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5 pages, 186 KiB

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Introduction: The Charisma of Liturgy in the Middle Ages

by Jaume Aurell

Religions 2022, 13(6), 566; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13060566 - 19 Jun 2022

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1334

Abstract

This collective volume is devoted to the various manifestations of liturgy in the Middle Ages, based on a great variety and wealth of primary sources [...] Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Liturgy in the Middle Ages)

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15 pages, 816 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Rituals of Victory: The Role of Liturgy in the Consecration of Mosques in the Castilian Expansion over Islam from Eleventh to Thirteenth Centuries

by Marisa Bueno Sánchez

Religions 2022, 13(5), 379; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13050379 - 20 Apr 2022

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2491

Abstract

Scholarly work on the conquest of Muslim cities in the so-called Castilian Reconquista has focused largely on political consequences rather than conquest rituals. Against the previous background, this article turns attention toward civil and religious rituals associated with the Christian conquest of Muslim [...] Read more.

Scholarly work on the conquest of Muslim cities in the so-called Castilian Reconquista has focused largely on political consequences rather than conquest rituals. Against the previous background, this article turns attention toward civil and religious rituals associated with the Christian conquest of Muslim cities as an expression of triumph. Among these rituals, the conversion of the congregational mosques has been discussed in chronicles and liturgical books that reveals the role of liturgy to understand both appropriation and sacralization of the mosque to remove these places from Muslim control, restoring the Christian faith in the new churches. These rituals are an evident legacy of Roman law modified in late antiquity, and this paper’s main aim is to highlight the re-use of preexisting Church consecration ceremonies gathered in the Roman Pontifical in order to clean up the “Mohammedan filth” applied to post-Reconquista churches. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Liturgy in the Middle Ages)

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15 pages, 1275 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Revenging Vestments: On the Chasubles of the Bishops Ildefonsus and Adaulfus (Toledo and Compostela, Tenth–Twelfth Centuries)

by Abel Lorenzo-Rodríguez

Religions 2022, 13(4), 338; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13040338 - 09 Apr 2022

Viewed by 1770

Abstract

This article will analyze the miracle of St. Ildefonsus’ chasuble (606–667) from the point of view of miracles of punishment. In comparison to previous studies, on this occasion, the Toledan story will be reconsidered not only together with that of St. Bonitus of [...] Read more.

This article will analyze the miracle of St. Ildefonsus’ chasuble (606–667) from the point of view of miracles of punishment. In comparison to previous studies, on this occasion, the Toledan story will be reconsidered not only together with that of St. Bonitus of Clermont (620–700), but also in light of the similarities with the miracle of the bishop Adaulfus II of Compostela (ninth century), and the possible late antique inspiration of both from the Libellus Precum and from Gregory of Tours´ hagiographies. The stories that involve Ildefonsus and Adaulfus have strong similarities in the development of their sainthoods and in the importance that is given to liturgical vestments. Both are sanctified as prelates, which is due to their miraculous possession of external attributes because of their merits when facing unfair trials. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Liturgy in the Middle Ages)

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22 pages, 2120 KiB

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Commemorating a Providential Conquest in Valencia: The 9 October Feast

by Francesc Granell Sales

Religions 2022, 13(4), 301; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13040301 - 30 Mar 2022

Viewed by 1861

Abstract

From 1338 onwards, the inhabitants of late-medieval Valencia celebrated a feast every 9 October commemorating the entrance into the city of King James I’s forces on that day in 1238. It has been argued that this was essentially a spiritual display from its [...] Read more.

From 1338 onwards, the inhabitants of late-medieval Valencia celebrated a feast every 9 October commemorating the entrance into the city of King James I’s forces on that day in 1238. It has been argued that this was essentially a spiritual display from its establishment in 1338 until the beginning of the fifteenth century. The present study delves deeper into the religious and political aims of the feast from its origins, framing the celebration within a broader Mediterranean context. The first part analyses the 9 October feast in relation to two medieval liturgies that also commemorated crusading victories against Islam: the “Feast of the Liberation of Jerusalem” and the “Feast of the Banner of Majorca”. The second part focuses on the combination of performance and images during the ceremony, leading to the conclusion that the 9 October procession had similar goals to those in Jerusalem and Majorca. Indeed, the ceremony intended to convey an interpretation of the conquest as the continuation of Biblical history because it visibly and orally aligned the capture of Valencia with divine will and the sacred Scriptures. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Liturgy in the Middle Ages)

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18 pages, 4360 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Political Dimension of Liturgical Prayers of Remembrance: Lists of Rulers in the Confraternity Books of the Carolingian Period

by Eva-Maria Butz

Religions 2022, 13(3), 263; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13030263 - 19 Mar 2022

Viewed by 2624

Abstract

The confraternity books (Libri vitae) of the Early Middle Ages record the names of individuals to be remembered in liturgical prayer. Since the middle of the 20th century, they have come more sharply into focus as historical source material. The records of rulers [...] Read more.

The confraternity books (Libri vitae) of the Early Middle Ages record the names of individuals to be remembered in liturgical prayer. Since the middle of the 20th century, they have come more sharply into focus as historical source material. The records of rulers were of particular interest even then. In order to understand the lists of rulers in the Liber Vitae, the first subject of study is the development of prayers of remembrance for the living and the dead, and the subsequent emergence and shaping of liturgical commemoration of the ruler from late antiquity to the Carolingian period. These diverse developments merge with those of the liturgical Memoria in the confraternity books, indicating that the monasteries, in particular, were important keepers of monarchical Memoria. Taking as examples the Salzburg Liber Vitae (783) and the Reichenau Confraternity Book (824), the steps and methods are followed through and the lists of rulers interpreted in their historical context. The two confraternity books prove to be a source for the legitimisation of Carolingian sovereignty, particularly in terms of substantiating it historically and securing it liturgically. The regional perspective of each monastic community plays a major role here. Complex reference and interpretative systems are exposed in the confraternity books, whose orderliness, structure and prayer also served as a counterbalance to the disorder and crisis prevalent in the world. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Liturgy in the Middle Ages)

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23 pages, 370 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Liturgy and Learning: The Encyclopaedic Function of the Old English Martyrology

by John Joseph Gallagher

Religions 2022, 13(3), 236; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13030236 - 10 Mar 2022

Viewed by 1906

Abstract

This article examines the broad, encyclopaedic ambit of the scholarly information contained in the ninth-century Old English Martyrology. Martyrologies generally serve as para-liturgical resources outlining the contours of the liturgical year and the biographies of the saints commemorated throughout its course. However, [...] Read more.

This article examines the broad, encyclopaedic ambit of the scholarly information contained in the ninth-century Old English Martyrology. Martyrologies generally serve as para-liturgical resources outlining the contours of the liturgical year and the biographies of the saints commemorated throughout its course. However, the Old English Martyrology, the earliest European example of a vernacular, prose martyrology, adapts the genre into a more multivalent, scholarly handbook that instructs and informs its users—generally, practitioners of the liturgy—in a variety of topics. Subjects covered in the text include geography, language, hagiography, temporal reckoning, computus, astronomy, cosmology, meteorology, science, liturgy, and learning of a general Christian nature pertaining to the saints and the liturgical year. The present volume considers the impact of liturgy upon various facets of medieval intellectual, cultural, religious, political, and social life. The article at hand considers how the liturgical year is used as the framework around which instruction, edification, and general ecclesiastical learning might be imparted. While liturgical texts generally constitute formulae to be enacted by practitioners, para-liturgical resources provide background information that is germane to the liturgy, the liturgical year, and ecclesiastical life. This article begins with an examination of the development of the kalendar of the saints and the genre and form of the martyrology. It moves on to examine the different types of scholarly learning contained in the Old English Martyrology, the purpose of such details for the professional religious user, and what this information tells us about the text’s application. Overall, this article considers the Old English Martyrology as an interdisciplinary manual dealing with liturgy, the liturgical cycle of the saints, and the subjects it impinges upon. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Liturgy in the Middle Ages)

20 pages, 411 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Political Funeral of Isabella the Catholic in Rome (1505): Liturgical Hybridity and Succession Tension in a Celebration Misere a la Italiana et Ceremoniose a la Spagnola

by Álvaro Fernández de Córdova

Religions 2022, 13(3), 228; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13030228 - 08 Mar 2022

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2290

Abstract

Based on the interest aroused by royal funerals at the end of the Middle Ages, this paper analyses the obsequies held in the Eternal City on the occasion of the death of Isabella the Catholic (1474–1504)—Queen of Castile and Aragon—in a context of [...] Read more.

Based on the interest aroused by royal funerals at the end of the Middle Ages, this paper analyses the obsequies held in the Eternal City on the occasion of the death of Isabella the Catholic (1474–1504)—Queen of Castile and Aragon—in a context of international tension and succession unrest. The papal diaries, diplomatic documentation and Ludovico Bruno’s sermo funebris allow us to reconstruct the liturgical, scenographic and rhetorical display of a ceremony that seduced with its solemnity and elegance, the fruit of a hybridism that combined Spanish and Italian funerary traditions in the Rome of Julius II. The creativity of the Spanish community is thus evident in its ability to convert the Isabelline funeral ceremony into an expression of dynastic power in the context of Spanish–French competition and incipient tensions between the Habsburg and Fernandine courts over the Castilian succession. Only by starting from this intertwining of the political and the liturgical will we be able to understand the transformations undergone by the funeral ceremonial in its passage—still little explored—from late medieval customs to modern scenographies. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Liturgy in the Middle Ages)

12 pages, 308 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Liturgical Framing of Trials in 10th to 11th Century Catalonia

by Cornel-Peter Rodenbusch

Religions 2022, 13(3), 227; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13030227 - 07 Mar 2022

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1397

Abstract

This paper focuses on the question of how place, time, ritual, and liturgy were interconnected before, during, and after trials in the tenth and eleventh centuries in what is today Catalonia. It does so by highlighting cases that show that Visigothic law heavily [...] Read more.

This paper focuses on the question of how place, time, ritual, and liturgy were interconnected before, during, and after trials in the tenth and eleventh centuries in what is today Catalonia. It does so by highlighting cases that show that Visigothic law heavily affected the way in which trials were organized, while simultaneously leaving enough space for the liturgy and the divine to impact legal customs. This article aims to showcase these dynamics, which combine space and time with liturgy in a well-articulated framework of legal procedure that formed part of how people experienced the law and its application. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Liturgy in the Middle Ages)

49 pages, 44552 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Polysemic Interpretation of the West Façade of Saint-Martin-de-Besse: Time, Space, and Chiasmus Carved in Stone

by Anna-Maria Moubayed

Religions 2022, 13(2), 152; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13020152 - 10 Feb 2022

Viewed by 3327

Abstract

This article explores the sculptural programme of the west portal of Saint-Martin-de-Besse, which places Penance and the Eucharist sacraments at the centre of its polysemic narratives, forming chiastic sequences. Concerned with the fall of humankind and the history of redemption, the portal of [...] Read more.

This article explores the sculptural programme of the west portal of Saint-Martin-de-Besse, which places Penance and the Eucharist sacraments at the centre of its polysemic narratives, forming chiastic sequences. Concerned with the fall of humankind and the history of redemption, the portal of Besse presents a series of enigmatic figures from the Old and New Testaments, along with an early Christian figure, Saint Eustace. In this article, I first present a brief historical overview of the church and its surroundings and then proceed with an iconographical survey of its portal. I argue that the series of sculpted narrative vignettes forming the west façade of Besse are polysemic as they carry multiple meanings. Focusing on salvation through (re)conversion, where the liturgical sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist are fundamental, these polysemic narratives form and perform four distinct chiasmus interchanges involving the Garden of Eden, where time and space are in constant dialogue. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Liturgy in the Middle Ages)

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20 pages, 1503 KiB

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Framing Medieval Latin Liturgy through the Marginal

by Nils Holger Petersen

Religions 2022, 13(2), 95; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13020095 - 19 Jan 2022

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2400

Abstract

Whereas medieval liturgy has often been presented as a specialized and complex but well-defined area, gradually and to a high extent bound by tradition, modern scholarship has increasingly shown how difficult it is to define or circumscribe what the notion covers, or what [...] Read more.

Whereas medieval liturgy has often been presented as a specialized and complex but well-defined area, gradually and to a high extent bound by tradition, modern scholarship has increasingly shown how difficult it is to define or circumscribe what the notion covers, or what may be the margins of the notion, even in later medieval centuries. In this article, I propose to shed light on the notion of medieval liturgy, framing the notion, as it were, by analyzing ceremonies that by many would be considered to belong to the fringes of liturgy, ceremonies which even—problematically—have been understood as biblical and liturgical theater. I shall focus on two twelfth-century Easter ceremonies, which in their theological contents are traditional and uncontroversial, and hardly were thought of as theater by contemporaries. In their form, however, they show an acute interest in experimenting with (and thus changing) traditional liturgical procedures. These examples underline how, even on one of the holiest of feasts, Easter Day, at least outside the most central and sacrosanct liturgical elements, such as the Eucharist and the overall structure of the mass, liturgy was innovative and flexible. Although innovation was not principally seen as a positive quality at the time, and justification of changes would normally be given by reference to tradition, changes were indeed made, theologically, for instance in the understanding of sacraments, and—as proposed in the article probably at least partly connected to such changes—also in liturgical practices. The broader perspective of the article also concerns methodology, in terms of the importance of interdisciplinarity and intermediality, for future research in medieval liturgy. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Liturgy in the Middle Ages)

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14 pages, 302 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Character Indelebilis and the Iconic Dimension of Ritual Actions

by Juan Rego

Religions 2022, 13(2), 86; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13020086 - 18 Jan 2022

Viewed by 1693

Abstract

This paper focuses on one specific theological tool regarding some Christian ritual practices, i.e., the character indelebilis or indelible mark. Though the notion existed in some patristic sources, the theologoumenon was reframed in early scholasticism. Theologians of the 12th–13th century used the restricted [...] Read more.

This paper focuses on one specific theological tool regarding some Christian ritual practices, i.e., the character indelebilis or indelible mark. Though the notion existed in some patristic sources, the theologoumenon was reframed in early scholasticism. Theologians of the 12th–13th century used the restricted code of Aristotelian psychology in order to better control theological predication and moved from baptismal theology to the theology of priesthood. Since Thomas Aquinas is the main theological reference in the development of the theologoumenon, special attention will be paid to his proposal. Revisiting the metaphorical nature of some of his statements and the iconic value he assigns to the indelible mark may contribute to a better understanding of the current theological debate. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Liturgy in the Middle Ages)

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