even when the Office is chanted outside choir, all words were to be pronounced distincte.72 In the final analysis, there could be no excuse for either a rapid mumbling of the words or a lugubrious delivery that tested the listeners’ patience. Between these two extremes there existed a wide latitude. Admonitions by Humbert and monastic authors that a decent pausa should be made in the middle of each psalm verse and that there should be a space between the end of one verse and the beginning of the next imply that excessive haste was a frequent problem in chanting the (admittedly lengthy) Office.

Pronuntiatio and the Art of Cantillation Isidore of Seville made the distinction that ‘a lectio is so called because it is not sung like a psalm or hymn but is merely read; in one case there is song (modulatio), but in the other only pronunciation is required’.73 Pronuntiatio in this context involved not simply clear enunciation of the words, but a range of techniques characteristic of the ancient art of rhetoric and public speaking. Isidore required of the the lector ‘ut ad intellectum omnium mentes sensusque promoveat’ (that he move the minds and senses of all to understanding).74 This was done by ‘discernendo genera pronuntiationum’ (discriminating among the modes of pronunciation) — ‘pronunciation’ again used in the sense of an array of rhetorical devices and skills.75 Isidore offered some examples of what he meant by the ‘proprios sententiarum affectus’ (proper affects of the meanings). The lector should modulate his voice to distinguish among passages that are narrative (modo indicantis), mournful (modo dolentis), reproachful (modo increpantis), or exhortatory (modo exhortantis). He cautions the lector to avoid coarseness, effeminacy, and distracting gesticulation, lest hearers inadvertently (or worse, intentionally) be turned into spectators.76 Though Isidore held that singers were primarily

 72 ‘Ut omnia verba distincte proferantur, et ante terminationem versus alterius alter non incipiatur’; Humbert of Romans, Expositio super constitutiones ordinis fratrum praedicatorum, ed. by Berthier, p. 108; the second part of the passage cautions against one choir beginning a psalm verse before the previous one, sung by the opposite choir, has ended.  73 Isidore, Liber Etymo­logiarum 6. 19. 9, ed. by Lindsay.  74 Isidore, De ecclesiasticis officiis 2. 11. 2 (‘De lectoribus’); ed. by Lawson, p. 71; trans. by Knoebel, p. 82. This was replicated in Hrabanus Maurus, De institutione clericorum 2.52, ed. and trans. by Zimpel, ii, pp. 398–99. See also Gilles, ‘La ponctuation dans les manuscrits liturgiques au moyen âge’, pp. 119–20.  75 Quintilian called this the ‘pronuntiandi scientia’; Institutio oratoria 1. 11. 1, ed. and trans. by Russell, i, pp. 236–37. Surprisingly, Quintilian holds up the comoedus as a model for the budding orator — with certain restrictions.  76 The passage is reworked from St Ambrose’s De officiis, 1. 23. 104 and 1. 19. 84; PL, 16:59 and 53;

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responsible for arousing compunction in the hearts of listeners, lectors might discharge a comparable office by stirring the affections: ‘ad luctum lamentationemque conpellant’.77 Isidore promoted a style of cantillation controlled by sufficient discretion that the hearer’s attention is not diverted from what is read to the one who reads it. It is impossible, nevertheless, to imagine that Isidore would have sanctioned a pronunciatio of the Sacred Scriptures in the manner of a ‘dramatic reading’, since he surely knew of the Fathers’ abhorrence for all that smacked of the theatrical.78 Isidore was, of course, a revered and widely quoted — and hence influential — authority in the Middle Ages. Isidore’s recommendations are reminiscent of the centuries-old traditions of classical oratory taught by Cicero in De oratore. According to Cicero, the whole range of human emotions — anger, grief, depression, vehemence, tenderness, and distress — stand within the province of the orator: ‘nullum etenim horum generum quod non arte ac moderatione tractetur’ (there are none of these varieties that cannot be regulated by moderaton and art).79 Of course, an ancient orator’s aims were very different from those of a lector charged with cantillating the Sacred Scriptures, whose content and wording were already familiar to those listening. He was not, moreover, the author of the text recited. If it were the lector’s intention to in some manner ‘animum audientis movere’ (move the mind of the listener), as Cicero said, he or she had first to seem to be moved and employ ‘certum vocis sonum’ (a certain sound of voice).80 Cicero’s views should not, however, be taken as entirely normative for the cantillation of a sacred text within the liturgy. Isidore of Seville insisted that the lector should attempt to convey the intentions of the biblical authors, not his own. It would be worth a study to discover how later medi­eval and Renaissance authors interpreted this widely disseminated Isidorean passage. Michel Banniard (without reference to the patristic literature) argued for this kind of ‘vim pronuntiationis’ for readings in the Visigothic liturgy.81 Unfortunately, Visigothic cantillation traditions have been utterly lost, as have been the melodies of Hispanic chants, preserved only in adiastematic (non-pitch-specific) notation. Still, the suggestion cannot be dismissed out of hand on the grounds that the cantillation formulae, when finally notated (outside Spain), are so highly stylized as to virtually eliminate opportunities for any kind of excessively ‘expressive’ declamation. The Council of Cloveshoe (Clofesho, England, 747) pleaded for a modest and dignified presentation of liturgical texts. Priests were warned not to try to ed. and trans. by Davidson. See also Banniard, ‘Le lecteur en Espagne wisigothique d’après Isidore de Séville’, pp. 135–38 (‘Qualités requises de la voix du lecteur’).  77 Isidore, Liber Etymo­logiarum 7. 12. 24.  78 Gérold, Les pères de l’église et la musique, pp. 72–147.  79 Cicero, De oratore 3. 217, ed. and trans. by Rackham and Sutton, ii, pp. 172–73.  80 Cicero, Orator 17. 55, ed. and trans. by Hubbell, pp. 346–47.  81 Banniard, ‘Le lecteur en Espagne wisigothique d’après Isidore de Séville’, pp. 123–31.

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imitate secular bards and entertainers (tragico modo), but to ‘follow the holy melody according to the custom of the Church’. (Bards did not merely recite texts but dramatized and — after a fashion — ‘cantillated’ them.82) Clerics, on the other hand, should execute the readings simply with regard to the mode of ‘pronontiation’ (pronuntiantis modo simpliciter).83 A church council held at Grado in 1296 remonstrated against the kind of melodic ornamentation added by some deacons to the gospel; such additions impeded understanding and devotion among listeners.84 There are earlier references to deacons who unduly prided themselves on the gift of a beautiful voice.85 In 1710, William Fleetwood, bishop of St Asaph, published some ‘Remarks and Observations’ about what he regarded as an appropriate manner of reading in church. Although readings in the Church of England at that time were spoken, not cantillated, the bishop’s recommendations are worth consideration as general principles.86 A speaker should neither be too loud (‘men, in great noises, cannot think at all’) nor too soft (‘it strains the attention too much’). The bishop likewise denounced reading too swiftly: not only is it disrespectful to the sacred text, but it gives ammunition to the enemies of religion; ‘they fancy there is no Devotion in the Speaker, and they are sure the Hearers cannot fully edify by them’.87 Nor can reading too slowly (a situation rarely encountered, it would seem) be tolerated. The bishop recommended a ‘decent middle pace to which [people] are accustomed’. Fleetwood’s very Anglican guidelines seem as valid today as they were four hundred years ago.

Modern Views Josef Jungmann, remarking on the stylized aspect of the cantillation formulae, counselled austerity. In his view the lector should chant the text ‘with strict objectivity, with holy reverence (Ehrfurcht), and as if offered on a golden platter’ — the latter phrase a rare burst of lyricism from the distinguished  82 Benjamin Bagby has recreated this world of narrative poetry with his riveting performances of Beowulf.  83 ‘Presbyteri secularium poetarum modo non garriant, ne tragico modo sono sacrorum compositionem ac distinctionem confundant, sed simplicem sanctamque melodiam secundum morem ecclesiae sectentur; qui vero id non est idoneus assequi, pronuntiantis modo simpliciter legendo dicat atque recitet’; Haddan and Stubbs, eds, Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents Relating to Great Britain and Ireland, iii, p. 366 (can. 12).  84 ‘Intellectum audientium impediant vel perturbent; et propter hoc in mentibus fidelium devotio minuatur’; Mansi, Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio, vii, p. 1166, as quoted in Thompson, Cities of God, p. 240. A search of the surviving liturgical books of Aquileia and Grado might illuminate this matter.  85 Page, The Christian West and its Singers, pp. 155–71 (‘Deacons as Psalmists and Readers in the Fourth and Fifth Centuries’).  86 This passage is edited in Addleshaw and Etchells, The Architectural Setting of Anglican Worship, pp. 251–53.  87 See the comments of Ambrosiaster in Chapter 1.

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author of Missarum Sollemnia.88 Similarly, Violaine Anger believed that ‘la déclamation évangélique suppose l’effacement des effets personnels du locuteur; [the words should be cantillated] selon un ton impersonnel’.89 According to these views, the reader ought not to impose his (or her) personal ‘message’ or any emotive emphasis on, or response to, the text. Any ‘interpretation’ should be left to those listening attentively to the words: ‘tout est donc fait pour que ceux qui peuvent comprendre le texte le fassent’. These principles, not to be disdained, protect ‘hearers’ from the sort of idiosyncratic treatment of the text that some ‘readers’ might be inclined to impose on them. In an article entitled ‘I recitativi liturgici tra parola e canto’ Aurelio Porfiri argued (as his title implies) that in the case of ‘liturgical recitative’ (which includes cantillation), a wedge cannot be driven between word and song, thus recalling the distinction that Cicero made between ‘cantus obscurior’ and genuine song.90 Porfiri reflects that cantillation introduces ‘una certa spersonalizzazione [de-personalization] del testo’, which thereby renders the text objective and ‘ritual’. He believed that the high pitch of the reciting note, which facilitates hearing the lector’s voice, also removes the text ‘from everyday use and from the too personal inflections of the spoken [word] (del parlato), even if the liturgy is proclaimed in a language that was not that spoken by the people, but which many probably understood’.91 Porfiri quoted an American priest, James W. Jackson, who likewise argued for an ascetic style of reading, cautioning against ‘theatrics’ and the imposition of ‘emotions and emphases’ lacking in the texts.92 It would be difficult to argue against that position, but Jackson, who has in mind a spoken reading in the vernacular, further advises that a ‘downcast’ posture and a ‘plain’ voice should be employed.93 Does such a recommendation do more disservice to the sacred text than would a discreet emphasis on certain words and differentiated pauses? The point of a liturgical reading, cantillated or spoken, is not to communicate information like a news or weather report, but (in Porfiri’s words) ‘to make the Sacred, which comes from God and directed to God, resound’.94 The challenge for a modern lector is knowing how best to attain this admirable goal.

 88 Jungmann, Missarum Sollemnia, i, p. 524. I have not found this phrase in the English translation (1952).  89 Anger, ‘Ponctuation et notation dite “musicale”’, p. 78. The occasion during the liturgical year can also have a bearing.  90 Porfiri, ‘I recitativi liturgici tra parola e canto’. See the discussion of this Ciceronian text in Chapter 1 above.  91 Porfiri, ‘I recitativi liturgici tra parola e canto’, pp. 243–44.  92 Jackson, Nothing Superfluous. I have not had access to this publication. A thorough and insightful examination of all dimensions of the lector’s craft is Lee, Oral Reading of the Scriptures. Her observations, though directed to modern practice, are commendable.  93 While making final revision to this chapter, I came across a Mass on YouTube just as the gospel was being chanted. So bland was the rendition that the lector gave the impression he was uninterested in the text.  94 Tagliaferri, La tazza rotta, p. 132, as quoted in Porfiri, ‘I recitativi liturgici tra parola e canto’, p. 247.

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Hearers of the Word Chapter 3 examined the text form which ‘readers’ had in front of them as they chanted the Scripture readings at Mass. Also considered was the insertion of punctuation, which could be employed systematically only after the introduction of word separation, whether or not entirely consistent. Punctuation procedures varied: from the insertion of points (positurae) at different heights to more differentiated signs introduced during the Carolingian era. In Chapter 4 the relationship between punctuation signs and the musical values assigned to them was explored. In themselves, they did not communicate precise musical meaning, viz., upward or downward melodic motion, but only signified the application of conventions that the lector had learned. Identical signs could be interpreted differently in different places. Only in the thirteenth century were they recorded in pitch-specific notaton. The present chapter will seek to complete this circle, examining how the cantillated text might have been received by the ‘hearers’ of the present book’s title. It will take up an aspect of that subject different from the exhortations to reverence required of laymen and laywomen as the gospel was chanted, a topic covered in Chapter 1. What did ‘hearers’ actually understand of what they heard cantillated at Mass? This involves the question of how long Latin was in some fashion or other understood, irrespective of whether or not it was actively spoken within a community as a means of communication. Was Latin pronounced in a manner that reflected the sound shifts that marked the process leading to the Romance vernaculars or according to a strict letter/ sound correspondence? Naturally, such questions can be asked only of those parts of the Roman world where Latin was spoken in Late Antiquity, either by indigenous people in Italy, Gaul, Spain, North Africa, or wherever it had been learned by Germanic peoples, who had been ‘romanized’ by long residence among a Latin-speaking population.1 Among the latter were the Franks, who had merged with the Gallo-Roman populations of the areas they had conquered and learned the local people’s language, thus facilitating ‘a certain continuity of culture and speech’.2 In this chapter I will argue for continuity over disruption.

 1 Herman, ‘Spoken and Written Latin the Last Centuries of the Roman Empire’.  2 Lentner, Volkssprache und Sakralsprache, pp. 24–25. A similar view was expressed by Nickl, Der Anteil des Volkes, p. 3.

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Latin in Late Antiquity The sermons of the celebrated preachers of Late Antiquity — Augustine, Caesarius of Arles, Gregory the Great, and their successors — were delivered in Latin, a fact that hardly needs to be argued.3 They did not employ the elevated rhetorical style of the Augustan age — the somewhat artificial ‘classical’ language of Cicero, Horace, or Virgil — but the sermo humilis, Quintilian’s ‘everyday Latin’ (sermo quotidianus), which was spoken by all social classes with varying degrees of elegance during the Empire and Late Antiquity. This was the language of the Latin Bible (Old Latin or Vulgate) and of Egeria’s account of her pilgrimage to Egypt and the Holy Land in the early 380s. The Mass prayer formularies created in Gaul — those of the Missale Gothicum, the Missale Francorum, and the Bobbio Missal — are couched in a language that merges rhetorical pretensions with sermo humilis.4 Saint Augustine, though a master of the arts of rhetoric and possessed of the subtlest theo­logical mind of his age, tailored his Latin discourses, theo­ logically and linguistically, to the needs and comprehension of his auditors. The Enarrationes in psalmos, preached at public celebrations of the Mass, are far easier of comprehension than his theo­logical tractates.5 As bishop of Hippo Regius, a busy North African port city, he had to know how to ‘connect’ not only with permanent residents (shopkeepers, dockhands, and housewives) but with visitors from all over the Mediterranean, rich merchants as well as ordinary seamen.6 Augustine admonished new converts to Christianity, who brought with them a measure of literary sophistication, not to scorn the ‘popular’ speech of their co-religionists and less privileged clergy. He admitted they might hear ‘prelates and ministers of the church calling upon God in language marked by barbarisms and solecisms, or failing to understand perfectly the words they are pronouncing, or making pauses in the wrong places’.7 Augustine did not condone such lapses and would rather have them remedied, but he pleaded for tolerance in view of higher values to be affirmed.

 3 Benedict of Nursia (d. 547) wrote his Rule in a simple Latin style that could be understood by monks of no great literary accomplishment.  4 Rose, ‘Liturgical Latin in the Missale Gothicum (Vat. reg. lat. 317)’; Rose, ‘Liturgical Latin in Early Medi­eval Gaul’. Cf. Resnick, ‘Lingua dei, Lingua hominis’.  5 ‘Melius est reprehendant nos grammatici quam non intelligant populi’; Augustine, Enarrationes in psalmos 138. 20, ed. by Dekkers and Fraipont, iii, p. 204. For this reference I am indebted to Richter, ‘Latina Lingua – sacra seu vulgaris?’, p. 68.  6 Other cities had other requirements. In a letter (422) to Pope Celestine congratulating him on his election as bishop of Rome, Augustine mentioned that he had ordained a bishop for a certain place because of his command of the Punic language; Augustine, Ep. 209. 3; PL, 33:953–54.  7 ‘Ita enim non irredebunt, si aliquos antistites et minstros ecclesiae forte animadverterint vel cum barbarismis et solecismis deum iinvocare vel eadem verba quae pronuntiant non intelligere perturbaterque distinguere’; Augustine, De catechizandis rudibus 9. 13, ed. by Jean-Baptiste Bauer, in Augustine, Opera, pars 13.2, ed. by van den Hout and others, p. 135.

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Caesarius of Arles (469/70–542) made no apo­logies for delivering his Latin sermons in a ‘simplici et pedestri sermone, quem totus populus capere possit’ (ordinary speech which everybody can understand). He did this, he explained, ‘quod autem eruditis fuerit praedicatum, simplices omnino capere non valebunt’ (lest what is preached to the learnèd might not be understood by the simple).8 He warned those with ‘learnèd ears’ not to take offence, for even his rusticissima suggestio (rustic counsel) might well profit them on the day they will stand ‘ante tribunal aeterni iudicis’ (before the tribunal of the eternal judge).9 On another occasion Caesarius besought the ‘learnèd ears’ among his hearers to bear up (‘aequanimiter sustinere’) under the burden of his verba rustica. Though the exhortation is not without a touch of irony, it should be noted that his (surely exaggerated) description of his words as rustica deserves notice. Whatever the epithet meant (which will be taken up later in this chapter), there can be no doubt that Caesarius was speaking a Latin comprehensible to all. Gregory of Tours (c. 540–594) apo­logized for the rusticity of his own style and his ignorance of the rules of Latin grammar: ‘quia sum sine litteris rethoricis et arte grammatica’ (because I am without rhetorical letters and grammatical art).10 Nevertheless, his tales of Christian martyrs and confessors became classics of medi­eval Latin literature. They were obviously not inscrutable to readers. Latin continued to be understood in Late Antiquity even after it ceased to be normal everyday discourse, but how was it pronounced as the new Romance vernaculars were taking shape? How long could Latin be understood by a large, mostly uneducated population?

Latin and the Romance Vernaculars Historians of language have been divided over the date when the sermo humilis of Late Antiquity and the various Romance vernaculars derived from it parted company to such an extent that a speaker of a Romance tongue could no longer understand a text spoken in Latin, however pronounced.11

 8  9  10  11

For a persuasive critique of the notion of a specifically ‘Christian Latin’ as a Sondersprache different from that spoken in Late Antiquity, see Sheerin, ‘Christian and Biblical Latin’ (with extensive biblio­graphy). Robert Coleman had earlier pointed to the several registers of late antique Latin and called the idea of a Latin Christian Sondersprache a ‘fiction’; see ‘Vulgar Latin and the Diversity of Christian Latin’. Sermo 86. 1; Caesarius of Arles, Opera omnia, ed. by Morin, i, p. 38. Sermo 1; Caesarius of Arles, Opera omnia, ed. by Morin, i, p. 19. For further discussion, see Vaccari, ‘Volgarismi notevoli nel latino di S. Cesario di Arles’. Gregory of Tours, Liber in gloria confessorum, ed. by Krusch, p. 297; trans. by Van Dam. On medi­eval Latin pronunciation, see Jellinek, ‘Zur Aussprache des Lateinischen im Mittelalter’; Fowler, ‘Notes on the Pronunciation of Latin in Medi­eval England’; McGee, Singing Early Music; Copeman, Singing in Latin, or, Pronunciation Explor’d, pp. 1–12. Recently in The Economist (8 June 2019) a pundit lamented the fate of Latin in the ‘Dark

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When did people realize they were no longer speaking Latin, since they could not easily compare what they spoke with what their grandparents had heard as children? Perhaps as late as the tenth century in Italy, it has been suggested. An early scenario for the definitive shift (fifth century), proposed nearly seventy years ago by Ferdinand Lot, has been questioned in favour of more nuanced scenarios that hypothesize extended time frames over various geo­graphical areas for the transition.12 In an article that directly responded to Lot’s hypothesis — even to the point of replicating its title — Dag Norberg maintained that ‘il n’y a pas de révolution; […] le latin parlé n’est jamais mort mais il a changé, d’une génération à l’autre’.13 Linguistic change must have been so imperceptible that it was not documented, or thought so unremarkable that it was not worth documenting. Michael Richter (in an article that echoed — for a third time — the titles of Lot and Norberg) expressed his belief that the question about when Latin ceased to be spoken, at least as presented by these two scholars, was, in a way, ‘mal posée’, because it failed to give sufficient attention to the matter of communication, a matter different from that of the survival of Latin as a spoken language.14 Is it not reasonable to assume, Richter asked, that Latin continued for a time to be understood by those who no longer used it for everyday communication — nor had any need to do so? Michel Banniard proposed a four-stage scenario for the passage from Latin to Romance: (1) 450–650, Latin as a living language both spoken and understood; (2) 650–750, a period of decline in the ability to speak Latin; (3) 750–850, a decline in passive competence and loss of contact with traditional Latin grammatical structures; and (4) 850–1000, spread of the previous two developments among the lay aristocracy.15 This working model does not, of course, take into account clergy, choir monks and nuns, or members of the laity who were ‘home schooled’ in Latin. Banniard’s scenario assumes a slower level of decline among elites than among the general population. Roger Wright proposed that the changeover from Latin to Romance ran along a continuum, progressing ‘a ritmi distinti’ without producing a sudden

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Ages [… when] few literate Europeans continued to write in classical [sic] Latin’. Lest his readers be too distressed, however, he consoled them with the thought that the Latin language still survived as Italian! Lot, ‘Á quelle date a-t-on cessé de parler latin en Gaule’, p. 99: ‘pendent le dernier siécle de l’Empire d’Occident [383–476], il y avait deux langues, celle du peuple parlée par l’immense majorité de l’Empire, [et] celle de l’aristocratie’. For a comprehensive review of the various theories, see Van Uytfanghe, ‘Histoire du latin, protohistoire des langues romanes et histoire de la communication’. Also valuable is the earlier survey of Herman, Du latin aux langues romanes, as well as Ernout, ‘Du latin aux langues vulgaires’, Norberg, ‘À quelle époque a-t-on cessé de parler latin en Gaule?’, p. 346. Richter, ‘Á quelle époque a-t-on cessé de parler latin?’; Richter, ‘Kommunikationsprobleme im lateinischen Mittelalter’, p. 28 n. 12; see also Muller, ‘When Did Latin Cease to be a Spoken Language in France?’, pp. 328–29. Banniard, ‘Language and Communication in Carolingian Europe’, pp. 698–99.

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‘cambiamento catastrofico’.16 Changes in pronunciation, moving at a slower pace than morpho­logical and syntactic modifications, were more profound and more rapid in northern France than in Italy.17 According to Wright, ‘ordinary’ people in Latin-speaking areas could have probably understood Latin to some degree well into the ninth century: ‘le consuetudini latine sono rimaste parte della competenza passiva generale per parecchi secoli dopo l’avvento delle forme più sviluppate’.18 Latin could be understood as a ‘passive competence’ for quite some time after it ceased to be actively spoken. Biblical pericopes, heard year after year, were not unfamiliar texts and could survive a ‘lost’ word or two and still remain intelligible. There existed, then, what Michel Banniard called ‘communication verticale’. This involved a single Latin language, in which ‘the mass of illiterate hearers understood Latin without difficulty when it was read to them’, though they may not have been able to (or need to) use the language for daily communication.19 This focus on communication (Wright’s ‘passive competence’) places the question within the comparatively new discipline of historical sociolinguistics, which studies written and spoken language in sociocultural and geo­graphical frameworks.20 To this I would add the liturgical.

Pronunciation and Ortho­graphy It would be unwise to start from the modern presumption that in medi­eval Latin there was an exact correspondence between syllable and sound. The standard ortho­graphy of the text in front of the ‘reader’ might not have determined what ‘hearers’ heard. Even in Antiquity spoken Latin exhibited a measure of ‘dialectalization’ across the vast reaches of the Roman Empire. What must have been true even of Italy was more pronounced among peoples incorporated into the Empire by conquest. They would have learned to speak Latin with a phonation influenced by their native languages. Although the ortho­graphy of the Bible could not be changed, the manner in which the words were pronounced gradually ceased to reflect standard ortho­graphy.21 Due to the wide geo­graphical area and the centuries-long time frame involved, the question of the pronunciation of medi­eval Latin (itself not a  16 Wright, ‘Il latino’, p. 80. Adamik, ‘The Periodization of Latin’.  17 Augustine Thompson could claim that, even as late as the thirteenth century, ‘Italians got the drift of the lessons at Mass when they took the trouble to listen, as admittedly some of them failed to do’; Thompson, Cities of God, p. 239.  18 Wright, ‘Il latino’, p. 80.  19 Banniard, ‘Language and Communication in Carolingian Europe’, pp. 697–98. This chapter is a lucid summary of the relevant parts of Banniard’s masterful, if somewhat unwieldy, Viva voce; see Wright’s lengthy review of this work in the Journal of Medi­eval Latin, 3 (1993).  20 Richter, ‘A Socio-Linguistic Approach to the Latin Middle Ages’.  21 This statement is a broad generalization. The syntax and morpho­logy of medi­eval Latin was distinctive; ortho­graphy was notoriously variable.

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unitary concept) lacks contemporary documentation, though there is suggestive evidence in written texts about how the transformation proceeded, culminating in the creation of the Romance vernaculars. Many ortho­graphical variants, familiar to anyone who has worked with medi­eval Latin texts, imply shifts in pronunciation. They reflected, even if imperfectly, variants in pronunciation, as one would expect in a culture so dependent on oral communication. In Le latin médiévale Pascale Bourgain presented a short but detailed summary of changes in Latin pronunciation since Late Antiquity.22 She reviewed the frequent cases in Latin of ‘flottements ortho­graphiques dus à la prononciation’ involving both vowels and consonants. Some of the changes involved the quality of vowels: short /i/ and closed /e/ were confused, as were short /u/ and open /o/. The distinction between open and closed /e/ and /o/ was lost, and the /o/ in ‘nobilis’ and ‘schola’ were pronounced the same.23 Diphthongs tended to disappear. There was also a volatile line between ‘-tia’ and ‘-cia’ at the end of a word.24 Cumulatively, these transformed the spoken language even as the standard texts, the Bible in particular, remained fixed. A reflection of the influence of pronunciation on written texts is the insertion of an epenthetic ‘p’ between ‘m’ and ‘n’ (columpna, solempnitas) or between ‘m’ and ‘t’ (verumptamen). There was frequent confusion between ‘m’ and ‘n’ (eumdem/eundem), as also ‘t’ and ‘d’ in final position (caput/ capud).25 There were also shifts of accent, so that ‘tenébrae’ (recte ‘ténebrae’) became French ‘tenèbres’. Evidence of these shifts in pronunciation (of which the preceding represents only a small selection) is preserved in medi­eval manu­scripts. Would it not have been natural for a subdeacon or deacon in cantillating a scriptural pericope to pronounce the Latin words in a manner that accommodated itself to the phonation of the reader’s environment? A few representative examples must suffice. If a reader saw virgo, a hearer might have heard something resembling vergine, virgen, or vierge, or angelus – angelo – angel – ange, or ecclesia – chiesa – iglesia – église, depending on the geo­graphical area. At least through most of the eighth century the Latin of the liturgy was very probably pronounced like the Romance of the time and place. Accordingly, Latin texts read aloud at Mass would have been read more or less as if they were Romance texts. Such a practice extended — perhaps for generations — passive comprehension of Latin texts that were ‘romanced’ in pronunciation.

 22 Bourgain, Le latin médiévale, pp. 119–30 (‘Prononciation et ortho­graphie’); the volume contains a large antho­logy of representative texts. The fundamental mono­graph is Stotz, Handbuch zur lateinischen Sprache des Mittelalters, pp. 239–41 (t/d) and 298–300 (m/n). See also Haadsma and Nuchelmans, Précis de latin vulgaire, pp. 14–31; Luiselli, ‘Aspetti della situazione linguistica latina nel passagio dall’antichità al medioevo’; Rigg, ‘Ortho­graphy and Pronunciation’, pp. 79–81.  23 After /s/ the /h/ disappeared from ‘schola’ and the /c/ from a word like scilicet’.  24 This is still labile in English; cf. the pronunciation of ‘Ascension’ and ‘Assumption’.  25 Cf. the difference between American ‘spelled’ (pronounced ‘speld’) and British ‘spelt’.

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Roger Wright argued that this normal linguistic development was abruptly interrupted by a campaign, promoted by Alcuin, to enforce a strict letter/ sound correspondence and thus reverse the normal course of linguistic change. He cited the well-known missive, De litteris colendis, sent sometime between 780 and 800 from Charlemagne (but mainly the work of Alcuin) to Abbot Baugulf of Fulda. The communication, intended for wider circulation, insisted that ‘qui deo placere appetunt recte vivendo, ei etiam placere non neglegant recte loquendo’ (whoever seeks to please God by living rightly, let him not neglect to please [him] by speaking rightly).26 While the phrase quoted (made graceful by the use of rhyme and cursus planus) emphasizes proper speech, the substance of the letter complains mainly about written communications received at court from various monasteries. More than a few of these missives left much to be desired with respect to grammatical correctness.27 Understandably, Charlemagne feared that shortcomings of this type signalled serious problems: ‘the wisdom for understanding the Holy Scriptures might be much less than it rightly ought to be; and we all know well that, although errors of speech are dangerous, far more dangerous are errors of understanding’.28 Taken as a whole, De litteris colendis does not unambiguously promote a reform of Latin pronunciation, in so doing putting the brakes on natural developments as Wright assumes. Instead, it addressed deficiencies in Latin comprehension and composition, while acknowledging ‘errors of speech’.29 Since none of the objectionable monastic missives have survived, the question must remain unresolved. Charlemagne expected the recipient of his letter, Baugulf, to disseminate the contents to other bishops and to monasteries. It was not as broad a programme of reform as was the introduction of the Roman liturgy to Francia. The latter touched the entire population, not just monks and clergy. Alcuin later complained to Charlemagne about Latin deficiencies at the monastery of St Martin at Tours, where he had been abbot since 796, lamenting that, ‘ego licet parum proficiens cum Turonica cotidie pugno rusticitate’ (although making little headway, I battle daily with Touronese rusticity).30 He may well have been distressed by the monks’ ‘rustic’ speech,  26 Capitularia regum Francorum, ed. by Boretius, p. 79; Alcuin, De litteris colendis, ed. by Frenken, pp. 27–29.  27 Hrabanus Maurus (780–856) likewise complained that bad pronunciation of Latin grieved his contemporaries. Restating a view of Isidore (Etym. 7. 12. 24), he claimed that the bad pronunciation of lectors was a source of widespread distress: ‘licet et quidam lectores ita miseranter pronuntient, ut quosdam ad luctum lamentationemque compellant’; Hrabanus Maurus, De institutione clericorum 1. 11, ed. and trans. by Zimpel, i, pp. 164–67.  28 ‘Ut timere inciperemus, ne forte, sicut minor erat in scribendo prudentia, ita quoque et multo minor esset quam recte esse debuisset sanctarum scripturarum ad intellegendum sapientia. et bene novimus omnes, quia, quamvis periculosi sint errores verborum, multi periculosiores sunt errores sensuum’.  29 Grotans, Reading in Medi­eval St Gall, pp. 297–307 (‘Alcuin’s Spelling Reform’).  30 Epistolae Karolini Aevi, ed. by Dümmler and others, p. 285, as quoted by Muller, ‘When Did

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but perhaps it was in part their Latin pronunciation that irked an Englishman transplanted to a foreign land? Could the problem in both instances have been that the monks wrote as they spoke?31 This is an additional dimension to ‘rustic Latin’: the written one, which involves vocabulary, morpho­logy, and syntax in addition to reflecting pronunciation. The first three are, however, irrelevant to the cantillation of a biblical text. Wright assumed that Englishmen like Alcuin, who had learned their Latin from grammar books, must have learned a strict letter/sound correspondence, which insulated them from the evolving pronunciation of Latin on the Continent.32 He assumed further that Alcuin attempted to impose a ‘pronuncia riformata secondo l’uso inglese’ (as Wright conceived it) throughout the Carolingian realm.33 Its supposed goal was ‘to bring pronunciation into line with the traditional spelling’.34 Monks and secular clerics would henceforth be obliged to ‘recite the set texts of the Church services according to the new [sic] letter-sound correspondences’,35 thus abandoning the then current Romance pronunciation of Latin. Such a move, if indeed it took place and was successfully implemented, would have abruptly cut off popular comprehension of the chanted scriptural texts in Romance lands. But is that what happened?

Latin and the English Wright’s theories encountered opposition. In a review of his Late Latin and Early Romance, Thomas Walsh pointed to the fact that the first missionaries to England, sent by Pope Gregory I (590–603), were Roman monks. Theodore, the Greek monk who later assumed the office of archbishop of Canterbury (669), had learned his Latin in Rome. Theodore’s companion, Abbot Hadrian, hailed from the vicinity of Naples. Thus, Walsh reasonably asks, is it not conceivable that Englishmen learned from them to pronounce Latin with an Italian accent?36 I would, furthermore, draw attention to the goal of Benedict Biscop

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Latin Cease to be a Spoken Language in France?’, p. 321, and Wright, Late Latin and Early Romance, p. 111. Though pages 104–12 of Wright’s book are ostensibly devoted to ‘Standard Delivery of the Liturgy’, he offers little specific information on the topic. Ill-prepared students at modern American universities tend to do much the same. All things considered, it does not work to their advantage. Existence of a tension between normative grammar and living speech is inevitable. Relevant to the present discussion is Van Uytfanghe, ‘The Consciousness of a Linguistic Dichotomy (Latin-Romance) in Carolingian Gaul’, pp. 119–20. Wright, ‘Il latino’, p. 83. In a critical review of Wright’s book, Giovanni Polara commiserated with the ‘poveri francesi’ allegedly subjected to Alcuin’s supposed dictum; see Orpheus, n.s., 5 (1984), p. 229. Wright, ‘Late Latin and Early Romance’, p. 345. Wright, ‘Late Latin and Early Romance’, p. 353. Walsh, ‘Latin and Romance in the Early Middle Ages’, pp. 213–14. Walsh maintains that some of the evidence adduced by Wright is by no means unequivocal.

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(c. 628–690) to model the Office celebrated in the monasteries he founded in England on that of St Peter’s in Rome.37 To realize this goal he received the permission of Pope Agatho (678–681) to bring John, the ‘archicantator’ (Bede’s term) of St Peter’s basilica and abbot of the adjacent monastery of St Martin, to England to teach the Roman style to the monks of Monkwearmouth and Jarrow as well as cantors from other English monasteries.38 John’s physical presence was indispensable, since musical notation was still unknown in the late seventh century. The texts and structure of the St. Peter’s Office could have been communicated via a written document, but this would have been useless without a living witness to the musical tradition of St Peter’s, where the basilical monasteries were responsible for chanting the Divine Office at the Apostle’s grave. Text and music were inseparable. John’s teaching drew monastic cantors from all over Northumbria ‘qui cantandi erant periti’ (who were expert in singing) and who wanted to learn from him the authentic Roman monastic tradition of chanting the Office.39 If the English monks imitated John’s singing of chant and cantillation of the readings of the Office (‘ritumque cantandi ac legendi’), as Benedict Biscop surely expected them to do, they might have sounded a bit like a choir of Roman monks! Given Benedict’s romanophile tendencies, he cannot have regarded that as a bad thing. Thus, in the final analysis, was Wright’s ‘uso inglese’ really an ‘uso romano’? Might Alcuin (c. 735–804) have learned something from those who had been eager disciples of John? To support his contention that the English clerics and monks spoke Latin according to a strict letter/sound correspondence, Wright pointed to an episode in Willibald’s vita of Boniface (c. 674–754), an Englishman (Wynfrith), who received the name by which he is universally known from Pope Gregory II (715–731) at his episcopal ordination in 722. Wynfrith was requested to make a formal profession of faith (‘de simbulo et fidei ecclesiastice traditio’) orally. He demurred from doing this viva voce, pleading unfamiliarity with Gregory’s sermo, and asked permission to draw up a written statement, which was duly received and approved.40 Wright interpreted this as evidence that Boniface could not communicate with the pope because of a ‘language barrier’ with respect to pronunciation.41 But is it not reasonable to assume that  37 Billett, The Divine Office in Anglo-Saxon England, pp. 78–132. Monkwearmouth, founded 674/75 by Benedict Biscop, was dedicated to St Peter.  38 Bede, Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum 4: 18; ed. by Plummer, pp. 240–42; trans. by McClure and Collins, pp. 200–202. This account is found also in the deliberations of the Council of Hatfield (17 September 690); Haddan and Stubbs, eds, Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents Relating to Great Britain and Ireland, iii, pp. 141–44. The young Bede was probably one of John’s pupils.  39 About two centuries earlier, Benedict of Nursia looked to the Roman monastic Office for inspiration.  40 Vita Bonifatii auctore Willibaldo, ed. by Levison, pp. 21 (first visit) and 28 (second visit); trans. by Talbot, ‘Life of Saint Boniface’, pp. 120–21 and 124–26.  41 Wright, ‘Foreigners’ Latin and Romance’.

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for something as crucial as a solemn profession of faith Wynfrith/Boniface would have preferred the exactitude of a written statement over a viva voce presentation? The confession having been accepted, Boniface, an Englishman, and the pope, an Italian, had apparently no trouble in conversing informally for hours afterwards about Boniface’s mission experiences in far-off lands, whose customs must have aroused the pope’s curiosity. Even if Boniface spoke with an English intonation, it did not constitute a barrier to communication. Nor was this the first encounter between Gregory and the Anglo-Saxon missionary. Wynfrith had come to Rome three years earlier to seek papal approval for his mission to the Frisians. He and the pope seem to have at that time ‘hit it off ’ (as the colloquial expression goes). According to Boniface’s bio­grapher, the two spent many hours in familiar conversation.42 Apparently, the pope’s pronunciation of Latin presented no problems to an Anglo-Saxon speaker of Bede’s generation. It is thus difficult to accept Wright’s conclusion that ‘il Papa non abbia capito il latino dell’anglossassone Bonifacio’,43 or Uwe Lang’s conclusion that Boniface spoke Latin according to a Standardaussprache that required exact letter/sound correspondence, while Gregory, born in Rome, spoke in a ‘romanisch’ manner.44 Centuries later, Ulrich of Cluny (also ‘of Zell’, 1029–1093) was concerned about the ‘diversitate linguae’ in the monastery, whose prestige attracted prospective monks from many lands. All had to master Latin. For Germans like himself the process was more difficult than for someone ‘qui est indigena et qui ab infantia inter talia crevit’ (who is indigenous and grew up among the same).45 Speakers of Romance had an advantage, perhaps not just with respect to vocabulary, but also because they were accustomed to hearing Latin pronounced as if it were Romance. Pádraig Breatnach studied the pronunciation of Latin in Ireland, where Latin was every bit as much a ‘learned’ language as it was in England. He discovered that some ortho­graphic variants in Irish sources resembled those found on the Continent. Based on the evidence of vowel and consonant substitutions, Breatnach came to the conclusion that ‘Latin in Ireland in the Later Middle Ages was pronounced, to judge from the ortho­graphical features analysed here, largely as if it were Irish’.46 There was not a strict letter/sound correspondence in the ‘uso irlandese’ any more than there was in Wright’s (presumed) ‘uso inglese’.

 42 ‘Sedulum deinceps cum eo habebat cotidianae disputationis conloquium, donec profiscendi redeundique estivum instaret tempus’; Vita Bonifatii auctore Willibaldo, ed. by Levison, p. 21; trans. by Talbot, ‘Life of Saint Boniface’, pp. 120–21.  43 Wright, ‘Il latino’, p. 81.  44 Lang, ‘Historische Stationen zur Frage der lateinischen Liturgiesprache’, p. 233.  45 Ulrich of Cluny, Antiquiores consuetudines Cluniacensis monasterii (prooemium); PL, 149:664, as quoted in Barrau, ‘Did Medi­eval Monks Actually Speak Latin?’, p. 295 n. 11.  46 Breatnach, ‘The Pronunciation of Latin in Medi­eval Ireland’, p. 71.

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The Council of Tours (813) A canon approved by a church council held at Tours in 813 is considered relevant to the relationship between Latin and the Romance vernaculars. It was one of five reforming councils held that year which took up the usual matters of clerical discipline, monastic life, and church administration.47 Canon 17 treats of a pastoral matter: Visum est unanimitati nostrae ut quilibet episcopus habeat omelias continentes necessarias ammonitiones quibus subjecti erudiantur; […] et ut easdem omelias quisque aperte transferre studeat in rusticam romanam linguam aut theotiscam, quo facilius cuncti possint intellegere quae dicuntur.48 (It has seemed from our unanimous agreement that each bishop should have homilies containing the necessary admonitions by which his subjects may be instructed; […] and that each [bishop] should endeavour to ‘transfer’ the same homilies plainly into the rustic Latin language or the German [language], so that everyone may more easily understand what they say.) The homilies referred to were not impromptu discourses or the prepared sermons familiar today, but patristic homilies — those of Gregory the Great being especially favoured — that were read out to a congregation by the bishop or a delegated priest. A related canon (15), approved at Reims the same year, counselled: ‘ut episcopi sermones et omelias sanctorum patrum, prout omnes intelligere possent, secundum proprietatem linguae praedicare studeat’ (take care to preach the sermons and homilies of the sainted Fathers according to the type of language, so that all might be able to understand).49 If the homilies were supposed to be understood — as might reasonably be taken as the council’s intent — how would ‘transferre’ have facilitated that? The so-called Expositio brevis antiquae liturgiae gallicanae, which Philippe Bernard dates to the end of the eighth century, seems to assume that reading

 47 Others took place in Arles, Reims, Mainz, and Chalon-sur-Saone. Their canons are analysed in de Clercq, La législation religieuse franque, ii, pp. 232–47 and 378 (references to the conciliar decrees edited in the MGH).  48 Concilia aevi Karolini [742–842], ed. by Werminghoff, p. 288; de Clercq, La législation religi­ euse franque, ii, p. 245. Canon 2 of a council held at Mainz in 847 repeats the Tours canon.  49 Concilia aevi Karolini [742–842], ed. by Werminghoff, pp. 245–93; de Clercq, La législation religieuse franque, i, p. 234. A canon (25) of the council held at Mainz in 813 made the same demand, but in this situation only the German language could have been intended. A council held at Vaison (a. 529) allowed a deacon to read one of the ‘sanctorum patrum homiliae’, if the priest were impeded from preaching because of illness. Since the deacon is charged with proclaiming the gospel, so it was argued, it was only logical that he could also read the Fathers’ commentaries on the Gospels; Concilium Vasense a. 529, can. 2; Concilia Galliae, A. 511–A. 659, ed. by de Clercq, p. 79.

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of these homeliae sanctorum (homilies of the saints) could replace the sermon: ‘homiliae autem sanctorum que leguntur pro sola predicatione ponuntur’ (the homilies of the saints are considered to take the place of preaching).50 One manu­script of the Expositio inserts the word ‘patrum’ after ‘sanctorum’, and ‘sola’ is understood as ‘solita’ (the usual) by another. I believe that both of these emendations bring the language of the source closer to the intended meaning. The Expositio closes with an admonition about how these sermones should be preached: ‘ita arte temperans, ut nec rusticitas sapientes offendat nec onesta loquacitas obscura rusticis fiat’ (so tempered by art that colloquial speech does not offend the learned or that loquacity renders noble things obscure). It is unclear how loquacitas (‘chattiness’) figures in, if the sermones were merely read. Does it involve an impromptu explanatio that served merely to confuse rather than to enlighten?

Rustica romana lingua Scholarly interpretation of (i.e. controversy over) the 813 Tours canon has focused on the meaning of two expressions: (1) ‘transferre’ and (2) ‘rusticam romanam linguam’.51 Applied to two very different things, ‘rusticam romanam linguam’ and ‘theotiscam [linguam]’, the verb ‘transferre’ cannot apply univocally to both. Did the bishops assembled at Tours deliberately choose an equivocal term, one broad enough to cover both possibilities envisaged by the canon?52 In the case of ‘theotisca’, genuine translation into another language family must be intended. Applied to the rustica romana lingua, however, ‘transferre’ must have some other meaning. Were the idea to ‘translate’ (broadly speaking) Latin texts into one of the Romance vernaculars — none of which had a fixed grammar or sufficiently developed vocabulary at the time — one would expect to find more than a few ninth-century survivals of proto-Romance sermon texts, but these seem to be extraordinarily rare. Something else must have been intended. Roger Wright believed that ‘transferre’ meant not the adaptation of Latin texts to the prevailing ‘romance’ pronunciation of Latin, as just suggested, but additional evidence of a reversal of contemporary practice — the imposition of a strict correspondence between letter and sound, purged of Romance nuances, as previously explained. He was unable to find any evidence,

 50 Pseudo-Germanus, Epistolae de ordine sacrae oblationis et de diversis charismatibus ecclesiae, ed. by Bernard, p. 343 (Ep. 1. 11).  51 On the latter, see Sabatini, ‘Dalla “scripta latina rustica” alle “scripte romane”’. I have not been able to examine this publication.  52 Although she does not comment on the ‘transferre’ dispute, Rosamond McKitterick expressed the view that the importance of the Tours canon for the history of language had been overemphasized; see The Carolingians and the Written Word, pp. 11–12; see also McKitterick, ‘Latin and Romance’, p. 138. This conclusion has much to recommend it.

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however, that ‘transferre’ was ever used in the sense of ‘to translate’. Normally, the verb applied to the physical movement of objects or people from one place to another.53 Wright drew the conclusion, nonetheless, that it marked the definitive beginning of ‘medi­eval Latin’, marked by a definitive split from proto-Romance pronunciation. It supposedly institutionalized (or attempted to institutionalize) Alcuin’s supposed initiative nearly a decade after his death in 804. Wright’s scenario would have effectively (and abruptly) cut off the laity from the possibility of understanding what they could hear of the Mass liturgy: mainly the Scripture readings. How desirable could that have been? I would propose a different conclusion: that ‘transferre’ meant adapting the pronunciation of the (Latin) sermon to the local ‘dialect’ of Latin. Analysing ‘rustica romana lingua’, the term used by the 813 Tours Council, Henri Muller demonstrated that ‘right through the Roman period down to the ixth century lingua romana means exactly the same as lingua latina’.54 Muller surveyed the canons of eighty Gallican/Carolingian church councils held between 500 and 750 without uncovering a single decree implying anxiety that ‘the writings of the fathers, the Bible and the new hagio­graphies are in any way written in a language no longer understood by the people’.55 The phrase rustica romana lingua meant simply Latin — no more, no less — even if pronounced with a local accent. Muller’s research shows that the ‘transferre’ issue, whatever it implied, was not an issue up to the mid-eighth century. Unfortunately, the span covered by Muller’s research project terminated more than a half century before the Council of Tours. As we have seen, Norberg and Richter argued for continued gradual change, not the abrupt shift in pronunciation envisaged by Wright, and against any need actually to ‘translate’ the omelias into a current vernacular, whatever that might have meant in the early ninth century. The preponderance of evidence supports Muller’s conclusion that the rustica romana lingua was the descendent of what for centuries was known as sermo humilis — the Latin spoken and understood by all classes of Roman society, even if pronounced differently by the early ninth century.56 According to Julia Smith, the term ‘lingua romana’, which in Antiquity referred to both written and spoken forms of the language, was by the twelfth century restricted to the spoken language.57 She maintains, correctly I believe, that this lingua romana in all its variety of pronunciations was understood over a wide geo­ graphical area. If such were the case, would it not be just as easy for ‘hearers

 53 Wright, ‘Late Latin and Early Romance’, p. 145.  54 Muller, ‘On the Use of the Expression lingua Romana from the First to the Ninth Century’. This essential study is not referenced in the biblio­graphy of Wright, Late Latin and Early Romance.  55 Muller, ‘When Did Latin Cease to be a Spoken Language in France?’, p. 330.  56 This differs from ‘diglossia’, in which there are ‘high’ and ‘low’ forms of the same language, the speakers separated by social standing.  57 Smith, ‘Speaking and Writing’, p. 24.

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of the Word’ to understand the cantillated Scripture passages at Mass, if the ‘reader’ met them half way? Marc van Uytfanghe, having reviewed the use of the term ‘lingua romana’ with or without the ‘rustica’ or ‘vulgaris’ modifiers, cautioned that ‘the contradictions of the sources themselves and/or of their interpretations’ preclude absolute determination with respect to the meaning of this and similar terms.58 Admittedly, all of this applies only to places where Latin had taken hold as a lingua franca during the Empire and Late Antiquity.

Knowledge of Latin among Medi­eval Clergy and Laity The collapse of education that followed the demise of the Roman Empire in the West made acquisition of competency in Latin — the language of the liturgy and of administration, ecclesiastical and secular — more difficult. Outside of Italy, where secular magistri continued to offer instruction, the responsibility for transmitting the Latin language fell largely to ecclesiastical institutions and individuals, who ‘saved’ the Latin language. Few laymen were welcomed in cathedral or monastic schools, where preference was given to those embarking on careers in the Church as ordained clergy or as choir monks and nuns, respectively. Churchmen were fond of disparaging the ‘lewed men’ to whom The Lay Folkes Mass Book was addressed. Irrespective of their other accomplishments, they suffered in comparison to those, mainly clerics, who had a command (however limited) of Latin.59 The clergy saw a vast gap, linguistic and social, between litterati (themselves) and those with no Latin (illiterati), also known as rustici or idiotae. Medi­eval clergy generally harboured what Peter Biller has described as ‘massive condescension’ towards layfolk, an attitude deeply rooted in clerical culture, whatever the level of a given cleric’s educational attainments, which until early modern times were generally quite modest.60 The twelfth-century canonist Gratian expressed this two-tier social stratification in no uncertain terms. He distinguished two categories (genera) of Christians: (1) those ‘given over (mancipatum) to divine service and dedicated to contemplation and prayer’ and (2) laici, who work, marry, and are responsible for making offerings and giving tithes to the Church.61 Fulfilling the latter obligation put them on the  58 Van Uytfanghe, ‘The Consciousness of a Linguistic Dichotomy (Latin-Romance) in Carolingian Gaul’, p. 123. Van Uytfanghe cites Jacques Fontaine’s observation that ‘une longue phase de transition où la différence de degré n’étatit pas encore parvenue à se constituer en véritable différence de structure linguistique’ (Fontaine, ‘De la pluralité à l’unité dans le “latin carolingien”’, p. 797 n. 43).  59 Grundmann, ‘Litteratus – illiteratus’. In similar fashion Guido of Arezzo contrasted (unfavourably) learned musici with simple cantors: ‘Musicorum et cantorum magna est distantia; […] nam qui canit quod non sapit appellatur bestia’; Guido d’Arezzo, Regule rithmice 8–10, ed. by Pesce, pp. 330–33.  60 Biller, ‘Mind the Gap’, pp. 214–18.  61 Gratian, Decreta II, causa 12, q. 1, c. 8; as cited and translated in Biller, ‘Mind the Gap’, p. 216.

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road to salvation (‘ita salvari poterunt’). No less certain of this ‘pecking order’ was Humbert of Romans, fifth Master General of the Dominican Order, who was convinced that clerici were naturally superior in dignity, more intelligent, and holier than laypeople.62 Such a generalization, while manifestly untenable in the early twenty-first century, mirrored a common clerical attitude.63 The struggles between medi­eval popes and emperors, too well known to need recounting here, are a symptom of this unresolved conflict. A similar structure prevailed in monastic communities and religious orders, male and female. These were two-tiered societies, choir monks or nuns being separate from the lay brothers or sisters (conversi), who did most of the work to support the house.64 Most of them were illiterate and had their own ‘choir’, where they said their Paters and Aves as the choir monks or nuns chanted the Divine Office in Latin. They were even discouraged to learn how to read, lest this take time away from the manual labour that was their lot. Early monastic legislation had, to the contrary, stressed the importance of teaching candidates to the monastic state how to read, if they did not possess that skill upon entering the monastery. Thus the kind of division just described was far from Benedict’s intention. He believed that all monks should live by the work of their own hands, not by those of someone else. The opinio communis that there existed a vast linguistic gap between clergy and laity in the Middle Ages has not stood up to close modern scrutiny. Latin did not really become an exotic language (often deprecated as ‘dead’) until the twentieth century. ‘Literacy’ is naturally a very broad concept that encompasses a wide range of linguistic competencies, from the ability to compose original literary or scholarly works to being barely able to understand spoken or written language. In The Literacy of the Laity in the Middle Ages James Westfall Thompson strove to rebut the then (1939) prevailing notion that, by and large, medi­eval laymen and women were ignorant of Latin.65 Thompson marshalled a trove of evidence that Merovingian and Carolingian rulers

 62 Humbert of Romans, De eruditione praedicatorum 2. 71, as cited in Biller, ‘Mind the Gap’, p. 217. Humbert uses this principle to explain the physical division of Dominican churches into a chorus for the friars and the navis, to which the lay faithful were restricted. See Chapter 7 below.  63 Cf. Honorius Augustodunensis: ‘quantum differt lux a tenebris, tantum differt ordo sacerdotum a laicis’ (De offendiculo 38; MGH, Libelli de lite, 3. 51), as quoted in Cattaneo, ‘La partecipazione dei laici alla liturgia’, p. 402.  64 This persisted into the 1960s in the Dominican Order. For case studies, see Thompson, Dominican Brothers; Johnson, Equal in Monastic Profession, pp. 171–80.  65 Thompson, The Literacy of the Laity in the Middle Ages, pp. 27–52. See also Lot, ‘Quel sont les dialectes romains que pouvait connaître les Carolingiens’. The biblio­graphy on lay literacy is considerable. A good overview is provided by the essays published in McKitterick, ed., Carolingian Culture; see especially the introductory chapter (pp. 1–51) by Giles Brown and the chapter on ‘The Study of Grammar’ by Vivien Law (pp. 88–110). There is a recent broad survey of medi­eval education in Hanna, ‘Literacy, Schooling and Universities’. Important overviews are Riché, Education and Culture in the Barbarian West and Stock, The Implications of Literacy.

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could understand Latin, though fewer could (or needed to) speak it. Writing was an additional, specialized skill not as closely identified with literacy as it is today. Thompson’s comprehensive study, still valid after eighty years, along with others that followed documented the living presence of Latin on the Continent and the British Isles throughout the Middle Ages. He also underscored the presence of an educated class of laymen in Italy ‘who had received the benefits of a liberal education to a greater or lesser degree’.66 Malcolm B. Parkes remarked, moreover, that ‘pragmatic literacy [was] more extensive than the paucity of other evidence would lead us to suppose’.67 There was no reason to exclude Latin from instruction offered to children, which by the beginning of the twelfth century had spread to what Parkes called ‘the expanding middle class’. Among the laity, men and women of noble or well-to-do mercantile families might have received instruction in Latin, even if not marked for the clerical or monastic state or the convent.68 Especially in the twelfth century there was an upsurge in lay literacy — and not just in the vernacular. This process continued into the Renaissance and figured in the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century. There was interest in devotional literature and Books of Hours, but also in having access to the text of the Bible, not just the brief pericopes heard at Mass.69 This spread of literacy may have been mainly confined to cities, but a moderately well-educated country priest could offer basic instruction to boys who might aspire to become priests themselves. Much of what is known of lay literacy, whether in Latin or in the developing Romance vernaculars, stems from accounts about a social class that one might broadly call ‘elites’, a class that included families of prosperous merchants.70 Anyone who exercised an instructional office had to have studied Latin, the language of Church and university.71 Latin was the exclusive medium of instruction in the universities, and students were expected to use Latin informally as well. Since not all the young teenagers who arrived in Paris were prepared for the challenge of sitting through lectures in Latin, ‘remedial’ Latin was available in the environs of the university.72 A few years spent at a university, even if a student did not proceed to the award of a formal degree, was a highly

 66 Thompson, The Literacy of the Laity in the Middle Ages, pp. 65 and 71 (diffusion of lay culture in the twelfth century).  67 Parkes, ‘The Literacy of the Laity’, p. 281.  68 Bieler, ‘Das Mittellatein als Sprachproblem’; Burke, Languages and Communities in Early Modern Europe, pp. 43–60; McKitterick, ed., The Uses of Literacy in Early Medi­eval Europe.  69 Ehrenschwendtner, ‘Literacy and the Laity’. As she explains, Church authorities were more than a little suspicious of vernacular Bible translations, since these were often linked to heterodox religious movements: Waldensians, Cathars, Lollards, and the like.  70 McKitterick, The Carolingians and the Written Word, pp. 1–22 (‘The Spoken and the Written Word’) and 211–27 (‘The Literacy of the Laity’); Contreni, ‘The Carolingian Renaissance’.  71 Riché and Verger, Des nains sur des épaules de géants, pp. 165–69, pp. 294–98.  72 Gabriel, ‘Preparatory Teaching in the Parisian Colleges’.

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desirable credential for advancement in Church or state. Command of Latin was one of the collateral benefits of university education. An upswing in the frequency of Latin instruction beginning in the late eleventh century continued into the ‘age of the universities’ and beyond. Some indication of this may be seen in the production of printed editions of the Sarum Prymer (‘Book of Hours’ – in Latin). Many of the ‘customers’ for these books were women, who were (obviously) conversant with Latin. Between 1478 and 1534 there were 116 Latin editions. Even after the ‘reform’ initiated by Henry VIII (d. 1547), eighteen Latin editions appeared versus twenty-eight in English.73 The popularity of the primers with their many Latin devotional prayers prove conclusively that familiarity with the Latin language was far from a rarity. Many thirteenth-century Bibles were either commissioned or owned by laity.74 Michael Clanchy uncovered evidence from post-Conquest England that a measure of Latin literacy may have extended in some instances even to lower strata of society. In addition he also analysed the ways in which the terms ‘clericus/laicus’ and ‘litteratus/illiteratus’ were intertwined rather than completely opposed.75 Were a man proficient in Latin, he could be considered a ‘clerk’ without being ordained to any sacred order. The English music theorist Amerus (Alfred; fl. 1270), whom we met in Chapter 4, probably spent most of his life on the Continent in the service of Cardinal Fiesco Ottoboni. He admonished lectors to read ‘plainly and distinctly, so that all those who are literate (literati) can understand’.76 By Amerus’s day the literati would have included not only those in the clerical state but all who had some degree of formal Latin instruction. This would necessarily include (but not be limited to) anyone with some level of university education. Latin continued to be understood through the early seventh century and to a more limited and variable degree throughout the Middle Ages — and not only by clergy and monastics.77 Tradesmen, if they were involved in any more than local trade would always have found it advantageous to learn to speak ‘vulgar Latin’ for business transactions.78 East of the Rhine, in England, and in the northernmost lands of Europe (Low Countries and Scandinavia)  73 I take these numbers from Smith, Pre-Reformation England, p. 102. On the primer, see Duffy, Marking the Hours.  74 Light, ‘The Thirteenth Century and the Paris Bible’.  75 Clanchy, ‘Literate and Illiterate, Hearing and Seeing’. See also Hill, ‘Learning Latin in AngloSaxon England’.  76 ‘Unde lector aperte et distincte debet legere ut omnes literati intelligant’; Amerus, Practica artis musice (1271), ed. by Ruini, p. 102. The ‘aperte et distincte’ phrase derives from Nehemiah 8. 6, not Jeremiah as Amerus claims. The passage is quoted in full and translated in Appendix 3, para­graph 6.  77 On the history of later Latin, see Väänänen, Introduction au latin vulgaire; Norberg, Manuel pratique de latin médiévale; Strecker, Introduction to Medi­eval Latin; Bourgain, Le latin médiévale, pp. 15–59; Herren, ‘Latin and the Vernacular Languages’.  78 Sharpe, ‘Latin in Everyday Life’.

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knowledge of ‘good’ Latin was confined to those who had studied it with a teacher. The latter group was constituted mainly of those in service to the Church (secular and religious clergy, monks, and nuns), but it likewise included ever increasing numbers of laity in the middle and upper classes. To a limited extent (in church, schools, and university) Latin continued to be spoken, albeit with distinctive local accents, until modern times.79 In this chapter I have argued that in lands where Latin had been spoken in Antiquity in the guise of sermo humilis it could be understood, even if only in a passive capacity, for much longer than has sometimes been assumed. Clergy, monastics, university professors, and students, who had received formal training in the language, are a group apart. There were a number of lay occupations, mercantile or administrative, that required a greater or lesser degree of proficiency in Latin. Nevertheless, most Christians in Anglo-Saxon, Germanic, and eastern European language areas had to rely on devotional aides like The Lay Folkes Mass Book, either directly or through the mediation of parish priests, to enter into the mystery of the Mass.

 79 See the historical, though practically oriented (and unabashedly opinionated), survey of Brittain, Latin in Church.

Chapter 6

Direction of Prayer, Siting of Churches, and Chanting of the Gospel As mentioned in the Introduction, one of the motivations that prompted the writing of this book was the seemingly counterintuitive positions assumed by the subdeacon and deacon, respectively, while chanting the epistle and the gospel at Mass. The subdeacon faces into the apse, his back to the congregation. The deacon chants the gospel to the north, real or ‘liturgical’, by facing the left wall of the church with the congregation to his left. How did either of these peculiar arrangements come about? There cannot be a simple explanation. When medi­eval commentators on the liturgy made note of this apparent anomaly, they offered allegorical justifications to explain it. The present chapter will set the stage for the discussion of places for the readings (Chapter 7) and the ceremonial surrounding the chanting of the gospel (Chapter 9). It will consider (1) prayer towards the east, (2) the siting of churches, (3) right vs. left, (4) separation of the sexes at Mass, and (5) north vs. south. Right and left are inherently ambiguous terms, dependent as they are (literally) on a ‘point of view’, whether that of a person viewing an object or that of the object itself (e.g. an altar). All of this has a bearing on the cantillation of the sacred texts in a liturgical setting.

Sunrise and Ancient Religions Preference for prayer towards the east as the sun came above the horizon in the morning was a widespread tradition in Antiquity.1 In a world ruled by the natural rhythms of night and day, it is not surprising that the rising sun became an aspect, even if not the primary one, of many cults: ‘in irgendeinerweise die Sonne ins Spiel kommt’.2 The cult of Mithras, which originated in Persia but developed a distinctive Roman character as it spread throughout the Empire in the first century, involved the sun.3 Mithras’s slaying of the bull, the defining event of the cult, was depicted, usually in bas relief, in every Mithraeum (approximately seven hundred images survive). The blood that flowed from the slain bull ‘saved the whole of creation menaced by the evil  1 The fundamental study is Dölger, Sol salutis, pp. 149–56 and passim. Ancient evidence for turning to the east in prayer is reviewed in Gamber, ‘Die Hinwendung nach Osten bei der Messfeier im 4. und 5. Jahrhundert’.  2 Wallraff, Christus verus sol, p. 61.  3 Beck, The Religion of the Mithraic Cult in the Roman Empire. See also Vermaseren, Mithras; Clauss, The Roman Cult of Mithras; Klauck, The Religious Context of Early Christianity, pp. 139–49 (with biblio­graphy); Bowden, Mystery Cults of the Ancient World, pp. 181–97.

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powers of drought and shadows’.4 Having struggled with the sun god, Mithras became his friend, and they feasted together before ascending to heaven. Mithras himself was sometimes identified with the sun god as ‘Deus sol invictus Mithras’. Although the cult of Isis was not sun-centred, sunrise was marked by a distinctive daily ritual at the Roman temple dedicated to her. The temple (founded ad 65) opened every morning before sunrise. Priests and worshippers paid reverence to the cult statue, offerings were made, and all present turned to the east to greet the rising sun.5 As Plutarch (c. 46–120) described their ritual: ‘every day they make a triple offering of incense to the Sun: an offering of resin at sunrise, of myrrh at midday, and of the so‑called “cyphi” at sunset; […] they think that by means of all these they supplicate and serve the Sun’.6 In the vicinity of Alexandria there was a settlement of Jewish ascetics, the ‘Therapeutae’, about whom Philo of Alexandria (fl. 50 ad) wrote in De vita contemplativa. At the close of a fifty-day (seven-week) period there took place a solemn all-night vigil (παννυχίς) that included a banquet, reverent song, and ritual dance. As dawn broke, everyone ‘stands with face and body turned towards the east; and, as soon as they see the sun rise, they raise their hands to heaven and pray for a good day, for truth and clear judgement’.7 Sunrise rituals of Roman state religions were distinct from the sun cult itself, but the east (and hence the rising sun) influenced the siting of temples. The Roman architect Vitruvius (d. after 15 bc) recommended: Si nulla ratio inpedierit liberaque fuerit potestas, aedis signumque quod erit in cella conlocatum, spectet ad vespertinam caeli regionem uti qui adierint ad aram immolantes aut sacrificia facientes spectent ad partem caeli orientis et simulacrum quod erit in aede.8

 4 Turcan, The Gods of Ancient Rome, pp. 131–34 (p. 132), which quotes an inscription from the mithraeum under the Roman church of S. Prisca: ‘and thou hast saved us by the shedding of the eternal blood’.  5 The cult began in Egypt (at Heliopolis — ‘City of the Sun’ — Baalbek, in present-day Lebanon) under the aegis of priests of the sun god Re/Ra. Isis was usually depicted with a headdress dominated by a solar disk. She had a large temple at Rome, dedicated to her and Serapis. Nothing remains of Heliopolis except for two obelisks known as ‘Cleopatra’s Needle’. One is displayed by the Thames at the Victoria Embankment; the other is located in Central Park (NYC). See Klauck, The Religious Context of Early Christianity, pp. 28–39.  6 Plutarch, De Iside et Osiride 52; Plutarch, Moralia, ed. and trans. by Babbitt, pp. 126–29.  7 Philo, De vita contemplativa 4. 3. 21–33, ed. and trans. by Colson and Whitaker, pp. 126–33. For a recent study of the community, see Deutsch, ‘The Therapeutae, Text, Work, Ritual, and Mystical Experience’.  8 Vitruvius, De Architectura 4. 5. 1, ed. and trans. by Gros, iv, p. 22. The translation (slightly altered) is taken from Smith, Vitruvius on Architecture, p. 132 (translation revised by Stephen Kellogg from that of Morgan, The Ten Books on Architecture, p. 116). My thanks to Prof. Smith for providing me with a copy of his lavishly illustrated treatment of Vitruvius’s architectural principles. Clement of Alexandria confirmed that ‘the most ancient temples looked towards the west, that people might be taught to turn to the east when facing the images’

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(If there is no hindrance and the choice is free, the temple and the statue placed in the cella should face (spectat) the western quarter of the sky, so that those who approach the altar with offerings or sacrifices face at once the region of the eastern sky and the statue in the temple.) Ideally, the entrance of temples faced west in order to allow votaries who entered the temple at sunrise to behold the cult statue bathed in the glow of the rising sun. Vitruvius also recommended that libraries, bedrooms, and spring and autumn dining rooms should face east, but the reasons were entirely practical.9

Christian Prayer towards the East The ancient preference for prayer towards the east and the rising sun was inherited by Christians, who identified Christ as the Sun of Justice foretold by the prophet Malachy (4. 2) and the ‘oriens ex alto’ invoked by John the Baptist’s father (Luke 1. 78).10 The star that proclaimed Jesus’s birth was seen by the Magi ‘in the east’ (ἐν τῇ ἀνατολῇ),11 and Jesus himself predicted that, when he returned at the end of time to render judgement on the earth and its inhabitants, he would appear the east: ‘for as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be’ (Matthew 24. 27). Whenever Christian writers addressed the matter, they confirm that prayer towards the east was the norm.12 Clement of Alexandria (c. 150–c. 215) said that, at the sun’s rising, morning prayers were to be made looking towards the sunrise in the east (πρὸς την ἑωθινὴν ἀνατολὴν αἱ εὐχάι)13 Origen (c. 185–254) (Stromata 7. 7). Since Isidore described the orientation principle (‘orientem spectabant [templa] aequinoctialem’) in Liber Etymo­logiarum 15. 4. 7, ed. by Lindsay, it would have been well known in the medi­eval West. A need for a review of the evidence has been suggested by Herbert, ‘The Orientation of Greek Temples’, pp. 31–34.  9 Vitruvius, De architectura 6. 4. 1–2, trans. by Morgan/Kellogg in Smith, Vitruvius on Architecture, pp. 194–95.  10 Cf. Zechariah: ‘Ecce vir Oriens nomen eius […] et aedificabit templum domino’ (6. 12). The Latin ‘oriens’ in this prophecy is a mistranslation of the Hebrew word for ‘branch’, but that would have been unknown to readers of the Vulgate. An early fourth-century mosaic in the mausoleum of the Giulii in the necropolis under St Peter’s Basilica depicts a figure with a nimbus that incorporates a cross. This is often interpreted as a Christian appropriation of sun imagery — Christ supplanting Apollo in his chariot. Dölger, Die Sonne der Gerechtigkeit und der Schwarze, pp. 100–110.  11 Matthew 2. 2.  12 For references (Shepherd of Hermas, Acts of Paul, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria) and discussion, see Dölger, Sol salutis, pp. 136–49 and 320–36 (‘Die Ostung in der Liturgie’); also Voelkel, ‘“Orientierung” im Weltbild der ersten christlichen Jahrhunderte’. See the recent comprehensive review of the question in Jensen, ‘Recovering Ancient Ecclesio­logy’.  13 Clement of Alexandria, Stromata 7. 7. 43. 6, ed. and trans. by Mondésert and others, v, pp. 150–53. See also Dölger, Sol salutis, pp. 143–49.

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declared that, of all points of the compass, the east was far to be preferred as the direction for Christian prayer (kneeling, as he assumed). In De oratione he asked: ‘who would not at once agree that the direction of the sun’s rising shows clearly that one must make prayers in that direction, as the soul looks toward the rising of the true light (τοῡ ἀληθινοῡ φωτὸς ἀνατολή)’?14 There can be no doubt whom Origen believed that ‘true light’ to be: From the east came atonement for you; for from there is the man whose name is ‘East’ (Oriens), who became a mediator between God and man. Therefore, you are invited by this to look always to the east, whence the Sun of Righteousness arises for you, whence a light is born for you; so that you never walk in darkness.15 A posture facing eastward at prayer (ἐπ’ ἀνατολάς κατανοήσαντες) was specified by the Apostolic Constitutions (375/80), a church order of Syrian (Antiochene) provenance. Turning to the east meant turning towards the Lord: when Christ ascended into heaven, it was towards the east that he departed from the earth.16 Augustine of Hippo concluded many of his sermons with the admonition ‘conversi ad dominum’. Since churches in North Africa were not oriented, the congregation would have been facing west to attend to his sermon. For the celebration of the Eucharist they adopted (literally) a different ‘orientation’.17 In many Eastern liturgies the deacon still admonishes the congregation to ‘look to the east’ (Εἰς ἀνατολὰς βλέπετε) before the priest begins the prayer of consecration (anaphora).18 The ‘Sursum corda’ (‘hearts above’) of the Latin liturgies, chanted before the Preface that precedes the Eucharistic prayer (Canon) of the Mass, is thought to have a similar significance. The most influential medi­eval Western commentator on the liturgy, Amalar of Metz, explained that ‘[the celebrant] is accustomed to look to eastern regions, in which we are accustomed to seek the Lord, as if his proper dwelling were there, even though we know that he is everywhere’.19 Both priest  14 Origen, De oratione 32; PG, 11:556; trans. by Jay, Origen’s Treatise on Prayer, pp. 215–16.  15 ‘Ab oriente tibi propitiatio venit; inde est enim vir, cui “Oriens” nomen est, qui mediator Dei et hominum factus est. Invitaris ergo per hoc, ut ad orientem semper adspicias, unde tibi oritur sol iustitiae, unde tibi lumen nascitur; ut numquam in tenebris ambulas’ (trans. by Rufinus of Aquileia). Origen, Homilia in Leviticum 9. 10, ed. by Baehrens, Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller, p. 438, lines 20–24; English trans. by Barkley, Homilies on Leviticus, p. 199. That sun worship had any significant influence on the development of Sunday as the cornerstone of the Christian week is doubtful. See Allen, ‘How Did the Jewish Sabbath Become the Christian Sunday?’.  16 Apostolic Constitutions 2. 57. 14 and 3, ed. and trans. by Metzger, i, pp. 312–17; Steiner, ‘Apostolic Constitutions’, p. 44. Book ii is a reworking of the Didascalia Apostolorum (‘Syrian Didascalia’), a work whose origins are thought to reach back into the mid-third century.  17 Vogel, ‘Sol aequinoctialis’, p. 182.  18 For citations, see Dölger, Sol salutis, pp. 327–34.  19 ‘Sacerdos, quando dicit Gloria in excelsis deo, orientes partes solet respicere, in quibus solemus dominum requirere, quasi ibi propria eius sedes sit, cum potius eum sciamus ubique esse’; Lib. off. 3. 8. 2; ed. by Hanssens, pp. 286–87; trans. by Knibbs, ii, pp. 58–59.

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and people faced ad orientem together for the Church’s pre-eminent prayer of praise, thanksgiving, and petition that is the Mass. Today, the symbolism would be lost on most clergy and laity.

Alignment of Churches That the church building itself should face in an easterly direction (κατὰ ἀνατολὰς τετραμμένος) — the direction of prayer — was specified in the Apostolic Constitutions.20 Churches in the East were normally ‘oriented’, that is, laid out on an east–west axis, so that the apse with the altar and bishop’s cathedra pointed towards the rising sun, optimally to that point where the sun rose at the equinoxes.21 In a poem attached to a letter describing the cathedral at Lyon (472) Sidonius Apollinaris noted as unusual the fact that ‘arce frontis ortum prospicit aequinoctialem’ (the towering [façade] faced the equinoctial sunrise), thus placing the apse towards the West.22 The mention of the equinox implies that the entrance of the basilica was aligned precisely with that point in the East where the sun rose on the dates of the vernal and autumnal equinoxes. Eight centuries later, Guillaume Durand recommended that ‘[a church] should be so laid out that its head should properly look toward the east, […] that is, towards the equinoctial rising of the sun’.23 Johannes Beleth insisted on exactly this point: the apse of a church had to be aligned

 20 ‘Die alte Tradition der Ostung des Gemeindegebetes fand auf diese Weise ihren angemessenen architektonischen Ausdruck’; Wallraff, Christus verus sol, p. 71. The Apostolic Constitutions mentions the construction of churches directed ‘toward the rising sun’ and the position of prayer towards the east (2. 57. 3–7 and 14); ed. and trans. by Metzger, i, pp. 310–15. John Wilkinson’s argument that synagogues had much to do with this is not convincing; ‘Orientation, Jewish and Christian’.  21 The presence of pre-existent foundation walls could be another factor. On this ‘type classique’ of church building in the Christian West and how exact orientation was determined following the techniques of the Roman agrimensores, see Vogel, ‘Sol aequinoctialis’, pp. 196–211. Liesenberg, Der Einfluss der Liturgie auf die frühchristliche Basilika; Liccardo, Architettura e liturgia nella Chiesa antica, pp. 141–87 (‘Le architteture della liturgia’).  22 Sidonius Apollinaris, Ep. ad Hesperium 2. 10; Epistulae et carmina, ed. by Luetjohann, p. 34; Sidonius Apollinaris, Ep. 2. 10. 4, ed. and trans. by Anderson, pp. 464–65. For this reference I am indebted to Wallraff, Christus verus sol, p. 72.  23 ‘Debet quoque sic fundari: ut caput recte inspiciat versus orientem, […] videlicet versus ortum solis equinoctialem’; Durand, Rationale divinorum officiorum 1. 1. 8; ed. by Davril and Thibodeau, i, p. 5; trans. by Thibodeau, William Durand’s ‘Rationale divinorun officiorum’, p. 14. Walafrid Strabo says that the Temple was so situated that at the equinoxes the rising sun shone through the portals of the three courts ‘ita ut sol aequinoctialis exoriens radios suos per illas aequalite contra meditatem templi dirigeretur’ (in such a way that the rising equinoctial sun would direct its rays through them equally towards the middle of the Temple); Walafrid Strabo, Libellus de exordiis et incrementis, ed. and trans. by HartungCorrea, pp. 58–59. Martin Luther himself celebrated Mass in this manner. In principle, the Church of Sweden still maintains the ad orientem direction, as do constituent congregations of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod in the United States.

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‘versus ortum solis equinoctialem, non contra solstitium estivale, ut quidam volunt vel faciunt’ (toward the rising of the equinoctial sun, not toward the [place of the] summer solstice, as certain people wish or do).24 The ancient and early medi­eval churches of Rome point in every direction of the compass, because their siting was influenced by the network of streets inherited from the ancient city, as well as the location of buildable land and antecedent foundation walls.25 If a façade were to open onto the street the directionality of the building was dictated by that consideration.26 Cyrille Vogel drew attention to a passage in Ordo Romanus 1 which says merely that the bishop should intone the ‘Gloria in excelsis’ after the Kyrie has been sung.27 When this passage was revised and expanded in Francia as Ordo Romanus 4 (c. 750), the rubric instructed the bishop to turn to the east immediately after intoning ‘Gloria in excelsis deo’ ad populum. At the conclusion of the Gloria he turns again towards the people to greet them (‘Pax vobis’), then ‘turning east again he says “Oremus” and the prayer’. Other passages in the Ordines Romani that refer to an eastward orientation testify to similar Frankish interventions. North of the Alps churches were ideally constructed on an east–west axis with the apse and altar towards the east. Walafrid Strabo (d. 849), commenting on this eastward-facing orientation, revived an ancient Christian theme when he affirmed that ‘it is indeed both fitting and instituted as a saving custom that we turn our faces to the east when praying, for just as we receive the dawn of corporeal light from the east, so too in prayers we beg that the face of him will shine upon us of whom it is written “Behold a man: Orient is his name”, and “the Orient from on high has visited us”’.28 The tradition of placing the apse of a church in the east, if at all possible, continued in force for many centuries.

Right vs. Left As mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, the designations ‘right’ and ‘left’ depend on either the perspective of the viewer or that of the person or object facing the viewer.29 Both need to be considered. While the first option  24 Beleth, Summa de ecclesiasticis officiis 2, ed. by Douteil, ii, p. 7.  25 This can be seen from a glance at tavole 5–11 in de Blaauw, ‘In vista della luce’.  26 Two Roman churches (S. Paulo fuori le mura and S. Marco) were reversed in direction; a third (S. Maria in Aracoeli) was turned an angle of ninety degrees. See Mondini, ‘“Drehmomente”’.  27 OR 1. 53; Les Ordines Romani, ed. by Andrieu, ii, p. 84; trans. by Romano, Liturgy and Society in Early Medi­eval Rome, p. 238; ‘Ordo Romanus Primus’, ed. and trans. by Griffiths, p. 41.  28 ‘Et revera congruum est et salubri more institutum, ut orientem versus facies orando vertamus, quia, sicut ab oriente lucis adventum suscipimus corporeae, sic in orationibus inluminari super nos vultum illius deposcimus, de quo scriptum est “Ecce vir, Oriens nomen eius” [Zechariah 6. 12], et “Visitavit nos Oriens ex alto” [Luke 1. 78]’ (my translation); Walafrid Strabo, Libellus de exordiis et incrementis, cap. 4; ed. and trans. by Hartung-Correa, pp. 58–59; ed. by Knoepfler, p. 10.  29 A harrowing experience took place in December 2016, when a regional flight controller at

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might seem more obvious — even the ‘default’ one — it is just as likely in a liturgical context that the altar or the bishop’s throne in the apse might be the point of reference. However determined, the place of honour was always to the right.30 An Advent sermon of Guerric of Igny (c. 1070/80–1157) made the following contrast: ‘spiritus est ad dexteram; caro est ad sinistram’ (the spirit is to the right, the flesh is to the left).31 Promptings of the spirit lead in the right direction; those of the flesh, in the wrong (left) direction. English ‘sinister’ has only negative connotations. In French ‘un sinistre’ translates into English as ‘a disaster’. In pagan Antiquity there was at first no consensus about the relative ‘moral’ value of right vs. left. Eventually, however, the right, associated with good fortune, triumphed, first in the East and then across the Roman Empire.32 Gods who were thought to be well disposed to humanity were ‘right’, while others, for example, gods of the underworld, were ‘left’ and hostile.33 The Roman architect Vitruvius recommended that stairs leading up to a temple be uneven in number, so that a visitor who placed his or her right foot on the lowest step would arrive with the right foot on the temple podium (‘in summo templo’).34 In the Satyricon Petronius reported that the ostentatious Trimalchio stationed a young slave at the entrance to his lavish banquet to remind all guests to enter the hall with right foot first (‘dextro pede’) in order to guarantee an auspicious evening.35 After a night of drinking the revellers might not have known right from left, so there are no instructions about departing! Numerous biblical passages in the Old and New Testaments exalt the right hand of God, which works wonders: ‘Dextera dei fecit virtutem; dextera domini exaltavit me’ (Psalm 117. 6) and ‘me suscepit dextera tua’ (Psalm 62. 9). The Virgin Mary’s ‘fecit potentiam in brachio suo’ (Luke 1. 51) necessarily refers to God’s right arm. It was Christ’s right side that was pierced by the soldier’s lance. In artistic depictions of the Crucifixion Mary stands to

San Diego told a pilot on an Asia-bound flight, which had taken off in an easterly direction from Los Angeles, to turn left (north) instead of right (south). The plane avoided an Air Canada aircraft, but nearly crashed into Mount Wilson because of the controller’s confusion of left and right.  30 ‘Im Ordo Romanus ist aber die linke Seite als rechte Seite des Papstes und des Altares die bevorzugte’; Selhorst, Die Platzordnung, p. 30.  31 Such statements could easily be multiplied; see Deitmaring, ‘Die Bedeutung von Rechts und Links in theo­logischen und literarischen Texten bis um 1200’.  32 Dölger, Die Sonne der Gerechtigkeit und der Schwarze, pp. 37–48. We still speak of a leader’s ‘right-hand man’, to whom he can entrust any task. Fascinating information about right and left in Antiquity can be found in Nussbaum, ‘Die Bewertung von Rechts und Links in der römischen Liturgie’.  33 Both were offered sacrifice to appease them, but only black animals were offered to the ‘left’ gods; Dölger, Die Sonne der Gerechtigkeit und der Schwarze, p. 39.  34 Vitruvius, De architectura 3. 4. 4, trans. by Morgan/Kellogg in Smith, Vitruvius on Architecture, p. 100.  35 Petronius, Cena Trimalchionis 30, as cited in Dölger, Die Sonne der Gerechtigkeit und der Schwarze, p. 38.

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the viewer’s left, but she actually stands in the place of honour on her Son’s right, as does the ‘good thief ’ on his cross. The Nicene Creed says that Jesus, after his Ascension into heaven, ‘sitteth at the right hand of the Father’, thus fulfilling the prophecy of Psalm 109. 1, ‘Sede a dextris meis’, a prophecy Jesus applied to himself in Matthew 22. 44.36 As the deacon Stephen was about to be stoned, he had a vision of Jesus standing at the right hand of the Father (Acts 7. 55–56; cf. Acts 2. 34). At the Last Judgement, ‘when the Son of Man comes in his glory’ (Matthew 25. 31–46), the sheep will find a place at Christ’s right hand, the unfortunate goats on his left.37 Depictions of the Last Judgement (Giotto, Rogier van den Weyden, and perhaps most famously Michelangelo’s Last Judgement in the Sistine Chapel, which depicts Christ’s right hand raised in judgement), place the redeemed on his right, the damned to his left.

Separation of the Sexes Margaret Aston and Corine Schleif have drawn attention to the tradition of ‘women to the left, men to the right’ that prevailed in many settings for centuries.38 Such a division — men to the right/south, women to the left/ north — was the norm in Christian churches until early modern times, and it was precisely this kind of ‘anthropo­logy of the medi­eval church space’ that stimulated the ingenuity of medi­eval liturgical commentators.39 Philo of Alexandria reported in De vita contemplativa that the Jewish sect known as the ‘Therapeutae’ was accustomed in their assemblies to separate men from women with a partition wall.40 The Apostolic Constitutions (c. 375/80) presume a strict separation, not just of the sexes but a subdivision according to age.41 For reasons not difficult to imagine young people were the object of singular vigilance. Deacons supervised the men; deaconesses, the women. Since the congregation remained standing during Mass, people could move  36 Mark 16. 19 (‘et sedit a dextris dei’); Luke 22. 69 (speaking of himself ‘sedens a dextris virtutis dei’ during his interrogation by the ‘elders of the people’); cf. Matthew 26. 64; i Peter 3. 22. The Nicene Creed phrase is echoed in the Te deum: ‘Tu ad dexteram dei sedes in gloria patris’.  37 This inspired the familiar stanza of the Dies irae: ‘Inter oves locum praesta, | Et ab haedis me sequestra, | Statuens in parte dextra’; Liber Usualis, p. 1812.  38 Aston, ‘Segregation in Church’; Schleif, ‘Men on the Right – Women on the Left’. I have not had access to Müller, ‘Frauen rechts, Männer links’; Signori, ‘Frauen Links – Männer rechts’. Couzin, Right and Left in Early Christian and Medi­eval Art was published too late (2021) to be taken into account. As the present chapter was being written, the German press reported (24 February 2019) about families of defeated ‘Islamic State’ fighters who had fled the group’s last stronghold in Syria (Baghuz). The first words shouted at them by Syrian soldiers were ‘men right, women left’, before they searched them for weapons and explosives.  39 The phrase is borrowed from Möbius, ‘Zur Anthropo­logie des mittelalterlichen Kirchenraums’. The left-right directionality underwent a transformation in the Renaissance according to Hall, The Sinister Side.  40 Philo, De vita contemplativa 4. 3. 33, ed. and trans. by Colson and Whitaker, p. 133.  41 Apostolic Constitutions 2. 57. 10–13, ed. and trans. by Metzger, i, pp. 314–17.

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about. Although separation of the sexes was the norm in Christian churches until early modern times, women were not isolated in separate special Weiberschule ( Judaism) or in separate rooms (Islam) during worship.42 John Chrysostom looked back nostalgically to the apostolic age, when separation of the sexes in church was unnecessary. In that era men and women had sufficient virtue and moral discipline that there was no need for physical separation.43 Guillaume Durand was not unaware of the dangers: ‘if the flesh of a man and a woman are brought more closely together, they are inflamed with lust (ad libidinem)’.44 To forestall temptation and prevent promiscuous behaviour caution was by far the better course. Visual evidence for the place of women and men during Mass has been seen in the clerestory mosaics of the (oriented) church of S. Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna (late fifth century). Above the colonnade on the (left) clerestory wall (as seen from the entrance) there is portrayed a procession of female martyrs. Women, who stood on this (north) side of the church, were thus associated with those of their sex who had made the ultimate sacrifice for the faith. Their saintly male counterparts are depicted in procession on the opposite wall above the place where the men would have stood. Another renowned church in the same city, San Vitale (built in the 540s), depicts Emperor Justinian with Archbishop Maximianus in the company of clergy and courtiers on the right wall (see Figure 8.5). Empress Theodora, her ladies in waiting, and eunuchs of her court are depicted on the opposite (left) wall.45 Division of the sexes is assumed by the both the offertory and communion rubrics of Ordo Romanus 1 (late seventh century).46 At the offertory the pope and his assistants go first to the senatorium to receive offerings of bread and wine from male members of the aristocracy before moving to the pars mulierum/feminarum to repeat the elaborate ceremony of reception there.47 At the time for communion the pope and assisting ministers first distributed  42 Some orthodox synagogues separate men and women with a solid partition (mechitza) running the length of the room. See Selhorst, Die Platzordnung, pp. 38–51; a space in a church known as a matroneum was set aside for women who would want privacy during menstruation. It was reported in the Stuttgarter-Nachrichten (26 July 2019) that Muslim male students at the University of Tübingen’s Centre for Islamic Theo­logy insisted that female students sit behind them in lecture rooms, just as in a mosque. The university authorities were not pleased and rejected the request.  43 John Chrysostom, Homiliae in Matthaeum 73. 3; PG 57:677.  44 Durand, Rationale divinorum officiorum 1. 1. 46; ed. by Davril and Thibodeau, i, p. 26; Durand, William Durand’s ‘Rationale divinorun officiorum’, trans. by Thibodeau, p. 23.  45 For a contextual analysis of these images, see Schleif, ‘Men on the Right – Women on the Left’, pp. 221–24.  46 OR 1. 69–76 and 113–18; Les Ordines Romani, ed. by Andrieu, ii, pp. 91–92 and 103–06; trans. by Romano, Liturgy and Society in Early Medi­eval Rome, pp. 240–41 (offertory) and 246–47 (communion; in no. 117 ‘repetitio versu’ should be read as ‘repetito versu’); ‘Ordo Romanus Primus’, ed. and trans. by Griffiths, pp. 45–47 (offertory) and 55–58 (communion). On the offertory ceremony at Rome, see Dyer, ‘The Offertory’.  47 OR 1. 69–75; Les Ordines Romani, ed. by Andrieu, ii, pp. 91–92; trans. by Romano, Liturgy

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communion (under both species) ‘in senatorio’ (OR 1. 113). Afterwards, they crossed over to the left side of St Peter’s (‘transeunt in parte sinistra’) to distribute communion ‘in partes mulierum’ (OR 1. 115 and 118).48 References to right and left in this rubric must be interpreted from the perspective of the altar and bishop’s throne, not that of the viewer in the nave. From the perspective of someone standing in the nave and facing the apse in the west the directions would be reversed: the senatorium to the south/left, the pars mulierum to the north/right. The division of the sexes in St Peter’s can be established independently of Ordo Romanus 1. The Liber pontificalis records that Pope Gregory III (731–741) erected an oratory in St Peter’s ‘iuxta arcum principalem, parte virorum’ (near the principal arch, on the men’s side).49 Tiberio Alfarano’s plan of Old St Peter’s, created in the late sixteenth century as the Constantinian basilica was being razed to make way for the church seen today, shows Gregory’s oratory at the top of the nave on the left (south) side of the church.50 (For this part of the plan see Figure 7.3 (no. 38).) An inscription of uncertain date recorded from Old St Peter’s refers to a tomb located ‘ante regia[m portam] / in porticu columna secunda quomodo intramus / sinistra parte virorum’ (before the royal gate, in the portico, the second column (as one enters) on the left side of the men). Here the viewpoint from which ‘right’ and ‘left’ is calculated is incontrovertible — the main, eastern portal of the church (‘quomodo entramus’) looking towards the apse in the west. The pars virorum must necessarily be located on the left (south) side of St Peter’s and the women’s pars on the right (north). A canon approved by a Roman council of 853 confirmed the division without geo­graphical specificity as a settled custom: ‘ita virorum pars et mulierum partibus suis contenta sit’.51 An ivory box known as the ‘Pola Casket’ (c. 420/30), believed to depict the presbyterium of St Peter’s with its distinctive twisted vine-scroll columns in front of the presbyterium, confirms this division. Two men and two women and Society in Early Medi­eval Rome, pp. 240–42; ‘Ordo Romanus Primus’, ed. and trans. by Griffiths, pp. 45–46.  48 OR 1. 113–18; Les Ordines Romani, ed. by Andrieu, ii, pp. 103–06; trans. by Romano, Liturgy and Society in Early Medi­eval Rome, pp. 246–47; ‘Ordo Romanus Primus’, ed. and trans. by Griffiths, pp. 55–58. Griffiths translates the ‘recension primitive’ (Les Ordines Romani, ed. by Andrieu, ii, p. 5 (MS G)) of no. 115 that ends: ‘Haec faciendo transeunt a dextra in sinistram partem’ (When they do this they go crosswise from right to left); John Romano translates the revised version (‘Deinde transeunt in parte sinistra et faciunt similiter’).  49 LP i:417 and 421; trans. by Davis, The Lives of the Eighth-Century Popes, pp. 22 and 28. On the oratory, see Bauer, Das Bild der Stadt Rom im Frühmittelalter, pp. 53–58.  50 Alfarano, De basilicae vaticanae antiquissima et nova structura, ed. by Cerrati, pp. 57–59 and 186. See also de Blaauw, Cultus et Decor, ii, pp. 571–72. On this and other interventions by Gregory III in Old St Peter’s, see McClendon, ‘Old Saint Peter’s and the Iconoclastic Controversy’; a full-size reproduction of Alfarano’s plan is included as an attached fold-out inside the back cover of this volume.  51 Die Konzilien der karolingischen Teilreiche, 843–59, ed. by Hartmann, p. 327, as quoted in de Blaauw, Cultus et Decor, i, p. 83 n. 243.

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are portrayed in what is known as the ‘orant’ position on opposite sides of the Apostle’s tomb — the men to the viewer’s left (south), the women to the right (north).52 The perspective is again that of a viewer standing in the nave facing west. This confirms the assumption that the casket is meant to show the Constantinian shrine as it looked in the early fifth century. Ivan Foletti has linked the Pola Casket with four ivory plaques of the same date and of Roman provenance in the British Museum (the ‘Haskell Ivories’).53 The ‘Haskell’ plaques, probably once sides of a small casket, depict scenes from the Passion, including the Crucifixion, an image unusual for this early period. A similar depiction of approximately the same date survives in one of the panels of the wooden door at the church of Santa Sabina on the Aventine Hill in Rome.

Directionality of the Readings: North vs. South In Book iii of the Liber officialis Amalar of Metz presupposed as established custom that ‘masculi stant in australi parte et feminae in boreali’ (men stand in the southern part of the church and women in the northern). As to be expected, he immediately offered an allegorical explanation for the arrangement: ‘ut ostendatur per fortiorem sexum firmiores sanctos semper constitui in maioribus temptationibus aestus huius mundi, et per fragiliorem sexum infirmiores aptiori loco’ (that it might be shown by means of the stronger sex [that] the more stalwart saints are always placed in the greater temptations of the heat of this world, and by means of the weaker sex [that] the weaker [stand] in a more suitable place).54 He made no pretence of justifying this interpretation, but his male clerical readership may not have seen any need for him to do so. In the Codex expositionis (II) Amalar again identified the southern half of the church as the place where male members of the congregation stood: ‘ad meridiem, ad quam partem viri solent confluere’ (at which part [of the church] men are accustomed to gather).55 Adapting the apostle Paul’s statement that ‘we speak wisdom among them that are perfect’ (i Corinthians 2. 6), he associates perfection with the warmth of the sun shining from the south, construed as a symbol of the Church, fervent in the love of God.56 Such is  52 Venice, Museo Archeo­logico; known as the ‘Samagher Casket’ after the locality where it was discovered in 1906. For a specialized study (with poor quality illustrations), see Longhi, La capsella eburnea di Samagher, pp. 55–65 and 100–102; also Elsner, ‘Closure and Penetration’. There are many good images of the Pola Casket on the Internet.  53 Foletti, ‘The British Museum Casket with Scenes of the Passion’.  54 Lib. off. 3. 2. 6 and 10; ed. by Hanssens, pp. 262 and 264; trans. by Knibbs, ii, pp. 12–15 (modi­ fied). Amalar is followed by Honorius Augustodunensis, Gemma animae 1. 145; PL, 172:589.  55 Amalar of Metz, Codex expositionis (II) 17; ed. by Hanssens, pp. 279–80. This is repeated in the pseudo-Amalarian Eclogae de ordine romano, in a chapter (also 17) entitled ‘Cur sit diaconus in ambone versus ad meridiem’, ed. by Hanssens, pp. 246–47. On the Eclogae, see also Flicoteaux, ‘Un problème de littérature liturgique’.  56 Codex expositionis (II) 16, ed. by Hanssens, i, p. 276; cf. Pseudo-Amalar, Eclogae de ordine romano 16 (‘De evangelio’), ed. by Hanssens, p. 244.

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the malleability of allegorical interpretation that in the Liber officialis warmth is interpreted as the heat of temptation, while in the Codex expositionis (II) it can be identified with the fervour of charity. Guillaume Durand explained this arrangement in a similar vein: ‘the men remain in the southern part, the women in the northern or north-eastern part, in order to show that the stronger saints ought to stand facing the greater temptations of this world, the weaker ones facing the lesser temptations’.57 The men (on the south) confront the severity of the north; the women (on the north) face the warmth and serenity of the south. Ordo Romanus 5, an adaptation (before 900) of the papal Mass of Ordo 1 for the use of bishops north of the Alps, borrows heavily from Amalar and is consequently ‘Roman’ at some remove. Presuming an eastward-oriented church (the norm in Francia), Ordo 5 says that the deacon, when chanting the gospel, should stand ‘versus ad meridiem, ad quam partem viri solent confluere’ (towards the south, to the place where the men are accustomed to gather).58 Immediately thereafter, however, this statement is modified, noting that under other circumstances (alias) the deacon could just as well face north — probably the Frankish practice with which he was familiar.59 One can conclude, then, that the transformation in the direction towards which the gospel was chanted (from south to north) must have occurred in the latter half of the ninth century. Honorius Augustodunensis (c. 1080–c. 1137) was also aware that a change in the tradition of chanting the gospel at Mass had taken place. Earlier evidence known to him did not accord with current practice: According to the [Roman] ordo the deacon turns to the south while he reads the gospel, because in this part [of the church] it is customary for the men, to whom spiritual things are to be preached, to stand. […] Now, however, following common practice he turns to the north, where the women, who are carnal, stand, because the Gospel calls the carnal to spiritual things. The north also designates the Devil, who is opposed by the Gospel.60

 57 ‘Masculi autem in australi, femine in boreali sive in aquilonari parte manent ut ostendatur firmiores sanctos debere stare contra maiores huius seculi temptationes, infirmiores vero contra minores’; Durand, Rationale divinorum officiorum 1. 1. 46; ed. by Davril and Thibodeau, i, p. 26; trans. by Thibodeau, William Durand’s ‘Rationale divinorun officiorum’, pp. 23–24. Cf. the Sarum Customary (38. 20): ‘et semper legatur evangelium ad missam versus aquilonem, id est boreali’; ed. by Frere, p. 74.  58 OR 5. 36; Les Ordines Romani, ed. by Andrieu, ii, p. 217. Except for the addition of the phrase ‘alias autem ad septentrionem’ this is borrowed from Amalar’s Codex expositionis (II) and repeated in the Eclogae de ordine romano 17, ed. by Hanssens, p. 246.  59 The directionality of the readings will be taken up again in Chapter 9.  60 ‘Diaconus secundum ordinem se vertit ad austrum dum legit evangelium, quia in hac parte viri stare solent, quibus spiritalia praedicari debent. […] Nunc autem secundum solitum morem se ad aquilonem vertit ubi feminae stant, quae carnales significant, quia Evangelium

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Figure 6.1. Church with west-facing apse.

Figure 6.2. Church with east-facing apse.

Honorius thus contrasted the older Roman custom (‘secundum ordinem’) with what was probably the universal practice of his day.61 The deacon no longer chanted the gospel towards the men standing to the south (ad austrum), but towards the women on the opposite (north) side of the church (ad aquilonem). In a chapter entitled ‘De evangelio in qua parte sit legendum’, the Micro­ logus of Bernold of Constance (c. 1054–1100) agrees that ‘iuxta romanum ordinem’ the deacon faces south, where the men are standing (‘ad principalem sexum’), not north, where the women, the infirmior sexus, took their place, a statement that recycles Amalar.62 Though Bernold is apparently aware of this older, authentically Roman custom, he confesses that in his own time some deacons — perhaps most of them — did not hesitate (‘non vereantur’) to chant the gospel towards the north and hence towards the pars feminarum (cf. OR 5 above). The revised, northward-facing practice had become so widespread, he concedes, that it amounted to an accepted custom (‘inolevit’), though the older style, which he evidently preferred, had not entirely died out. If the Roman ordo cited by Honorius and Bernold had imagined the Mass taking place at St Peter’s, whose apse faces west, the deacon chanting the gospel towards the men’s side would be facing south as Figure 6.1. Were one to rotate

carnales ad spiritualia vocat. Per aquilonem quoque diabolus designatur, qui per evangelium impugnantur’; Honorius Augustodunensis, Gemma animae 1. 22; PL, 172:551.  61 Cf. OR 5 above.  62 Bernold of Constance, Micro­logus de ecclesiasticis observationibus 9; PL, 151:982–83.

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the building 180° so that the apse faced east (usual in Francia) and the deacon stood in approximately the same position, he would be effectively chanting the gospel towards the north — now towards the women, not the men (Fig. 6.2). We thus arrive at a tentative explanation of why the deacon does not face the congregation directly. When the ‘to the north’ (ad aquilonem) rubric began to be taken literally, the deacon, standing in approximately the same place, faced due north, taking no account of those to whom it was proclaimed, who were standing to his left. The Caeremoniale episcoporum (1600) assumes north as the ‘default’ direction for the chanting of the gospel. The subdeacon assisting the deacon holds the book of the Gospels open before his chest, turning his back (renes) not to the altar, but ‘versus ipsam partem dexteram, que pro Aquilone figuratur’ (towards the same right part [of the church], which is reckoned north).63 This last comment confirms that the church is assumed (figuratur) to be facing east, whether or not it actually did so. The deacon, facing the book held by the subdeacon, would chant towards the north. Once the northward-facing practice took hold, liturgical commentators exercised themselves in seeking an explanation for it. As we have seen above, Amalar took the lead in this matter, a path readily taken up by his seguaci. The treatise De divinis officiis, attributed (incorrectly) to Alcuin, identified the North, bleak and cold, with the domain of the Devil, ‘qui semper Spiritui sancto contraries extitit’ (who always stands in opposition to the Holy Spirit).64 Against him the chanting of the gospel is directed. The warm breezes of the South, on the other hand, symbolize the Holy Spirit, ‘qui corda quae tangit ad amorem dilectionis inflammat’ (who inflames the hearts he touches to love of affection). The anonymous Liber quare (tenth–eleventh century) interpreted the deacon’s facing north as the Word of God directed against the Antichrist.65 In De officiis ecclesiasticis Jean d’Avranches, bishop of Rouen (1067–1079), expounded the rites of the Church, interspersing rubrical directions with allegorical interpretations of them.66 He explained that the deacon chants the gospel from the pulpitum towards the north (versus ad aquilonem) in order symbolically to counter the infidelity of the nations (infidelitas gentium) to whom the Gospel was preached by the Apostles — and (it is implied) did not all believe. In the spirit of earlier commentaries Sicard of Cremona (c. 1155–1215) also interpreted the gospel chanted towards the north as epitomizing opposition to the Devil: ‘hic est aquilo frigidus, id est diabolus, qui flatibus tentationum  63 Caeremoniale Episcoporum 2. 8. 44, p. 150. The rubric assumes a ‘liturgically oriented’ church, in which the apse is presumed to face east, regardless of the actual compass direction.  64 Pseudo-Alcuin, De divinis officiis; PL, 101:1250. For more citations on directionality, see Tichý, Proclamation de l’Évangile, pp. 209–15 (‘L’orientation de la proclamation de l’Évangile’).  65 Liber quare app. 2, add. 31, ed. by Götz, p. 172. Cf. Innocent III, De sacro altaris mysterio 2. 43; PL, 217:824.  66 D’Avranches, De officiis ecclasiasticis, ed. by Delamare, p. 12.

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corda congelat hominum et infrigidat ab amore dei’ (He is the cold one in the North, the Devil, that is, who with the winds of temptations chills the hearts of men and cools them from the love of God).67 Honorius likewise identified the North with the ‘populus infidelis’ (a not-too-veiled reference to the Jews). The Gospel was directed thither ‘ut ad Christum convertatur’ (that they might be converted to Christ).68 Rupert of Deutz (c. 1075/80–c. 1129) interpreted the deacon’s turning to the north after his salutation, ‘Dominus vobiscum’, as symbolically preaching the Gospel to the Gentiles and at the same time sending a legatio (by no means a friendly one!) to the Devil.69 Pope Innocent III (b. 1160/61; pope, 1198–1216) also interpreted the deacon’s facing north while chanting the gospel as an effective defence against the might of Satan, who had boasted: ‘ponem sedem meam ab aquilone et ero similis Altissimo’ (I will rule from the North; I will be like the Most High).70 He also recalled that God had warned the prophet Jeremiah that ‘out of the North an evil shall break forth upon all the inhabitants of the land’ (1. 14). The apotropaic sign of the cross made by the deacon before chanting the gospel is a protection, lest the Devil ‘tollat ei devotionem de corde vel sermonem de ore’ (rob [the deacon’s] heart of devotion or his mouth of speech). Langforde’s Meditations in the Time of the Mass (fifteenth century), mentioned in Chapter 1, explained the northward direction in which the gospel was chanted as representing Jesus himself, who ‘put his blyssyd faice agaynst the northe, that ys to say hys holy Gospell agayne the goostly Ennemye’.71 The medi­eval identification of the North with the Evil One was a durable trope. Confronting such a despicable creature was a powerful justification for ‘preaching’ the gospel in his direction.

Sicard of Cremona, Mitrale 3. 4; PL, 213:108. Honorius Augustodunensis, Gemma animae 1.22; PL, 172:551. Rupert of Deutz, De divinis officiis 3. 22, ed. by Haacke, p. 97. This is a paraphrase of Isaiah 14. 13–14: ‘sedebo […] in lateribus aquilonis […] similis ero Altissimi’ (I will sit […] in the sides of the North […] I will be like the Most High); Innocent III, De sacro altaris mysterio 2. 43; PL, 217:824. Durand drew on these ideas in the Rationale divinorum officiorum 4. 24. 21; ed. by Davril and Thibodeau, i, pp. 349–50. According to Durand the power of the Gospel proclaimed in the Devil’s direction drives him away, since he hates nothing more than the Gospel (‘dyabolus nihil tantum quantum evangelium odit’).  71 Tracts on the Mass, ed. by Legg, p. 22.  67  68  69  70

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Chapter 7

Places for the Readings When Ezra read the Law to the Jewish people, ‘[he] stood upon a pulpit of wood (gradum ligneum), which they had made for the purpose; […] Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, for he was standing above all the people; and when he opened it, all the people stood up’ (Nehemiah 8. 6). Since the people stood to honour the Law, Ezra had to position himself on an elevated platform in order to be heard by as many people as possible. The prophet Isaiah exhorted (figuratively): ‘O thou that tellest good tidings to Zion, get thee up on a high mountain’ (40. 9), an appeal that embodied both the urgency and the dignity of the message, as well as assuring that it would spread far and wide. Jesus admonished his disciples to announce from the rooftops what they had been taught in secret (Matthew 5. 3). His Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5–7) is the most famous New Testament example of preaching from an elevated place.1 At Rome, the Rostra on the Forum Romanum, the remains of which can still be seen today, was the principal site for public addresses during the republican and imperial eras. When Roman praetores ruled on judicial matters, they did so from temporary platforms set up at the top of the steps of a temple.2 Speakers who harangue the crowds at the Speakers’ Corner in London’s Hyde Park often stand (sometimes precariously) on improvised platforms to deliver their messages to curious bystanders and passers-by. As we saw in Chapter 1, The Lay Folkes Mass Book reminded all in attendance at Mass to stand for the gospel, as most did for the entire service; hence the obvious desirability of an elevated position in a church of any size for the proclamation of the gospel or the delivery of a discourse.3 In small village churches it hardly made any difference, but in a large city church or cathedral it was a quite different matter.4 St Augustine stated only the obvious, when he observed that an elevated place was a most advantageous location for making

 1 Honorius Augustodunensis interpreted the chanting of the gospel from the ambo (‘Quod designet quod Evangelium in ambone legitur’) as recalling Christ’s Sermon on the Mount: ‘Christus in monte praedicasse perhibetur’; Gemma animae 1. 22; PL, 172:551.  2 See ‘Rostra, Suggestus, Tribunal’, in Richardson, A New Topo­graphical Dictionary of Ancient Rome, p. 334. Other entries in the Dictionary cover ‘Rostra’, ‘Rostra Augusti’, and ‘Rostra Caesaris’.  3 Pews were first introduced in the sixteenth century in Protestant churches, where a (long) sermon was the principal focus of worship services. Many Italian churches (e.g. the Roman basilicas) still lack permanent seating.  4 I have seen small village churches in Sweden with rather out-sized pulpits carved and painted in folk style.

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the voice heard (‘propter commoditatem depromendae vocis’).5 The prayer for the rite of ordination of lectors in the Pontificale Romanum (1600) admonishes them: ‘in alto loco ecclesiae stetis, ut ab omnibus audiamini et videamini’ (you stand in a high place of the church, so that you may be heard and seen by everyone).6 The introduction of amplification in churches, beginning in the 1930s, profoundly altered this spatial dynamic.

Pulpit and Ambo By the middle of the third century (and undoubtedly earlier) it was the norm in churches of North Africa for the lector to ascend ad pulpitum for the public declamation of the Scriptures. St Cyprian, bishop of Carthage (d. 258), wrote a letter to his clergy informing them that Celerinus, a young man who had risked his life to confess the Christian faith during a persecution, merited assignment as a lector (though not using the specific term). He felt a need to explain this decision, because not just anyone was permitted to read the Scriptures in public. He added that Celerinus merited his new position ‘non humana suffragatione sed divina dignatione’ (not through human choice, but through divine honour).7 As Cyprian argued, who better to stand ‘super pulpitum, id est super tribunal ecclesiae’ to read the Gospel than one who had so bravely lived out its precepts at the risk of his own life? Both pulpitum and tribunal are used as synonyms to designate an item of ecclesiastical ‘furniture’, the locus alterior from which the Scriptures were solemnly proclaimed.8 At first it was probably of wooden construction, hence portable and, unfortunately, too readily perishable. Gregory of Tours (c. 540–594) recounted what he had heard (refertur) about an analogius [sic] in Cyprian’s basilica, ‘in quo libro superposito cantatur aut legitur’ (from which the book placed upon it is sung or read). According to Gregory, it was crafted ‘ex uno lapide marmoris totus sculptus […] per quatuor gradus ascenditur, cancelli in circuitu, subter columnae, quia et

 5 Augustine, Sermones de veteri testamento 23. 1, ed. by Lambot, p. 309. Cyprian does not link the conspicuous honour conferred on Celerinus specifically to readings at Mass.  6 Pontificale Romanum Summorum Pontificum iussu editum et a Benedicto XIV, i, p. 24. The editio princeps was published in 1595–1596.  7 ‘Quid alius quam super pulpitum, id est super tribunal ecclesiae oportebat inponi, ut loci alterioris celsitate subnixus et plebi universae pro honoris sui claritatem conspicuus legat praecepta et evangelium domini quae fortiter ac fideliter sequitur?’; Cyprian, Ep. 39. III–IV, ed. by Diercks, i, pp. 188–90. For this statement in another context, see p. 29 above. For a selection of colour photo­graphs of ambos and lecterns, see Boselli, ed., L’Ambone, after p. 192. Most of what is depicted might more properly be called lecterns.  8 Egeria noted the presence of a pulpitum in a monastic church near Mt Nebo; Egeria, Journal de Voyage, ed. and trans. by Maraval, p. 174 (12. 1); Egeria, Diary of a Pilgrimage, trans. by Gingras, p. 68. The term is rendered less accurately as ‘ambo’ in Egeria, The Pilgrimage, trans. by McGowan and Bradshaw, p. 125.

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pulpitum habet’ (entirely from a single piece of marble; […] the mensa (lit. table) was reached by four steps; [there are] cancelli around it [and] columns beneath, for it has a pulpit).9 (Notice that he does not employ the word ‘ambo’.) Gregory adds that there was sufficient room beneath for eight people (boy singers?). Even without the ‘refertur’ disclaimer, it seems evident that Gregory was extrapolating from objects with which he was familiar in the later sixth century, by which time elaborate structures for reading had been introduced to the West. (See the discussion of Hagia Sophia below.) Whatever the physical shape of the elevated structures described as ‘pulpitum’ or ‘tribunal’ might have been, or what variants within the typo­logy existed in the mid-third century is difficult to say.10 In the basilicas of North Africa the nave was the preferred site for the altar, but there is only incomplete evidence for the presence of elevated places for liturgical readings.11 An early fifth-century mosaic from Tabarka on the coast of Tunisia (now in the Bardo Museum, Tunis) depicts a typical church of the time: ‘ecclesia mater’ is inscribed above the columns of the nave, but it shows nothing that could be recognized as an ambo.12 Such installations must not have been unknown in North Africa, however. Victor of Vita reported that a young lector was killed during the Vandal invasion (430) while standing in a pulpitum and singing an ‘alleluiaticum melos’.13 He was holding a book that fell from his hands. The analogium mentioned in Benedict of Nursia’s Rule (before 550) must have been of simple wood construction, crafted by the monks themselves, not an imposing stone structure.14 The monastic analogium was intended to hold a book for the readings of the Office. It probably resembled the simple reading desk mounted on a slender pillar that one sees today in the middle of the choir of the Tempietto Longobardo (Cividale del Friuli), a building completed in the first decades of the ninth century. This design remains a functional standard even today. The ecclesiastical historian Socrates regarded it as exceptional that John Chrysostom (c. 349–407) chose to preach from an ‘ambo’ rather than the bishop’s throne, at least on some occasions, in order to be heard better (καθεστεὶς ἐπὶ τοῦ ἅμβωνος, ὄθεν εἰώθει καὶ πρόθερον ὁμιλεῖν, χάριν τοῦ ἐξακούεσθαι).15  9 Gregory of Tours, Liber in gloria martyrum, ed. by Krusch, p. 100; Gregory of Tours, The Glory of the Martyrs, trans. by Van Dam, p. 87.  10 The gospel procession of the ‘Gallican’ Mass as described by pseudo-Germanus (late eighth century) uses the term ‘tribunal analogii’. It may refer to a structure (tribunal) on which there was a reading desk (analogium); Pseudo-Germanus, Epistolae de ordine sacrae oblationis et de diversis charismatibus ecclesiae, ed. by Bernard, p. 342.  11 Peeters, De liturgische dispositie van het vroegchristelijk Kerkgebouw, pp. 291–93.  12 Krautheimer, Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture, pp. 190–91 (with an axonometric reconstruction of the church based on the mosaic); Milburn, Early Christian Art and Architecture, pp. 155–56.  13 Victor of Vita, De persecutione vandalica 1. 13. 41, ed. by Petschenig, p. 18.  14 Regula Benedicti 9. 5; ed. by Fry and others, p. 204; ed. and trans. by Venarde, pp. 58–59.  15 In this case he was denouncing the eunuch Eutropios, who had fallen out of imperial

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The historian Sozomen, also noting this practice of Chrysostom, called the structure from which he preached a ‘platform for readers’ (βήμα τῶν ἀναγνωστῶν).16 Chrysostom may have introduced an ambo — whatever that configuration might have signified at the time — to Constantinople from Antioch, where he had exercised the office of deacon and later priest (381–397).17 Both Socrates and Sozomen drew attention to Chrysostom’s practice because he preached from a space not intended for preaching. It is generally assumed that the bishop’s cathedra against the back wall of the apse, from which he would normally have addressed the people, was the ideal ‘acoustic shell’ for projecting the spoken word. Many of the famous preachers of Late Antiquity (Basil, Gregory of Nazianzen, Ambrose, Augustine, Peter Chryso­logus, Gregory the Great) lamented that their voices were not as robust as they would have liked; hence they needed as much assistance from natural amplification as possible.18 Sadly, it seems that they had also to contend with noise from inattentive members of their congregations.

The Ambo of Hagia Sophia The most famous ancient ambo and a prototype for Eastern and medi­eval Western versions alike — even if not on so spectacular a scale — was the ambo erected in the Church of Hagia Sophia at Constantinople during the reign of Emperor Justinian (563).19 It was the subject of a long encomiastic poem (ἔκφρασις) by Paulos Silentiarios attached to his description of the architectural glories of the newly restored Church of Hagia Sophia.20 (The original cupola had collapsed a few years earlier.) In his initial description Paulos used the term πύργος (‘tower’) to designate what he would later in the poem call an ambo.21 The word ‘ambo’, by which the feature became generally known, appears for favour and was seeking sanctuary in the church; Socrates, Historia ecclesiastica 6. 5, trans. by Périchon and Maraval, iv, pp. 272–73.  16 Sozomen, Historia ecclesiastica 8. 5, trans. by Festugière, iv, pp. 260–61; also van de Paverd, Zur Geschichte der Messliturgie, p. 442.  17 Pavić, ‘Untersuchungen zu Liturgie und Ritus im spätantiken Salona’, p. 43 and Taf. 3–4.  18 Olivar, ‘Über das Schweigen und die Rücksichtsnahme’.  19 On the term itself, see Leclercq, ‘Ambo’, and Delvoye, ‘Ambo’. Of equal breadth is Gietmann, ‘Pulpit’. See also Damblon, Zwischen Kathedra und Ambo, pp. 345–64. Many examples are referenced (without documentation) in Sodini (‘avec des compléments de N. Duval’), ‘L’Ambon dans l’église primitive’. On Justinian’s church, see Krautheimer, Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture, pp. 203–19.  20 An ἔκφρασις is a literary genre that describes in vivid terms and praises a building, statue, etc., emphasizing its ‘aesthetic and spiritual qualities’; Webb, ‘ecphrasis’, p. 516.  21 Paul the Silentiary, Ekphrasis, lines 51–75; ed. and trans. by Veh, pp. 360–63 (Greek text with German translation); ed. by De Stefani, pp. 74–76. Raffaella Frioli Campanati thought that πύργος might more properly be applied to a baldachin; see her ‘Il pyrgus dell’archivescovo Agnello e la sua datazione’. See further Nazzi, Amboni nell’area altoadriatica tra vi e xiii secolo, pp. 38–43.

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the first time in line 209 of the ἔκφρασις, where Paulos explains the name etymo­logically with reference to the steps (ἀμβατόν) that lead up to the summit of the structure. At Hagia Sophia the ambo, which in Paulos’s imagination resembled an island floating in a great sea, was approached from the apse by a ‘solea’, a processional passageway enclosed by panels of verde antico marble. He likens the passageway leading to ambo (the term ‘solea’ is not used) to an isthmus projecting ‘into the middle of the sea through grey billows’ (lines 224–43). The solea is described Figure 7.1. Hagia Sophia, ambo, mid-sixth century as ‘cunningly built with mul- (axonometric reconstruction from Fobelli, ti-coloured marbles and artful Un tempio per Giustiniano, fig. 37). skill’ (δαιδαλέος λειμῶνι λíθων καὶ κάλλεϊ τέχνης).22 A set of stairs enclosed by marble slabs led up from the solea to the platform from which the gospel was proclaimed. A steeper set of stairs led down from the western side. Unfortunately, the ambo of Hagia Sophia no longer exists, having been destroyed when the church was converted into a mosque. Various reconstructions have been proposed, of which that by Maria Luigia Fobelli seems the most convincing (Fig. 7.1).23 At the summit of the ambo was an oval platform, enclosed by convex marble slabs adorned with silver. The columns of pavonazetto marble that supported the platform were of sufficient height to accommodate a few (boy?) singers. The choir of adult male singers stood next to the ambo.24 When the deacon carried the ‘golden Gospel’ back to the altar after chanting the gospel, the faithful crowded around either side of the solea to kiss, or at least touch, the sacred book. One cannot imagine a more spectacular demonstration of

 22 Paul the Silentiary, Ekphrasis, lines 324–65. The passage is quoted in English by Xydis, ‘The Chancel Barrier, Solea, and Ambo of Hagia Sophia’, pp. 13–15; ed. and trans. by Veh, pp. 370–73 (text) and 506–09 (commentary); ed. by De Stefani, pp. 84–86.  23 The reconstruction is reproduced from Fobelli, Un tempio per Giustiniano; this includes a translation (with Greek text) and commentary. Germanos, patriarch of Constantinople (d. 733), compared the ambo to ‘a mountain situated in a flat and level place’; On the Divine Liturgy, trans. by Meyendorff, pp. 63–64.  24 The fundamental study of Byzantine singers is Moran, Singers in Late Byzantine and Slavonic Painting.

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the honour paid to the Word of God in the liturgy. Unfortunately, there is no contemporary ordo that describes what must have been a splendid ceremony in the presence of emperor and patriarch.

The Medi­eval Ambo In the Middle Ages various terms (tribunal, pulpitum, analogium, ambo — the latter two of Greek derivation) were used to describe structures, permanent or movable, connected with readings for the Mass and Office, though a clear distinction among them cannot always be made.25 Isidore of Seville (c. 560–636) proposed the following definitons: Pulpitum quod in eo lector vel psalmista positus in publico conspici a populo possit, quo liberius audiatur; tribunal, eo quod inde a sacerdote tribuantur praecepta vivendi; est enim locus in sublimi constitutus; analogium dictum quod sermo praedicetur; nam λόγος Graece sermo dicitur, quod et ipsud altius situm est.26 (A pulpit in which the lector or psalmist [i.e. cantor] stands so that he can be seen by the people and where he can more easily be heard; a tribunal, [so called] inasmuch as from here precepts for living are presented (tribuantur) by the priest (it is a place set up on high); an analogium, so called because the word is preached (for λόγος means ‘word’ in Greek), because the same is placed higher.) The first definition addresses functionality; the third is etymo­logical, but it may refer to the chanting of the ‘word’; the second definition stresses its function as a place from where ‘precepts’ are communicated — perhaps an allusion to the ambo as a place from which a bishop (sacerdos had this meaning) would preach. Common to all three definitions is the emphasis on an elevated location, the better to facilitate the intelligibility of what was said or sung. Left unclear, however, is how (or if) the physical configurations of pulpitum, tribunal, and analogium differed, one from the other. The symbolism of an elevated location for the proclamation of the Scriptures was not lost on liturgical commentators, who attributed allegorical significance to almost everything connected with the Mass.27 Amalar of Metz proposed  25 According to Costantino Gilardi, the Dominican Ordinarium uses the term pulpitum for a movable wooden reading desk; ‘Ecclesia laicorum e Ecclesia fratrum’, pp. 428–30.  26 Isidore, Liber Etymo­logiarum 15. 4. 15–17, ed. by Lindsay. This was repeated by Hrabanus Maurus in De universo 14. 21; PL, 111:392.  27 For an understanding of the allegorical interpretation of the liturgy during the Middle Ages a good place to start is Barthe, ‘The “Mystical” Meaning of the Ceremonies of the Mass’.

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that the ‘excellentior locus, in quo evangelium legitur’ (lofty place in which the gospel is read) represented the ‘eminetissimam doctrinam evangelicae praedicationis’ (exalted doctrine of evangelical preaching).28 He encouraged deacons to reflect on the awesomeness of the responsibility they undertook in proclaiming the Gospel from its height.29 Honorius Augustodunensis (c. 1080–1154?) compared the deacon’s ascent into the ambo to Christ’s preaching on the mountain (Matthew 5–7): ‘in sublimi legitur, quia sublimia sunt evangelica praecepta per quae altitudo coelorum scanditur’ (the reading takes place in a lofty place, because the evangelical precepts through which we attain the heights of heaven are lofty).30 Practical necessity had become a field for edification. Ravenna

Ambos fashioned after that of Hagia Sophia in the East (fragments of about thirty have survived) served as models for Western installations.31 One of the routes through which Eastern artistic influence arrived in the West was Ravenna, where fragments of six or seven ambos survive.32 An inscription on a fragment of an ambo in the cathedral at Ravenna installed by Archbishop Agnellus (557–570), ‘Agnellus episcopus hunc pyrgum fecit’, employs the term (pyrgum) that Paulos used for the ambo of Hagia Sophia, which had been installed a few years earlier. The surviving marble panel of the Ravennate ambo, of convex shape, is covered with thirty-six bas-reliefs in as many cartouches that depict animals (Fig. 7.2).33 The original placement of the ambo in the church is unknown. The church of Sant’Agata Maggiore in Ravenna houses a curious circular ambo made from a portion of a large hollowed-out column of proconessian marble.34 It is presently located between two nave columns on the left side of the church, functioning now as a pulpit. That such a configuration

 28 Lib. off. 3. 18. 13; ed. by Hanssens, p. 310; trans. by Knibbs, ii, pp. 106–07. The section from which this quotation is extracted is entitled ‘De diaconi ascensione in tribunal’; ed. by Hanssens, pp. 305–11. On the dignitas diaconi Amalar quotes extensively from Cyprian’s letter 39 (‘de Celerino lectore ordinato’); see note 7 above.  29 On comparable counsel directed to cantors, see Dyer, ‘The Image of the Cantor in the Writings of Amalar of Metz’.  30 Honorius Augustodunensis, Gemma animae 3. 22; PL, 172:551. Honorius is sometimes cited as ‘of Autun’, but the accuracy of that epithet is doubtful.  31 Fragments of an ambo in Thessaloniki can be dated no earlier than the mid-sixth century; see Warland, ‘Der Ambo aus Thessaloniki’, pp. 381–85.  32 Vrins, ‘Der Ambo’, p. 307.  33 Exhibited in the cathedral of Ravenna; for a description, see Nazzi, Amboni nell’area altoadriatica tra vi e xiii secolo, pp. 167–78 and Tav. 7.1–5; for a similar fragment in the Ravennate church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo, see pp. 212–13 and Tav. 12.1–3.  34 Iäggi, Ravenna, pp. 146–47 (Abb. 86–87). Images of the two fragments mentioned in the previous note are reproduced on pp. 68 (Abb. 30) and 268 (Abb. 202).

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Figure 7.2. Ravenna, Cathedral, ambo of Archbishop Agnellus, 557–70. Image in the public domain.

was not unique is proven by the apse mosaic (right side) in the basilica of Sant’Ambrogio at Milan that shows a deacon standing in something that resembles a ‘column-ambo’. It reaches only to the deacon’s knees — a singular image, given the generally smaller stature of people at the time. Rome

The first literary reference to some type of an elevated structure in a Roman church — in this case used for the bishop’s preaching of a sermon on the feast of St Hippolytus — is found in a poem by Prudentius (c. 348–c. 410).35  35 ‘Fronte sub adversa gradibus sublime tribunal tollitur, antistes praedicat unde deum’; Prudentius, Peristephanon 11. 225, ed. by Cunningham, p. 377.

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He may not have been referring to a genuine pulpit, though he does use the word tribunal, but to the bishop’s cathedra in the apse, the customary place for preaching.36 The source is poetic, and Prudentius may be drawing on termino­logy applicable to the ancient Roman public basilica, whose narrow ends were slightly elevated platforms. The first authentic attestation of an ambo at Rome, contemporary with the erection of the ambo in the Church of Hagia Sophia, testifies to an extra-liturgical use. Early in his pontificate, Pope Pelagius I (556–561) ascended the ambo of St Peter’s to swear publicly on the cross and the Gospels that he was innocent of any involvement in the death of his predecessor, Pope Vigilius.37 Three hundred years later, Pope Nicholas I (858–867) used the ambo of S. Maria Maggiore during the Christmas midnight Mass to defend his decision to restore to episcopal authority Rothad, who (in the pope’s view) had been unlawfully deposed as bishop of Soissons.38 An ambo could also be used for announcements that all were intended to hear. Ordo Romanus 36, a Frankish adaptation of Roman ordination rites composed shortly before 900, instructs a lector to mount the ambo and announce the names of the ordinands.39 Should anyone have information that would render any of the candidates unfit for clerical office, they are exhorted to reveal it. An ambo (no longer extant) was installed in the church of SS. Cosma e Damiano on the Roman Forum by Pope Sergius I (687–701).40 His successor, John VI (701–705), placed an ambo in the ‘basilica’ of St Andrew below (infra) St Peter’s. This must refer to the rotunda, dedicated to St Andrew, on the south flank of the basilica, demolished along with Old St Peter’s in the late sixteenth century.41 Not to be outdone, John VII (705–707) donated an ambo to the church of S. Maria Antiqua across the Roman Forum from SS. Cosma e Damiano.42 The base of the ambo, still extant, bears his dedication (in Latin and Greek): ‘Johannes servu[s] s[an]c[t]ae M[a]riae / Ioannou doulou tēs theotokou’ ( John servant of St Mary / the Theotokos).43 Both John VI and

 36 Tichý, Proclamation de l’Évangile, p. 51. I am indebted to Tichý for this and other references.  37 LP i:303. Sible de Blaauw believes that Pope Pelagius II (579–590) must have been the pope intended, since the building of an ambo at St Peter’s is attributed to him (see below): Cultus et Decor, ii, pp. 484–85.  38 LP ii:162–63; trans. by Davis, The Lives of the Ninth-Century Popes, p. 236. In his Vitae pontificum (1479) Bartolomeo Platina claimed that at S. Maria Maggiore, Pope Sixtus III (432–440) ‘ornavit et ambonem ecclesiae porphyreticis lapidibus quem nos suggestum appellamus, ubi evangelium et epistola canitur’ (p. 23), as quoted in Miloni, ‘Il corpus italico degli amboni medi­evali’, pp. 118 and 131.  39 OR 36. 9; Les Ordines Romani, ed. by Andrieu, iv, p. 196.  40 LP i:374; trans. by Davis, The Book of the Pontiffs, p. 88.  41 LP i:382; trans. by Davis, The Book of the Pontiffs, p. 90. This is described in Alfarano, De basilicae vaticanae antiquissima et nova structura, ed. by Cerrati, p. 132. The obelisk of Nero’s circus was a few steps to the east.  42 LP i:285; trans. by Davis, The Book of the Pontiffs, p. 90.  43 The Latin puts John’s name in the nominative; the Greek, in the genitive.

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John VII were Greeks; Sergius, a pope of Syrian heritage born in Sicily, had been schooled in the Roman clerical tradition. Pope Gregory II (715–731), a Roman by birth, installed a marble ambo (ammonem marmoreum) at S. Croce in Gerusalemme.44 According to a report in the much later Liber politicus (c. 1140), Gregory had preached from this ambo on Laetare Sunday (Lent IV).45 These reports do not tell the whole story of the presence of ambos in Rome, but taken together they demonstrate a papal intention to enhance the solemnity of the chanting of the gospel at Mass in the city’s churches. St Peter’s Basilica

An ambo of Eastern type with two sets Figure 7.3. Rome, Old St Peter’s, plan of stairs, one on either side, leading to an of Tiberio Alfarano, detail showing elevated platform is shown on the plan the place­ment of the ambo (no. 7). of Old St Peter’s produced by Tiberio (From Alfarano, De basilicae Alfarano in the late sixteenth century, as the vaticanae, ed. by Cerrati). venerable Constantinian basilica was being demolished to make way for the church seen today.46 Alfarano’s plan shows the outline of a free-standing ‘suggestum marmoreum ad Evangelii decantandum’ (marble pulpit for the singing of the gospel) at the top of the central nave on its south side, aligned along an east–west axis (Fig. 7.3; no. 7).47 This depicts a ‘classical’ ambo of Eastern type with an elliptical central platform and two sets of stairs on opposite sides, just as described by Paulos Silentiarios in the mid-sixth century. The convex design of the platform would have allowed the deacon to chant the gospel either to the north or to the south.48 The appearance of a free-standing ambo with stairs on either side is a surprising survival of a sixth-century Eastern type of ambo into the sixteenth century at St Peter’s. Although Old St Peter’s was in the process of being

 44 LP i:401; trans. by Davis, The Lives of the Eighth-Century Popes, p. 8.  45 LP i:150.  46 Alfarano, De basilicae vaticanae antiquissima et nova structura, ed. by Cerrati. In the apse can be seen the the two rows of vine-scroll columns in front of the presbyterium.  47 On St Peter’s, see de Blaauw, Cultus et Decor, ii, figs 25 and 26. For a hypothetical placement of ambos — one for the epistle, the other for the gospel — in the Lateran basilica, see de Blaauw, Cultus et Decor, ii, fig. 8.  48 This matter will be taken up in greater detail in Chapter 9.

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demolished, Alfarano would have had no reason to invent the configuration shown on his plan. A silloge (list of inscriptions) attached to a ‘pilgrim’s guide’ to Rome known as the Einsiedeln Itinerary (mid-ninth century) records two no longer extant inscriptions on the ambo of St Peter’s. On one side the inscription read: ‘Scandite cantantes domino dominumque legentes ex alto populis verba superna sonent’ (Go up, singers to the Lord and those who read the Lord / From on high let the sublime words sound out to the people); and on the other side (ex altera parte): ‘Pelagius iunior episcopus dei famulus fecit curante Iuliano praeposito secundicerio’ (Pelagius the younger, bishop and servant of God, made [this], assisted and supported by Julian the secundicerius).49 The first inscription singles out the purpose of an ambo: to proclaim the ‘sublime words’ of the gospel, but it also alludes to singers, who would have used the ambo, standing on a lower step, as confirmed by other sources. The second inscription, probably located on the opposite marble slab enclosing the platform of the ambo, attributes its installation to Pope Pelagius II (579–590), if that is how ‘iunior’ is to be construed. He was the predecessor of Gregory the Great.50 A certain Julian, an important official (secundicerius [of the notaries?]) in the papal household, collaborated by supervising and helping to finance the project. The first of the St Peter’s inscriptions was replicated two and a half centuries later on one of two ambos in the church of SS. Silvestro e Martino ai Monti, when the present church was erected by Pope Sergius II (844–847) to replace an early fifth-century church on the site.51 The second ambo in the church memorialized Pope Sergius himself: ‘Salvo domino nostro beatissimo Sergio papa iuniore’.52 The presence of two ambos in a Roman titular church of the time would seem to be unusual; the earlier Ordines Romani presume only a single structure of that type. Tiberio Alfarano’s plan is consistent with a cosmatesque ambo depicted in illuminations in a Roman manu­script (BAV, Arch. S. Pietro, MS B 78) of the early fourteenth century. A unique series of four images in this manu­script, exceptional in detail, depict a Roman cardinal deacon standing in an ambo and chanting the Exultet blessing of the paschal candle at the Easter Vigil. The four scenes depicted are (1) the beginning of the chant, (2) the insertion of five grains of incense into the candle, (3) the lighting of the candle from a threebranched candlestick, and (4) the lighting of the oil lamps of the church by

 49 Di Rossi, Inscriptiones Christianae Urbis Romae, p. 21; edited also in Capomaccio, Monumentum Resurrectionis, p. 18; de Blaauw, Cultus et Decor, ii, p. 484 n. 184; and Del Lungo, Roma in età carolingia e gli scritti dell’Anonimo Augiense, p. 33.  50 This apparently replaced an ambo from the time of Pelagius I (556–561); see p. 139 above.  51 The report of Sergius’s intervention replicates almost verbatim what the Liber pontificalis recorded earlier about Paschal I and the building of S. Prassede; LP ii:93–94; trans. by Davis, The Lives of the Ninth-Century Popes, pp. 87–88.  52 Buchowiecki, Handbuch der Kirchen Roms, iii, p. 884.

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an acolyte.53 The first of these images is reproduced as Figure 7.4. Though the Exultet (preconium paschale) is a poetic composition, not a scriptural reading, its chanting by a deacon at the Easter Vigil was the liturgical year’s most dramatic use of the ambo and very similar to the ritual of chanting the gospel at Mass. In these illustrations the deacon chants the Exultet from a codex (the self-same book in which the illustrations are found?), not the scroll format favoured in south Italy and Benevento.54 The convex shape of the ambo depicted, its coloured marble panels, the cosmatesque colonnettes, and the Figure 7.4. Deacon in ambo at the beginning of the r two sets of stairs are typical Exultet, BAV, Archivio San Pietro, MS B 78, fol. 3 , thirteenth–fourteenth century (used with permission of Italian ambos of the period. In the background are three of the Biblioteca Apostolica Vatican). arcades supported by columns that frame the deacon. Do the images accurately reflect the scene at St John Lateran, the stational church for the Easter Vigil? Probably not. The nave columns of the Lateran basilica supported trabeation (lintel-like horizontal sections) not rounded arcades.55 A famous fresco (1650) by Filippo Gagliardi on the wall of the church of S. Martino ai Monti in Rome supposedly depicts the nave and apse of St John Lateran before the church was transformed beyond recognition by Francesco Borromini during the papacy of Innocent X (1644–1655).56 Long considered inaccurate, it shows the nave columns supporting arcades, not an architrave, as was actually the case.

 53 The images are on folios 3r, 13v, 15r, and 15v, respectively. Digital images are available on the website of the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, . On the manu­script, see Tomei, ‘Libri miniati tra Roma, Napoli e Avignone nel Trecento’.  54 Kelly, The Exultet in Southern Italy. Many Exultet rolls are reproduced in full colour in Exultet, ed. by Cavallo and others.  55 Constantine’s columns of giallo antico and verde antico were more colourful than those seen in the background here.  56 Brandenburg, Die frühchristlichen Kirchen Roms vom 4. bis zum 7. Jahrhundert, pp. 21–22; see also the good black-and-white reproduction of the fresco with an axonometric drawing of the original church in Krautheimer, Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture, pp. 46–47.

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The images in the Exultet manu­script may have been intended as ‘generic’ scenes, not depictions of a specific church interior. The cardinal deacon wears the flowing Roman dalmatic, in this case adorned with appliqué decorative panels and stripes.57 A subdeacon stands on the steps next to him on one side and an acolyte holding the deacon’s unadorned mitre stands on the other. All Roman cardinals, even those of diaconal rank, had the right to wear the mitre.58 This detail confirms the Roman origin of the manu­script. The bottom of the page depicts two events in the Resurrection narrative: Jesus rising from the tomb with orb and sceptre while the guards sleep, and the three Marys addressed by the angel. The Roman basilica of S. Maria Maggiore had at one time two ambos on opposite sides of the nave, at least one of which was installed under Pope Alexander III (1159–1181). The one on the south side of the church was removed in 1587. Onofrio Panvinio, who saw them while both were still in place, described them as ‘pulpita sive ambones marmoreos duos elegantissimis tabulis incrustatos’ (pulpits or two ambos of marble covered by two elegant panels).59 In addition to being used to chant the epistle and gospel, one of them was used by the pope or one of the cardinals for preaching. Situated between the two pulpita was a chorus canonicorum.60 In De sacro altaris mysterio Pope Innocent III (Lothar dei Conti di Segni; b. 1160/61; pope, 1198–1216) assumed, as did most liturgical commentators of the Middle Ages, an ambo with two sets of stairs. He explained that the deacon descends in a direction opposite to the one from which he ascended, because ‘apostoli prius praedicavere Judaeis, et postea gentilibus praedicavere’ (the apostles preached first to the Jews and only afterwards did they preach to the gentiles).61 In Book i of the Rationale divinorum officiorum, which treats of ‘the church building and its parts’, Guillaume Durand (c. 1230/31–1296) neglected to offer a physical description of either the pulpitum or the analogium, merely supplying brief notes on their symbolism. He does confirm, however, that some churches still had ambos with two sets of stairs aligned on an east–west axis.62

 57 See Chapter 8.  58 Braun, Die liturgische Gewandung, pp. 455–57.  59 Panvinio, De praecipuis urbis Romae sanctioribusque basilicis, p. 236. There was also a pulpit before the mid-thirteenth century in San Pancrazio ‘a man destra’ (as seen from the entrance to the church); Corpus Basilicarum Christianarum Romae, iii, pp. 161–62 (from BAV, MS Barb. lat. 2160, fol. 135r–v).  60 Panvinio, De praecipuis urbis Romae sanctioribusque basilicis, p. 119.  61 Innocent III, De sacro altaris mysterio 6. 42; PL, 217:823–24.  62 Durand, Rationale divinorum officiorum 1. 1. 33–34; ed. by Davril and Thibodeau, i, pp. 22–23; trans. by Thibodeau, William Durand’s ‘Rationale divinorun officiorum’, pp. 20–21. Analogium is erroneously translated ‘rood-loft’ and misleadingly identified with the ambo, so called ‘quia intrantem ambit et cingit’ (because it surrounds and encloses [the deacon] who has entered it).

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Monastic and Cathedral Ambos By the mid-eighth century a prominent place for delivering the liturgical readings had become a virtual requirement for any well-appointed monastic or cathedral church. The plan of St Gall (c. 820) shows two features of interest located outside the choir enclosure: (1) two square ‘analogia ad legendum in nocte’ attached to the outer wall of the enclosure (chorus psallentium) facing the nave, and (2) a self-standing circular ambo forward of the choir, apparently of sizable dimensions (lower quarter of Fig. 7.5).63 The centrally placed ambo (at the bottom of the plan) is depicted as two concentric circles — the letters ‘a-m-b-o’ within the circles — surmounted by a cross and the inscription stating its purpose: ‘Hic evangelicae recitatur lectio pacis’. No steps are shown, perhaps because the plan is only a schematic. Although this elaborate plan of an ideal monastery was never executed — and may not have been created for that purpose — the (real) monastery of St Gall did have an ambo in place by 794, when a sermon was preached from it on the occasion of the transfer of the Figure 7.5. Plan of St Gall (detail), Stiftsbibliothek St Gallen, Cod. 1092, between 819 and 826. relics of St Otmar (d. 759).64 A grand monastic church was built at Monte Cassino during the abbacy of Desiderius. Begun in 1066, the church interior featured a wooden pulpit (‘pulpitum ligneum ad legendum et  63 Tremp, ed., Der St Galler Klosterplan; for additional information, see Schedl, Der Plan von St Gallen. The plan is available online at .  64 Rademacher, ‘Die Kanzel in ihrer archäo­logischen und kunsthistorischen Entwicklung in Deutschland bis zum Ende der Gotik’, pp. 123–38 (p. 126).

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Figure 7.6. Aachen, Cathedral, ambo of Henry II, early eleventh century. Image in the public domain.

cantandum’), whose platform was six steps above the floor. This was not merely a functional installation. Leo Marsicano (1046–1115), later cardinal-bishop of Ostia, described it as a work of exceeding beauty, decorated ‘diversis colorum fucis et auri petalis’ (with various tints of red and with gold foil).65  65 Marsicano, Cronaca di Montecassino (III 26–33), ed. by Aceto and Lucherini, p. 72.

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Bishop Chrodegang of Metz (d. 766), a zealous emulator of the Roman liturgy, is credited with installing an ambo ‘auro argentoque nobilissime decoratum’ (excellently adorned with gold and silver) in the basilica Petri maior at Metz.66 The ambo no longer exists, but it might have been comparable in its opulence to the ambo of Henry II (1002–1024) in the cathedral at Aachen (Fig. 7.6). The front of the platform of this ambo has the familiar convex shape with narrow side panels and gilded copper plates over an oaken core. The central curved portion is divided into nine recessed cartouches with embossed figures. Only one of the evangelist reliefs, that of Matthew, survives.67 There are three narrower, vertically aligned cartouches with embossed figures on each of the side panels. The ambo, removed from its original location in the octagon, is now placed in an elevated position in the nave of the cathedral. Whatever its original placement, Henry’s ambo massively underscored the eminence of the Word that would have been chanted solemnly from its elevated perch.

Ambo and Choir Enclosure The ambo was later incorporated into an extension of the presbyterium created to accommodate a choir of canons, friars, or monks charged with the chanting of the Divine Office daily. The main altar, if not sited over a martyr’s grave, was moved further back into the apse, replacing, if it were a cathedral, the bishop’s throne, which was removed to the right side of the altar (the viewer’s left). This development required rethinking the shape of the ambo, since it was no longer an independent structure. The usual flights of stairs aligned on an east–west axis would have been blocked by the lateral walls of the marble choir enclosure. Ambos integrated into the choir enclosure were now approached from within the enclosure by steps set at an angle to the platform. This fusion of two distinct architectural forms supplied the traditional need for an elevated place for the Mass readings, on the one hand, and a desire to set apart a proper venue for the public chanting of the Divine Office on the other.68 The only extant example of a medi­eval marble choir enclosure with pulpits in situ stands in the early twelfth-century Roman church of San Clemente (Fig. 7.7).69 Major structural damage suffered by the original sixth-century church during a fire in 1084 necessitated the building a few decades later of a new church above the old, whose smaller dimensions sufficed for the needs of a depleted population living on and around the Caelian Hill. The panels from  66 Klauser, ‘Eine Stationsliste der Metzer Kirche aus dem 8. Jahrhundert’.  67 There is an extensive description in Reygers, ‘Ambo’.  68 As we will see below, this placement of the choir created a need to separate the choir from the nave — thus the invention of the ‘choir screen’.  69 For an excellent view of this unique, often pictured ensemble, see Grimal and Rose, Churches of Rome, p. 15.

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Figure 7.7. Rome, San Clemente, marble choir and pulpits, early twelfth century (from a photo in the author’s collection).

which the choir enclosure is constructed date from the first third of the sixth century. They almost certainly formed part of a solea located in the centre of the nave of the now excavated ‘lower’ church, where one can still see in the floor some of the impost blocks into which the pilaster supports for the transennae of the solea were inserted.70 When the church was rebuilt in the  70 These are even more evident in an excavation photo of St John Lateran; see Giulini, ‘Lo spazio cristiano a Roma al tempo di Costantino’, p. 23. The four pairs of blocks in the

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twelfth century, a solea was no longer considered essential, so the panels were reconfigured to form an enclosure for the canons who chanted the Divine Office in choir.71 The monogram of Pope John II (533–536), who installed the solea, can be seen on several of the marble choir panels in the present church. The outline of his monogram is also faintly visible behind the green marble discs on the panels on either side of the entrance to the choir enclosure from the nave. Pope John II, cardinal priest of San Clemente before his elevation to the papacy, was a contemporary of Justinian, who had installed the solea + ambo at Hagia Sophia described above. It may not be too far-fetched to hypothesize a connection, though the original shape of the solea (or ambo, if one existed) in the sixth-century San Clemente cannot be recovered. The pulpits on either side of the choir enclosure at San Clemente may have been repurposed from unadorned slabs transported from the sixth-century church. The pulpits are twelfth-century features, but of great significance as the unique survival of such an arrangement of ecclesiastical ‘furniture’ from medi­eval Rome.72 The pulpit on the right (from the viewer’s perspective), bounded on three sides by unadorned marble panels, has two lecterns facing in opposite directions. The higher, facing towards the apse, must have been intended for the reading of the epistle; the lower, facing away from it towards the nave, would seem a likely place for the cantor to chant the solo verses of the gradual and the alleluia or (in penitential seasons) the tract. One can only speculate about this and how they may have been employed for the Office (the higher for the readings, the lower for the responsory that followed each reading?) due to the lack of documentary information.73 All the liturgical books used by the canons have vanished. The larger and taller ambo on the left side of the choir, from which the gospel was cantillated, is of different configuration. It has two sets of stairs. The platform enclosure is bounded by a pair of opposing tripartite parapets, both of convex shape formed of three cosmatesque panels. The cosmatesque candlestick was intended for

excavation photo do not allow a very secure extrapolation of the length of the solea; see Cecchelli, ‘Laterano’, p. 49. For an authoritative study of the solea in a limited geo­graphic area, see Cuscito, ‘Lo spazio sacro negli edifici cultuali paleocristiani dell’Alto Adriatico’. On the solea and its possible connection with the history of the introit of the Mass, see Dyer, ‘Psalmi ante sacrificium and the Origin of the Introit’.  71 Barclay Lloyd, The Medi­eval Church and Canonry of S. Clemente, pp. 38–42. Though many art historians still call this a ‘schola cantorum’, the term is misleading because it confuses an architectural choir for the chanting of the Divine Office with the papal schola cantorum, to which the name is properly applied; see Dyer, ‘Schola cantorum’ (1998); Dyer, ‘Schola cantorum’ (2001).  72 See the comprehensive treatment of Guidobaldi, San Clemente, pp. 167–88 (‘Struttura e posizione delle recinzioni liturgiche’).  73 That such installations were used for the Office is proven by the early fourteenth-century Liber Ordinarius of Trier: ‘et sic ordinati ascendant umbonem [sic] chori in parte sinistra, ubi matutinales lectiones consueverunt legi in precipuis sollempnitatibus’; as quoted in Schmelzer, Der mittelalterliche Lettner im deutschsprachigen Raum, p. 146.

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the paschal candle. Since it was always to the deacon’s right as he chanted the Exultet, he must have faced into the choir for the cantillation of the gospel. (Exceptionally, the candle is shown to the deacon’s left in Figure 7.4.) The marble choir with two ambos in the Roman church of S. Maria in Cosmedin is the result of a late nineteenth-century ‘restoration’. The raised portion of the floor in front of the presbyterium, which occupies most of the forward part of the central nave, together with the two ambos, remained in situ even after the marble panels of the original choir enclosure were removed sometime in the Renaissance.74 The restoration of the church to its presumed medi­eval aspect in the 1890s used this raised platform as a guide to constructing the choir enclosure. Compared to S. Clemente, however, the ambos are reversed. The one on the viewer’s left (geo­graphical north, since S. Maria in Cosmedin is oriented) is the plainer and smaller of the two, its reading desk facing into the apse as at S. Clemente. The larger ambo on the right (southern) side has a convex parapet composed of three porphyry panels set into marble framing, like the larger ambo at S. Clemente, that faces into the choir enclosure (Fig. 7.7). As at S. Clemente there is a cosmatesque pillar for the paschal candle. It is on the other side of the ambo, but still to the deacon’s right. It is curious that the more imposing of the two ambos stands on the ‘epistle’ side of the church. It is to be noted, however, that S. Maria in Cosmedin is oriented, and the deacon standing in the larger ambo to the right would have faced north as he cantillated the gospel.75 Did the urgency to preach the Gospel towards the north (as explained in a previous chapter) override the normal placement of the larger ambo on the ‘gospel’ side of the church? This can be only speculation, but it would explain the curious arrangement at S. Maria in Cosmedin. The choir enclosure at the Roman church of Santa Sabina, which appears to take its inspiration from S. Maria in Cosmedin, can make no claim to medi­eval authority. Devised by the architect Antonio Muñoz and completed in 1936, the enclosure makes use of marble slabs that probably date from the early ninth century. Two impressive ambos survive in the Roman church of San Lorenzo fuori le mura; the larger of the two is shown in Figure 7.8. They may have once formed part of a choir enclosure which has not survived. The steps at right angles leading up from the present nave suggest this to be the case.76 The ambos are now positioned opposite each other in the nave of the church.77 They cannot

 74 A seventeenth-century engraving depicts this state of the interior; see Massimi, La Chiesa di S. Maria in Cosmedin, tav. XVII. A few sixth-century panels survive; see Buchowiecki, Handbuch der Kirchen Roms, ii, pp. 611–12; an evocative drawing of the interior in 1836 by Achille Vanelli, sold at auction by Christies in December 2008, was not available for reproduction. Images are available on the Internet.  75 See the sources cited in Chapter 6.  76 The stairs on the western side of the larger ambo, not visible in Figure 7.8, presently end several feet above the floor.  77 An ambo in the cathedral of Ravallo is similarly sited. The cathedral also houses a stunning

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Figure 7.8. Rome, S. Lorenzo fuori le mura, cosmatesque ambo, early thirteenth century (Scala/Art Resource, NY).

antedate the early thirteenth century, when Pope Honorius III (1216–1227) enlarged the basilica of Pope Pelagius II (579–590) by tearing down the apse and extending the church towards the west, effectively creating an oriented church of unique design with a raised presbyterium. The tall ambo on the viewer’s right is by far the more impressive of the two. Its lower part consists of two marble-framed porphyry squares flanking a circular disk of green marble. The platform above is bounded, as at S. Clemente, by a convex parapet; side panels of porphyry flank a small green marble disk in the centre.78 If this ambo always stood to the right, the deacon would have oblong cosmatesque pulpit (a cornu Epistolae) resting on six twisted columns supported by lions. It is the work of Nicola da Bartolomeo (1272); Boselli, ed., L’Ambone, tavola 29. The ambos at S. Maria in Aracoeli (Rome) are recompositions from a single twelfth-century ambo by Lorenzo di Cosma.  78 There is an especially fine cosmatesque ambo on the ‘gospel’ side of the church of San Pietro in Albe at Alba Fucens, a town at the foot of Monte Velino (Abruzzo). The discs and rectangular coloured marble panels are framed by cosmatesque work. The flat panels of

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Figure 7.9. Torcello (Venice), S. Maria Assunta, double ambo, twelfth/ thirteenth century (from Niero, La Basilica di Torcello e Santa Fosca).

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chanted the gospel into the nave and hence towards the north, as at S. Maria in Cosmedin. The steps leading up to the pulpitum of the ambo are at an angle, implying (after the models of S. Clemente and S. Maria in Cosmedin) that it once formed part of a choir enclosure. The curious ambo in the basilica of S. Maria Assunta on the island of Torcello in the Venetian lagoon is of especial interest from a liturgical perspective, even though its unique composition may not be medi­eval but a later recomposition (Fig. 7.9).79 No ambos of similar design, which combine epistle and gospel ambo in a single structure, are known. The slightly convex upper platform with an attached reading desk faces into the nave. It is supported by four columns. Attached to the stairs leading up to it at a lower level is a small ‘epistle’ ambo with a similar lectern placed at a different angle. This latter would also have served as a logical place for the chanting of the gradual and alleluia by the cantor, the choir standing around, and perhaps one or two members standing under the taller ambo. Many hundreds of marble panels from enclosures of one kind or another, some carved in bas relief or encrusted with mosaic tiles, have survived in Italy and in lands bordering the Adriatic. When the spaces they enclosed no longer served a liturgical function, they were dismantled and the panels repurposed, moved to locations elsewhere in the church or portico, or eventually transferred to the local museo diocesano, being too beautiful to hide from view.80 If panels were not attractive enough to be repurposed as decorative elements, they might be relegated to serve as flooring material, reversed and trimmed to size as required.

Typo­logy of Choir Screens Beginning in the late twelfth century transverse separation walls began to be erected in larger churches. Successors to the transennae and trabeated colonnettes that separated altar and nave in earlier churches, these ‘screens’ were substantial stone structures, whose function it was to block the view of the choir stalls from anyone standing in the nave — hence the English term ‘choir screen’. Words used in other languages — German Lettner (from Latin ‘lectorium’, reading desk) and French jubé (the first word of the reader’s request, the pulpit, as at S. Lorenzo flm, are flanked by twisted cosmatesque columns. See Creissen, ‘Les clôtures de choeur des églises d’Italie à l’èpoque romane’, p. 173, fig. 7. Several views are available on the Internet.  79 Arturo Carlo Quintavalle had harsh words for some of what he branded as modern ‘pesanti falsificazioni’; see ‘Arredo, rito, racconto’, p. 39. The closure of libraries in 2020 prevented me from investigating this further.  80 Giacomo Grimaldi (c. 1560–1623) noted that the choir enclosure at San Clemente was the last survival in Rome, ‘nam ex omnibus forme ecclesiis et basilicis Urbis amotae sunt, et aliquo etiam tempore amovebitur presbyterium marmaoreum cum ambonibus’; Descrizione della basilica antica di S. Pietro in Vaticano, p. 397.

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‘Jube, domne, benedicere’, for a blessing before beginning a reading of the night office) — allude to its central role as a place for the cantillation of the Scriptures and (in the case of the Office) patristic and hagio­graphical texts.81 The Italian ‘tramezzo’ (a translation of the Latin ‘intermedium’) describes its architectural consequence: a transverse wall that effectively divided the building in two.82 As Jacqueline Jung observed, ‘spaces gained sacrality by being accessible only to an elite group of specially trained members of society or a priestly class innately endowed with holy status’.83 The practice of partitioning off an area around the altar has a history that stretches back to the time of Constantine. The cathedral at Tyre, whose construction was sponsored by Constantine, had latticework fencing (of wood and mobile) that enclosed the area around the altar.84 Choir screens effectively created two ‘churches’ in a single building — one for the communities of canons, friars, or monks who chanted the Divine Office, the other for the laity.85 These communities gathered in choir at various times during the day to chant the Divine Office (Matins, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, and Vespers), in which the laity did not share. The connection between the screen as a wall of separation and at the same time as an honoured place for the cantillation of Scripture is not a rare combination — quite the contrary. Even in the early thirteenth century, when such screens began to be installed, a pulpit was an integral part of the design, not a later add-on. That much is evident from the surviving examples, and it thoroughly justifies use of the German term Lettner to characterize them. Most have been dismantled, but their existence is attested by archival records, ceremonials, and artistic depictions.86  81 Jungmann, Missarum Sollemnia, i, p. 527 n. 54. ‘Jube, domne, benedicere’ is said quietly by the deacon, asking for the celebrant’s blessing before cantillating the gosel at Mass. If a priest is celebrating Mass without assisting ministers, he uses the form ‘Jube, domine, benedicere’.  82 Cf. the Italian diminutive tramezzino (‘tra’ (between) and ‘mezzo’ (half)), the name for a triangular sandwich, akin to British tea sandwiches, first made in Italy (so it is said) at the Caffè Mulassano in Turin in 1925. They were allegedly so named by the Italian poet Gabriele d’Annunzio, because the word ‘sandwich’ is difficult for Italians to pronounce. See the ground-breaking study of Hall, ‘The Italian Rood Screen’, p. 215. She reviewed later findings in ‘The Tramezzo in the Italian Renaissance, Revisited’.  83 Jung, The Gothic Screen, p. 18.  84 In a panegyric delivered at the dedication of Constantine’s basilica at Tyre, Eusebius of Caesarea mentioned the fencing off of an abaton, an area restricted to those ministering at the altar: ‘[Constantine] placed the altar in the middle of the holy of holies and also enclosed this part also, that it might be inaccessible to the multitude (ὡς ἂν εἴη τοῑς πολλοῑς ἂβατα), with wooden lattice-work, delicately wrought with artistic carving’; Ecclesiastical History 10. 4. 44; ed. by Lawlor, trans. by Oulton, ii, pp. 426–27.  85 Although dated, the survey of the celebrated ‘neo-gothic’ architect Pugin, A Treatise on Chancel Screens and Rood Lofts is of importance, not only for Pugin’s frank observations but also for the fact that some of the screens he described are no longer extant. See also Jung, The Gothic Screen.  86 The Dutch painter Pieter Neefs the elder (d. after 1661) painted numerous ‘Interior of a Gothic Church’ canvases, a popular seventeenth-century genre.

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Figure 7.10. Havelberg, Cathedral of St Mary, choir screen (Schrankenlettner), 1395–1411 (from Schmelzer, Der mittelalterliche Lettner im deutschsprachigen Raum).

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The distinctive forms taken by these screens in various European countries have been documented and categorized by architectural historians. The categories established in the path-breaking study of Erika Doberer were further refined by Monika Schmelzer.87 Within the broad ‘choir screen’ category the number of variants was considerable. Although concentrated on the ‘deutschsprachiger Raum’, the principles of categorization developed by these two scholars are applicable in many respects to other regions. Jubés began to appear in French churches at about the same time as the earliest German ones (c. 1230), either as part of a renovation or as new construction. Although now vanished from most churches, choir screens continued to be installed up through the fifteenth century. In what follows, I cannot pretend to survey even a small fraction of the choir screen typo­logies analysed by Schmelzer, but merely address their functions. The ‘screen’ might be a Schrankenlettner, a single partition wall with three to seven arcades and a central altar on the side facing the nave. Small doors flanked the altar, which in Germany was usually dedicated to the Holy Cross.88 The doors gave access to the choir area beyond and, when opened, permitted those standing in the nave during Mass to glimpse the Elevation of the Host at the altar. An example of this format is the choir screen in the cathedral of Havelberg, installed between 1395 and 1411 (Fig. 7.10). The front is partitioned into seven sections, two of which are pierced by doors giving access to the choir and altar area beyond.89 The projecting pulpit, whose front edge is adorned with statues, is relatively small. Other pulpits in a similar position are large enough to serve as a baldachin over the altar.90 At Havelberg an enclosed central staircase led up to the pulpit, where there seems to be sufficient room for both the deacon and an assisting subdeacon with the thurible. The Kanzellettner in the Stadtkirche Unseren Lieben Frau at Friedberg (1240/50) has an exceptionally large pulpit.91 Since the choir side of the screen was accessible only to clergy, it is no surprise that the staircases are on this side. Another type of screen was the Hallenlettner, a structure with a depth of several feet, arcaded on its lowest level, which sheltered one or more altars. The oldest German example of a Hallenlettner is the choir screen at the east end of

 87 Doberer, ‘Der Lettner’ (based on an earlier (1946) dissertation), and Schmelzer, Der mittelalterliche Lettner im deutschsprachigen Raum, pp. 12–18 and 159–63.  88 A Crucifixion scene, Mary to Jesus’s right, stands above the altar.  89 A very similar arrangement (c. 1445) prevails in the cathedral of Magdeburg; see Jung, The Gothic Screen, p. 76 (with additional views of Havelberg).  90 There are several examples in Schmelzer, Der mittelalterliche Lettner im deutschsprachigen Raum, pp. 44–64 and 161, Taf. 1 (Wechselburg), Abb. 21 (Stendal), 24 (Magdeburg), and 27 (Friedberg).  91 Schmelzer, Der mittelalterliche Lettner im deutschsprachigen Raum, pp. 57–60; Abb. 28. There is a narrow staircase that leads to the upper level from the rear of the screen on the left side.

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Figure 7.11. Naumburg, Sts Peter and Paul, east choir screen (Hallenlettner), c. 1230 (from Schmelzer, Der mittelalterliche Lettner im deutschsprachigen Raum, Abb. 42).

the cathedral at Naumburg, installed c. 1230 (Fig. 7.11). Its three bays, framed by rounded Romanesque arches resting on paired columns, are of massive construction. Doors in the two bays flanking the altar give access — physical and (when opened) visual — to the raised choir beyond.92 The transverse ‘hall’ which sheltered the altar broadened the width of the upper storey, thus providing room for a more solemn cantillation of the Scriptures on Sundays and feast days, since it could accommodate all of the minsters assisting the deacon. Such a structure resembles a bridge; hence the term ponte/pontile by which it is known in Italy.93 Employed as a ‘stage’ the upper platform is documented to have been used for Easter ‘liturgical dramas’ (Osterspiele) and mystery plays. A small positiv organ may have been a permanent installation. The Hallenlettner once in the cathedral of Königsberg (now Kaliningrad, Russia) no longer exists, but a document preserving an agreement concluded in 1333 between the bishop of Königsberg and the master builder Luderus has survived. Concerning the screen’s construction it specified:  92 There is a choir screen at the opposite (west) end of the church with a central door and blind arcades on either side. Its upper storey is approached from behind the screen via two elegantly crafted spiral stairs. See Schmelzer, Der mittelalterliche Lettner im deutschsprachigen Raum, pp. 124–28, Taf. 9 and Abb. 84–87.  93 Hall, ‘The Tramezzo in Santa Croce, Florence, Reconstructed’, p. 340.

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In qua eciam pariete ad introitum Chori duo locabuntur ostia, inter que altare construetur et desuper per columpnarum sustentacionem testudo erigetur cuius summitas pro lectura evangelii, organorum locacione remaneat et ambone.94 (In which wall at the entrance to the choir, moreover, two doors will be located between which an altar is to be constructed; and above, supported by columns, a vault will be erected, the summit of which is reserved for the reading of the gospel, for the placement of an organ and ambo.) This a very precise statement, not only about the composition of the structure, but also about its use. There were two doors in the screen, between which there was to be an altar, the whole surmounted by a vault (testudo) that provided ample space for the cantillation of the gospel. An ambo and an organ were essential components of the structure. The doors in the screens, whether central or lateral, accommodated the laity’s intense desire to view the Host and the chalice, when they were elevated (separately) by the priest immediately after the consecration of the Mass. Since priest and laity faced in the same direction at Mass, the laity could see the Host only if the priest raised it high above his head.95 Seeing the Host at this moment constituted for medi­eval Christians the ne plus ultra of the experience of attending Mass. A bell was rung to signal that the Elevation was about to take place.96 (The Lay Folkes Mass Book, discussed in Chapter 1, prepared ‘lay folke’ especially for this treasured moment.) Even the reclusive Carthusians sought to accommodate the laity’s wish to behold the Host at the Elevation. For this purpose the ostium chori could be briefly opened ‘tantum in elevatione et postea claudatur’.97 The small, deeply recessed doors of the Naumburg screen would not have afforded an entirely adequate view of this hallowed moment. If those in attendance knelt for the Sanctus and the canon, they would have to make the best of their vantage point.98 This was a kind of visual ‘communion’, since actual reception of the Eucharist was rare — no more than once a year was required by the Fourth Lateran Council (1215).

 94 As quoted in Schmelzer, Der mittelalterliche Lettner im deutschsprachigen Raum, p. 180.  95 Architectural aspects of beholding the revealed Host are not treated in Dumoutet, Le désir de voir l’hostie.  96 If Masses were being celebrated concurrently at side altars, the bell alerted the devout to where in the church the next Elevation of the Host would take place.  97 Statuta antiquae ordinis Carthusiensis 55; PL, 153:1137, as quoted in Jung, ‘Beyond the Barrier’, p. 651 n. 57.  98 Burkhard Neunheuser, citing OR 1. 53, dates the custom of laity kneeling for the Canon to the ninth (or possibly eighth) century; ‘Les gestes de la prière à genoux et de la génuflexion’ p. 159. Assisting priests assumed this posture on weekdays according to the rubrics of OR 4. 53; Les Ordines Romani, ed. by Andrieu, ii, pp. 63–64. The canon having ended, they (‘diaconi seu et sacerdotes’) are instructed to rise (OR 4. 56).

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Choir screens were standard features in churches of the mendicants (Dominicans, Franciscans). Their churches were nearly always located in populated urban areas, where many people frequented the church daily.99 The screens effectively shielded the friars from distraction and from the prying eyes of seculars, as they entered the choir several times a day to chant the successive hours of the Divine Office.100 The Dominican General Chapter of 1249 (Trier) summed up the function of the intermedium in churches of the order in the following terms: Intermedia quae sunt in ecclesiis nostris inter seculares et fratres sic disponantur ubique per priores quod fratres egredientes et ingredientes de choro non possunt videri a secularibus vel videre eosdem. Poterunt tamen alique fenestre ibidem aptari ut tempore elevacionis corporis dominici possunt aperiri.101 (The intermedia between the seculars and the friars that are in our churches are so placed everywhere by Priors, so that the friars departing and entering the choir are not able to be seen by seculars or to see them. There can, however, be some windows arranged in it, so that they can be opened at the time of the elevation of the Lord’s body.) A report of the Dominican provincial chapter at the church of Sant’Eustorgio in Milan (1239) attests to the presence of two ‘windows’ in the choir screen (intermedium), ‘through which can be seen the body of Christ within’. The screen in Sant’Eustorgio had three altars on the laity’s side. The attic above incorporated a pulpit where the gospel was chanted. The Dominican church at Bo­logna was partitioned in the thirteenth century by a tramezzo (‘hostium positum inter altare Beatae Mariae et Beati Stephani’), which divided the church into an ‘ecclesia laicorum’ and an ‘ecclesia interior vel fratrum’.102 Choir screens in some mendicant churches had a single door in the middle, occupying the place reserved for the Cross altar in other configurations, but such a disposition was not exceptional in churches of the secular clergy.  99 ‘Mendicant’ (from Latin ‘mendicare’, to beg) refers to itinerant orders, mainly Dominicans and Franciscans, founded to do pastoral work especially in cities. ‘Collegiate’ churches were staffed by a college of canons, who did not take vows of poverty like the mendicants, but (ideally) shared a common life; they were often attached to a cathedral church.   100 Descoeudres, ‘Choranlagen von Bettelordenskirchen’, pp. 23–25; Abbildung 11 is a recon­ struc­tion of the intermedium of the Dominican church at Bern (c. 1310). Cooper, ‘Access All Areas?’, pp. 90 and 95. A succinct introduction to the subject is Imesch Oehry, Die Kirchen der Franziskanerobservanten in der Lombardei, im Piemont und im Tessin und ihre ‘Lettner­wände’, pp. 35–39. See also Schmelzer, Der mittelalterliche Lettner im deutschsprachigen Raum, pp. 81–98.   101 Acta capitulorum generalium 1. 47, as quoted in Descoeudres, ‘Choranlagen von Bettelordens­ kirchen’, p. 29 n. 35, and Gilardi, ‘Ecclesia laicorum e Ecclesia fratrum’, p. 421. See also Valenzano, ‘La suddivisione dello spazio nelle chiese mendicanti’.   102 This is shown on the plan of the convent complex in Gilardi, ‘Ecclesia laicorum e Ecclesia fratrum’, p. 393 (fig. 1, no. 5).

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Figure 7.12. Walcourt (Belgium), Basilica of Saint-Materne, jubé of Charles V, 1531 (from a vintage postcard).

A type of screen that did not entirely cut off the view of the altar from the nave was the decorative ‘arcade screen’ (Arkadenlettner). It gave those in the nave a ‘frame’ within which to observe everything happening in the choir or (more importantly) at the altar during Mass.103 A splendid example is the ‘jubé of Emperor Charles V’ in the Basilica of Saint-Materne (Walcourt, Belgium; Fig. 7.12), so named because the emperor is supposed to have provided funds for its erection in 1531. There are three arcades of delicate Gothic tracery. The screen is adorned with six large statues and twenty-three smaller ones in niches. The small projecting pulpit located in the centre is its focal point.104 Perhaps even more than any of the preceding examples the jubé of Charles V conjures up the drama of the deacon’s sudden appearance ‘out of nowhere’ at the summit of the elaborate choir screen, arrayed in a festive dalmatic and accompanied by numerous assistants to cantillate the gospel — perhaps facing the congregation?   103 Jung, ‘Seeing through Screens’.   104 Part of a Crucifixion group can be seen above the screen. The varnished wooden doors cannot be part of the original scheme; the free-standing altar in front dates presumably from the 1960s.

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The English Rood Screen In England comparable wooden installations were known as ‘rood screens’, so called from the rode (Anglo-Saxon for cross) centrally mounted on top. This was a Crucifixion scene with Mary and John, but not invariably an integral part of a screen. The Crucifixion group might be either hung from the chancel arch or placed on a beam spanning the arch, as at Havelberg (Fig. 7.10). Such screens of small dimensions in English parish churches featured delicately carved wooden Gothic arches with solid panels below (some decorated with figures of saints). They did not impede the view from the nave. These carved wooden screens were much valued by parishioners who had commissioned them for their parishes. Obviously, they were not considered an impediment to worship. Many survived the Reformation as prized possessions of village churches, whose parishioners scrupulously maintained them, many to the present day.105 They were never connected with the cantillation of the gospel at Mass like the continental choir screens.

Removal of Choir Screens In the aftermath of the Council of Trent choir screens began to be removed in Rome and elsewhere. The trend was inspired in part by a Renaissance aesthetic assumption that church interiors should present an uninterrupted vista from entrance to apse. When the Divine Office became less frequently chanted in public in the main choir, one of the principal motives for the construction of choir screens was eliminated.106 The screen of the Dominican church of Santa Sabina was removed in the late sixteenth century under Sixtus V (1585–1590). Pompeo Ugonio, who saw it before its removal, did not much regret the disappearance of this ‘ingombramento’, especially since such screens were ‘no longer of use any more’ (non essendo in modo alcuno più in uso).107 Most of the choir screens that once existed in Italian churches shared the same fate as Roman ones. Sible de Blaauw dated the beginning of their disappearance to the fifteenth century and attributed their demise to the introduction of the ‘liturgia papale palatina’. He quoted from the unpublished Ceremoniarum opusculum of Paride

  105 See the brief, well-illustrated survey of Hayman, Rood Screens.   106 Hall, ‘The ponte in S. Maria Novella’. A useful survey is Cooper, ‘Recovering the Lost Rood Screens of Medi­eval and Renaissance Italy’, pp. 220–28.   107 Ugonio, Historia delle Stationi di Roma, pp. 9 and 10v. Sixtus set up an inscription as a record of his renovations at Santa Sabina (Historia, p. 11v). The tramezzo of S. Sabina can be seen (however imprecisely) on the Bufalini map of Rome (1551). The Aventine segment of the map is reproduced in Barclay Lloyd, ‘Medi­eval Dominican Architecture at Santa Sabina in Rome’, p. 252. Bufalini aimed for maximum accuracy in laying out the street system and buildings of sixteenth-century Rome; see Maier, Rome Measured and Imagined, pp. 77–118.

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de Grassis (1470–1528), papal master of ceremonies and (from 1515) bishop of Pesaro, who speaks of ambos as relics of the past: Amplius in usu non habemus pulpitum evangelium sive, ut dicunt, ambonem marmoreum a priscis institutum pro evangelio desuper cantando, quod non solum in novis ecclesiis fieri praetermittitur, sed et in antiquis, ubi illud extat, ab usu totaliter defuit, sicut aliud exemplare a subdiacono epistolam cantaturo, sed dumtaxat pergulum unde in populum sacrae contiones aguntur.108 (We no longer use a gospel pulpit or (as they say) a marble ambo, introduced by earlier generations for singing the gospel from a high place; because not only have they come to be omitted in newer churches, but even in old ones; wherever present, [the ambo] has fallen out of use, just like the other type [of ambo] for the chanting of the epistle by the subdeacon, but [there is] at least a pulpit from where sermons are addressed to the people.) The gospel was still proclaimed from the jubé on Sundays and feast days as late as the eighteenth century. Sieur de Moléon’s Voyages liturgiques (1718), which reports on notable liturgical practices in the cathedrals, churches, monasteries, and convents of France, mentions use of the jubé for this purpose on some occasions. De Moléon’s description of the chanting of the gospel at Notre-Dame-de-Rouen begins in a way that may indicate the continuing use of the choir screen for this purpose: ‘lorsqu’il étoit temps d’aller au Jubé le Célébrant mettait de l’encens dans l’encensoire’.109 Even in De Moléon’s day, however, screens were being removed by church authorities, whom Jean-Baptiste Thiers denounced as ‘ambonoclasts’. Thiers documented those still standing in the late seventeenth century in French churches and cathedrals.110 French jubés that remained in use into the eighteenth century were either removed by church authorities or fell victim to the destructive rage of the French Revolution. Nineteenth-century renovations were no less destructive.111 The only Parisian church with a surviving jubé (sixteenth century) is Saint-Étienne-du-Mont. It is an elegant design of a single arch with exposed circular staircases at each end. A thorough investigation of the liturgical use of the choir screen/Lettner/ jubé that draws on a broad array of local ordinals, missals, and monastic customaries is yet to be realized.112 Although architectural historians have   108 Ceremoniarum opusculum (BAV, MS Vat. lat. 5634/1, fol. 188), as quoted in de Blaauw, Cultus et Decor, i, p. 90 n. 273.   109 Le Brun des Marettes, Voyages liturgiques de France, p. 285.   110 Thiers, Dissertations écclesiastiques, esp. ch. 28.   111 For references to those destroyed, see Pugin, A Treatise on Chancel Screens and Rood Lofts, pp. 44–64.   112 For example, the Liber Ordinarius of Trier (early fourteenth century) prescribes that the readings at Matins ‘in precipuis sollemnitibus’ be chanted from the left side of the Lettner.

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not entirely ignored these sources, their focus is naturally on the study and analysis of structural typo­logies represented by the surviving examples, excavations, and archival evidence.113 Such studies have been carried out well, but much remains to be done to improve understanding of the ways in which these partitions functioned as a ‘stage’ for the gospel at Mass and the readings of the night office. The present chapter has moved from general references to a pulpitum in Late Antiquity through the imposing ambos of the Middle Ages to the magnificent choir screens of the high Middle Ages that served the double purpose of separating choirs of monks, canons, or friars from distraction or invasion of privacy, and also brought the solemn cantillation of Scripture during the Mass to a splendid culmination.

  113 Some sources of this type have been drawn into the discussion by Schmelzer, Der mittelalterliche Lettner im deutschsprachigen Raum, pp. 142–50.

Chapter 8

Vestments Chapter 2 surveyed the clergy responsible for chanting the Scripture readings at Mass and Chapter 7 the places from which they were read. The present chapter will take up another aspect of the solemnization of the scriptural readings at Mass, viz., the vestments worn by subdeacon and deacon as they discharged their respective offices. Liturgical vestments emerged out of the ordinary secular dress of the later Roman Empire. Clergy were encouraged to save their best clothes for Sundays and feasts, but what they wore was of a style that did not differ from ordinary street clothes.1 When secular fashions changed, however, those of the clergy did not. Even though clergy were supposed to maintain a severity of dress in public, the vestments they wore for the celebration of Mass became over time objects wonderful in design and decoration. The point was not to glorify the wearers of such costly vestments, but to efface their personal identities as ordained ministers and to imbue the Mass with all requisite dignity. Vestments worn for special Sundays and feasts were often lavish productions of silk and damask, embroidered with decorative motifs, symbols, and figures of Christ or the saints. Silken fabrics were imported from Byzantine workshops. Many precious vestments preserved from the high Middle Ages are on display in European and North American museums. Diocesan museums in countries where churches and monasteries were not systematically looted by secular authorities are especially rich in such treasures. Humbler vestments of the early Middle Ages that were devoid of embellishment do not survive. Worn frequently, when they became tattered and unfit for service at the altar, they were simply discarded and replaced.2

Planeta The planeta, also known as the chasuble (casula — ‘little house’), was originally a vestment common to all members of the Roman clergy from bishop to acolyte.3 Only at a later date did it become a distinctive priestly garment. The Roman planeta was a circular cape (similar to the South American poncho)  1 Miller, Clothing the Clergy, pp. 11–50. On this topic (and later developments), see the survey of Mayo, A History of Ecclesiastical Dress, pp. 11–22 (‘The Early Christians’); Pierce, ‘Vestments’. Much of the same material is present in Pierce, ‘Vestments and Objects’. Broader in coverage than its title might suggest is Magistretti, Delle Vesti ecclesiastiche in Milano.  2 The Roman ordines published by Andrieu say nothing about the quality or decoration of the vestments used at Mass. On penitential occasions a dark (fuscus) colour is prescribed.  3 Braun, Die liturgische Gewandung, pp. 155–84.

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Figure 8.1. Rome, Sant’Agnese, via Nomentana, St Agnes with Popes Honorius I and Symmachus(?), second quarter of the seventh century (Scala/Art Resource, NY).

with an opening in the centre for the head; it hung almost to the ankles.4 It was of substantial fabric for outdoor use, but of linen or silk for use as a liturgical vestment indoors. It was of ample dimensions, large enough to hinder certain movements. In the Appendix to Ordo Romanus 29 a pope Hadrian (II or III) is asked ‘quomodo sacerdotes vel ministri seu clerus cum stolis et planetis poss[in]t in terram prosterni’ (how priests or ministers or clergy with stoles and planetae are able to prostrate themselves on the ground). The context was the Easter Vigil. The pope replied that there was no problem, since the clergy mentioned did not put on their planetae until the ‘new light’ was brought in and the Paschal candle blessed.5 No ancient planetae survive from Rome or elsewhere, but fortunately there are a number of mosaics in the churches of Rome that depict bishops wearing this flowing garment, over which is draped a long white strip with black crosses — the pallium, an accoutrement proper

 4 Gordianus, the father of Gregory the Great, was depicted in a (now lost) wall painting in the atrium of St Andrew’s monastery, Gregory’s ancestral home, wearing a chestnut-coloured planeta over a dalmatic. The paintings were seen by John the Deacon in the late eighth century and described in his bio­graphy of the pope; Johannes Diaconus, Sancti Gregorii magni vita 4. 83; PL, 75:59–242.  5 OR 29. Appendix; Les Ordines Romani, ed. by Andrieu, iii, p. 446. Unlike later practice, the readings preceded the blessing of the candle.

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Figure 8.2. Rome, Lateran Baptistery, Oratory of S. Venanzio, apse mosaic, second quarter of the seventh century. Photo­graph: Andrea Jemolo.

to popes and archbishops.6 Figure 8.1, the apse mosaic of the Roman basilica of Sant’Agnese on the via Nomentana, portrays on the left the founder of the church, Pope Honorius (625–638), and on the opposite side what is thought to be Pope Symmachus (498–514), restorer of the Constantinian basilica that preceded Honorius’s church. Both popes wear unadorned planetae of dark colour, a hue frequently seen in mosaics of the period, the pallium draped around the shoulders, and compagi over white socks (udones) on their feet.7 The position of honour in the centre is reserved for the titular of the church, St Agnes, in the dress of a Byzantine empress.8 Honorius is portrayed in the act of presenting a model of the church to its patron saint, his hands covered by the ample folds of his planeta as a sign of respect. Pope Symmachus holds a book of the Gospels adorned with jewels. Under their planetae both wear a dalmatic — recognizable by its vertical stripes (a vestment to be taken up below).  6 Sometimes a pope bestowed the pallium on a favoured bishop as ‘an expression of spiritual union with Peter, and thus his successor’; Schoenig, Bonds of Wool, p. 76; see also Pomarici, ‘Papal Imagery and Propaganda’, pp. 85–88. While symbolizing a bond of affection, the pallium also implied allegiance to the Roman pontiff in moral and doctrinal matters.  7 This footwear was restricted to deacons and bishops.  8 Brandenburg, Die frühchristlichen Kirchen Roms vom 4. bis zum 7. Jahrhundert, pp. 244–45.

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Figure 8.3. Augsburg, Dommuseum St Afra, chasuble (planeta) of St Ulrich, second half of the tenth century (reproduced with permission of the Dommuseum).

Figure 8.4. Juvenianus the subdeacon presenting to St Lawrence the Gospel book he had copied, Rome, Bibl. Vallicelliana, MS B 25 II, fol. 2r, beginning of the eleventh century (reproduced with permission of the Biblioteca Vallicelliana).

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The apse mosaic in the oratory of St Venanzio, attached to the Lateran baptistery, depicts four bishops wearing the planeta and pallium (Fig. 8.2). Two are popes. On the far left stands Pope John IV (640–642), who initiated construction of the oratory, a model of which he holds over his planeta in the conventional gesture of offering.9 On the far right is Pope Theodore I (642–649), who holds a small casket with a jewelled cover containing the bones of the martyrs whose remains John had transported from his native Dalmatia. On the left, next to John IV and clad in bishop’s robes is St Venantius. The identity of the sainted bishop second from the right is unknown. In all of these cases the planetae are of a dark hue. Though nothing remains of the papal or clerical wardrobe from medi­eval Rome, some planetae/chasubles of comparable design and dimensions have survived from the tenth century and later in northern Europe. The German term ‘Glockenkasel’ (bell chasuble) is a well-chosen term to describe the shape of such vestments, rather ample in size compared with the generally smaller stature of medi­eval people. Figure 8.3 is the chasuble of St Ulrich (second half of the tenth century) in the Dommuseum St Afra at Augsburg. Apart from an opening for the head framed by reddish material and matched on the hem, there is little decoration.10 Given the size and shape of the garment, its wearer could have experienced some difficulty in performing physical activity with his hands. For this reason the planeta worn by the celebrant at Mass had to be of relatively light material, so that it did not unduly encumber the arms. The planeta being the ‘default’ vestment worn by all members of the Roman clergy, there must have existed at one time a considerable number of widely varying quality and weight. The relevance of the planeta for the chanting of the gospel will become clear later in this chapter.

Tunicle/tunicella Roman subdeacons, responsible for chanting the epistle, wore a vestment known as a tunicle (tunicella). Commensurate with their lower clerical rank, the tunicle was a simple white garment with narrow sleeves without folds or decoration, something like the later alb, but less ample. For the procession to the church where Mass was to be celebrated the tunicle was worn under the planeta. The pseudo-Alcuininan De divinis officiis (before 950, according to Andrieu) describes the tunica as a vest  9 In the apse mosaic of S. Prassede, Pope Paschal I (817–824) had himself depicted as founder (with a square halo, indicating he was still alive). He, too, presents a model of the church with his hands covered by his planeta.  10 There is also a well-preserved example of a Glockenkasel in dark colour, the so-called ‘Wolfgangskasel’ (c. 1050), in the Domschatzmuseum at Regensburg. The chasuble of Bishop Willigis of Mainz (Munich, Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Inv. 11/170 1–2; second half of tenth century) is of similar design.

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ment that reaches down to the ankle (‘usque ad talum’).11 According to Guillaume Durand (c. 1230/31–1296), the lower orders of door­ keeper, lector, and exorcist wear the amice, alb, and cincture (baltheo). In addition to these the subdeacon wears a tunic, described as a narrow (stricta) garment, and the maniple (tunica et sudario).12 The tunic/ tunicella is thus a ‘step up’ from the simple alb. Depictions of sub­ deacons wearing the tunicle are rare. Figure 8.4 shows the subdiaconus humilis Juvenianus in the act of presenting to the Roman martyr St Lawrence a book of Figure 8.5. Ravenna, San Vitale, Archbishop Maximianus Gospels he had cop- with two deacons, mid-sixth century (from Anonymous, ied for the church of Ravenna Felix (1977)). S. Lorenzo in Damaso.13 While the image does not depict the moment in the liturgy for which subdeacons were responsible (the chanting of the epistle), Juvenianus is seen wearing the vestment proper to his subdiaconate rank as he presents his offering. At a later period the subdeacon was ‘upgraded’ from the tunicle to a garment nearly indistinguishable from the medi­eval cross-shaped dalmatic.

 11 Pseudo-Alcuin, De divinis officiis 39 (‘Quod significent vestimenta’); PL, 101:1242. The ankle is the ‘end’ of the body, and ‘whoever perseveres unto the end will be saved’ (Matthew 10. 22). On the dating, see Andrieu, ‘L’Ordo romanus antiquus et le Liber de divinis officiis du Pseudo-Alcuin’. The tunicle is covered in the chapter ‘De alba’ of Amalar’s Liber officialis 2. 18; ed. by Hanssens, pp. 236–41; trans. by Knibbs, ii, pp. 452–57.  12 Durand, Rationale divinorum officiorum 2. 8. 5; ed. by Davril and Thibodeau, i, p. 156; trans. by Thibodeau, On the Clerical Orders and the Liturgical Vestments. The Mitrale of Sicard of Cremona (2. 5: ‘De vestibus sacris’) distinguishes between the talaris and a vestment called a subtile, a narrow tunic (stricta tunica), worn with the maniple (sudarium); PL, 213:84.  13 The dating of the manuscript (early 11th c.) is that of Supino Martini, Roma e l’area grafica romanesca, p. 120.

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Dalmatic A vestment of more restricted use, at least up until the late eighth century, was the dalmatic, worn by deacons and bishops alone. Though the Liber pontificalis attributes its introduction as a liturgical vestment to Pope Silvester (314–335), the dalmatic was actually introduced to Rome from Dalmatia (hence the name) towards the end of the second century and soon became a popular garb for both men and women.14 It was a tunic with sleeves, bright white in colour with purple or red vertical stripes called clavi (sg. clavus) woven into the fabric of the garment and passing over the right and left shoulders.15 Some literary sources say that there were two clavi, but images of deacons in mosaics often depict more numerous stripes of this kind, possibly because they are saints. The dalmatic worn by the figure of St Lawrence in Figure 8.4 displays such red clavi. Similar stripes adorned the cuffs of the sleeves. One of the earliest depictions of deacons wearing the dalmatic is not Roman, but a striking mosaic produced by Byzantine artists in the church of S. Vitale at Ravenna (Fig. 8.5). Both the shape and decorative features of the dalmatics correspond to what appears in slightly later Roman mosaics. The Ravenna mosaic depicts Archbishop Maximianus (546–557) on the left wearing a planeta over his dalmatic and holding a jewelled cross in his right hand. To his left stand two deacons, both wearing the wide-sleeved ‘Roman’ dalmatic with clavi. One carries a Gospel book with a sumptuously decorated binding; the other, a flaming censer. All three ecclesiastics are shod with campagi. In the apse mosaic of the Roman church of San Marco (Piazza Venezia), installed by Pope Gregory IV (833–844), the pope is depicted on the far left, with the square ‘halo’ that indicates he was still alive at the time, symbolically presenting the church to Christ, who stands in the centre in the act of blessing (Fig. 8.6). The martyred deacons Sts Felicissimus and Agapitus, to the (viewer’s) left and right, can be identified by their dalmatics.16 They carry the emblem of their diaconal office — the book of the Gospels, in this case with bejewelled covers. At Rome the right to wear the dalmatic was restricted to deacons. This limited its use to a very select group of seven clerics, a group jealous of its  14 LP i:71 and p. 189 n. 21; trans. by Davis, The Book of the Pontiffs, p. 15. I did not understand this passage as referring to vestments in my ‘Psalmi ante sacrificium and the Origin of the Introit’, p. 99. Silvester also permitted deacons to use the pallia linostima (made of a wool-linen blend), that was worn over the left arm like the maniple; Mayo, A History of Ecclesiastical Dress, pp. 15–16 and 21.  15 Isidore called the dalmatic a ‘tunica sacerdotalis candida cum clavis ex purpura’; Liber Etymo­logiarum 19. 20. 10; ed. by Lindsay; further Callewaert, ‘De dalmatica’. On the ancient origins of the clavi see s.v., ‘Clavus latus, Clavus angustus’, in Smith, Wayte, and Maridin, eds, A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities.  16 Both were martyred in 258 along with Pope Sixtus II (257–258) and the deacon Lawrence during the persecution under Emperor Valerian. The mosaic is frequently reproduced; see Thunø, The Apse Mosaic in Early Medi­eval Rome, plate XII.

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Figure 8.6. Rome, San Marco, Pope Gregory IV (far left) with the deacons Sts Felicissimus and Agapitus (wearing dalmatics), mid-ninth century (from Tiberia, ‘Il mosaico absidale della basilica di San Marco’).

unique privileges, the most important of which was an expectation of being elected to the papal office.17 Up to the tenth century, bishops of Rome were normally chosen from among the ranks of the elite ‘seven’. Elected pope, they continued to wear the dalmatic under the chasuble.18 As Joseph Braun observed, it was a ‘priviligiertes Gewand’, whose availability and use was at first carefully controlled by the popes.19 According to the description of the festal papal Mass in Ordo Romanus 1, when the introit procession entered the presbyterium, deacons removed their planetae to reveal dalmatics of bright white linen underneath.20 Each deacon handed his planeta over to the subdeacon of his region, who passed it to an acolyte of the region. Later in the Mass the deacon, escorted in procession by a subdeacon and acolytes carrying candles and incense, would have made a  17 On the rapid rise of the diaconi cardinali in the late eleventh century, see Carpegna Falconieri, Il clero di Roma nel medioevo, pp. 128–36. There were also in Rome and the surrounding region diaconi forenses, but they did not share in the exclusive prerogatives of the ‘seven’.  18 On Roman conventions, see Les Ordines Romani, ed. by Andrieu, iv, pp. 132–34.  19 Braun, Die liturgische Gewandung, p. 253.  20 OR 1. 47; Les Ordines Romani, ed. by Andrieu, ii, p. 82. Cf. OR 4. 9–10; Les Ordines Romani, ed. by Andrieu, ii, p. 158. The remark about wearing the planeta ‘usquedum venit in presbiterio’ is repeated in the Frankish OR 8. 4 (c. 850–900); Les Ordines Romani, ed. by Andrieu, ii, p. 321. On the dalmatic, see Braun, Die liturgische Gewandung, pp. 249–80; Norris, Church Vestments, pp. 43–54.

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striking appearance as he stood in the ambo to cantillate the gospel. Though the place of honour in the procession to the ambo was accorded the book of Gospels or evangeliary, the deacon, to whom fell the honour of carrying the book, shared in the reverential ambiance of attending ministers, flickering lights, and clouds of incense. The temptation to ‘show off’ might have seemed appealing to some deacons. A decree promulgated by a Roman synod (595), over which Gregory the Great presided, forbade deacons, some apparently former cantors, to ‘sing’ at Mass. Gregory, the primary author of the legislation, could not deny deacons their exclusive prerogative of cantillating the gospel, but he could rule that ‘sacri altaris ministri cantare non debeant; solumque evangelicae lectionis officium inter missarum sollemnia exsolvant’ (ministers of the holy altar ought not to sing; they should discharge only the office of the gospel reading at Mass).21 Was their offence trying to turn the cantillation of Scripture, in which the melodic formulae should serve the intelligibility of the text, into lyrical song, which turned that priority on its head, making cantores of those who were supposed to be lectores? The Roman conciliar language is not specific enough to answer the question definitively, but it can support such an interpretation. Ordo Romanus 4, a ninth-century Frankish adaptation of the first Roman ordo, which claims to be a record of ‘ordo qualiter in sancta atque apostolica ecclesia romana missa celebraretur’ (how Mass is celebrated in the holy and apostolic Roman church), assumes that deacons will vest with the dalmatic, just as the bishop does.22 If the bishop does not wear a dalmatic, they (and the subdeacons) don a white alb and a planeta and ‘cum tonicis albis et planitis ambulant’ (proceed in procession with white tunicles and planetae). The exclusive right to wear the dalmatic was occasionally conceded to non-Roman clerics, but only as a personal privilege and under clearly defined circumstances.23 When Caesarius of Arles petitioned Pope Symmachus (498–514) to allow his deacons to wear the dalmatic, it was considered a singular, if not unprecedented, favour.24 Symmachus was facing an obstinate opponent for the papacy, Lawrence, so this privilegium may have been intended to keep the influential Caesarius in his camp. Aregius, bishop of Gap, petitioned Gregory  21 Gregory I, Epistolae, ed. by Ewald and Hartmann, i, p. 363. See the (mainly encomiastic) epitaphs of deacons in Page, The Christian West and its Singers, pp. 165–71. Since Roman deacons were next in line for the papacy, Gregory may have had more serious motives for reigning in their vanity. On their power and pretensions, see Romano, ‘The Archdeacon, Power, and Liturgy before 1000’.  22 OR 4. 2; Les Ordines Romani, ed. by Andrieu, ii, p. 157. This section is original with the adapter, not taken over from OR 1.  23 Braun, Die liturgische Gewandung, pp. 257–58. It is my recollection that a protonotary apostolic, generally an honorary title, had permission to celebrate a pontifical Mass on certain feasts. The new rite introduced in the Roman Catholic Church after the Second Vatican Council eliminated the distinctive pontifical High Mass, which is still celebrated by some bishops according to the ‘extraordinary’ form of the Roman Rite.  24 S. Caesarii vita 42, as quoted in Les Ordines Romani, ed. by Andrieu, ii, p. 132 n. 10.

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the Great to allow him and his archdeacon to wear the Roman dalmatic. The request, made through a Roman deacon named Peter, had to be weighed in the light of Roman tradition before the request could be granted.25 So important was the papal privilegium that the dalmatics were carried directly from Rome to the recipients by Gregory’s personal envoy, Abbot Cyriacus.26 Beginning in the ninth century, restrictions on the use of the dalmatic fell away, and all deacons claimed the dalmatic as the distinctive liturgical garb of their rank, which they believed they had every right to wear. By the ninth century in northern Europe the dalmatic had been transformed into a garment that reached slightly below the knees, often wider at the bottom than the top and open at the sides. Made of substantial fabric, it had short, wide sleeves (‘wings’, as Josef Braun characterized them). The colour of the dalmatic (and the subdeacon’s tunicle of similar design) varied according to the liturgical season, matching that of the chasuble. The dalmatic was frequently adorned with orphrey panels at the hem, sleeves, and sometimes the neck. The traditional two vertical stripes, often wider, can usually be recognized. In De institutione clericorum Hrabanus Maurus offered evidence of the dalmatic’s transformed appearance. He says that it was shaped ‘in modum crucis’ with ‘purpureos tramites […] a summo usque ad ima ante et retro descendentes, necnon et per utramque manicam’ (purple stripes falling from top to bottom, as well as on each sleeve).27 The new ‘wing’ shape of the dalmatic was sometimes adorned with decorative tassels (fimbriae). These may have descended from Roman times, or (it has been suggested) they may have been introduced in imitation of the Jewish high priest’s ‘robe of the ephod’, a garment worn under the ephod, which had tassels (‘pomegranates’) and bells on its lower hem (Exodus 28. 33–34 and 39. 24–25).28 Fortunately (some might think), the bells were not transferred with the tassels to the medi­eval dalmatic! The pseudo-Alcuinian De divinis officiis (before 950), which describes the shape of the dalmatic as ‘in modo crucis’, says that it was adorned with tassels on the left side only. These represent the ‘diverse cares’ of the present life; the right side without tassels, the future life, when the saints will be freed of all cares.29 Amalar, aware of the Liber pontificalis’s attribution of the introduction of the dalmatic to Pope Silvester, made much of its white colour and the red stripes passing over the shoulders, but he was likewise aware of the

 25 Gregory the Great, Registrum epistolarum 9. 219; Gregory I, Epistolae, ed. by Ewald and Hartmann, p. 211; Gregory the Great, Registrum Epistolarum, ed. by Norberg, ii, pp. 790–92; Gregory the Great, The Letters, trans. by Martyn, ii, pp. 689–90.  26 Miller, Clothing the Clergy, p. 28, where there is some confusion between deacons who were part of the higher clergy (not ‘liturgical deacons’) and the diaconiae established later as poorrelief centres.  27 Hrabanus Maurus, De institutione clericorum 1. 20, ed. and trans. by Zimpel, i, pp. 176–77.  28 Haran, ‘Priestly Vestments’; Gale eBooks, [accessed 17 January 2022]. The ends of the modern Jewish prayer shawl (tallit) are fringed.  29 Pseudo-Alcuin, De divinis officiis 39; PL, 101:1243.

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Figure 8.7. Dalmatic, Wittichen Abbey, Baden-Württemberg, c. 1750 (akg-images).

cross-shaped dalmatic. According to Amalar, some of these ‘newer models’ had twenty-eight tassels on the front and an equivalent number on the back — fifty-six in all. This number had to be interpreted allegorically, and so it was. The tassels represented the eight kinds of men who were filled with the sevenfold gifts of the Holy Spirit (8 × 7 = 56).30 Nearly a century later, Sicard of Cremona (c. 1155–1215) devoted a long passage of the Mitrale (‘De indumentis ministris’) to the dalmatic, drawing symbolic meanings from its cross shape and ornamentation.31 He mentioned fifteen tassels on each side  30 Lib. off. 2. 21. 6; ed. by Hanssens, p. 245; trans. by Knibbs, i, pp. 464–65.  31 Sicard of Cremona, Mitrale 2. 8; PL, 213:75–77 (‘dalmatica vestis est a Dalmatica provincia nominata’).

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of the vestment — front and back. (Such a number could have been arranged in the form of a pyramid — five tassels at the bottom and one at the top.) Sicard says that some dalmatics had a total of forty-eight tassels, twenty-four on the front and an equal number on the back (2 × 24 = 48). To explain this he replicates Amalar’s 8 × 7 interpretation, apparently not noticing that his calculation does not work out: 2 × 24 does not equal 56. Some surviving cross-shaped dalmatics do have tassels, but not nearly so many. A fine example is the so-called Wittichen dalmatic (c. 1750) from an abbey of Poor Clares in south-western Germany (Baden-Württemberg). Shaped ‘in modo crucis’, it is woven of an exquisite floral fabric, and adorned with three large red and yellow tassels (Fig. 8.7).32 Although there were general principles (white for feasts of the Lord, red for the Holy Spirit and martyrs), customs differed widely from diocese to diocese. Many of the colours in use in the Middle Ages (e.g. blue or yellow) did not become part of the official canon, more or less established in the thirteenth century.33 On feasts gold or elaborately crafted multicoloured fabrics were permitted in place of white. One can see (however faintly) beneath the right and left tassels of the Wittichen dalmatic vertical golden stripes that preserve the memory of the ancient clavi. By this time liturgical vestments had become the sacral equivalent of Galakleid, attire worn to court on special occasions. There was no inconsistency about this, since the ministers at the altar stood mystically in the court of heaven as they participated in the worship of ‘the Lamb who was slain’, made present on the altar during Mass. The medi­eval cathedrals and the great Baroque and Rococo churches of South Germany and Austria were the perfect architectural complement to such a concept.

The Diaconal Stole According to Amalar of Metz, the deacon always wore a stole ‘in opere ministrandi’ (in the work of ministry).34 Based on evidence from northern Europe, Michel Andrieu concluded that the stola, conferred on the deacon by the bishop at ordination, was the proper insignium of his office.35 Originally, it seems to have been worn hanging down vertically from the left shoulder. The Fourth Council of Toledo (633) decreed that deacons should wear an (unadorned) stole in this manner (can. 39). The canon’s intent was to check the pretensions of deacons, some of whom regarded themselves as superior to priests. The rite of ordination of a deacon in the Romano-Germanic  32 For excellent colour reproductions of historical vestments, see Miller, Clothing the Clergy, passim.  33 The most exhaustive treatment is Koos and Kobler, ‘Farbe, liturgisch’. For a briefer survey, see Bates, ‘Am I Blue?’. Some branches of the Lutheran tradition use blue vestments during Advent.  34 Lib. off. 2. 20 (‘De stola’); ed. by Hanssens, pp. 242–43; trans. by Knibbs, i, pp. 460–61.  35 Les Ordines Romani, ed. by Andrieu, iv, pp. 30–32 (with a list of many sources).

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Pontifical (963) includes the conferral of a stola candidata. The majority of witnesses then continue: ‘tunc stola levae eius/eorum circumdata, det eis/ei evangelium’.36 The impression given by this none too clear passage is that the stole is placed on the left shoulder, rather than around the neck. A recollection of this appears in the rite of diaconal ordination of the Roman Pontifical of the Twelfth Century, when the bishop is instructed to lay the stole ‘super sinistrum latus’ before saying the ‘Accipe stolam candidam’ prayer.37 Only after the prayer of ordination (benedictio) is the deacon garbed with the dalmatic. Amalar of Metz interpreted the deacon’s stole allegorically as the ‘onus leve et suave’ (sweet and light burden) assumed by the new deacon (cf. Matthew 11. 29–30).38 Amalar confirms that it was worn ‘superposita collo’ (around the neck) and thus not draped over the left shoulder, and that it reached to the knees.

Planeta plicata The white colour of the dalmatic, the pre-eminent vestimentum laetitiae, was regarded as inappropriate to the spirit of penitential days and seasons.39 While the dalmatic received extensive treatment in the ‘De diacono’ chapter of Guillaume Durand’s Rationale, the bulk of the discussion concerns not the wearing of the dalmatic, but its omission ‘in diebus ieiunorum’.40 Durand offers extensive information on the solution devised to replace it: the planeta plicata.41 This was a chasuble, pleated and worn diagonally across the chest from the left shoulder and secured at the right hip. (There seem to be no medi­eval depictions illustrating this manner of arranging the planeta.) For the chasuble to be folded in this way, the material of the vestment could be neither too voluminous nor of stiff material. It would have been practicable only with what is now known as the ‘Roman’ chasuble, the vestment explained earlier that falls easily in ample folds over the arms.42 This is the kind of chasuble/

 36  37  38  39

Romano-Germanic Pontifical, 16. 17, ed. by Vogel and Elze, i, p. 27. Le Pontifical romain au moyen age, ed. by Andrieu, i, p. 133. Lib. off. 2. 20; ed. by Hanssens, pp. 42–43; trans. by Knibbs, i, pp. 460–61. The prayer the bishop recites as he vests a newly ordained deacon calls the dalmatic such a ‘vestment of joy’: ‘induat te Dominus indumento salutis, et vestimento laetitiae, et dalmatica justitiae circumdet te semper’; Pontificale Romanum Summorum Pontificum iussu editum et a Benedicto XIV, i, p. 54. Cf. the Pontifical of Guillaume Durand, 1. 12. 13: ‘Induat te dominus vestimento salutis et circumdet semper indumento leticie’; Le Pontifical romain au moyen age, ed. by Andrieu, iii, p. 362.  40 Durand, Rationale divinorum officiorum, ed. by Davril and Thibodeau, i, pp. 157–60.  41 On this, see Callewaert, ‘De planetis plicatis’; Braun, Die liturgische Gewandung, pp. 166–69; Jungmann, Missarum Sollemnia, i, pp. 149–50; Tribe, ‘Use, History and Development of the “Planeta Plicata” or Folded Chasuble’.  42 The so-called ‘Gothic’ chasuble does not resemble what was worn at Rome in the early Middle Ages.

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planeta assumed by the Ordines Romani and by early medi­eval references to the planeta plicata. The pseudo-Alcuinian De divinis officiis averred that the planeta plicata arrangement enabled the deacon, casula circumcinctus, to minister more expeditiously (expedite) at Mass and be in attendance wherever he is needed (‘ire ad comitatum propter instantes necessitates’). In the prooemium of the Liber officialis Amalar of Metz identified the planeta plicata as a specifically Roman tradition, which he described in the following terms: Quando versus de alleluia canitur, exuit se planeta diaconus stolamque post tergum ducit subtus dextram alam una cum planeta et parat se ad ministrandum; ac in eo habitu perseveret, usquedum apostolus recesserit de altare.43 (When the verse of the alleluia is being sung, the deacon removes his chasuble and brings his stole behind his back under his right arm together with his planeta and prepares himself for performing his ministry.44 He remains thus attired until the pope has left the altar.) The stole, presumably worn by the deacon scarf-style around the neck and hanging down in front, had to be rearranged to go under the planeta plicata and is hence no longer visible. Ordo Romanus 3 (c. 750–780), a Frankish supplement to Ordo Romanus 1, says that, in the absence of a deacon at a bishop’s Mass, a priest should ‘se parat ubi et diaconus’ (vest like a deacon), a reference to the reconfiguration just described.45 After finishing the reading, the priest approached the altar and rearranged his planeta in the usual manner, after which he continued with the Mass. He might not have been permitted to wear the dalmatic if he had not been ordained to this order.46 This faute-de-mieux solution could not have applied to Rome or to cathedral churches, where the absence of a deacon would have been unimaginable.  43 Lib. off. proem. 21; ed. by Hanssens, p. 18; trans. by Knibbs, i, pp. 16–17. The ‘recesserit apostolus’ rubric may refer to the point in the Mass when the pope retires to his throne to receive communion; OR 1. 98; Les Ordines Romani, ed. by Andrieu, ii, p. 99; trans. by Romano, Liturgy and Society in Early Medi­eval Rome, p. 244; ‘Ordo Romanus Primus’, ed. and trans. by Griffiths, p. 52.  44 D’Avranches, De officiis ecclasiasticis, ed. by Delamare, p. 12. Jean offers the explanation that the chasuble signifies ‘mysticum sub lege tempus’ (mystical time under the Law); its removal the ‘tempus sub gratia’ (time under grace), when all mysteries have been revealed. The subdeacon removed his chasuble for the reading of the epistle.  45 OR 3. 6; Les Ordines Romani, ed. by Andrieu, ii, p. 133. One manu­script (Saint Gall 614) inserts ‘non’. The same rubric also occurs in a half dozen manu­scripts of OR 1 (no. 58); Les Ordines Romani, ed. by Andrieu, ii, p. 87; ‘Ordo Romanus Primus’, ed. and trans. by Griffiths, p. 42; John Romano omits the passage as an interpolation.  46 This was common in medi­eval times, when there were two ordination ‘tracks’; one led to the priesthood, the other (more esteemed) to the diaconate, possibly the route to an eventual bishopric.

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The planeta plicata became virtually incomprehensible after the introduction of the ‘Gothic’ style of chasuble, which consisted of two panels (front and back) made of substantial fabric, often heavily brocaded with silk and gold thread and occasionally adorned with pearls and semi-precious stones. It was quite stiff and never meant to be folded (plicata) vertically. In churches that have retained the historical diaconate as a clerical order, either as a permanent rank or as transitional to the priesthood, the stola latior has gained currency as the deacon’s distinctive liturgical apparel. A single strip of material in the colour of the day, the stola latior gives the deacon something distinctive to wear as a substitute for the dalmatic ‘in opere ministrandi’ and for reading the gospel at Mass wherever the historic dalmatic has been discarded. It is placed on the left shoulder and crosses the chest, the ends fastened together at the right hip. This manner of wearing the stole (without the dalmatic) is prescribed by the 1933 Dominican Missal on penitential days (weekdays, vigils of feasts, Ember Days, Rogations, and Advent).47 Camillus Callewaert took the position that such an item of liturgical apparel could not be considered a genuine stole.48

Vesting Prayers While vestments enhanced the solemnity of the Mass liturgy, they also (ideally) subordinated the identities of the ministers who wore them, blending them into a centuries-old ritual. Brief ‘vesting prayers’, introduced in the Carolingian era for priests and bishops to say as they donned successive liturgical apparel, were intended to heighten the wearer’s sense of the sacredness of the actions he was about to undertake. These prayers, a kind of ‘prelude’ to the sacred rites, are typically found in orationalia, ordinals, and missals, where they precede the Ordo missae.49 They are related to the apo­logiae, prayers that a priest says at certain points during the Mass confessing his unworthiness to celebrate such fearsome rites.50 These prayers were expugned from the modern ‘novus ordo’ Mass of the Roman Catholic Church. The prayers were intended primarily for bishops and priests, who successively donned the amice, alb, cincture, and stole before the chasuble

 47 ‘Diaconus, ultra manipulum, cum stola sub humero sinistro pendente sub dexterum [ministrat]’; Missale Sacri Ordinis Praedicatorum, p. 40. On its traditional use in the Roman rite, see Braun, Die liturgische Gewandung, pp. 149–50.  48 Callewaert, Liturgicae Institutiones, tractatus tertius, p. 72.  49 Braun, Die liturgische Gewandung, pp. 724–29; Jungmann, Missarum Sollemnia, pp. 360–77 (p. 365); Jungmann, The Mass of the Roman Rite, i, pp. 280 ff.  50 Some of these are included in the Minden orationale. On this manu­script, see Carmassi, ed., Divina Officia, pp. 410–11. The Minden orationale (see below) puts an apo­logia in the mouth of the deacon after the reading of the gospel. He prays (exceptionally, aloud) that his sins might be forgiven, to which all reply ‘Pax vobis’.

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Figure 8.8. Dalmatic of Pope Clement II (Byzantine silk), Bamberg, Diözesanmuseum, first quarter of the eleventh century (with permission of the Diözesanmuseum).

and the maniple (worn on the left arm). A bishop wore lightweight versions of the tunicle and dalmatic under his chasuble to signify his possession of the powers of the lower orders.51 Such was the function of the dalmatic of Pope Clement II (1046–1047), discovered when his tomb was opened on 22 October 1731 (Fig. 8.8).52 It is unadorned, since it was never intended to be seen, and designed to be of minimum bulk. The prayers interpreted each vestment allegorically in apotropaic or moral senses. An ordo that forms part of a set of liturgical books made (c. 1030) for Bishop Siegebert of Minden supplies multiple prayers for each vestment.53 One of the Minden prayers to be said while putting on the alb reads: ‘Dealba me, domine, et munda cor meum, ut in sanguine Agni dealbatus, gaudiis perfruar sempiternis. Amen’ (Whiten me, O Lord, and purify my heart, so that, whitened in the blood of the Lamb, I might partake fully of eternal joys.  51 For popes or bishops wearing the older style dalmatic under the planeta, see Figures 8.1, 8.2, 8.5, and 8.6 above.  52 Miller, Clothing the Clergy, pp. 178–81.  53 In editions of the Missale Romanum the vesting prayers can be found at the end of the ‘Pre­paratio ad Missam’ devotions. See also Pierce, ‘Early Medi­eval Vesting Prayers’; see also Miller, Clothing the Clergy, pp. 77–87 and ch. 2 (‘A Clerical Spirituality’). Once required, they are now optional for Roman Catholic priests, some of whom now wear only a stole and alb for Mass.

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Amen).54 The reference to the colour of the vestment prompts a petition for the purity of heart necessary to participate in the Sacrifice of the Mass. The allusion to ‘the blood of the Lamb’ refers to the white robes of those who ‘came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb’ (Revelation 7. 14). The wearer of the alb hopes eventually to share in their joy. Each time a cleric donned the alb he recalled to mind his heavenly destiny. For the tunicle (subtile) the Minden prayer reads: ‘Indue me, domine, vestimento salutis et circumda me lorica fortitudinis’ (Clothe me, O Lord, in the vestment of salvation and enclose me within the breastplate of fortitude).55 In both cases donning a sacred garment became a means of sanctifying the wearer — not without his own necessary cooperation in leading a virtuous life when not wearing it. The longer of the two Minden prayers said while putting on the dalmatic alludes to its cross shape and vertical stripes: Indumento hoc typico priscorum patrum ritu in modum crucis tramitibus purpureis contexto vestitus, humiliter postulo ut ex commemoratione passionis tuae fiam tibi, domine Iesu Christe, iugiter gratiosus. Qui vivis.56 (Vested in this garment in the form of a cross [and] woven with purple stripes after the mystical ordinance of the older Fathers, I humbly implore that through the commemoration of your Passion, I might be always pleasing to you, Lord Jesus Christ. Who live.) The cross shape, short sleeves, and vertical red stripes prompt an allusion to the Passion. The bishop (or deacon) prays that the wearing of the dalmatic, a memorial of the Passion about to be commemorated in the Mass, might render him more pleasing to the Lord. There is no reason to doubt that all clerics could have learned prayers applicable to the vestments they wore, for example, alb and cincture for acolytes and subdeacons; the latter wore the maniple on their left sleeve. Langforde’s Meditations in the Time of the Mass (mentioned in Chapter 1) guided the priest with brief comments about each material object and gesture involved in the celebration of Mass: ‘the Whyte Albe doith sygnefye hys [Christ’s] Innocency’ and ‘the Stoole hys clennesse frome all synne’. Standing in the middle of the altar and beginning the Gloria, the priest should ‘remember the greit Ioy and glory which the mvltitude of Angelles dyd syng. makyng grett myrth | In the Natiuite of our moost gloryous Sauyour and Lorde’.57

 54 Missale Sacri Ordinis Praedicatorum, p. 41.  55 As quoted in Pierce, ‘Early Medi­eval Vesting Prayers’, p. 93 (with the reading ‘vestimente’). She relates it to the apostle Paul’s counsels on spiritual warfare (i Thessalonians 5. 6 and Ephesians 6. 14–17).  56 As quoted in Pierce, ‘Early Medi­eval Vesting Prayers’, p. 94.  57 Tracts on the Mass, ed. by Legg, pp. 20 and 22.

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Chapter 9

Sacralizing the Word This final chapter will reflect further on matters previously introduced, demonstrating how they combine to sacralize the Word, both for the ‘reader’ and for his ‘hearers’.1 A review of the rubrics for the solemn chanting of the gospel from across many centuries will be supplemented by extracts from medi­eval liturgical commentaries that sought to reveal profound mysteries in almost every gesture of the complex and lengthy ritual of the Mass. We will begin, however, with a few words about the chanting of the epistle, a point in the Mass less clothed in ceremony.

Chanting the Epistle Ordo Romanus 1, which became the model for later developments in the chanting of the epistle and the gospel, says of the epistle merely that the subdeacon ‘ascendit in ambonem et legit’, a description that assumes the presence of a single ambo.2 Ordo Romanus 4, a Frankish adaptation of Ordo Romanus 1, also places the subdeacon in an ambo for the epistle, but ‘stans in medium de scola’ (standing in the middle of the choir). After the epistle had been chanted, a cantor-acolyte removed his planeta, took up the cantatorium, a book with the soloist’s chants, and sang the gradual and alleluia. The complete rubric reads: ‘Deinde legitur lectio a subdiacono in ambone, stans in medium de scola; aut acolithus planita accipit cant[at]orium et psallit in ambone et dicit responsorium; similter et alius Alleluia’. For the phrase ‘acolithus planita accipit’ Michel Andrieu proposed emending the reading to ‘acolithus exutus planeta[m]’. While no doubt the acolyte would have removed his planeta before beginning to sing, the ‘accipit’ could just as likely refer to the chant book (without notation at the time) he took with him into the ambo.3  1 A search on YouTube for ‘Solemn High Mass’ or ‘Tridentine Mass’ will uncover modern celebrations of the traditional Latin Mass in ever growing numbers: e.g. ‘Notre-Dame de Paris: Messe traditionelle du 7 juillet 2017’. Most of these Masses follow the 1962 ‘Ritus servandus in celebratione Missae’, which differs only in small details from the Missale Romanum of 1570, a final codification of the medi­eval tradition. The website The Experience of Worship offers video reconstructions (with explanatory helps) of three medi­eval Lady Masses and two Masses of the Holy Name of Jesus at . The site also includes an extensive glossary of liturgical termino­logy.  2 OR 1. 56; Les Ordines Romani, ed. by Andrieu, ii, pp. 238–39; ed. and trans. by Romano, Liturgy and Society in Early Medi­eval Rome, p. 238; ‘Ordo Romanus Primus’, ed. and trans. by Griffiths, pp. 40–43. Cf. OR 24. 42 (‘ascendit lector in ambone’), a rubric repeated in OR 27. 52 for the readings at the Easter Vigil; Les Ordines Romani, ed. by Andrieu, iii, pp. 295 and 358.  3 OR 4. 27; Les Ordines Romani, ed. by Andrieu, ii, p. 160.

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The ‘medium de scola’ reference indicates that the choir was present to sing the choral response of the gradual as well as the ‘Alleluia’ before and after the solo verse of that chant. Although the rubric reads ‘in ambone’, neither the subdeacon nor the cantor would have enjoyed the privilege of ascending to the upper platform, which was reserved to the chanting of the gospel. This was clarified in Ordo Romanus 5, which in a passage borrowed from the Eclogae de ordine romano attributed to Amalar of Metz instructs the subdeacon to enter the ambo to read the epistle, but admonishes that he ‘non ascendit ad superiorem gradum, quem solus solet ascendere qui evangelium lecturus est’ (not ascend to the higher step, which only he who is to read the gospel is accustomed to ascend).4 In the section of the Eclogae entitled ‘De epistola’ the subdeacon assumes symbolically the role of John the Baptist. Just as the Baptist professed himself not worthy to loosen the straps of the Messiah’s shoes ( John 1. 27; Matthew 3. 11 ‘to carry’), so must the subdeacon be humbly content with a lower step of the ambo from which to chant the epistle. The highest platform was reserved for the Word — Christ himself. This allegorical interpretation supposes the presence of a single ambo for both epistle and gospel. Guillaume Durand confirmed that the subdeacon stands ‘in loco inferiori’ because of the lesser dignity of the epistle compared to the gospel. At some point in the Middle Ages this changed. Instead of proceeding to the ambo to chant the epistle, the subdeacon began to stand on the right side of the presbyterium (from the viewer’s perspective) and face the altar while chanting the epistle. Since there was generally no lectern there, he stood on the floor level and held the epistolary, a book with the epistles for Mass arranged in liturgical order, in his own hands, unless the weight of the book (i.e. its decorated binding) required the assistance of an acolyte to hold it in front of him. The fact that the ‘reader’ faced away from his ‘hearers’ while chanting the epistle is a configuration scarcely optimal for communication, even supposing that the apse acts as an acoustically reflective surface. How (and when) did this peculiar convention develop? Singularly counterintuitive, it may have arisen at a time when only the clergy seated in the presbyterium had to be considered, since they were the only ones presumed to be able to understand the text. That this was not universally the case has been argued in Chapter 5. The procedure for chanting the epistle (as well as the gospel) at Mass was fixed by the ‘Ritus servandus in celebratione missae’ printed with the Missale Romanum of 1570, a book that remained the liturgical norm in  4 OR 5. 29; Les Ordines Romani, ed. by Andrieu, ii, pp. 214–15; Pseudo-Amalar, Eclogae de ordine romano 14, ed. by Hanssens, p. 243. On the treatise’s classification among the opera dubia, see Amalarii episcopi opera liturgica omnia, ed. by Hanssens, i, pp. 209–14, where it is compared with the genuine Amalarian Missae expositionis geminus codex. A fortiori the cantor would be denied access as well. On the Eclogae, see also Flicoteaux, ‘Un problème de littérature liturgique’.

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the Roman Catholic Church until the introduction of a new liturgy (novus ordo) in 1970; this discarded much of the ‘old’ Mass.5 The ‘Ritus servandus’ instructs the subdeacon at a Solemn Mass to take up the epistolary (liber epistolarum) from which he will read, genuflect before the altar, and go ‘ad partem Epistolae contra Altare’ (to the epistle side facing the altar).6 (The ‘epistle’ side of the altar, where the priest reads the epistle at a low (spoken) Mass, is to the viewer’s right.) The Caeremoniale episcoporum (1600) does not indicate explicitly the direction faced by the subdeacon cantillating the epistle, saying only that it takes place ‘a latere sinistro altaris, vel, ubi consuetum est, in ambone’ (at the left side of the altar or, where it is customary, in an ambo).7 In these cases, ‘left’ is to be construed from the perspective of the altar, not that of the viewer.8 The Caeremoniale goes on to say that, if there is only a single ambo in the church (usually situated to the viewer’s left), the epistle could be chanted from there, following local custom.9 It encourages the subdeacon to chant the epistle ‘alta voce’ while holding the book in his own hands, presumably because no lectern was available on the left side of the altar (the viewer’s right), or because he chanted it on a lower step of the ambo, but nothing specific is said about the direction of the reading.10 Amalar of Metz professed not to understand why the chanting of the epistle at Mass fell to a subdeacon, since at his ordination the bishop did not hand him a book, but an empty chalice and paten as symbols of his service at the altar.11 Ever ready to supply an ingenious explanation, he supposed that, since the subdeacon held a clerical rank ‘under’ (sub) the deacon, and the deacon chanted the gospel, the subdeacon was assigned the epistle, a role of lesser dignity. Johannes Beleth contented himself with offering only a rather

 5 The text of the ‘Ritus servandus’ is reproduced in all editions of the Missale Romanum.  6 ‘In Missa solemni Subdiaconus circa finem ultimae Orationis accipit ambabus manibus librum Epistolarum, deferens illum supra pectus, et facta Altari genuflexione in medio, vadit ad partem Epistolae contra Altare, et cantat Epistolam, quam etiam Celebrans interim submissa voce legit’; ‘Ritus servandus’, 6. 4. Nothing is said about an assisting minister holding the book for him.  7 Caeremoniale Episcoporum 2. 8. 40, p. 148.  8 Langforde’s Meditations in the Time of the Mass labels the right and left sides of the altar from the viewers’ perspective; Tracts on the Mass, ed. by Legg, pp. 19–20. The tract Indutus planeta (early sixteenth century) attached to editions of the Missale Romanum adopts the same nomenclature; in private Masses the priest reads the epistle ‘super dextrum cornu altaris’ (Tracts on the Mass, ed. by Legg, p. 184), the direction calculated from the celebrant’s perspective as he stood facing the altar.  9 Most churches that possessed an ambo would have had only one.  10 The Catechism of the Council of Trent (1566), p. 202, in the section entitled ‘The Sacrament of Holy Orders: Subdeacon’, reports that ‘it is also the subdeacon who now reads the epistle, which in former times was read at Mass by the deacon’. I have found no historical evidence for this claim.  11 Lib. off. 2. 11. 4; ed. by Hanssens, p. 221; trans. by Knibbs, i, p. 217.

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forced etymo­logy of the word ‘epistola’ and the observation that only a cleric of the rank of subdeacon or above may ‘read’ (legat) the epistle.12 Guillaume Durand, claiming to follow the lead of Peter (recte William) of Auxerre (d. 1231), explained (allegorically) that the subdeacon chants the epistle on the right side of the church ‘because Christ came first to the Jews, who are said to be on the right’. It would be preferable, Durand thinks, if the epistle were chanted ‘in medio ecclesiae’, because John the Baptist was ‘medius inter apostolos et prophetas’ (midway between apostles and prophets).13 In addition, the chanting of the epistle ‘denotes the office discharged by John [the Baptist] before Christ’, and for a related reason, Durand claims, the subdeacon faces away from the congregation and directly towards the altar: ‘quia Iohannis praedicatio se et alios dirigebat in Christum’ (because the preaching of John led him and others to Christ).14 The altar symbolically represents Christ.

Chanting the Gospel Gallican Rite

The impressive ceremonial that surrounded the cantillation of the gospel in the Gallican liturgy is described in the so-called Expositio brevis antiquae liturgiae gallicanae. Once attributed to Germanus (d. 576), bishop of Paris, it has been dated to the end of the eighth century by Philippe Bernard. Taking into account its symbolic and mystagogical language, Bernard places its composition ‘dans les dernières années du viiie siècle’.15 Since there exist no complete books documenting the liturgical practices of Gaul before the dissemination of the (adapted) Roman rite, the degree to which the Expositio describes an actual ‘Gallican’ Mass remains an unsettled question. While the Expositio is admittedly ‘quelque peu fantaisiste’ (Mathieu Smyth), it cannot be entirely fabricated and devoid of substance rooted in what actually took place.16 According to ‘Germanus’, before the gospel procession began (‘in adventum sancti evangelii’) the choir, assuming the role of angels, chanted the Aius,

 12 Beleth, Summa de ecclesiasticis officiis 38a–b, ed. by Douteil, ii, p. 68.  13 Durand, Rationale divinorum officiorum 4. 16. 5; ed. by Davril and Thibodeau, i, p. 320; trans. by Thibodeau, Rationale, Book Four, p. 160. Cf. Innocent III, De sacro altaris mysterio 2. 40; PL, 217:816.  14 Durand, Rationale divinorum officiorum 4. 16. 5; ed. by Davril and Thibodeau, i, p. 320; trans. by Thibodeau, Rationale, Book Four, p. 161. ‘De epistola’ occupies four and one-half pages in the edition.  15 Pseudo-Germanus, Epistolae de ordine sacrae oblationis et de diversis charismatibus ecclesiae, ed. by Bernard, pp. 198–216 (p. 215). The text is also available in Pseudo-Germanus, Expositio antiquae liturgiae gallicanae, ed. by Ratcliff.  16 Smyth, La liturgie oubliée, pp. 173–81 and 193 (‘l’évangile’).

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presumably the Greek Trisagion. As the procession got under way, they cried out: ‘Lift up your heads, ye gates […]’ (Psalm 24. 9–10).17 The section on the procession, ‘De evangelio’, reads as follows: Egreditur processio sancti Evangelii, velud potentia Christi triumphans de morte, cum predictis armoniis et cum vii candelabris luminis, que sunt septem dona sancti Spiritus vel vii legis lumina misterio crucis confixa. Ascendet in tribunal analogii, velud Christus sedem regni paterni, ut inde introit dona vite, clamantibus clericis, ‘Gloria tibi, domine’, in specie angelorum qui, nascente Domino, ‘Gloria in excelsis deo’, pastoribus apparentibus, cecinerunt.18 (The procession of the holy Gospel goes forth like the power of Christ, triumphant over death, with the aforementioned harmonies [Aius/‘Tollite’] and with seven candelabra of light or the seven lamps of the Law, which are the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, joined to the mystery of the Cross. [The deacon] ascends to the platform of the reading, as Christ [did to] the seat of the Father’s kingdom; he proclaims the gifts of life, the clergy chanting ‘Glory to thee, O Lord’ like the angels, who at the Lord’s birth, appearing to the shepherds, sang ‘Glory to God in the highest’.) The Gallican description does not limit itself to a bare statement of fact but supplies allegorical interpretations in the Amalarian vein, extracting symbolic meanings from every aspect of the liturgy.19 For example, the number seven appears three time in this short passage, applied to candlesticks, gifts of the Holy Spirit, and the seven ‘lights of the Law’ that prefigure those gifts. The congregation’s response (‘Gloria tibi, domine’) to the deacon’s chanting of the title of the gospel is associated with the angels’ proclamation to the shepherds, ‘gloria’ being common to both. The book of the Gospels represents symbolically the very presence of Christ ‘triumphant over death’. Though not explicitly identified, the reader is certainly a deacon, with whom the chanting of the gospel was always identified.

 17 Pseudo-Germanus, Epistolae de ordine sacrae oblationis et de diversis charismatibus ecclesiae, ed. by Bernard, p. 342 (‘De Aius ante evangelium’); Pseudo-Germanus, Expositio antiquae liturgiae gallicanae, ed. by Ratcliff, p. 7.  18 Epistola prima 9, Pseudo-Germanus, Epistolae de ordine sacrae oblationis et de diversis charismatibus ecclesiae, ed. by Bernard, p. 342; Pseudo-Germanus, Expositio antiquae liturgiae gallicanae, ed. by Ratcliff, p. 7 (no. 11). In the last line of the Latin text Ratcliff and Bernhard offer different readings: ‘apparentibus’ (Bernard) vs. ‘apparentes’ (Ratcliff). The sense is clear enough, but only the emendation ‘apparentium’ makes grammatical sense with ‘angelorum’.  19 On this point, see further Smyth, ‘La première lettre du Pseudo-Germain et la mystagogie’. The use of liturgical allegory is one argument for a late eighth-century date.

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Ordo Romanus 1

In the Roman liturgy the cantillation of the gospel reading from the ambo or pulpit at a Solemn Mass was framed by an elaborate ceremonial involving acolytes, candle bearers, thurifer, etc., all vested according to rank.20 Along with the introit procession and the Elevation of the Host, the procession to the ambo and the reading of the gospel was one of the most conspicuous ritual displays at a Solemn Mass. Though the Elevation was (in the literal sense) the high point of the Mass, the cantillation of the gospel was a parallel: hearing the words of the Son of God, on the one hand, and seeing him under the form of bread on the other. By the end of the seventh century an elaborate ritual already surrounded the chanting of the gospel at papal Masses, as recorded in Ordo Romanus 1, the point de départ of the medi­eval tradition.21 Before the beginning of Mass an acolyte, his hands covered by his planeta and accompanied by a subdeacon, carried the book of the Gospels to the altar.22 (Some aspects of this have been mentioned in Chapter 8.) The subdeacon took it from him and placed it honorifice upon the altar. Later in the Mass, while the gradual and alleluia were being chanted, the deacon approached the pope and kissed his foot.23 The pope pronounced a blessing (‘Dominus sit in corde tuo et in labiis tuis’), which two recensions of Ordo Romanus 1 say was spoken tacite. The deacon then went to the altar to retrieve the book of the Gospels. Guillaume Durand explained that the deacon took the Gospel book from the right side of the altar (from the viewer’s perspective) because the ‘church’ of the Jews from whom the Church took its beginnings were ‘antiquitus a dextris’ (in ancient times on the right).24 After kissing the book, the deacon picked it up from the altar and, preceded by two regional subdeacons, one of whom carried a censer, and two acolytes carrying candles, processed to the steps leading up to the ambo.  20 Eisenhofer, Handbuch der katholischen Liturgik, ii, pp. 114–18. Righetti, Manuale di storia liturgica, iii, pp. 226–34 (‘Il ceremoniale delle Letture’); Jungmann, Missarum Sollemnia, i, pp. 517–38 and 565–83. For an overview of the medi­eval ‘liturgia della parola’ at Rome, see de Blaauw, Cultus et Decor, i, pp. 85–93.  21 Griffiths’s edition and translation of OR 1 does not make it clear whether the short or longer versions of the Ordo are being included and translated. Romano excludes OR 1. 58 (Les Ordines Romani, ed. by Andrieu, ii, p. 87) with its instruction as to what happens if no deacon is present — hardly likely in Rome — and a priest must take his place to chant the gospel; Griffiths includes this in his translation.  22 OR 1. 30–31; Les Ordines Romani, ed. by Andrieu, ii, p. 7. All but the earliest recension of the Ordo mention the possibility that the book is so heavy that two acolytes might be needed to carry it.  23 The ceremonial is described in OR 1. 59–65; Les Ordines Romani, ed. by Andrieu, ii, pp. 87–90; trans. by Romano, Liturgy and Society in Early Medi­eval Rome, pp. 238–39; ‘Ordo Romanus Primus’, ed. and trans. by Griffiths, pp. 42–43.  24 Durand, Rationale divinorum officiorum 4. 24. 6; ed. by Davril and Thibodeau, i, p. 342; trans. by Thibodeau, Rationale, Book Four, p. 195. Since the plural, evangelia/evangeliis, is used here, a book with all four Gospels must be meant.

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The acolytes took up positions on either side of the steps; the subdeacon and deacon passed ‘per medium eorum’ (between them).25 The subdeacon who was not carrying the censer supported on his left arm the evangeliary given him by the deacon, who opened the book to find the place of the reading and, having inserted his finger in the page where it begins, closed the book and ascended the steps of the ambo to chant the gospel. In the meantime, the two subdeacons moved to a position at the base of the steps on the opposite side of the ambo (towards the nave) by which the deacon descends after the gospel has been chanted (‘ante gradum descensionis ambonis’).26 Ordo Romanus 1 offers no evidence that the deacon traced crosses on the book or on his person before beginning to chant the gospel — a practice well documented at a later time, when these gestures were normative for all present, clergy and laity. At the conclusion of the gospel the pope addressed a ‘Pax tibi’ to the deacon.27 A subdeacon other than the one who opened the evangeliary received the book on his planeta and offered it to be kissed by the celebrant and those present in the presbyterium according to their rank.28 As the celebrant kissed the book, he spoke the petition ‘Per evangelica dicta deleantur nostra delicta’ (Through the gospel read may our sins be taken away). The book was then placed in a capsa and returned to the Lateran palace for safekeeping.29 There is no indication that at this time the censer carried in the procession was also used to incense the book before the gospel pericope was chanted, as later became the custom.30 Carried in procession, the censer was a mark of honour paid to a book that represented the presence of the Saviour in the midst of his people. In Antiquity incense was reserved for the emperor, and it may be that this privilege was transferred to escort the book of the Gospels.31 The carrying of candles in the procession was an additional mark of honour.32 They were not strictly needed for reading the text, and there was probably insufficient room for them in the ambo anyway. In Contra Vigilantium (407) Jerome, writing from Bethlehem to defend the use of candles during celebrations in honour of

 25 Four manu­scripts of OR 1 contain (two as additions) an insertion, apparently out of place, about a blessing of the deacon by other bishops in attendance and by priests (OR 1. 60). Perhaps this took place during the procession to the ambo.  26 Durand notes that at Rome and ‘in quibusdam aliis [ecclesiis]’ the deacon ascends by one set of stairs, the subdeacon by another (Rationale divinorum officiorum 4. 24. 10; ed. by Davril and Thibodeau, i, p. 344; trans. by Thibodeau, Rationale, Book Four, p. 198).  27 Turning to the people he says ‘Dominus vobiscum’ (response: ‘Et cum spiritu tuo’) and ‘Oremus’. The Mass proceeded as the evangeliary was prepared for transport back to the Lateran.  28 This is omitted in Requiem Masses.  29 For the description of Leo III’s donation of a luxurious book of Gospels to St Peter’s, see Chapter 3, note 19.  30 Atchley, The History of the Use of Incense in Divine Worship, pp. 178–84 and 239–41.  31 Pfeifer, Das Weihrauch, p. 59.  32 Sicard of Cremona suggested that the two candles represented the Law and the prophets (Mitrale 3. 4; PL, 213:107). Little attention is given to the procession with the evangeliary in Dendy, The Use of Lights in Christian Worship, pp. 72–91 (‘The Use of Lights at Mass’).

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the martyrs, explained that ‘throughout the whole Eastern Church, even when there are no relics of the martyrs, whenever the gospel is to be read, candles are lighted, even though dawn may be reddening the sky — not of course to scatter the darkness, but by way of displaying our joy’.33 We must understand these remarks as representative of a world illumned only by oil lamps and candles. Ordines Romani 4 and 5

The gospel rubrics of Ordo Romanus 4, a Frankish adaptation of Ordo Romanus 1, though less detailed, add a few particulars. After the gradual and alleluia had been sung ‘in ambone’, the gospel procession, escorted by two subdeacons and two acolytes, proceeds to the ambo. Ordo 4 says that the deacon sings (psallit) the gospel from the ambo, a verb chosen because what the deacon did seemed to the compiler of the ordo an approximation of actual singing — which indeed it was. He adds the further detail that the deacon reads the gospel ‘de parte sinistra’ (from the left side), a phrase that might signify the location of the ambo on the (viewer’s) left.34 One cannot be absolutely sure about the direction faced by the deacon while chanting the gospel ‘de parte sinistra’. He could have stood either facing across diagonally into the nave or towards the transept, as was later the practice. Nothing is said about censing the book before the reading. Incensation of the evangeliary at the ambo may not antedate the late twelfth century. It is mentioned by Sicard of Cremona (1215), though he does not dwell on its symbolism.35 Ordo Romanus 5, dated by Cyrille Vogel ‘closer to 900 than 850’, derives from Ordo Romanus 1, Amalar of Metz (Liber officialis), and the Eclogae de ordine romano, which considerably diminishes its purely Roman authority.36 It allows the option of one or two thuribles in the gospel procession, though there is still no mention of censing the book. Ordo Romanus 5 attests to the presence of stairs on opposite sides of the ambo: ‘ex una parte ascendentes et ex altera parte descendentes’.37 In some uses (Dominican and Sarum, in the latter for duplex feasts) a cross was carried to enhance the solemnity and processional character of the rite.38 The cross faced the deacon while he chanted the gospel facing into the side wall of the presbyterium or the transept.  33 ‘Absque martyrum reliquiis per totas Orientis Ecclesias quando legendum est Evangelium accenduntur luminaria jam sole rutilante, non utique ad fugandas tenebras, sed ad signum laetitiae demonstrandum’; Jerome, Contra Vigilantium 7; PL, 23:361.  34 OR 4. 32; Les Ordines Romani, ed. by Andrieu, ii, p. 161.  35 Sicard of Cremona, Mitrale 3. 4 (PL, 213:110); cf. Durand, Rationale divinorum officiorum 4. 24. 26; ed. by Davril and Thibodeau, i, p. 352; trans. by Thibodeau, Rationale, Book Four, p. 206. Atchley, The History of the Use of Incense in Divine Worship, offers little on this use of incense. See also Pfeifer, Das Weihrauch.  36 On the dating, see Vogel, Medi­eval Liturgy, p. 161.  37 OR 5. 33 (cf. OR 1. 62); Les Ordines Romani, ed. by Andrieu, ii, pp. 216 and 87. For an ambo of this type at Old St Peter’s, see Figure 7.3.  38 ‘Et si duplex festum fuerit, crux precedat, que quasi a dextris erit legentis evangelium, facie

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Later Ordinals and Ceremonials The Ceremonial of Cardinal Latino Malabranca (1235–1294) envisaged two possibilities for the chanting of the gospel, either in an elevated place (‘in ambone seu pulpito eminenti’) or (the obvious alternative) ‘in inferiori loco’, depending on whether or not the church possessed an ambo.39 In the first case the candle-bearers and thurifer stood below the ambo, facing the deacon as he chanted the gospel. In the absence of an ambo they faced the deacon on the same (floor) level.40 Malabranca’s ceremonial is non-committal about where the epistle is to be chanted: the subdeacon is merely directed to go ‘ad locum in quo epistola legenda est’ (to the place where the epistle is to be read). The Ceremonial of Cardinal Giacomo Stefaneschi (Ordo XIV of Mabillon; between 1304 and 1328) includes an ‘Ordo qualiter romanus pontifex apud basilicam beati Petri apostoli debeat consecrari’ (Ordo how the Roman pontiff should be consecrated at the basilica of blessed Peter the Apostle).41 During the Mass of ordination the deacon, taking the evangeliary from the altar, held it in front of him, so that the cross on the cover would be visible to all. He seeks the new pope’s blessing (‘Jube, domne, benedicere’), who responds with the customary ‘Munda cor meum’ prayer.42 The procession to the ambo (‘versus pulpitum’) then forms. It consists of two acolytes carrying thurible and incense boat, accompanied by seven papal subdeacons vested in tunicles (‘induti tunicellis’) and carrying candles. The deacon enters the ambo ‘per gradus eius remotiores ab altari’ (from the flight of stairs most distant from the altar), an injunction that confirms the existence of two sets of stairs on an east–west axis.43 It may also signify a reluctance to have the deacon turn his back on the pope. After incensing the Gospels, the deacon faces north:

 39  40

 41  42

 43

crucifixi legentem conversa’; Sarum Customary, ed. by Frere, p. 73; cited in translation by Monti, A Sense of the Sacred, p. 43. Le cérémonial papal de la fin du moyen âge à la Renaissance, ed. by Dykmans, i, p. 239. For this reference I am indebted to Tichý, Proclamation de l’Évangile, p. 55. The Dominican Missa conventualis in a manu­script prepared for the use of the Master General (London, BL, MS 23935; mid-thirteenth century) contrasted the gospel reading on Sundays and feasts with that on days of lesser rank. In the first case the deacon stood in a pulpit or raised place ‘retro chorum’. In the second, a place to the left side of the presby­ terium at a temporary lectern sufficed (‘in sinistra parte presbyterii super pulpitum ibi preparatum’); Tracts on the Mass, ed. by Legg, p. 77. Le cérémonial papal de la fin du moyen âge à la Renaissance, ed. by Dykmans, ii, pp. 305–25 (no. 45), at 314–16. The Roman rite version of the blessing is: ‘Dominus sit in corde tuo et in labiis tuis, ut digne et competenter annunties Evangelium suum, in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen’. The prayer is not present in the Dominican rite, but the deacon asks for a blessing (‘Jube, domne, benedicere’), to which the priest responds: ‘Dominus sit in corde tuo et in labiis tuis ad pronuntiandum evangelium pacis’. Le cérémonial papal de la fin du moyen âge à la Renaissance, ed. by Dykmans, ii, p. 315 (lines 6–7). Cf. Innocent III, De sacro altaris mysterio 2. 35 and 2. 43; PL, 217:820 and 823–24. An ambo with two sets of stairs is shown on Tiberio Alfarano’s plan of Old St Peter’s; see Figure 7.3 above.

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‘versa facie ad septentrionalem, non aliter’ (to the North — not otherwise), wherever the ambo might stand in the church. He departed from the ambo in the opposite direction (‘per alios gradus’). Since this was a papal Mass, both the epistle and the gospel would have been chanted first in Latin, then in Greek. On Latin and Greek readings at the Easter Vigil, see Appendix 2. A collection of ordines assembled in the mid-fourteenth century and related to the Ceremonial of Cardinal Stefaneschi describes the ritual of a papal Mass at St Peter’s Basilica. The chanting of the gospel follows the general course of Ordo Romanus 1.44 It is presumed that there is enough space in the ambo to accommodate the subdeacon, who is directed to hold the evangeliary ‘versus aquilonem, aliquantulum versus altare in Sancto Petro’ (towards the North, turned slightly towards the altar in St Peter’s). Since the apse of St Peter’s is occidented, if the subdeacon faced north (angled slightly towards the altar), the deacon would be facing in a south-easterly direction as he chanted the gospel. As we have seen in Chapter 6, a southerly direction corresponds to conservative Roman practice. Figure 7.3 (the plan of Old St Peter’s by Tiberio Alfarano) shows the location of the ambo at the top of the nave of the church.

Missale Romanum and Caeremoniale episcoporum The rubrics for the chanting of the gospel in the ‘Ritus servandus’ of the 1570 Missale Romanum encapsulate the medi­eval tradition of cantillating the gospel at Mass. Many of the details will already be familiar Postea Diaconus genuflexus ante Altare dicit: ‘Munda cor meum’, et accipiens librum Evangeliorum de Altari, petit benedictionem a Celebrante similiter genuflexus in superiori gradu Altaris; et osculata illius manu, praecedentibus Thuriferario, et duobus Acolythis cum candelabris accensis de credentia sumptis, vadit cum Subdiacono a sinistris ad locum Evangelii contra Altare versus populum, ubi Subdiacono librum tenente medio inter duos Acolythos tenentes candelabra accensa, dicit: ‘Dominus vobiscum’, junctis manibus. Cum dicit: ‘Sequentia …’, etc. signat librum in principio Evangelii, frontem, os et pectus: postea ter librum incensat, hoc est, in medio, a dexteris, et a sinistris, et prosequitur Evangelium, junctis manibus.45 (Afterwards, the deacon, genuflecting before the altar, says [the prayer] ‘Munda cor meum’, and, taking the book of Gospels from the altar; genuflecting on the upper step of the altar, he asks a blessing from the

 44 Schimmelpfennig, Die Zeremonienbücher der römischen Kurie im Mittelalter, p. 225 (xxxviiib. 3). As Schimmelpfennig points out, ‘der Hinweis auf St Peter zeigt den stadtrömischen Ursprung des Textes an’.  45 Missale Romanum, ‘Ritus servandus’, 6. 5.

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celebrant. Having kissed his hand, and preceded by two acolytes with candles taken from the credence, he proceeds with the subdeacon from the left [side] away from the altar [and] towards the people to the place of the gospel, where, as the subdeacon, flanked by two acolytes, holds the book, he says with his hands joined together: ‘Dominus vobiscum’. When he says ‘Sequentia …’, etc. he signs the book where the gospel begins and his forehead, mouth, and chest. Afterwards he incenses the book three times, that is, in the middle, to the right, and to the left, and he continues the gospel, his hands joined together.) The rubric, however lacking in literary grace, instructs the deacon to proceed ‘ad locum Evangelii contra Altare versus populum’, an instruction that at first seems puzzling, if not contradictory. One might wonder how the deacon could at the same time face (contra) the altar and the people (versus populum).46 Whatever the framer of this rubric — never revised in later editions of the Missale Romanum — might have had in mind has baffled commentators. My translation (‘away from the altar [and] towards the people to the place of the gospel’) presupposes that only the direction of the procession, not that of the chanting of the gospel, is intended. Thus the procession moves away from the altar and towards the congregation, either to the place of the ambo or to a position on the floor of the presbyterium whence the gospel will be chanted. This is the right side from the perspective of the altar, but to the congregation’s left. At a spoken (low) Mass celebrated according to the traditional Latin rite, the priest reading the gospel at the altar still turns slightly to his left, that is, towards the (liturgical) north. When the celebrant at a Solemn Mass listens to the deacon chanting the gospel, he stands at the ‘epistle’ side of the altar and angles his body so that he too faces the deacon and hence in a northerly direction. The instructions for the cantillation of the gospel by the deacon in the Caeremoniale episcoporum (1600) are quite elaborate, involving a blessing for the reader, preparation of the incense, and a procession to the place from which the reading will be done. If a reading desk or ambo is present in the church (a pulpitum is mentioned later), the gospel will naturally be chanted from there. If the platform of the ambo is large enough to accommodate both the deacon and the assisting subdeacon, the latter, standing to the deacon’s right, hands him the thurible to incense the book and turns pages, as necessary.47 The deacon signs himself on the forehead, mouth, and chest,

 46 The papal master of ceremonies Paride de Grassis (d. 1528) recorded a practice of the papal chapel that, in the absence of the pope, the deacon would chant the gospel ‘facie ad faciem altaris, id est contra ipsum altare’ (Appendix, PL, 78:934). The apse of the chapel with the altar and papal throne faced south. Paride likewise describes a complicated ritual that per­ mitted the deacon to chant the gospel without turning his back (terga renesque) to the pope.  47 Caeremoniale Episcoporum 2. 8. 45, p. 150.

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and also the book at the place where the reading begins, just as the Missale Romanum had prescribed. The Caeremoniale episcoporum assumes the ‘default’ solution for the direction (northerly) in which the deacon chants the gospel. The subdeacon, standing between two acolytes with candles, ‘tenet librum Evangeliorum apertum ante pectus, vertens renes, non quidem altari sed versus ipsam partem dexteram, quae pro Aquilone figuratur’ (holds the book of the Gospels open before his chest, turning his back (renes) not to the altar, but towards that right side which is reckoned as north).48 Given the position taken by the subdeacon holding the book, the deacon would necessarily chant the gospel towards the north side of the church with the congregation to his left, as one would see today at a traditional Latin Mass. The Sarum Customary confirms that ‘semper legatur evangelium ad missam versus aquilonem, id est boriali’ (the gospel at Mass is always read towards the north).49 If there is no pulpitum, the subdeacon holds the book, facing the deacon, but slightly to the (his?) left. Josef Jungmann argued that the place of the altar and the bishop’s cathedra — both in the apse — determined the place of the gospel reading.50 The place of honour was to the right, and it would have broken with protocol for the deacon to turn his back to the bishop and the altar in the apse.51 Jungmann proposed four different scenarios, which have as their goal to reconcile the honour due the altar and cathedra with at least a modicum of connection with the congregation, if that mattered. Though Jungmann’s ingenious conceptualizations, which cannot be treated in extenso here, fall within the realm of hypothesis, they are well worth consideration. In the face of criticism put forward by Protestant reformers, there was no little anxiety in Roman Catholic circles in the late sixteenth century about appearing to accommodate the reformers, who considered it unthinkable that the Sacred Scriptures would be read in public without facing the congregation.52 While the Church hierarchy rejected the reformers’ stance, they encouraged preachers to expound the principles expressed in Scripture readings that were by that time tantamount to a ‘closed book’ for the unlettered.

 48 Caeremoniale Episcoporum 2. 8. 44, p. 150. The rubric seems to assume a ‘liturgically oriented’ church, in which the apse is presumed to face east, regardless of the actual compass direction.  49 Sarum Customary 66. 20, ed. by Frere, p. 74.  50 Josef Jungmann (Missarum Sollemnia, i, p. 531 n. 70) cites the papal master of ceremonies Paride de Grassis that the altar and the cross or crucifix upon it determine right and left in the chanting of the gospel: ‘nam et crucis et crucifixi super ipso altari stantis dextra ad praedictum cornu Evangelii vergit’; Appendix, PL, 78:934.  51 This is not a modern sensitivity. In most Catholic churches where the ‘novus ordo’ Mass is celebrated, the priest turns his back to both the altar and the tabernacle with the Blessed Sacrament, if it stands on the altar. Some churches and chapels place the tabernacle to the side or (in very large churches) in a separate chapel.  52 See the discussion of Martin Luther’s Deudsche Messe in Chapter 4.

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Liturgical Allegory and the Chanting of the Gospel In his description of the chanting of the gospel (‘De diaconi ascensione in tribunal’) Amalar of Metz mentions Cyprian (perhaps influencing his choice of the word tribunal for the place of the reading).53 He says that all should face the deacon at his salutation (‘Dominus vobiscum’), thereafter turning to the east until he begins to chant the gospel, at which point they face the deacon, making the sign of the cross on their foreheads following his example.54 A smoking thurible had been carried into the tribunal ahead of the deacon to ‘minister a sweet fragrance’, but there is again no reference to the censing of the book.55 Sicard of Cremona (c. 1155–1215) incorporated in the Mitrale a lengthy allegorical interpretation of the movement of the deacon from south to north to cantillate the gospel. He regarded the northward chanting of the gospel as already a ‘vetus consuetudo’.56 It was where the women stood — the ‘carnales’ to whom the Gospel had to be addressed.57 The north also symbolized the infideles, probably Jews and Muslims, who had to be confronted by the Gospel: Carnalibus autem et infidelibus est evangelium praedicandum, ut convertantur ad Christum; vel diaconum ab austro venire est Filium Dei operatione Spiritus sancti carnem assumere. Ad aquilonem sermonem dirigere est salutem gentibus, quae a calore solis recesserant, et secreta mysteria revelare; vel ad aquilonem legitur, ut aquiloni, a quo omne malum panditur, opponatur evangelica fides.58 (The Gospel is to be preached to the carnal and to unbelievers, so that they might be converted to Christ; or for the deacon to come from the south is the Son of God taking on flesh through the operation of the Holy Spirit. To direct the word to the north is salvation to the

 53 Lib. off. 3. 18; ed. by Hanssens, pp. 306–11; trans. by Knibbs, ii, pp. 100–109. See Chapter 2 on Cyprian. Amalar has the deacon remove the evangeliary from the altar, symbolically identified with Jerusalem, after the blessing; cf. Isaiah: ‘de Sion exivit lex et verbum domini de Hierusalem’ (2. 3).  54 Lib. off. 3. 18. 7; ed. by Hanssens, p. 309; trans. by Knibbs, ii, p. 105. The chapter ‘De diaconi ascensione in tribunal’ emphasizes allegory rather than description of the ritual. The Eclogae de ordine romano (16. 2) mentions the congregation’s turning towards the east at the deacon’s salutation; ed. by Hanssens, p. 245. On Cyprian’s use of the term, see Chapter 2.  55 ‘Ipsum turibulum in tribunal ascendit ante evangelium, ut ibi suavem odorem ministret’; Lib. off. 3. 18. 12; ed. by Hanssens, p. 310; trans. by Knibbs, ii, pp. 106–07.  56 ‘Diaconus ab australi parte ascendens analogium, id est locum ad verba de superioribus destinatum, et se vertens ad austrum, primo salutat populum, dicens: “Dominus vobiscum”, cui populus “et cum spiritu tuo”. Christus enim a Bethlehem, quae est ad austrum, venit in Hierusalem, unde dicitur: “Deus ab austro veniet”’; Sicard of Cremona, Mitrale 3. 4; PL, 213:108.  57 The place assigned to women in church is discussed in Chapter 6.  58 Sicard of Cremona, Mitrale 3. 4; PL, 213:108.

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gentiles, who shrink from the heat of the sun, [and] to reveal secret mysteries; or it is read towards the north, so that to the north, from which every evil is spread, evangelical faith might be in opposition.) Rupert of Deutz (c. 1075/80–c. 1129) regarded the deacon as a figure of Christ, whose Word, representing a ‘fortis contra diabolum legatio’ (powerful mission against the devil), he will proclaim.59 Guillaume Durand, noting the deacon’s approach to the ambo from the south of an oriented (actually or liturgically) church, observed that Bethlehem, where Jesus was born, lies to the south of Jerusalem. Alternatively, the movement of the gospel procession (south to north) symbolizes the apostles’ turning to the gentiles after the Jewish nation rejected the Gospel.60 The deacon’s approach from the south also recalls the prophecy of Habacuc: ‘Deus ab austro veniet’ (3. 3).61 Durand’s treatment of the gospel in the Rationale divinorum officiorum is quite extensive, covering over twenty pages in the Latin edition and about the same number in Timothy Thibodeau’s translation.62 The chapter entitled ‘De evangelio’ begins with a succinct description of the ceremonial, but soon sets off on a lengthy journey into the world of spiritual allegory. When the people hear the deacon chant the title of the reading (‘Sequentia […]’ or ‘Initium […]’), they turn towards the east or towards the altar, ‘ut Deum, qui verus est Oriens, glorificent’ (so that they might glorify God, who is the true Oriens).63 The congregation responds to the deacon’s announcement of the gospel’s title with ‘Gloria tibi, domine’, thereby ‘letantes in laudem sui Salvatoris’ (rejoicing in the praise of its Saviour). As the deacon begins to chant the gospel, all turn towards him. Not surprisingly, much of this echoes Amalar. Ivo of Chartres (d. c. 1117) interpreted the reading of the gospel facing north as confronting the ‘frigus infidelitatis’ (coldness of disbelief) that ruled the North — not an original thought, as we have seen. For the chanting of the gospel ‘transit levita aut sacerdos ad sinistram partem ecclesiae’ (the priest or deacon goes to the left side of the church).64 This movement signified that,  59 Rupert of Deutz, De divinis officiis 3. 22, ed. by Haacke, p. 97. For additional references, see Suntrup, Die Bedeutung der liturgischen Gebärden und Bewegungen, pp. 236–37 n. 8.  60 Durand, Rationale divinorum officiorum 2. 24. 9; ed. by Davril and Thibodeau, i, p. 344; trans. by Thibodeau, On the Clerical Orders and the Liturgical Vestments, pp. 197–98.  61 Durand, Rationale divinorum officiorum 4. 24. 17; ed. by Davril and Thibodeau, i, p. 348; trans. by Thibodeau, Rationale, Book Four, p. 202. Durand mentions two sets of stairs, accessed ‘per medium chori’, perhaps with an arrangement like that of San Clemente in mind. Elsewhere, Durand mentions that the deacon does not ascend ‘in loco eminentiori’ but stands ‘iuxta altare’; Durand, Rationale divinorum officiorum 4. 24. 19; ed. by Davril and Thibodeau, p. 349; trans. by Thibodeau, Rationale, Book Four, p. 203.  62 Durand, Rationale divinorum officiorum 4. 24; ed. by Davril and Thibodeau, pp. 340–66; trans. by Thibodeau, Rationale, Book Four, pp. 193–215.  63 Durand, Rationale divinorum officiorum 4. 24. 27–28; ed. by Davril and Thibodeau, i, p. 353; trans. by Thibodeau, Rationale, Book Four, pp. 206–07.  64 Ivo of Chartres, Sermones de ecclesiasticis sacramentis; PL, 162:550. The perspective is that of the viewer.

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since the Jews would not accept the Gospel, Paul had turned to the Gentiles, among whom the ‘chill of infidelity’ had long reigned. The Gospel would continue to be preached in this direction until the ‘plenitudo gentium’ and the ‘reliquiae Judeorum’ (fullness of the Gentiles and remnant of the Jews) came to faith in Jesus. Lothar of Segni (Pope Innocent III) summed up the medi­eval consensus of ‘quare versus aquilonem legitur Evangelium’ (why the gospel is chanted towards the north) by recalling the Lord’s warning to the prophet Jeremiah that ‘out of the North an evil shall break forth upon all the inhabitants of the land’ ( Jeremiah 1. 14).65 The spirit of evil (the Devil) must be put to flight by the Gospel and be superseded by the Holy Spirit. In company with other medi­eval liturgical commentators, Innocent III regarded the crosses made by the deacon on the book and on his person as a defence against the wiles of the Devil.66 The allegorical methodo­logy developed by Amalar of Metz, followed by scores of medi­eval authors, filtered down, however imperfectly, to the level of the parish clergy. Some of it came through the intermediary of the authors quoted above. It was to instruct the clergy, after all, that Amalar wrote his compendious Liber officialis (early 830s) in the first place. Even priests who were not particularly well educated could have picked up some of this lore and have shared whatever was edifying (or merely curious) with their parishioners. The various vernacular ‘guides to devotion’ produced in the later Middle Ages had as their aim not only to familiarize the laity with what was being done before their eyes at Mass, but to offer them a method of participation that met their needs and expectations.67 That those expectations were different from sixteenth-century or modern ones is only to be expected and accepted, not judged to be inferior. The celebrated Franciscan preacher Berthold of Regensburg (c. 1220–1272) delivered a Passion Sunday sermon, preserved in Latin, about the proper disposition for attending Mass.68 Probably addressed to priests, since it begins with symbolic interpretations of the Mass vestments, it proceeds through the Mass step by step, providing allegorical explanations along the way. The epistle, for example, is the preaching of John the Baptist, who went ‘before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways’ (Luke 1. 78), a common interpretation. The Gospel, the preaching of Christ, is even more sublime: ‘nec mirum, si de ore quod docet angelos scientiam, quod celum et terram verbo firmavit,

 65 Innocent III, De sacro altaris mysterio 2. 43; PL, 217:824.  66 Johannes Beleth’s description of the chanting of the gospel emphasizes symbolism, especially that of the crosses made by the deacon on his person and on the book of the Gospels; Beleth, Summa de ecclesiasticis officiis 39d–f, ed. by Douteil, ii, pp. 71–72. Sicard of Cremona also explains at some length the practice of signing oneself at the gospel and its significance; Mitrale 3. 4.  67 Salisbury, Worship in Medi­eval England, pp. 41–63 (‘Participation and Devotion in Worship’).  68 Edited in Franz, Die Messe im deutschen Mittelalter, pp. 741–45.

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verba bona, virtuosa et dulcia procedebant, cum peccator homo quandoque tam dulcia promat’ (do not be surprised, if from the mouth which taught knowledge to angels [and] which established heaven and earth by a word, that good, virtuous, and sweet words proceeded, when and whenever a sinful man utters such sweet [words]’.69 The efficacy of the sacred text is no less when proclaimed by a mortal. The priest and humanist Desiderius Erasmus (1466–1536) evoked splendidly the ritual surrounding the cantillation of the gospel at Mass in his paraphrase of the Gospel of John, published in 1523: With what solemnity the teaching of the gospel was clothed in former times, the ceremonies handed down from antiquity which the church still observes will suffice to show. The text in use is beautifully decorated with gold and ivory and precious stones; it is scrupulously preserved among the sacred treasures, and not laid down or taken in hand without signs of reverence. Permission is asked from the priest to read it aloud; it is sanctified by perfuming with frankincense and oil of myrrh, with balsam and with spices; every brow, every bosom is signed with the sign of the cross; all bow their heads and ascribe glory to the Lord; all rise to their feet and stand to their full height, with bare head and attentive ear and downcast eye. At the name of Jesus, every time it occurs, every knee is bowed. Then the book is carried round, held in deep reverence close to the bosom, that every man may show his adoration with a kiss, until at length it is reverently replaced among the sacred treasures. What is the message of these ceremonies, what else have they to teach us, except that to Christians nothing ought to be so important, so much beloved, so much respected as that heavenly philosophy which Christ himself delivered to us all, which for so many centuries has enjoyed world-wide acceptance, and alone can make us impregnable against this world and the prince of this world?70 This is not merely a dry recital of the rubrics for people who, if they lived in a large city or in the vicinity of a monastery, would have seen this ceremony carried out every Sunday. Erasmus first refers to the sumptuously bound evangeliary, a ‘sacred treasure’, containing the pericopes for Sundays and feasts. The deacon seeks ‘permission’ to chant the gospel from its pages. Having received a blessing, the deacon proceeds to the ambo, where he censes the book. All cross themselves and stand erect to listen attentively to the gospel chanted. Whenever the name ‘Jesus’ is spoken, all genuflect.71 This suggests a certain level of attention on the part of ‘hearers’, even those  69 Franz, Die Messe im deutschen Mittelalter, p. 743.  70 Paraphrasis in Evangelium Ioannis (Ep. 1333. 229–61); Erasmus, Paraphrase on John, trans. by Phillips, p. 7. For this reference I am indebted to Sheerin, ‘Sonus and Verba’, p. 61 n. 30.  71 Cf. Philippians 2. 10: ‘In the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those that are in heaven, on earth, and under the earth’ (Douay-Rheims).

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engaged in private prayer, as much as it does good diction on the part of the ‘reader’. Erasmus closes with a lengthy rhetorical question that elicits a moral lesson from the ceremonies witnessed. All of this is redolent of the Lay Folkes Mass Book discussed in Chapter 1. Erasmus emphasizes the totality of the experience, since by the early sixteenth century few would have understood much of the biblical text. They would have been impressed, on the other hand, by the awe-inspiring reverence shown to the Word of God, the Christian’s impregnable defence against ‘the prince of this world’, a trope we have encountered several times previously. Apparently, in Erasmus’s time the Gospel book was carried about for all to kiss reverently and thus honour the ‘heavenly philosophy’ between its covers.

A Metrum for the Deacon In the Eclogae de ordine romano there is curious metrum in dactylic hexameter at the end of the chapter ‘Cur sit diaconus in ambone versus meridiem’ (Why the deacon in the ambo faces south), the first two lines of which begin with the admonition: ‘Tu qui scandisti culmen, sublime minister / Quanto excelso petis, tanto moderatior esto’.72 The remaining six lines reinforce the moral that a deacon should not be filled with pride just because of the sublime charge with which he is entrusted and the splendid vestment he wears. Amalar goes so far as to threaten that ‘mens etenim quae celsa petit, haec ima tenebit’ (whatever seeks lofty things, will be held fast by the lowly). Tu qui scandisti culmen, sublime minister, Quanto excelsa petis, tanto moderatior esto. Quantum prona solo, tantum fit proxima caelo Mens; etenim quae celsa petit, haec ima tenebit, Inferiorque gradus quo vult descendere, surgit. Laetatur serpens inimicus si cadis, alme. Angelus Altithroni si non gaudet quia tu fers Pocula celsa, iubes tu scandere limen Olympi. (Exalted minister, you who mount the summit, | To the degree you seek out lofty things, just so much be more temperate. | To the degree the mind stoops toward the earth, just so much does it approach heaven, | For whatever seeks lofty things will be held fast by the lowly. If it wills to descend to a lower level, it rises. | The serpent enemy rejoices if you fall, beloved. | Does not the angel of the High-Throned  72 Pseudo-Amalar, Eclogae de ordine romano,17. 4, ed. by Hanssens, i, p. 247 (with variants). The metrum is derived from Amalar’s Codex expositionis (II) 17. 4, there with the title ‘Quo sit versus diaconus in ambone’ (On the direction faced by the deacon in the ambo); ed. by Hanssens, i, p. 280. The poem is treated briefly in Pabst, Prosimetrum, pp. 348–52.

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rejoice, because you bear | the heavenly cup, you seek to scale the threshold of Olympus.) This poetic flight stands a bit apart from the author’s usual modus scribendi, but I am not aware of any evidence that the metrum is an interpolation. It says nothing about the direction of the reading.

Appendix 1

Isidore of Seville, De ecclesiasticis officiis 2. 11 ‘De lectoribus’ Latin text: Isidore, De ecclesiasticis officiis, ed. by Lawson (my translation). The phrasing of section 3 is elliptical and its meaning difficult to convey in translation. Isidore is trying to say that a biblical passage poorly delivered could lead the listener to an erroneous interpretation, but he does not describe the situation clearly. He frames a hypothetical question that might arise in such a situation, using the neutral ‘-ne’ enclitic, which can be followed by either a positive or a negative response — in this case uncertainty about whether or not God is the source of justification. 1. Lectorum ordo formam et initium a prophetis accepit. Sunt igitur lectores qui verbum Dei praedicant, quibus dicitur: ‘Clama, ne cesses, quasi tuba exalta vocem tuam’. Isti quippe, dum ordinantur, primum de eorum conversatione episcopus verbum facit ad populum. Deinde coram plebe tradit eis codicem apicum divinorum ad Dei verbum annuntiandum.

1. The order of lectors received its form and beginning from the prophets. Those, therefore, are lectors who preach the word of God, to whom it is said: ‘Cry out, cease not; lift up your voice like a trumpet!’ [Isaiah 58. 1]. Indeed, when they are ordained, the bishop first speaks to the people about their manner of life. Then in the presence of the people he hands them the book of divine letters for proclaiming the word of God.

2. Qui autem ad hujusmodi provehitur gradum, iste erit doctrina et libris imbutus, sensuumque ac verborum scientia perornatus, ita ut in distinctionibus sententiarum intelligat ubi finiatur junctura, ubi adhuc pendet oratio, ubi sententia extrema claudatur.      Sicque expeditus vim pronuntiationis tenebit, ut ad intellectum omnium mentes sensusque promoveat, discernendo genera pronuntiationum, atque exprimendo sententiarum proprios affectus, modo indicantis voce, modo dolentis, modo increpantis, modo exhortantis, sive his similia secundum genera propriae pronuntiationis.

2. Indeed, whoever is advanced to this grade will be imbued with learning and books, adorned with the knowledge of meanings and of words, so that he might discern the distinctiones of sentences: where a segment ends, where the text continues, and where the sentence comes to an end.      Thus prepared, [the lector] will possess the power of [oratorical] delivery, so that he might move the minds and senses of all to understanding, distinguishing the kinds of oral delivery by expressing through his voice the proper affects of sentences: [whether] by a narrative mode, a mournful mode, a reproachful mode, an exhortatory mode, or things similar to this, according to the kinds of proper oral delivery.

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3. In quo maxime illa ambigua sententiarum adhibenda cognitio est. Multa enim sunt in Scripturis, quae nisi proprio modo pronuntientur, in contrariam recidunt sententiam, sicuti est: ‘Quis accusabit adversus electos Dei? Deus, qui justificat?’ Quod si quasi confirmative, non servato genere pronuntiationis suae, dicatur, magna perversitas oritur. Sic ergo pronuntiandum est, ac si diceret: ‘Deusne qui justificat?’ ut subaudiatur ‘non’.

3. Especially in this respect the ambiguity of sentences is to be taken into account. There are many things in the Scriptures that, unless they are properly declaimed, end up with a contrary meaning, as is: ‘Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? God, who justifies?’ [Romans 8. 33] Which, were it said in a more or less affirmative fashion — not keeping to a [correct] mode of delivery — a serious distortion arises. Were it thus pronounced, it would be as if ‘Is it not God who justifies?’ were said, so that [the response] ‘no’ might be implied.

4. Necesse est ergo in tantis rebus scientiae ingenium, quo proprie singula, convenienterque pronuntientur. Propterea et accentuum vim oportet scire lectorem, ut noverit, in qua syllaba vox protendatur pronuntiantis.

4. It is necessary, therefore, that there be in such things proficiency of knowledge, whereby everything would be properly and suitably pronounced. For that reason the lector must know the meaning of the accents, so that he will know on which syllable the word is to be stressed [lit. lengthened].      Unskilled lectors frequently err in accenting words, and they are inclined to mock those of us who take notice of their lack of skill, disparaging [us] and swearing that they have not the faintest idea of what we are saying.

     Plerumque enim imperiti lectores in verborum accentibus errant, et solent irridere nos imperitiae hi qui videntur habere notitiam, detrahentes, et jurantes penitus nescire quod dicimus. 5. Porro vox lectoris simplex erit, et clara, et ad omne pronuntiationis genus accommodata, plena succo virili, agrestem, et subrusticum effugiens sonum, non humilis, nec adeo sublimis, non fracta, vel tenera, nihilque femineum sonans, neque cum motu corporis, sed tantummodo cum gravitatis specie. Auribus enim et cordi consulere debet lector, non oculis, ne potius ex seipso spectatores magis quam auditores faciat.      Vetus opinio est lectores pronuntiandi causa praecipuam curam vocis habuisse, ut exaudiri in tumultu possent. Unde et dudum lectores praecones vel proclamatores vocabantur.

5. Furthermore, the voice of the lector will be simple and clear and suited to every kind of delivery, full of manly vitality, spurning a rustic and coarse tone, neither too low nor too high, not broken or weak, sounding not at all girlish, nor with movement of the body but only with a display of gravity. Indeed, the lector ought to take into account the ears and heart [of the listeners], not their eyes, lest he turn them into spectators of himself rather than listeners.      An old belief holds that lectors take special care of the voice for the sake of delivery, so that they can be heard in a noisy environment. Whence lectors were formerly known as heralds or proclaimers.

Appendix 2

Bilingual (Latin/Greek) Readings The earliest Roman reference to bilingual readings at the Easter Vigil is found in Ordo Romanus 23 (‘De sacro triduo ante pascha’), not an ‘official’ Roman document, but a collection of notes on the liturgy of Holy Week made by a visiting Frankish cleric.1 Though the report is laconic, it attests to the presence of bilingual readings in the papal liturgy at the beginning of the eighth century.2 A more detailed description of the readings and cantica at the Easter Vigil is found in the Appendix to Ordo Romanus 28, preserved in a single manu­script written at the monastery of St Gall (Stiftsbibliothek St Gallen, MS 614) in the second half of the ninth century.3 The ordo (text and translation below) specifies that the (four) readings are chanted first in Greek, then in Latin, a practice mentioned in other ordines.4 (The incipits of the readings in Greek are not provided, even in transliteration.) 2. Subdiaconus vero statim exuit se planeta, ascendens in ammone et legens non dicit Lectio libri Genesis, sed incohat ita: In principio fecit deus celum et terram, nam et reliquae omnes sic incohantur. In primis greca legitur, deinde statim ab alio latina. 3. Tunc primum surgens pontifex dicit Oremus et diaconus Flectamus genua, deinde Levate. Et datur oratio a pontifice. 4. Et legitur lectio grece Factum est in vigilia matutina, et ab ipso cantatur canticum hoc grece Cantemus domino. Post hoc ascendit alius et legit supradictam lectionem latine, et cantat canticum suprascriptum latine. 5. Deinde pontifex surgens dicit Oremus, et diaconus ut supra dicatur oratio.

 1 OR 23. 26; Les Ordines Romani, ed. by Andrieu, iii, p. 272. Cyrille Vogel assigned to the ordo a date between 700 and 750, since the blessing of the paschal candle is not mentioned (Vogel, Medi­eval Liturgy, p. 170). He dates the bilingual readings and the scrutinium of OR 11 (a baptismal liturgy) to the seventh century, ‘when many Eastern Christians again poured into Rome’ (Medi­eval Liturgy, p. 296).  2 It would be impossible to address here the question of the knowledge of Greek in Rome or the medi­eval West. On this topic, see Berschin, Greek Letters and the Latin Middle Ages; Bischoff, ‘Das griechische Element in der abendländischen Bildung des Mittelalters’; Caspari, ‘Über den gottesdienstlichen Gebrauch des Griechischen im Abendlande während des früheren Mittelalters’; Noble, ‘The Declining Knowledge of Greek in Eighth- and NinthCentury Papal Rome’; Riché, ‘Le grec dans les centres de culture d’Occident’.  3 OR 28. App; Les Ordines Romani, ed. by Andrieu, iii, pp. 412–13. In St Gall MS 614 the ordo appears between OR 22 and OR 12 (Les Ordines Romani, ed. by Andrieu, i, p. 345).  4 For a recent review of the evidence for the transition from Greek to Latin in the liturgy of Rome, see Lang, ‘Historische Stationen zur Frage der lateinischen Liturgiesprache’.

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6. Post hec legitur lectio grece Apprehendent septem mulieres, et ab ipso cantatur canticum grece Vinea. Deinde alius ascendit legere suprascriptum latine: canticum latine cantat suprascriptum. 7. Et pontifex Oremus; diaconus ut supra. 8. Et iterum legitur lectio grece Scripsit Moyses canticum. Et alius ascendens legit eam latine. 9. Deinde pontifex vel diaconus ut supra. 10. Post hoc cantatur psalmus Sicut cervus grece, et alius ipsum psalmum latine. 2. The subdeacon immediately removes his planeta; going up to the ambo to read, he does not say Lectio libri Genesis [Genesis 1], but begins thus: In principio fecit deus celum et terram, and the other readings begin in like fashion. They are read first in Greek and immediately after by another [subdeacon] in Latin. 3. Then first standing up, the pontiff [pope] says Oremus and the deacon Flectamus genua, then Levate. And the pontiff says the prayer. 4. And the reading Factum est in vigilia matutina [Exodus 14], is read in Greek, and by the same [reader] this canticle, Cantemus domino, is sung in Greek. After this another [subdeacon] goes up and reads the aforesaid reading in Latin and sings the aforesaid canticle in Latin. 5. Then standing up, the pontiff says Oremus, and the deacon does as above and the prayer is said. 6. After this the reading Apprehendent septem mulieres [Isaiah 4] is read in Greek and by the same [subdeacon] the canticle Vinea is sung in Greek. Then another [subdeacon] goes up to read the aforesaid [reading] in Latin [and] sings the aforesaid canticle in Latin. 7. And the pontiff [says] Oremus, and the deacon [does] as above. 8. And again the reading Scripsit Moyses canticum [Deuteronomy 31] is read in Greek. And another [subdeacon], going up, reads it in Latin. 9. Then the pontiff and the deacon [do] as above. 10. After this is sung the psalm Sicut cervus in Greek and another [cantor sings] the same psalm in Latin.

b i l i n g ual ( lat i n/ gre e k ) re ad i ngs

Though the number of readings is four (Genesis 1, Exodus 14, Isaiah 4, Deuteronomy 31), as was customary in the papal liturgy, the texts are not the same as those of the papal Hadrianum Sacramentary.5 Hec est hereditas (Isaiah 54) replaces the reading from Deuteronomy recounting Moses’ warning to the elders of Israel as his life was approaching its end. Only two canticles (Cantemus and Vinea) are rubricked in Ordo 28, but the proper canticle (Attende) must have been sung after the Deuteronomy reading, since the close of the reading (‘locutus est ergo […] verba carminis huius’) leads directly into it. The desire to include the canticle might well explain the presence of the reading itself.6 The absence of a prayer before the readings and the prohibition against announcing the title enhances by its starkness the ‘prophetic’ character of the ancient texts. The significant fact that the reader proceeds directly to the canticle at the end of the reading guarantees the archaic nature of Ordo 28. The lectio cum cantico at the Easter Vigil testifies to a stage of development before the canticles were replaced by eighth-mode tracts.7 It also explains why there is no record of the music of the Greek cantica: they were sung to a modified version of the cantillation formula. Certain evidence points to the last half of the seventh century as a likely time for the institution of bilingual readings at Rome, not only for the Easter Vigil but also at the Masses for Christmas, Easter Day8 and the following Monday, the Vigil of Pentecost, Saturdays in the Ember Weeks,9 and the solemn papal Mass,10 in which latter context the practice has continued to the present day.11 Bilingual readings are also well attested for the ordination/coronation of the pope. The Ceremonial of Cardinal Giacomo Stefaneschi described the coronations of Popes Benedict XI and John XXII.12 The brief ordo ‘De consecratione pape’ in a collection of ordines (Avignon, Bibl. munic., cod.

 5 They are found in the Lectionary of Alcuin and fourteen missals (not otherwise identified) according to Amiet, La veillée pascale dans l’église latine, p. 261.  6 The same concern might have motivated the reform of the Easter Vigil instituted by Pius XII in 1951, which used this series of four readings; Ordo Hebdomadae Sanctae Instauratus, pp. 97–101. This relatively unusual series is also attested in a late eighth-century lectionary fragment, BAV, MS Reg. lat. 74, described in Dold, ‘Ein ausgeschriebenes Perikopenbuch des 8. Jhs.’, p. 18; see also Schmidt, Hebdomada Sancta, ii, p. 461.  7 Dyer, ‘Voices from the Belly of the Whale and the Fiery Furnace’.  8 On Easter Sunday the Ordinal of Innocent III directs ‘et dicuntur epistole et evangelia latine et grece’; Van Dijk and Walker, The Ordinal of the Papal Court, p. 292.  9 Referring to the title ‘sabbato in duodecim lectionibus’, Amalar of Metz says that ‘sex lectiones ab antiquis Romanis grece et latine legebantur; […] duodecim lectiones propter duodecim lectores dicuntur’; Lib. off. 2. 1; ed. by Hanssens, p. 197; trans. by Knibbs, i, pp. 364–65.  10 Liber politicus 20; ed. in Fabre and Duchesne, Le Liber Censuum de l’Église romaine, ii, p. 146; Censius Savelli, Liber censuum, nos 2 (bilingual readings after papal laudes on Christmas), 30 (Holy Saturday), and 34 (Easter Mass); ed. in Fabre and Duchesne, Le Liber Censuum de l’Église romaine, i, pp. 291, 297 and 298.  11 For an extensive listing of sources down to the early years of the twentieth century, see Petrani, ‘De bilinguibus lectionibus liturgicis’.  12 Le cérémonial papal de la fin du moyen âge à la Renaissance, ed. by Dykmans, ii, pp. 272 and 297.

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1706) published by Bernhard Schimmelpfennig says that the pope removes his mitre while the gospel is being read in both languages (‘dum legeretur evangelium tum latinum quam grecum’).13 The Ceremonial of Cardinal Stefaneschi, a portion of which is edited and translated in Appendix 4, refers to the same practice. A papal Mass was thus served by two subdeacons and two deacons: one Greek, the other Latin. No hint of this bilingual practice is encountered in the (papal) Gregorian sacramentary, (Hadrianum).14 The presumed date of its original redaction — the pontificate of Honorius I (625–638) — may be taken (in the light of other evidence) as an indication that Rome had not yet embraced bilingual readings at Mass (or the Easter Vigil) in the early seventh century. One would have expected a reference to this distinctive custom, had it existed, in the detailed rubrics for the Mass of Easter Day in Ordo Romanus 1. While the transmission history of this Ordo does not permit a very precise dating (probably the late seventh century), it stands as an effective terminus a quo for the introduction of a Greek reading to precede the Latin pericope.15 The absence of any readings for the Easter Vigil in the capitulare of Würzburg (mid-seventh century) permits no conclusions to be drawn, one way or another, since the readings come before the beginning of Mass. In attempting to date the introduction of bilingual readings, it would seem logical to assume that the Scriptures would not be read in a language that no one could understand. There might have been initially a broadly defined ‘pastoral’ purpose: to communicate the Scriptures to members of the congregation who did not understand Latin. Afterwards, the goal might have been to underscore symbolically papal claims to universal authority over the Western (Latin) and Eastern (Greek) Churches.

 13 Schimmelpfennig, Die Zeremonienbücher der römischen Kurie im Mittelalter, p. 194 (xxiii. 1). There is a similar rubric involving both epistle and gospel in the Pontifical of Giovanni Barozzi: ‘laudibus sic finitis, legitur epistola latina et postea greca, et similiter evangelium latinum et grecum’ (138.32); Schimmelpfennig, Die Zeremonienbücher der römischen Kurie im Mittelalter, p. 344. This is repeated in an ordo ‘De consuetudinibus et observantiis ecclesie romane in precipuis sollemnitatibus’ (1. 19), Schimmelpfennig, Die Zeremonienbücher der römischen Kurie im Mittelalter, p. 374.  14 Perhaps the nature of the book would not necessarily require the presence of a rubric about this aspect of the readings.  15 Even the first version of this ordo must postdate the pontificate of Sergius I (687–701), because the Agnus Dei, which he introduced to the Roman Mass, is mentioned in all sources.

Appendix 3

Amerus, Practica artis musice, cap. 26 De modo et forma legendi

Concerning the Way and Form of Reading

Non sufficere videtur animo multa desideranti satis dixisse de modo et forma cantandi, nisi etiam de modo et forma legendi; cum artis musice sit una pars, aliquid breviter dicam.

It does not seem sufficient to a mind desirous of many things to have said enough about the way and form of singing, were I not to say [something] briefly about the way and form of reading, since it is a part of the art of music.

In primis igitur, cum inter legere et cantare sit differencia, queritur que maxime cum multi secundum diversas nationum consuetudines lectiones in ecclesiis ac epistulas et etiam evangelia magis canunt quam legunt, vel ita legunt voces pro posse dulcorando, quod quid legitur non intelligitur; aut si forte ipsi qui legunt intelligant, tamen intelligere nequeunt quod auscultant.

First of all, since there is a difference between reading and singing, it is asked especially why, since many [people] sing rather than read the readings and epistles and also gospels in church according to the customs of different nations; or else they so read the words, sweetening them to the extent possible, so that what is read is not understood, or if those who are doing the reading perchance do understand, they are not able to make hearers understand what they are hearing.

Respondeo: ubi nota communi usu ecclesie romane super litteram scribitur ut cantetur, cantari debet non aliter, sed usus multum malum reddit artis maiestati. Quare hii qui lectiones, epistulas vel evangelia nisi modo subscripto canunt, peccant, magis autem si in dulcedine vocum vel in laudibus hominum delectentur.

I reply: wherever notation in common use in the Roman Church is written above the text, it should not be sung otherwise, but habit inflicts considerable harm on the majesty of art. For which reason those commit sin who chant the readings, epistles, or gospels in a way other than written below, especially if they [wrongly] take pleasure in the sweetness of [their] voice or the praises of men.

Enimvero necessarium aliter non esset apices, idest notas, apponere super litteram cantabilem per quarum naturam littera canitur, qui quidem apices in sacrosancta ecclesia romana super lectiones, epistulas aut evangelia non inveniuntur.

As a matter of fact, it would not otherwise be necessary to place marks (that is, notations), above a chanted letter, according to the nature of which [notes] a letter is sung, which marks are not found above [the texts of] readings, epistles, or gospels in the most holy Roman Church

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Ad alleviandum ergo tedium carnalium et confortamen spiritualium, in ecclesia ad laudem et honorem Dei et sanctorum eius, aliquando debitus cantus cum littera conformi canitur, ut mens spiritualis ad celestis iubilationis dulcedinem mulceatur, aliquando legitur ut animis per sanctorum exempla dulciter reficiatur.

To alleviate weariness of carnal men and [as a] comfort for spiritual [men], for the praise of God and of his saints in the Church, at times a prescribed chant is sung with a text that fits it, so that the spiritual mind may be delighted by the sweetness of heavenly rejoicing. At times the reading is done so that spirits might be restored through the examples of the saints.

Unde lector aperte et distincte debet legere ut omnes litterati intelligant, siicut legitur in Jeremia capitulo octavo: ‘Aperuit Esdras librum, Levite autem faciebant silencium in populo ad audiendam legem. Et legerunt in libro Dei distincte et aperte ad intelligendum, et intellexerunt cum legeretur’.

Whence the lector should read plainly and distinctly, so that all who are ‘literate’ can understand, just as one reads in the eighth chapter of Jeremiah [recte Nehemiah]: ‘Ezra opened the book; the Levites had the people be silent for listening to the Law; and they read in the book of God plainly and distinctly for understanding, and they understood when it was read’.

Et si notas fecerint paucas, facere debent et non nisi necessarias ad distinctionem elevationis et depressionis sive suspensionis et finis clausule vel interrogationis seu questionis faciende. Quamobrem, si sancte romane ecclesie placeret, bonum esset epistulam suam cum tali nota legere necessaria.

And if they make few annotations, they ought to do so, [but] not unless necessary for differentiation of the raising and lowering or sustaining of the pitch, or of pausing or finishing the sentence, or of making questions or inquiries. For which reason, if it please the holy Roman Church, it would be good to read the epistle with all the annotations necessary.

Et nota quod lectiones rotunde et viva voce legende sunt; epistule altius quam lectiones et in voce magis suspensiva et dulciori. Evangelium vero voce mediocri, dulci, adhuc magis suspensiva et humili, propter simplicitatem illius agni Dei qui humilitatem docuit.

And take note that the readings are to be read with a full and vigorous voice, the epistles higher than the readings and in a more sustained and sweeter voice. The gospel, however, [is read] in a lower voice — even more balanced and humble on account of the simplicity of that Lamb of God who taught humility.

Hic omnia in accentu necessaria nequeo dicere, sed tum exemplum legendi hic breviter doceo.

I am not able to say here all that is necessary for chanting [the readings], but in that case I provide here briefly an example.

Am e r u s, Prac t i c a art i s m u si ce, cap. 26

Exemplum legendi lectiones tam ad matutinas quam ante epistulam.

An example of reading the lessons at Matins as well as before the epistle:

Exemplum legendi epistolam; preponat tamen titulum lector:

An example of reading the epistle; the lector, however, puts the title first:

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Exemplum legendi evangelium, sed habet duos modos formasque legendi: in festis unum, in feriis et pro mortuis alterum:

An example of reading the gospel, but it has two ways and forms of reading: one for feasts, the second for weekdays and [Masses for] the dead:

Alius modus:

Another way:

Passio vero in die palmarum et etiam aliis diebus legetur sic: quando discipuli vel iudei loquuntur, secundum modum lectionis sed alte et clamando; quando evangelista loquitur, secundum modum evangelii ferialis sed voce mediocri; quando Christus loquitur, secundum modum evangelii festinalis sed voce humili et submissa.

On Palm Sunday and also on other days the Passion is read thus: when the disciples or the Jews speak [it is sung] according to the lesson tone though high and crying out; when the Evangelist speaks, according to the mode of the ferial [tone] of the gospel, but with a mid-range voice; when Christ speaks, according to the mode of a feast-day gospel, but with a low and tranquil voice.

Latin text: Amerus, Practica artis musice (1271), ed. by Ruini (my translation).

Appendix 4

Ceremonial of Cardinal Giacopo Stefaneschi, cap. 28 Et ante repetitionem alleluia vel ultimi versus tractus, diaconus cardinalis dicturus evangelium vadit, mitra deposita, ad eminentem sedem et, genuflexus inter duos diaconos sedentes ad pedes pape, osculatur pedem eius. Deinde regrediens, genuflectit ante altare dicens secreto ‘Munda cor meum’, etc.

And before the repetition of the Alleluia or the last verse of the tract the cardinal deacon who is to chant the gospel, having removed his mitre, goes to the eminent seat and, having genuflected between the two deacons sitting at the feet of the pope, kisses his foot. Then going back, he genuflects in front of the altar, saying quietly, ‘Munda cor meum’, etc.

Et surgens, accipit librum evangeliorum de medio altaris, tenens ilium clausum cum ambabus manibus ante pectus suum, ita quod pars crucifixi que est in tabulis appareat videntibus extra.

And rising, he takes the book of the Gospels from the middle of the altar, holding it closed with both hands before his chest, so that part of the crucifix which is on the binding might be seen by those looking on from a distance.

Et vertens faciem ad papam, inclinato capite sine mitra, petit benedictionem, dicens secreto: ‘lube, domne, benedicere’, etc. Papa vero signando eum secreto dicit: ‘Dominus sit in corde tuo’, etc.

And, without a mitre, turning his face towards the pope, his head bowed, he asks for a blessing, saying quietly, ‘Iube, domne, benedicere’, etc. Then the pope, blessing him, says quietly ‘Dominus sit in corde tuo’, etc.

Qua benedictione recepta, progreditur diaconus cardinalis sine mitra versus populum. Quem sequitur inmediate subdiaconus qui legerat epistolam latinam, quemque etiam diaconum precedunt usque ad pedem pulpiti, duo acoliti in cottis, unus cum thuribulo fumigante, et alter cum navicula incensi et septem subdiaconi pape induti tunicellis, portantes in manibus septem candelabra cum faculis accensis sumpta de altari.

Having received the blessing, the cardinal deacon advances (without a mitre) towards the people. The subdeacon who read the Latin epistle follows him directly. Two acolytes in surplices, one with a smoking thurible, the other with the incense boat, and seven subdeacons of the pope wearing tunicles, carrying in their hands seven candelabra with lighted tapers that had been removed from the altar, precede the deacon up to the foot of the pulpit.

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Ascendit autem diaconus ipsum pulpitum per gradus eius remotiores ab altari, ubi stans dicit: ‘Dominus vobiscum’, R[esp.] ‘Et cum spiritu tuo’. Et incipiens ‘Sequentia sancti evangelii’, signat cum pollice manus sue dextre principium evangelii dicendi et frontem suum et labia et pectus. Cum responditur: ‘Gloria tibi, domine’, diaconus, vertens se ad orientem, signat faciem suam totam cum manu dextra ut alias moris est.

The deacon ascends the same pulpit by its steps farthest from the altar where, standing, he says ‘Dominus vobiscum’ [with the] response: ‘Et cum spiritu tuo’. And beginning ‘Sequentia sancti evangelii’, he signs with the thumb of his right hand the beginning of the gospel to be read as well as his forehead and mouth and chest. When ‘Gloria tibi, domine’, has been responded, turning towards the east, he signs his entire face with his right hand, as is the custom at other times.

Deinde versa facie ad septentrionem (non aliter) incensando librum, prosequitur evangelium latinum super pulpitum predictum, aliqua pulchra tobalea coopertum, subdiacono qui legerat epistolam latinam tenente librum evangeliorum a sinistris diaconi dum legit, et septem subdiaconibus prelatis stantibus ad pedem pulpiti cum candelabris et faculis accensis versa facie ad diaconum legentem, ac acolitis cum thuribulo et navicula in medio eorum vel parum ante ipsos subdiaconos, prout alias in festis solemnioribus consuevit, collocatis.

Afterwards, his face turned towards the north (not otherwise), incensing the book, he proceeds with the Latin gospel in the aforementioned pulpit [that is] covered with some variety of beautiful textile, the subdeacon who read the Latin epistle holding the book of the Gospels to the left of the deacon while he reads, and the seven subdeacons who came first [in the procession] standing at the foot of the pulpit with candlesticks and lighted torches facing the deacon as he reads, and the acolytes with a thurible and incense boat standing in their midst or close to the these subdeacons, as is customarily done on solemn feasts.

In ultimo autem versu evangelii signat se diaconus, versa facie ad orientem, et dicto evangelio, osculatur principium eius. Postque solemniter, ut venerat, descendens tamen per alios gradus, a pulpito revertitur ad altare sine mitra, ipsum quinque tantum ex dictis subdiaconibus cum candelabris accensis precedentibus, usque ad atare, ubi in medio diaconorum cardinalium ad altare stantium se ponit.

At the last verse of the gospel the deacon, facing towards the east, signs himself and, the gospel having been said, kisses [the place of] its beginning. Thereupon, without a mitre, solemnly (as he came) descending by way of the other steps, he returns to the altar, preceded by five of the aforementioned subdeacons with lighted candles up to the altar, where he stations himself in the middle of the cardinal deacons standing in front of the altar.

Latin text: Le cérémonial papal de la fin du moyen âge à la Renaissance, ed. by Dykmans, ii, pp. 314–15 (my translation).

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Index

Accentus orationis: 72–74 acolyte: 12, 16 n. 7, 33, 42, 142–43, 163, 170, 179, 181–82, 186–92, 209, 210 ad orientem: 119 Advent: 121, 174 n. 33, 177 Aeschines: 64 n. 7 Aelred of Rievaulx Speculum caritatis: 36 Afflighemensis, Johannes De musica cum tonario: 52 n. 50 Africa North: 20, 29, 97–98, 118, 132–33 Agapitus, St: 169, 170 Agatho, pope: 105 Agnellus, bishop of Ravenna: 137, 138 Agnes, St: 164, 165 Alcuin, abbot of Tours: 103–05, 109 advice to scribes, lectors, and cantors: 59–60 De divinis officiis [attrib.] : 128, 168, 172, 176 De litteris colendis: 103 lectionary of: 55–57, 203 n. 5 Alexander III, pope: 143 Alexandria: 64, 116 Alfarano, Tiberio De basilicae Vaticanae antiquissima et nova stuctura: 124, 140–41, 189 n. 4, 190 allegory: 35, 115, 125–26, 128, 136, 173, 175, 178, 182, 184–85, 193–97 alleluia: 148, 152, 176, 181–82, 186, 188, 209

altar: 12–13, 15–18, 21, 25–26, 115, 117, 119–21, 124, 128, 133, 135, 146, 152–53, 155–59, 163, 171, 174, 176, 179, 182–84, 186, 189–94, 209–10 Amalar of Metz: 32, 125–28 Codex expositionis (II): 125–26, 197 Eclogae de ordine romano [attrib.]: 128, 167, 172, 176, 182, 193, 197–98 Liber officialis: 35 n. 45, 118, 125–26, 137 n. 28, 168 n. 11, 176, 183, 188, 193–95, 203 n. 9 Missae expositionis genuinus codex: 182 n. 4 ambo: 13, 19, 99, 131 n. 1, 132–52, 157, 161–62, 171, 181–83, 185–91, 193–94, 196–97, 202 Aachen, cathedral: 145–46 Alba Fucens, San Pietro in Albe: 150 n. 78 Constantinople, Hagia Sophia: 134–35, 137, 139, 148 Ravenna, cathedral: 137–38 Ravenna, Sant’Agata Maggiore: 137 Rome, San Clemente: 148 Rome, Santi Cosma e Damiano (lost): 139 Rome, Santa. Croce in Gerusalemme (lost): 140 Rome, St John Lateran (?): 141–42 Rome, San Lorenzo fuori le mura: 149–50 Rome, Santa Maria Antiqua: 139–41

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Rome, Santa Maria in Cosmedin: 149 Rome, Santa Maria Maggiore (lost): 139, 143 Rome, Old St Peter’s: 139–40, 189 n. 43, 190 Rome, Santa Sabina: 125 Rome, Santi Silvestro e Martino (lost): 141 St Gall, plan of: 144 Torcello, Santa Maria Assunta: 150, 152 Ambrose of Milan, St: 17, 35, 134 Ambrosiaster: 17 Amerus (Alfred) Practica artis musice: 81–82, 113, 205–08 analogium: 133, 136–37, 143 Antioch: 118, 134 antiphon: 49–50 antiphoner: 49–50, 52 n. 50 Apostolic Constitutions: 20, 27–28, 31 n. 28, 118–19, 122 apse: 12, 115, 119. 124, 127–28, 134–35, 138–39, 140 n. 46, 142, 146–50, 160, 165, 167, 169, 182, 190, 191 n. 46, 192 Aquileia: 94 n. 84 Aregius, bishop of Gap: 171 Arles, Council of: 107 n. 47 ars legendi: 55 Athanasius I of Alexandria, bishop: 64 Augsburg, Dommuseum St Afra: 166–67 Augustine of Canterbury, St: 22 Augustine of Hippo, St: 20, 24, 28–29, 64, 81, 98, 118, 131–32, 134 Confessions: 64 De doctrina christiana: 150 n. 47 Enarrationes in psalmos: 98 Austria: 21 n. 32, 174 Aventine Hill (Rome): 160 n. 107

Bagby, Benjamin: 94 n. 82 Bartolomeo, Nicola de: 149 n. 77 Basil of Caesarea: 134 Baugulf of Fulda, abbot: 103 Bede, St: 24, 29 n. 11, 105–06 Beleth, Johannes: 119–20, 183–84, 195 n. 66 Summa de ecclesiasticis officiis: 119–20, 183–84, 195 n. 66 Benedict of Nursia, St: 105 n. 39, 111 Rule of: 55 n. 60, 61, 65, 98 n. 3, 133 Benedict III, pope: 42 Benedict XI, pope: 203 Benedict XVI, pope Summorum Pontificum: 14 n. 10 Benevento: 142 Bernold of Constance Micrologus: 127 Berthold of Regensburg: 195 Besançon: 30 n. 18, 41 Bethlehem: 187, 194 Bible: 39–40, 53 n. 54, 59–60 n. 77, 60 n. 79, 63, 98, 101–02, 109, 112–13 Acts of the Apostles: 28, 40, 77 n. 45, 177 n. 12 Corinthians (1): 17, 125 Ezekiel: 46 Gospel of John: 46, 81, 196 Gospel of Luke: 27, 40–41, 82 n. 52, 117, 121 Gospel of Mark: 40 Gospel of Matthew: 40, 44, 88, 117, 122, 131, 175, 182 Habacuc, prophecy of: 194 Malachy, prophecy of: 55, 117 New Testament: 20, 39, 46 n. 29, 48, 121, 131 Old Testament: 20–21, 28, 34, 39–40, 68, 71, 76–77, 82 pandect: 39 Prophets: 19–20, 27–28, 34, 39, 63, 117, 129, 131, 184, 195

index

Revelation: 11, 39–40, 179 Romans, Epistle to the: 11, 82, 200 Wisdom: 77 n. 44, 87 n. 56 Biscop, Benedict: 104–05 bishop: 14 n. 10, 15–16, 24, 27–34, 94, 98, 103, 107–08, 119–21, 124, 126, 133–34, 136, 138–39, 141, 145, 163–71, 174–78, 163, 184, 187 n. 25, 192, 199 vestments: 177–78 pallium: 165 n. 6 blessing: 21 n. 33, 28, 30–34, 50, 70, 76–77, 141, 153, 164 n. 5, 169, 186, 187 n. 25, 189–91, 193 n. 53, 196, 201 n. 1, 209 Bobbio Missal: 98 Bologna: 158 Boniface, St (Wynfrith): 105–06 books, liturgical: 12, 16, 31, 39, 42, 45, 49–57, 61, 75, 80–81, 98, 112–13, 161, 168, 171, 177, 181–84, 186–92, 193 n. 53, 194, 196, 203–04, 209–10 antiphoner: 49–50, 52 n. 50 Book of Hours: 112–13 breviary: 75 cantatorium: 50, 181 ceremonial: 153, 184, 186, 189–90, 194, 203–04, 209–10 of Cardinal Latino Malabranca: 189–90, 203–04, 209–10 customary: 61, 183, 189, 192 decoration of: 39, 42, 182, 189, 196 epistolary: 42, 182–83 evangeliary: 42, 54, 80, 81, 171, 187–90, 193 n. 53, 196 of Gospels: 42, 45, 168, 171, 187 n. 29, 190 homiliary: 74 illumination: 42

lectionary: 39, 53, 55–57, 203 n. 5 missal: 12, 16, 31, 75, 98, 161, 177, 178 n. 53, 181 n. 1, 182, 183 n. 8, 190–92 orationale: 177 ordinal: 161, 177, 189–90, 203 n. 8 Psalter: 39 Borromini, Francesco: 142 Brant, Sebastian The Shyppe of Fools: 23 Breviarium Hipponense: 33 n. 40 British Museum: 125 Bruno of Segni: 24 Bucer, Martin: 17 Byzantine Empire: 13 n. 8, 134 n. 34, 163, 165, 169 cadence: 52 n. 50, 67, 71, 77–78, 81–82, 89 final: 71, 78, 81 medial: 71, 81 Caeremoniale Episcoporum: 128, 183, 190–97 Caesarius, bishop of of Arles: 98–99, 171 Sermones: 99 Callistus II, pope: 58 Calvin, John: 16–17 Institution de la religion chrestienne: 17 candle bearer: 186 Candlemas: 55 canon (clerical office): 32, 146, 148, 153, 158 n. 99, 162 canon (law): 33 n. 40, 107–09, 124, 174 Canon law: 16, 33 n. 36 Canon of the Mass silent recitation of 15–16 Canterbury archbishop of: 104 Christ Church: 61

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cantillation: 11–14, 16–17, 19–27, 30, 34–37, 40–50, 97–98, 102, 104–05, 110–12, 115, 118, 131 n. 1, 135–36, 140–43, 146, 167–68, 201, 203, 205–06, 209. See also chant and singing. accentuation: 55–60, 63–64, 67, 71–78, 82, 85, 89–90, 102, 109, 114, 200 and acoustics: 70 aural punctuation: 63, 66, 72 Carthusian: 67, 71 Cistercian: 67–68, 74, 76 Dominican: 74–81 Eastern traditions: 63 epistle: 63–95 formulae: 12, 20, 30, 37, 46, 59, 66–67, 75, 93, 203 finalis: 52 n. 53 question: 68 n. 19, 89 reciting pitch: 36, 63, 70, 76, 82, 36 gospel: 12–13, 19–23, 25, 42 n. 17, 43, 78, 87–88, 94, 95 n. 93, 97, 115, 126–29, 131 n. 1, 135, 139, 142, 148–49, 152, 158–61, 171, 181–96 Hebrew words in: 58, 71, 74, 76, 117 n. 10 local traditions: 66–67, 74 punctuation: 12, 34, 63, 66, 68, 70, 72 rhythm: 89–91 tempo: 91–92 and textual layout: 43–47, 49–50, 52 tones: 74–89 treatises: 67–90, 92–94 Old Testament: 21, 28, 68, 77, 82 Visigothic: 93 cantor: 20, 28 n. 6, 36, 50, 59–61, 65, 67, 105, 110 n. 59, 136, 137 n. 29, 148, 152, 171, 181–82, 202

capsa: 42, 187 cardinal deacon: 141, 143, 203–04, 209–10 Carthage: 29 Carthusian Order: 59, 67, 71 Cassiodorus (Magnus Aurelius Cassio­dorus Senator): 40 n. 5, 52 Institutiones: 52 cathedra: 119, 134, 139, 192 cathedral: 34, 41 n. 10, 66–67, 110, 119, 131, 137, 144, 145, 146, 149 n. 77, 153, 154, 155–56, 158 n. 99, 161, 174, 176 celebrant: 12, 15–16, 118, 161, 167, 183 n. 8, 187, 189–90 Celestine, pope: 98 n. 6 censer: 169, 186–87 Chalon-sur-Saône, Council of: 107 n. 47 chant: 11–14, 16–17, 19–27, 30, 34–37, 40–50, 52 n. 50, 53 n. 54, 57–60, 63–95, 97–98, 102, 104–05, 110–12, 115, 118, 126–29, 131 n. 1, 135–36, 140–43, 146, 148–49, 152–53, 156–63, 167–68, 171, 181–98, 201, 203, 205–06. 209. See also cantillation and singing. commentaries on: 13, 25, 92, 107 n. 39, 115, 118, 122, 128, 136, 143, 181, 191, 195 Gregorian: 14 n. 10, 90 Hispanic: 93 melismatic: 50, 90 neumatic: 90 ornamentation: 63, 94 pitch-specific notation: 12, 75, 93, 97 rhythm: 90 tempo: 91–92 tritone: 70

index

Charlemagne: 59 n. 77, 103 Admonitio generalis: 15 De litteris colendis: 103 Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor: 159 Charta caritatis: 58 Choir (singers): 13, 16, 65, 77, 92, 105, 135, 145–46, 152, 162, 181–82 184 monastic: 12 n. 3, 146 mendicant friars: 146 choir (structure): 72, 74, 92, 111, 133, 144, 146–62, 181 choir monk/nun: 100, 110–11 choir screen (jubé): 13, 18 n. 14, 152–53, 62, 154, 155–56, 156, 157–59, 159, 160–62 Arkadenlettner: 159 Walcourt, Belgium, Basilica of Saint-Materne: 159 Hallenlettner: 155–56 Königsberg [Kaliningrad], cathedral: 156 Naumburg, Sts Peter and Paul: 156 Intermedium (ponte): 153, 156, 158 Bern, Dominican church: 158 n. 100 Kanzellettner: 155 Friedberg, Stadtkirche Unseren Lieben Frau: 155 Rood screen, English: 160 Schrankenlettner: 154–55 Havelberg, Cathedral of St Mary: 154 choir stall: 152 Christmas: 41, 77 n. 45, 139, 203 Chrodegang, bishop of Metz: 146 Chrysologus, Peter, bishop of Ravenna: 134 Chrysostom, John: 123, 133–34 church: 12–14, 17, 19–20, 23–24, 30–32, 34, 36, 39, 41, 60–61, 64, 66, 70, 94, 107, 111 n. 62,

114–28, 131–33, 137–44, 146–50, 152, 155, 158, 160–65, 167–69, 171, 174, 176–77, 183–84, 189–92, 194, 196. See also Rome. Baroque: 174 collegiate: 66, 158 n. 99 ‘house church’: 19 left and right in: 12, 115, 120–22 mendicant: 158, 160 monastic: 132 n. 8, 144–46 nave: 13, 124–25, 133, 137, 140, 142–44 146–49, 152, 155, 159–60, 187–88, 190 pew: 131 n. 3 orientation of: 115–20, 127–28 Rococo: 174 separation of the sexes in: 122–25 stational: 41–42, 142 Cicero, Marcus Tullius: 46 n. 19, 95, 98 De oratore: 64, 93 Cirta (Algeria): 29 Cistercian Order: 36, 58–59, 67–68, 74, 76, 91 n. 69 cantillation: 68 accentuation guide: 58 Charta caritatis: 58 Cîteaux, abbey of: 58 Clairvaux, abbey of: 67, 69 Clement II, pope: 178 Clement of Alexandria: 116 n. 8, 117 clergy: 16, 18, 20 n. 29, 22, 26–34, 37,67, 94, 98, 100, 103–05, 110–14, 119, 123, 125, 132, 139–40, 158, 163–64, 167, 169, 171, 177, 179, 182–85, 187, 195, 201 administration: 32 n. 30, 107 discipline: 33 n. 36, 107 hierarchy: 18, 20 n. 29, 29, 32–33 167, 169, 172 n. 76, 183 interstices: 33

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and Latin: 110–14 papal: 31 religious: 114 secular: 34, 104, 114, 158, 195. See also canon. clericus: 30, 113 Cloveshoe (Clofesho), Council of, (747): 93 comes: 40–41, 57 Commodianus Instructiones: 28 communication: 11–12, 91, 100–03, 105–06, 204 oral: 11, 102 written: 12, 91, 105 Compendium musices […] qui Can­ torinus intitulatur: 82, 83–84, 85 Compiègne: 50 congregation: 12, 16, 18, 20–21, 23, 88, 107, 115, 118, 119 n. 23, 122, 125, 128, 134, 159, 184–85, 191–92, 193 n. 54, 204 participation at Mass: 20, 25, 185, 194 Constantine I (‘the Great’), emperor: 142 n. 55, 153 Constantinople: 134, 135 n. 23 convent: 112, 158 n. 102, 161 conversi: 111 Corbie Gradual: 50 Cornelius, pope: 28 Cranmer, Thomas Book of Common Prayer (1549): 17 Crucifixion: 121, 125, 155 n. 88, 159 n. 104, 160 cursus: 103 metric: 44 rhythmic: 44, 66 Cuthbert, St Gospel of: 41 n. 12, 46 Cyprian, St, bishop of Carthage: 20, 29, 132, 137 n. 28, 193

Dalmatia: 167, 169 D’Avranches, Jean, bishop of Rouen De officiis ecclesiasticis: 176 n. 44 deacon: 155–56, 163, 165 n. 7, 168–69, 170, 170–72, 174–77, 179, 183 n. 10, 197, 202 chanting the gospel: 12, 13 n. 7, 16, 19, 21m 23 n. 38, 24–25, 28, 32–33, 39–43, 78, 88 n. 59, 94, 107 n. 49, 115, 126–29, 134–35, 137–38, 140–43, 149, 152, 153 n. 81, 159, 185–96, 209–10 ordination of a: 32, 189 roles during Mass: 12, 13 n. 7 vestments: 143, 163, 165 n. 7, 168, 169, 170, 170–72, 174–77, 179, 197 Demosthenes: 46 n. 29, 64 n. 7 Desiderius, abbot of Monte Cassino: 144 Deutz, Rupert of De divinis officiis: 25, 129, 194 Diocletian, emperor: 29–30 Diomedes: 51 directionality: 12, 120, 122 n. 39, 125–29 distinctio: 51–53, 55 n. 62, 57, 68, 70–71 Divine Office: 13, 58, 105, 111, 146, 148, 153, 158, 160 Matins (night office): 31–32, 63, 65, 68, 70, 76, 153, 161 n. 112, 162, 207 Lauds: 153 Little hours (Prime, Terce, Sext, None): 153 Vespers: 153 Dominican Order: 67, 74–82, 91, 111 n. 62, 111 n. 64, 136 n. 25, 158, 177, 188, 189 n. 40, 189 n. 42 cantillation formulae: 67, 74–81

index

Correctorium sancti Jacobi: 75 Constitutions of (1241): 74 Missal: 177 General Chapter at Trier (1249): 158 Missa conventualis: 189 n. 40 Donatus, Aelius: 51, 52 n. 50, 55 n. 62 Ars grammatica: 51 Durand, Guillaume, bishop of Mende Rationale divinorum officiorum: 76 n. 42, 119, 123, 126, 129 n. 70, 143, 168, 175, 184, 186, 187 n. 26, 194 Easter: 29, 53, 156, 203 Mass: 203 n. 10 Vigil: 32, 76 n. 41, 141–42, 164, 181 n. 2, 190, 201, 203 education: 18 n. 20, 110–13 education (clerical and monastic): 30, 34, 103, 110–14, 195 literacy: 110–12 Egeria: 98 Diary of a Pilgrimage: 132 n. 8 Egypt: 13, 98, 118 n. 5 Einsiedeln Itinerary: 141 Elevation of the Host: 18 n. 14, 21 n. 33, 155, 157, 186 Ember Days: 32, 177, 203 England, Church of: 94 Epiphany: 41 Epistle, chanted at Mass: 12–13, 16, 20 n. 28, 32, 39–41, 43, 53, 57, 63–95, 115, 140 n. 47, 143, 148–49, 152, 161, 167–68, 176 n. 44, 181–84, 189–91, 195, 204 n. 13, 205–07, 209–10 tones for the: 63,68, 70, 77–78, 78, 85, 86, 87 equinox: 119

Erasmus, Desiderius Paraphrase on John: 196–97 etymology: 57, 59, 135–36, 184 Eucharist: 16, 18–21, 26, 28, 29 n. 14, 118, 123–24, 155, 157, 176 n. 43, 186 Elevation of the Host: 18 n. 14, 21 n. 33, 155, 157, 186 Europe: 19, 74, 113, 155, 167, 172, 174 Eusebius of Caesarea: 8, 28, 40, 153 n. 84 canon tables: 40 Historia ecclesiastica: 8, 28 Evangeliary of Henry II, 80, 81 exorcist: 28, 33, 168 Eynsham Customary of: 61 feasts: 40, 42, 76 n. 40, 138, 156, 161, 163, 171 n. 23, 174, 177, 188, 189 n. 40, 196, 208, 210 rank of: 41 n. 10, 91, 188, 189 n. 40, 210 vigil of: 177 Felicissimus, St: 169, 170 Felix of Burgundy, St: 29–30 Fleetwood, William, bishop of St Asaph Remarks and Observations: 94 formula (musical): 78, 82, 88–89, 171, 203 cadential: 67 cantillation: 12, 20, 30, 37, 46, 59, 66–67, 75, 93, 203 closing: 70 introductory: 74 question: 68 n. 19, 89 versus: 70, 78 France: 90, 101, 161 Francia: 15 n. 3, 103, 120, 126, 128 Francis, pope: 14 n. 10 Franciscan Friars: 34, 74, 82, 146, 153, 158, 162, 195

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French Revolution: 161 fresco: 142 Gaul: 97–98, 184 Gelasian Sacramentary: 31 Gentiles: 129, 143, 194–95 Germanus, bishop of Paris [attrib.] Expositio brevis antiquae liturgiae gallicanae: 107, 184 Germany: 21 n. 32, 155, 174 Giotto (di Bondone): 122 Gospel books: 40–44, 45–46, 46–48, 49, 165, 166, 168–69, 185–87, 190–91, 197, 209–10 Gospel (chanted at Mass): 12–13, 16, 19–23, 25, 27–28, 32, 38–49, 53, 63, 68, 70, 75 n. 35, 76, 78–79, 81–82, 85–88, 89, 94, 95 n. 93, 97, 115, 117, 121, 126–29, 131–32, 135, 137, 139–44, 148–49, 152, 157–62, 165–69, 171, 175, 177, 181–97, 203, 204 n. 13, 206–10 allegorical explanations: 193–98 capitulare evangeliorum: 38, 40–41 ceremonial: 13, 115, 184, 186, 189–92, 194 direction for readings of: 16, 115, 126–29, 191–95, 210 Dominican rite: 188, 189 n. 40, 189 n. 42 Gallican rite: 133 n. 10, 184–85 procession: 133 n. 10, 184, 187–88, 194 Roman rite: 186–90 Sarum rite: 188, 192 tones: 63, 68, 70, 78, 79, 81–82, 85, 86, 87–88, 88, 207–08 Göttingen: 72 Grado, Council of (1296): 94 grammar: 34, 51, 53, 59, 71, 91 n. 67, 99–100, 103–04, 108, 185 n. 18

Grande Chartreuse, monastery: 59 Grassis, Paride de, bishop of Pesaro Ceremoniarum opusculum: 161, 191 n. 46, 192 n. 50 Gratian: 110 Greece (ancient): 43 Gregory I, pope (‘Gregory the Great’): 22, 31, 98, 104, 107, 134, 141, 164 n. 4, 171 Gregory II, pope: 105, 140 Gregory III, pope: 124 Gregory IV, pope: 169, 170 Gregory of Nazianzen: 134 Gregory of Tours: 99, 132 Grosseteste, Robert Correctorium tocius biblie: 59 Guerric of Igny: 121 Guidetti, Giuseppe Directorium Chori: 85–89 Guido of Arezzo Regule ritimice: 110 n. 59 Gutenberg Bible: 53 n. 54 Hadrian, pope: 164, 203 Hadrian, St, abbot of Canterbury: 104 Hagia Sophia, church of: 134–37, 148 hands, laying on of: 28, 32–33 Hatfield, Council of, (690): 105 n. 38 Havelberg, cathedral of St Mary: 154, 155, 160 Haydn, Michael Deutsches Hochamt: 21 n. 32 hebdomadarian: 70, 76 Heliopolis: 116 n. 5 Helisachar, abbot of Saint-Riquier: 57 Henry II, St, Holy Roman Emperor: 80–81, 145–46

index

Henry VIII, king of England: 113 Herard of Tours Capitula synodica: 26 Hildemar, abbot of Corbie:55–57 Himerius, bishop of Tarragona: 33 Hippo, Council of, (393): 33 n. 38 Hippo Regius: 29, 98 homiliary: 74 homilies (patristic): 107–08 Honorius Augustodunensis Gemma animae: 125–27, 129, 131 n. 1, 137 Honorius I, pope: 164, 165, 204 Honorius III, pope: 150 How to Hear Mass: 22 Humbert of Romans, Dominican Master General: 59, 91, 92 n. 72, 111 Instructiones de officiis ordinis fratrum Praedicatorum: 59, 91 hymn: 65, 90 n. 61, 92 illiterati: 30 n. 21, 110 incense: 19, 42, 116, 141, 170–71, 187, 189, 191, 209–10 injunction: 15, 17, 189 Innocent I, pope: 33 Innocent III, pope (Lothar of Segni): 129, 143, 195, 203 n. 8 De sacro altaris mysterio: 129, 143 Innocent X, pope: 142 Institutio canonicorum: 36 Instruction. See education (clerical). Intonation: 26, 106 Ireland: 106 Isaiah, prophet: 27, 131 Isidore of Seville, St: 24, 28, 34–35, 51–53, 55 n. 62, 57 n. 66, 71 n. 26, 89–90, 92–93, 103 n. 27, 116 n. 8, 136, 169 n. 15

De ecclesiasticis officiis: 24, 28, 34, 90, 92, 199–204 Etymologiae: 35, 51–53, 57 n. 66, 92–93, 116 n. 8, 136 Isis, cult of: 116 Ivo of Chartres Sermones de ecclesiasticis sacramentis: 194 Jeremiah, prophet: 113 n. 76, 129, 195 Jerome, St: 44, 46 Contra Vigilantium: 187–88 John, St Gospel of: 46, 81, 196 John II, pope monogram of: 148 John IV, pope: 167 John VI, pope: 139–40 John VII, pope: 139–40 John ‘archicantator’, 105 John the Baptist: 88, 117, 182, 184, 195 John the Deacon: 164 n. 4 Jonas, bishop of Orléans De institutione laicali: 24 jubé. See choir screen. Justin Martyr Apologia: 19, 27 Justinian, emperor: 123, 134, 148 Klosterschule. See monastery; school. laity: 12–13, 119, 195 children: 24 n. 47, 112 deportment at Mass: 21–25, 97, 195 gender division in church: 13, 153, 157–58 and literacy: 13, 100, 110–14 participation in the Mass: 12, 16–19, 21–26 Lanfranc, archbishop of Canterbury: 61

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Langforde Meditation in the Time of the Mass: 22, 129, 179, 183 n. 8 language: 12–13, 17, 19, 47, 50–52, 58–59, 70, 90–95, 97–114, 171, 184, 204 Anglo-Saxon: 114 Germanic: 13 n. 6, 114 eastern European: 114 illiterati: 30 n. 21, 110 Latin: 12–14, 16 n. 8, 17–18, 21–22, 24, 39, 44, 58, 81, 87–90, 97–114, 118, 139, 182–83, 190–92, 195, 201–04 litterati: 110, 113 morphology: 13, 101 n. 21, 104 orthography: 59, 101–04 pronunciation: 12, 36, 57, 59, 70, 92–94, 101–06, 108–09 Romance: 13, 58, 97, 99–102, 107–08, 112 rustica romana lingua: 108–10 syntax: 47, 50, 52, 63, 68, 101, 104 vernacular: 13, 58, 91 n. 67, 95, 97, 99– 102, 107–09, 112, 195 vocabulary: 104, 106, 108 Lateran Baptistery (Rome): 165, 167 Oratory of St Venanzio: 165 Lateran Council, Fourth (1215): 157 Latin: 12–14, 16 n. 8, 17–18, 21–22, 24, 44, 58, 87–90, 97–114, 118, 139, 182–83, 190–92, 195, 201–04 accentuation: 58–59, 90 clerical knowledge of: 110 knowledge among laity: 110–14 in England: 104 pronunciation: 104 and Romance vernaculars: 97, 99–100, 102, 104–10, 112 rustica romana lingua: 108–10 Lawrence, St: 166, 168–69

Lay Folkes’ Mass Book, The: 15, 21–23, 25, 110, 114, 131, 157, 197 lectern: 13, 32, 132 n. 7, 148, 152, 182–83, 189 n. 40 lector: 12, 13 n. 7, 20, 27–37, 40–41, 43–44, 48, 55, 58–61, 66–70, 72, 76, 81, 87, 89, 92–95, 97, 103 n. 27, 113, 132–33, 136, 139, 203, 206–07 age of: 28–29, 32–33 appointment of a: 27, 29–30 blessing of a: 28, 30–32 Frankish: 31–32 the ‘ideal’ lector: 12, 34–37 origins: 28–29 and rank: 27–29, 33, 168 rite of commissioning a: 12, 30–31, 132 Roman: 30–31 vestments: 28 n. 7 Lector ut intento. See Accentus orationis. Lent: 76 n. 40, 140 Leo III, pope: 42, 187 n. 29 lesson: 20, 68, 101 n. 17, 197, 207–08. See also reading. letters: 14 n. 10, 20, 28–30, 33, 55, 59 n. 77, 98 n. 6, 103, 119, 132, 137 n. 28 papal: 14 n. 10, 28, 33 Lettner. See choir screen. Liber politicus: 140 Liber pontificalis: 42, 124, 139–40, 141 n. 51, 169, 172 Liber quare: 128 Liber Usualis: 67 n. 16 Lieder: 21 n. 32 litany: 26 literacy clerical: 112–14 lay: 111–12 liturgical drama: 156

index

liturgy: 11, 13–16, 18–19, 22, 25–26, 39–42, 50, 63, 65–66, 74–75, 91, 93, 95, 102–03, 109–10, 115, 142–43, 146, 161, 168, 172, 177, 181–86, 201–02 allegorical interpretations of: 136 n. 27, 185 n. 19, 193–97 calendar of: 41 n. 12, 42, 95 n. 89, 142, 172, 182 commentaries on the: 13, 25, 92, 107 n. 39, 115, 118, 122, 128, 136, 143, 181, 191, 195 papal: 42, 202 and Protestant reformers: 16, 19, 192 Sanctorale: 42 Temporale: 42 Luke, St Gospel of: 27, 40–41, 82 n. 52, 117, 121 Luther, Martin: 12, 16–17, 86–89, 119 n. 23 Deudsche Messe: 12, 86–89 Lyon, cathedral of: 119 Mainz, Council of (847): 107 n. 47 Magdeburg, cathedral of: 155 n. 89 Major Litanies: 40 Malachy, prophet: 55, 117 Malabranca, Cardinal Latino Ceremonial of: 189 Maniacutius, Nicolas: 59 manuscripts: 30 n. 18, 39–41, 50, 55, 57 n. 67, 59, 66 n. 13, 67 n. 16, 68, 71–75, 108, 141, 143, 176 n. 45, 189 n. 40, 201 Basel, Universitätsbibl., B II 11, 49 London, British Library, add. ms. 89000, 46 Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibl., clm 4452, 80, 81 Paris, BnF, lat. 266, 38, 41

Paris, BnF, lat. 8849, 45 Paris, BnF, lat. 9452, 56, 57 n. 67 Vatican City, BAV, Arch. S. Pietro, B 78, 141–42 Zurich, Zentralbibl., MS, C 77, 54 Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, emperor: 27 Marmoutier, abbey: 48 Marsicano, Leo, cardinal-bishop of Ostia: 145 Mary, Virgin (mother of Jesus): 121, 160 Mass Agnus dei: 25–26, 204 n. 15 alleluia: 148, 152, 176, 181–82, 186, 188, 209 Benedictus: 25 Canon of: 15–16, 15, 118, 157 ceremonial: 13, 16, 18, 115, 184, 186, 189–92, 194 collect: 16, 66 n. 15, 87 communion: 16, 18–21, 26, 28, 29 n. 14, 118, 123–24, 155, 157, 176 n. 43, 186. See also Eucharist. epistle: 12–13, 16, 20 n. 28, 32, 39–41, 43, 53, 57, 63–88, 91 n. 67, 115, 140 n. 47, 143, 148–49, 152, 161, 167–68, 176 n. 44, 181–84, 189–91, 195, 204 n. 13, 205–07, 209–10 Elevation of the Host: 18 n. 14, 21 n. 33, 155, 157, 186 Gallican: 133 n. 10, 184 Gloria: 25–26, 65, 78, 120, 179 gospel: 12–13, 16, 19–23, 25, 27–28, 32, 38–49, 53, 63, 68, 70, 75 n. 35, 76, 78–79, 81–82, 85–88, 89, 94, 95 n. 93, 97, 115, 117, 121, 126–29, 131–32, 135, 137, 139–44, 148–49, 152, 157–62,

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165–69, 171, 175, 177, 181–97, 203, 204 n. 13, 206–10 introit: 147 n. 70, 170, 186 Kyrie: 25–26, 120 lay participation in: 12, 16–19, 21–26 Ordinary: 16–17, 25–26, 34 papal: 15, 126, 170, 186, 190, 203–04 Pater noster: 16 Pontifical: 171 n. 23 postcommunion: 16 Preface: 25, 65, 118 private: 183 n. 8 processions: 19, 26, 48, 123, 133 n. 10, 135, 167, 170–71, 184–89, 191, 194, 210 Proper: 16, 34, 50 n. 44 Requiem: 32, 187 n. 28 responses: 20, 25–26, 70, 78, 90 n. 65, 182, 185, 187 n. 27, 210 responsory: 65, 70, 148 ritual: 12, 18–19, 91, 142, 177, 181, 186, 190, 191 n. 46, 196 Sanctus: 15–16, 25–26, 65, 157 Scripture readings at: 11–16, 19–22, 24–25, 27, 32, 34, 40–41, 58–59, 63, 66–67, 75, 85, 93, 97, 109–10, 132, 136, 153, 156, 162–63, 171, 192, 200, 204 separation of the sexes at: 115, 122–27 Solemn: 12, 19, 181 n. 1, 183, 186, 191 tract: 148, 183 n. 8, 203, 209 ‘Tridentine’, 181 n. 1 vestments: 13–14, 19, 28 n. 6, 143, 159, 163–79, 181, 183 n. 8, 186–87, 189, 195, 197, 202, 209 Words of Institution: 15 Matthew, St Gospel of: 40, 44, 88, 117, 122, 131, 175, 182

Maurus, Hrabanus De institutione clericorum: 48 n. 81, 90 n. 63, 92 n. 74, 103 n. 27, 136 n. 26, 172 Maximianus, bishop of Ravenna: 123, 168, 169 Mediterranean: 98 melisma: 50, 90 mendicant friars. See Dominican, Franciscan. Merita Missae: 23 metrum: 68, 70–71, 197–98 Michelangelo (di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni) Last Judgement: 122 Milan church of Sant’Ambrogio: 138 church of Sant’Eustorgio: 158 ministers: 16, 98, 123, 153 n. 81, 163–64, 171, 174, 176–77, 183 n. 6, 197 commissioned: 13 n. 7 ordained: 13 n. 7, 163 mise-en-page per cola et commata: 43–47, 52, 60 n. 78 two-column: 44 Missal: 12, 16, 31, 75, 98, 161, 177, 178 n. 53, 181 n. 1, 182, 183 n. 5, 190–92, 203 n. 5 Missale Francorum: 31, 98 Missale Gothicum: 98 Missale Romanum: 12, 178 n. 53, 181 n. 1, 182, 183 n. 5, 190–92 Mithraeum: 115, 116 n. 4 Mithras, cult of: 115–16 Moléon, Sieur de Voyages liturgiques: 161 monastery: 13 n. 7, 29 n. 9, 36, 58, 66–67, 91, 103, 105–06, 111, 114, 161, 163, 196, 201 abbot: 36

index

cantor: 105 church and choir (plan of St Gall): 144 school: 29 n. 9 monk: 31 n. 26, 34, 37, 61, 65, 70 n. 20, 98 n. 3, 100, 103–06, 110–11, 114, 133, 146, 153, 162 choir: 100, 110–11 Monkwearmouth-Jarrow, abbey of: 105 Mont-Blandin gradual: 50 Monte Cassino, monastic church of: 144 Monza cantatorium: 50 morphology: 13, 101 n. 21, 104 mosaic: 117 n. 10, 123, 133, 138, 152, 164–65, 165, 167, 169 Muñoz, Antonio: 149 Murbach, abbey of: 41 music theory: 65 n. 10, 70, 90 Myrc [aka Mirk], John Instructions for Parish Priests: 23 mystery play: 156 Naples: 104 Naumburg, cathedral of: 156, 156–57 Nazareth: 27 Neefs, Pieter (‘the Elder’): 153 n. 86 Nicaea, Second Council of (787): 32 Nicene Creed: 122 Nicholas I, pope: 139 Northumbria: 105 notation (musical): 49–50, 57, 66, 68, 71, 74–90, 93, 97, 105 adiastematic: 93 alphabetic: 72 n. 29 clivis: 82 podatus: 82 rhythmic: 85 nun: 100, 110–11, 114

oral tradition: 11, 66, 102 oratory: 93, 124, 165, 167 ordination: 28, 30, 32, 105, 132, 139, 174–76, 183, 189, 203 of a deacon: 28, 32 episcopal: 28, 105 Mass: 189 of a priest: 28 of a subdeacon: 32 vestments: 174–76 ordo: 136, 178, 183 Ordo Romanus 1, 15, 20, 42 n. 18, 65, 120 ,123–24, 157 n. 98, 170, 171 n. 22, 176, 181, 186–88, 190, 204 Ordo Romanus 3, 15, 176 Ordo Romanus 4, 15, 20, 120, 171, 181, 188 Ordo Romanus 5, 126, 182, 188 Ordo Romanus 11, 201 n. 1 Ordo Romanus 15, 15 n. 4, 25 Ordo Romanus 23, 201 Ordo Romanus 24, 181 n. 2 Ordo Romanus 27, 181 n. 2 Ordo Romanus 28, 201, 203 Ordo Romanus 29, 164 Ordo Romanus 35, 30–31 Ordo Romanus 36, 139 Ordo Romanus 37A, 77 n. 44 organ: 48, 156–57 orthography: 59, 101–04 Oswald de Corda Opus pacis: 59, 71–72 Otmar, St: 144 Ottoboni, Cardinal Fiesco: 113 Palestrina, Giovanni Pierluigi da: 85 n. 54 panegyric: 153 n. 84 Panvinio, Onofrio De praecipuis urbis Romae sancioribusque basilicis: 143 parchment: 22, 47

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Paris: 112, 161 abbey of St Victor: 61 church of Saint-Étienne-duMont: 161 Paschal I, pope: 141 n. 51, 167 n. 9 Paschal candle: 141, 149, 164, 201 n. 1 Passion (biblical): 125, 179 chanting of the: 64 n. 5, 88, 208 Passion Sunday: 195 Patroclus, bishop of Arles: 33 Paul, St (the Apostle): 11, 22, 28, 31, 33, 39–40, 77–78, 82, 85, 91 n. 67, 125, 179 n. 55, 195 epistles of: 20, 28, 39–40, 77, 82, 91 n. 67 Paulinus of Nola: 29 Pecham (Peckham), John, archbishop of Canterbury De informatione simplicium (1281): 23 Pelagius I, pope: 139, 141 n. 50 Pelagius II, pope: 139 n. 37, 141, 150 Pentecost: 32, 203 pericope: 39–42, 57, 63, 81, 85, 101–02, 112, 187, 196, 204 Peter, St (the Apostle): 22, 31, 41, 85, 105 n. 37, 165 n. 6 Peter of Auxerre: 184 Petronius (Gaius Petronius Arbiter) Satyricon: 121 Philo of Alexandria De vita contemplative: 116, 122 phonation: 34, 101–02 phonology: 13 Platina, Bartolomeo: 139 n. 38 Plutarch: 116 poetry: 22, 94 n. 82, 119, 138–39, 142, 197 n. 72, 198 acrostic: 28 encomiastic: 134

Pola Casket: 124–25 Polycarp, St: 20 Pontifical: 26 n. 57, 42, 124, 132, 141 n. 51, 169, 172, 204 n. 13 of Giovanni Barozzi: 204 n. 13 of Guillaume Durand: 175 n. 39 Roman: 132 (of Benedict XIV): 175 (12th c.) Romano-Germanic: 32, 34, 174–75 pope, liturgical role of: 30–31, 41 n. 10, 111, 123–24, 143, 169, 170, 176, 186–87, 189, 191 n. 46, 202–03, 209 positura: 34, 51–53, 55, 66 n. 14, 71, 97 prayer: 15–17, 21, 23–24, 26–27, 31, 34, 50, 74, 91 n. 67, 98, 110, 113, 115–22, 132, 175, 177–79, 189–90, 197, 202–03 apologiae: 177 bidding: 34 devotional: 21, 23, 113, 195 direction of: 115–22 for the appointment of a lector: 27, 31, 132 Lord’s Prayer: 21, 26 in the morning: 115–17 of ordination: 27, 132, 175 personal: 21, 197 vesting: 177–79 preaching: 16, 19, 20 n. 28, 24, 74, 89, 91, 98–99, 107–08, 126, 128–29, 131, 133–34, 136–40, 143–44, 149, 184, 192–93, 195, 199 Premonstratensian (Norbertine) Order: 74 presbyterium: 19, 124, 140 n. 46, 146, 149–50, 170, 182, 187–88, 189 n. 40, 191 priest: 12, 14 n. 10, 15–19, 21, 23, 25–26, 28, 32 n. 30, 66, 70 n. 20,

index

76, 91 n. 67, 93, 95, 107, 112, 114, 116, 118, 134, 136, 153, 157, 163–64, 172, 174, 176–7m 178 n. 53, 179, 183, 186 n. 21, 187 n. 25, 189 n. 42, 191, 192 n. 51, 194–96 procession: 19, 26, 48, 123, 133 n. 10, 135, 167, 170–71, 184–89, 191, 194, 210 Gospel: 133 n. 10, 170–71, 184–86, 187 n. 25, 188–89, 194 introit: 170, 186 Processionarium Sacri Ordinis Praedicatorum (1949): 77–79 profession of faith: 105–06 pronuntiatio (Isidore): 35, 57, 89, 90 n. 62, 92–94, 199–200 modo dolentis: 92, 199 modo exhortantis: 92, 199 modo increpantis: 92, 199 modo indicantis: 92, 199 prophets (biblical): 19–20, 34, 39, 63, 76 n. 41, 184, 187 n. 32. See also individual names. prosody: 87 Prudens lector: 67–70 Prudentius: 138–39 psalm: 20, 28, 34, 56, 64, 87, 90 n. 62, 92, 121–22, 185, 202 as reading: 20 as response: 20 tone: 74 verse: 92 psalmody systems of: 74 Psalter: 39 Pugin, A. Welby: 153 n. 85 pulpit (pulpitum): 13, 128, 131–34, 136–37, 139–40, 143–44, 146, 147, 148, 149 n. 77, 152–53, 155, 158–59, 161–62, 186, 189 n. 40, 191–92, 209–10. See also ambo.

punctuation: 12, 34, 43–47, 50–61, 63–82, 85, 89–90, 97, 109, 114, 199–200 accent: 55–60 63–64, 67, 71–78, 82, 85, 89–90, 102, 109, 114, 200 Carolingian: 52–58 Carthusian: 71–72 Cistercian: 68–70 cola et commata: 43–47, 52, 55, 60, 66, 71, 87 distinctio: 50–59, 68, 70–71, 199 marks: 44, 52 n. 50, 53 n. 54, 55–56, 60, 66, 71 media distinctio: 71, 51, 53, 55 n. 62, 57 mediatio: 55, 75–78, 81–82 metrum: 68, 70–71, 197–98 modern: 50, 53 n. 54 periodus: 46 n. 30, 53, 55, 71, 87 placement: 51–53, 55, 58, 66, 75 positura: 34, 51–58, 66 n. 14, 71, 97 punctus: 51, 53, 55, 66, 68, 70–71 circumflexus: 71–72 elevatus: 55, 71–72 flexus: 55, 68, 70, 75–76, 78 interrogativus: 55, 71 questio: 72 versus: 55, 71–72 subdistinctio: 51, 52 n. 53, 53, 55 n. 62, 57 virgula: 53, 55 Quintilian (Marcus Fabius Quintilianus) Institutio oratoria: 34, 46 n. 30, 48, 64, 92 n. 75, 98 Ravenna: 123, 137–38, 168–69 cathedral: 138 church of Sant’Agata Maggiore: 137 church of Sant’A pollinare Nuovo: 123

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church of San Vitale: 168, 169 reading: 11–16, 19–32, 35–37, 39–61, 63–82, 85, 87–96, 99, 101–02, 105, 107–11, 113, 115, 125–29, 131–35, 139, 141–42, 144, 146, 148–49, 152–53, 157, 161 n. 112, 162–63, 164 n. 5, 171, 176–79, 181–98, 201–10 accentuation: 55–60, 63–64, 67, 71–78, 82, 85, 89–90, 102, 109, 114, 200 amplification of: 37, 132, 134 articulation: 35, 53, 55, 71 intelligibility of: 12–13, 17, 25–26, 35, 43–44, 51–52, 58, 68, 91 n. 67, 98–99, 102–04, 107–14, 136, 171, 182–83, 196–97, 204–06 Greek: 190, 201–04 patristic: 13 n. 7, 32, 63, 93, 107, 153 pronunciation: 12, 36, 57, 59, 70, 92, 101–09 pronuntiatio: 35, 57, 89, 90 n. 62, 92–94 199–200 private: 91 public: 11, 20, 58, 91 saccade: 47 tempo: 91–92 recitation: 11, 15–16, 21, 25–26, 63–64, 67, 70, 72, 76, 82, 85, 87 n. 58, 88, 93–95, 104, 175 n. 39 choral: 64 pitch: 26, 63, 70, 72, 76, 82, 85, 87 n. 58, 95 recitative: 63, 90, 95 Reformation: 12, 18–19, 112, 160 reformers: 16–19, 36, 192 Reims, Council of (813): 107 relics: 144, 161, 188 Renaissance: 87, 93, 112, 122 n. 39, 149, 160

Rheinau gradual: 50 rhetoric: 28, 47, 64, 92, 98–99, 197 rhyme: 103 rhythm: 35–36, 44, 46 n. 30, 48, 63, 66, 82, 85, 87, 89–90, 115 Riesenbach-Freisingen, Synod of (799): 26 rite: 12, 18, 28, 30–32, 34, 76 n. 41, 128, 132, 139, 171 n. 3, 174–75, 177, 184–88, 189 n. 42, 191–92 Dominican: 188, 189 n. 42 Gallican: 34, 184–85 Gelasian: 31 Roman: 30, 32, 76 n. 41, 139, 171 n. 23, 177 n. 47, 186–88, 189 n. 42, 191 Sarum: 113, 188, 192 Spanish: 34 ritual: 12, 14 n. 10, 18–19, 27, 31, 91, 95, 116, 142, 177, 181, 186, 190, 191 n. 46, 193 n. 54, 196 Rogation days: 177 Roman Empire: 98, 101, 110, 115, 121, 163 Rome: 29–31, 34, 41 n. 10, 43, 104–06, 116 n. 5, 120, 125, 131, 138–43, 147–48, 150, 152 n. 80, 160, 164–67, 169–70, 172, 175 n. 42, 176, 186 n. 21, 187 n. 26, 201 n. 2, 203–04 Rome, churches of Sant’Agnese: 164, 165 San Clemente: 146, 147, 148, 152 n. 80, 194 n. 61 Saint John Lateran: 41 n. 10, 142, 147 n. 70 Chapel of San Venanzio: 165, 167 San Lorenzo in Damaso: 168 San Lorenzo fuori le mura: 120 n. 26, 149, 150 San Marco: 169, 170

index

Santa Maria in Aracoeli: 120 n. 26, 149 n. 77 Santa Maria in Cosmedin: 149, 152 Santa Maria Maggiore: 41 n. 11, 139, 143 Santa Prassede: 141 n. 51, 167 n. 9 Santa Sabina: 125, 149, 160 Santi Silvestro e Martino ai Monti: 141 St Andrew, monastery of: 139, 164 n. 4 Sistine Chapel: 122 Tre Fontane, monastery of: 59 Rome, synod of (595): 171 rood screen. See choir screen. Rothad, bishop of Soissons: 139 Rouen cathedral of Notre-Dame: 161 rubrics: 12–13, 25, 31, 41, 120, 123–24, 128, 157 n. 98, 176 n. 43, 176 n. 45, 181–82, 188, 190–91, 192 n. 48, 196, 203–04 Rupert of Deutz De divinis officiis: 25, 129, 194 sacramentary Gelasian: 31 Gregorian: 203–04 papal: 25 sacrifice: 18, 58, 117, 121 n. 33, 123 Salomon, Hélie Scientia artis musice: 70, 90 Salzburg: 44 Sarum Customary: 126 n. 57, 192 Sarum Prymer: 113 Schubert, Franz Gesänge zur Feier des heiligen Opfers der Messe (Deutsche Messe): 21 n. 32 scribe: 44, 47–48, 50, 59–61, 67 script: 43–44, 47–53 Carolingian minuscule: 53

uncial: 53 scriptio continua: 43–44, 48, 50 Scripture, cantillation of: 11–16, 19–22, 24–25, 27, 30, 32, 34, 40–41, 58–59, 63, 66–67, 75, 85, 93, 97, 103, 109–10, 132, 136, 153, 156, 162–63, 171, 192, 200, 204 Senlis gradual: 50 Sergius I, pope: 26, 139–41, 204 n. 15 sermo humilis: 13, 98–99, 109, 114 sermons: 98–99, 107–09, 118, 121, 131, 138, 144, 161, 195 patristic: 107 Sermon on the Mount: 131 Sextuplex manuscripts: 49–50 Sicard of Cremona Mitrale: 25–26, 128–29, 168 n. 12, 173–74, 187 n. 32, 188, 193, 195 n. 66 Sidonius Apollinaris (Gaius Sollius Modestus Apollinaris Sidonius): 119 Siegebert, bishop of Minden: 178 Silentiarios, Paulos Ἔκφρασις: 119 Silvester, pope: 169, 172 singer: 16, 35–37, 50, 65, 88, 90, 92, 133, 135, 141 singing: 16–17, 20–21, 25–26, 28, 34–37, 50, 61, 63–65, 66 n. 14, 72, 81, 88, 90–93, 105, 120, 133, 135, 140–41, 161, 171, 181–82, 188, 202–03, 205–06. See also cantillation and chant. articulation: 92 and effeminacy: 36, 92 ideal qualities of: 34–37, 64–66, 90–92 modern techniques: 37 Singmesse: 21 n. 32 Siricius, pope: 32–34 Sixtus II, pope: 169 n. 16

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Sixtus III, pope: 139 n. 38 Sixtus V, pope: 160 sociolinguistics: 101 Socrates Historia ecclesiastica: 133–34 solea: 135, 147–48 Solesmes, abbey of: 89 Sozomen (Salamanes Hermias Sozomenos) Historia ecclesiastica: 134 Spain: 24, 93, 97 Stefaneschi, Cardinal Giacomo Ceremonial of: 189–90, 203–04, 209 St Gall, monastery of: 53, 144, 201 Stockholm Historiska Museum: 12 n. 3 St Peter’s Basilica (Vatican): 25, 42, 105, 117 n. 10, 124–25, 127, 139–43, 187 n. 29, 188 n. 37, 189 n. 43, 190 ambo: 139–43, 188 n. 37 Office of: 105 presbyterium: 124–25, 140 n. 46 St Andrew rotunda: 139 separation of the sexes in: 124–25, 127 tomb of St Peter: 125 St Pius X, Society of: 14 n. 10 Strabo, Walafrid Libellus de exordiis et incrementis: 119 n. 23, 120 structure of text: 30, 34, 46, 48, 61, 66, 72, 100, 105 subdeacon: 39, 41–43, 102, 115, 128, 143, 155, 161, 163, 170–72, 176 n. 44, 179, 181–84, 186–92, 202, 204, 209–10 vestments: 163, 166, 167–68, 170–72, 176 n. 44, 179 Summorum Pontificum: 14 n. 10 Sweden (village churches): 131 n. 4 Church of: 119 n. 23

Symmachus, pope: 164–65, 171 synagogue: 20, 27, 63, 119 n. 20, 123 n. 42 Tabarka mosaic: 133 Tempietto Longobardo (Cividale del Friuli): 133 temples (pagan) orientation of: 116–17, 119 n. 23, 121 Tertullian (Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus): 20, 117 n. 12 text: 27–28, 30–31, 34–35, 39–53, 57–61, 63–75, 81–82, 85, 87, 89–95, 97, 99, 101–08, 112, 115, 153, 171, 182, 187, 196–97, 199, 202–03. See also reading. accentuation: 55–60, 63–64, 67, 71–78, 82, 85, 89–90, 102, 109, 114, 200 articulation: 35, 53, 55, 71 comprehension of: 12–13, 17, 25–26, 35, 43–44, 51–52, 58, 68, 91 n. 67, 98–99, 102–04, 107–14, 136, 171, 182–83, 196–97, 204–06 cursus planus: 103 grammar: 34, 51, 53, 59, 71, 91 n. 67, 99–100, 103–04, 108 hagiographical: 13 n. 7, 109, 153 layout: 43–47, 52 nomen sacrum: 44 patristic: 13 n. 7, 32, 63, 93, 107, 153 pronunciation: 12, 36, 57, 59, 70, 92, 101–09 punctuation: 12, 34, 43–47, 50–61, 63–82, 85, 89–90, 97, 109, 114, 199–200 reading of: 11–16, 19–32, 35–37, 39–61, 63–82, 85, 87–96, 99, 101–02, 105, 107–11, 113, 115, 125–29, 131–35, 139, 141–42,

index

144, 146, 148–49, 152–53, 157, 161 n. 112, 162–63, 164 n. 5, 171, 176–79, 181–98, 201–10 scriptio continua: 43–44, 48, 50 sententia: 53, 55, 57, 75, 87 spelling: 59, 104 syntax: 68, 101, 104 word separation: 44–50 aerated (clumped): 43, 47–49, 52 equal separation: 43, 47 Theodore I, pope: 167 Theodore of Canterbury, St: 104 Therapeutae: 116, 122 Thiers, Jean- Baptiste: 161 thurifer: 186, 189 Toledo, Fourth Council of (633): 174 tonary: 70 tonsure: 30 Torah cantillation of: 13, 63 Tours St Martin, abbey of: 38, 41, 59–60, 103 Marmoutier, abbey of: 48–49 Tours, Council of (813): 107–09 tract: 148, 183 n. 8, 203, 209 training. See education (clerical). tramezzo. See choir screen. transept: 12, 188 transenna: 147, 152 transmission: 12, 110, 204 oral: 12 n. 5, 66 Trent Council of: 19 n. 23, 24, 160 Catechism of: 183 n. 10 tribunal. See ambo. Trisagion: 185 Tunisia: 133 Tyre, cathedral of: 153

Ugonio, Pompeo Historia delle Stationi di Roma: 160 Ulrich of Augsburg, St: 166–67 Ulrich of Cluny: 106 university education: 112–14 Ursus, bishop of Benevento: 55 Vaison, Council of: 107 n. 49 Valerian, emperor of Rome: 169 n. 16 Vanelli, Achille: 149 n. 74 Vatican Council II, 14 n. 10, 171 n. 23 Venantius, St: 167 vernacular: 91 n. 67, 95, 97, 99–109, 112, 195 Romance: 13, 58, 97, 99–102, 104, 106–09, 112 versicle: 16, 25, 90 versus: 53 n. 54, 55, 68–73, 75–76, 78, 81 vestments: 13–14, 19, 28 n. 6, 143, 159, 163–79, 181, 183 n. 8, 186–87, 189, 195, 197, 202, 209 alb: 167–68, 171, 177–79 amice: 168, 177 chasuble: 163, 166–67, 170, 172, 175–78. See also planeta. of St Ulrich, Augsburg, Dommuseum St Afra: 166, 167 cincture (baltheo): 168, 177, 179 clavi: 169, 174 compagi: 165 dalmatic: 143, 159, 164 n. 4, 165, 168–70, 170, 171–73, 173, 174–78, 178, 179 Wittichen Abbey, BadenWürttemberg: 173, 174 Glockenkasel: 167 maniple (sudarium): 168, 169 n. 14, 178

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pallium: 164–65, 167 planeta (chasuble): 163–65, 166, 167, 169–71, 175–77, 178 n. 51, 181, 183 n. 8, 186–87, 202 planeta plicata: 175–77 stola latior: 177 stole: 28 n. 6, 164, 174–77, 178 n. 53 subtile: 178 n. 12, 179 talaris: 168 n. 12 tunicle (tunicella): 167–68, 171–72, 178–79, 189, 209 udones: 165 vesting prayers: 177–79 Victor of Vita, bishop of Byzacena: 29, 133 Vigil: 116, 164, 177, 203–04 Easter: 32, 76 n. 41, 141–42, 164, 181 n. 2, 190, 201, 203–04 Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro): 98 Vigilius, pope: 139 Viso de sillabis: 71–72 Vitruvius De architectura: 116–17, 121 voice. See singing. Vulgate: 98, 117 n. 10 Weiberschule: 123 Weyden, Rogier van den: 122 whispering: 12, 15, 17, 21 Willibald, bishop of Eichstätt Vita Bonifatii: 105 Willigis, bishop of Mainz: 167 n. 10 women: 13 n. 7, 97, 111–13, 169 in church: 122–28, 193 Worcester Antiphoner: 52 n. 50 Zosimus, pope: 33

Ritus et Artes All volumes in this series are evaluated by an Editorial Board, strictly on academic grounds, based on reports prepared by referees who have been commissioned by virtue of their specialism in the appropriate field. The Board ensures that the screening is done independently and without conflicts of interest. The definitive texts supplied by authors are also subject to review by the Board before being approved for publication. Further, the volumes are copyedited to conform to the publisher’s stylebook and to the best international academic standards in the field. Titles in Series The Medieval Cathedral of Trondheim: Architectural and Ritual Constructions in their European Context, ed. by Margrete Syrstad Andås, Øystein Ekroll, Andreas Haug, and Nils Holger Petersen (2007) Creations: Medieval Rituals, the Arts, and the Concept of Creation, ed. by Sven Rune Havsteen, Nils Holger Petersen, Heinrich W. Schwab, and Eyolf Østrem (2007) Medieval Ritual and Early Modern Music: The Devotional Practice of Lauda Singing in Late-Renaissance Italy, ed. by Eyolf Østrem and Nils Holger Petersen, (2008) Negotiating Heritage: Memories of the Middle Ages, ed. by Mette B. Bruun and Stephanie Glaser (2009) Resonances: Historical Essays on Continuity and Change, ed. by Nils Holger Petersen, Eyolf Østrem, and Andreas Bücker (2011) Rituals, Performatives, and Political Order in Northern Europe, c. 650–1350, ed. by Wojtek Jezierski, Lars Hermanson, Hans Jacob Orning, and Thomas Småberg (2015) Music, Liturgy, and the Veneration of Saints of the Medieval Irish Church in a European Context, ed. by Ann Buckley (2017) The Idea of the Gothic Cathedral: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Meanings of the Medieval Edifice in the Modern Period, ed. by Stephanie A. Glaser (2018) Martin Wangsgaard Jürgensen, Ritual and Art across the Danish Reformation: Changing Interiors of Village Churches, 1450–1600 (2018)