Liturgical books and other miscellanies

As usually happens when I promise sweeping additions to this blog, I fail to carry them through. It seems that my life always becomes more busy right at the moment I would like to do some more writing of an informal nature.

I will limit myself to some brief observations today, as I could not possibly sum up the myriad of things I've been researching and thinking about since my last post. Let's simply say that there have been several developments in my thinking which remain only partially formed in my own mind, mostly related to liturgical history and the topic of my dissertation, but also in relation to my own vocation and professional aspirations.

In relation to the former, I continue to be struck by the degree to which many standard handbooks about the liturgy are quite outdated. The last great burst of genuine research on the history of the liturgy seems to have been from the period of 1920-1980. In other words, it was the movement which spawned the great liturgical reforms of the mid-twentieth century, beginning with Vatican II but also finding expression in a number of other denominations, not least in the Anglican Communion of which I am a member. We've seen a wholesale revision of many of the standards of public worship in that time.

I am not claiming that liturgical research ceased in the intervening period, but I do mean to say that most of it has been rather different in nature. It seems, though, that a number of people are beginning to revisit a lot of the basic studies which animated the liturgical reforms and are showing that their conclusions and animating principles were, if not wholly incorrect, still to be taken with a grain of salt. This is somewhat troubling, given their sweeping influence.

A few examples: one finds everywhere in the older scholarly literature an assumption that the public worship of the early Christians was a simple affair which was gradually complicated by the 'perverse ingenuity' of a later age too beholden to complex symbolism, applied to both the interpretation of the Scriptures and the activities of prayer and Eucharistic celebration. If contemporary scholarship in biblical studies and in patristics has shown anything, it is that this is a questionable assumption. The interpretations and practices of early Christians do not appear to have been simple. Indeed, in relation to worship, there appears to have been an imitation of Jerusalem Temple worship from the earliest period, which is not surprising, given that early Christians both worshiped in the Temple and understood themselves to be the Temple itself.

One also finds a great deal of nervousness in older literature about anything originating in or being promulgated by an imperial or royal court. For instance, there might first be a claim that a particular liturgical action was an imitation of Eastern or Western imperial ceremonial or a particular action could be laid at the feet of the reforms of the Carolingian kings and emperors. This very fact would then disqualify the particular action, opposed as it was to the putatively 'simple intention' of the founder of the Eucharist, Jesus Christ, who was no earthly king and who did not abide complex ritual.

Again, I won't spend a great time refuting this point, save to say that the assumption that Christ is opposed to ritual or royal ceremonial seems to ignore a great deal of evidence from, say, the depictions of Temple worship throughout the Old Testament, as well as images of heavenly worship from throughout the Bible. One might hope that liturgical historians could remember to read Revelation 4-5 or Daniel 7 before making such claims. But it was in the spirit of that age to take conclusions from 'historical Jesus' research and claim they opposed later church developments. Hopefully, we now realize the situation is a little more complicated than that. I'm being a little polemical.

Anyway, I suppose my point is that certain theological and historical assumptions colored a great deal of the standard textbooks and reference works on the liturgy, which means that historians working with such material are often led astray, not to mention those working on liturgical reform in churches.

Just some thoughts. Sorry to be boring.

Updates to the Website

A simple note. As I've noted in previous posts, I intend to use this website partially as a personal blog, but also as a place to collect notes, both casual and formal, on my current research. I have begun the update of the page related to my PhD research (just a few paragraphs right now), with more to follow in coming days. Obviously, you can get to it by clicking on the tab above or right here. 

This page will hopefully provide friends, family, and colleagues with some brief, general information about what I spend my time doing all day, as the eyes of many begin to gloss over once the words 'homiliary', 'Carolingian', or 'ecclesiastical history' begin to be pronounced.

Recent Conference Paper

The following is a recent conference paper, so it's a little longer. 

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The Homiliary of Paul the Deacon: myth, scholarship, and the early manuscripts

            Let me tell you a story, not exactly a bed-time story, but still a tale, which although repeated in scholarly circles, is of fabulous and near miraculous proportions. It is the story of the Homiliary of Paul the Deacon, and it begins a long time ago, in a land not too far away from here.

            Around the year 786, the King of the Franks and Lombards (and “Patrician” of the Romans), Charlemagne, conceived of the desire to create a collection of extracts from the writings of the Church Fathers. This collection would have the purpose of being read in the daily round of liturgical prayer, especially at the Night Office. To accomplish this task, Charlemagne ordered Paul the Deacon, a Lombard monk and scholar in residence at his court, to read through the tracts and sermons of the Fathers and to select what was most useful. Paul finished his task and presented to Charlemagne a collection in two volumes, composed of entries for Sundays, feast days, and other liturgical occasions. The authors whom Paul selected included the great luminaries of the Western Church: Augustine, Ambrose, Jerome, Gregory the Great, Bede the Venerable, Maximus of Turin, Isidore, Origen, and Fulgentius of Ruspe. It was a collection of impeccable standards, in terms of its catholicity and orthodoxy. After perusing these contents, Charlemagne was pleased to put his seal of approval on Paul the Deacon’s homiliary, and he sent it out to churches throughout his kingdom.

            This work was immediately received with enthusiasm. It was used widely for the purpose of public worship and perhaps also for the personal study of bishops, priests, and monks who were writing their own sermons, both in the Carolingian era and in the entire Middle Ages. The Royal Families of Europe read this Homiliary in their private chapels. Even in the Reformation, the Homiliary served as a model for Martin Luther’s own published collection of Gospel homilies, playing a role in the early formation of German Lutheranism.[1] And in the Catholic Church, Paul the Deacon’s Homiliary was used as a primary source for liturgical readings up until the Second Vatican Council, where it was precipitously discarded by the Council Fathers in the 92^nd article of the constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium.[2]

            And so ends the romantic legend of the Homiliary of Paul the Deacon, a collection owing its origin and spread to the impetus of a mighty king, the wits of a holy scholar, and the reception of a willing and uniformly interested Christian people, yet owing its end to the declaration of a hasty, modern Catholic reform council. Like many fabulous stories, what I have just recited to you is some mixture of truth and legend and the two are not easy to sort out. Yet it is important to hold this version of the story in your minds throughout my presentation today, as it is, in various forms, the story that fills the standard reference books and articles on the topic of Paul the Deacon’s Homiliary, as well as on related topics, like the development of medieval liturgy and theology, the nature of premodern preaching, or the transmission of Latin literature.[3]

            Of course, actual facts about the composition and transmission of the Homiliary of Paul the Deacon are much harder to come by. In my remaining time, then, allow me a somewhat old-fashioned approach to addressing this question: I would like to comment on the sources we have at our disposal for solving this question and the scholarly efforts at addressing it, as well as my early assessment of the evidence and plans for further research.

            Our primary evidence for the collection now known as the Homiliary of Paul the Deacon comes from a letter sent by Charlemagne to an unknown number of readers. It is a letter well-known in the study of the Carolingian era, serving as prefatory material to several fairly different collections of patristic extracts arranged for liturgical reading: the Epistola Generalis (I have provided its text and a translation in an Appendix).[4]

            In this letter, the desire to create a new compilation was justified in several ways. First, it is created as an expression of Charlemagne’s personal gratitude in response to what he views as God’s protecting hand surrounding him in times of war and peace, at home and abroad. He states his general wish to improve the churches, “to stamp them (insignire) with a series of excellent readings” after the example of his father Pippin, whom he says “decorated all the churches of the Gallic regions...with chants of the Roman tradition.”[5] Second, it is placed in the context of a general effort at “repairing the office” or the “workshop of letters” (officinam litterarum).[6] Previous collections of readings for the Night Office are said to have been “strewn with infinite circles of vices,” lacking correct grammar and providing readings of unclear origin.[7] Charlemagne says he ordered the “polishing” (elimandum) of this work to Paul the Deacon, who gathered various flowers from the “most broad meadows” of the patristic tradition into two volumes, which Charlemagne authorized for use “in the churches of Christ,” when writing to an unspecified number of religiosi lectores.

            There are a few conclusions we can draw from the Epistola generalis with relative certainty. But they are fairly minimal: a brief description of the production and transmission of some compilation, a general range of decades it may have occurred, and a naming of the principal agents, their stated intentions, and their general audience. It is not much. And even these facts are an interpretation of the historical evidence, in light of a whole host of other pieces of evidence, including the letter, its place in several key manuscripts and fragments, and our general knowledge of the activity of Charlemagne’s reign and that of his successors. The dating of this event alone is an incredibly complex issue, with innumerable facets.[8] But there are further issues, stemming primarily from our knowledge of the manuscript sources.

            I mentioned earlier that this letter serves as prefatory material to several collections of patristic extracts arranged for reading in the church’s liturgy. What I did not mention was that these collections are not uniform, and it is not a simple task to determine with confidence which, if any, reflect the original. But the real issue in studies of Paul the Deacon’s Homiliary is that very few people have actually looked at any of the manuscripts in detail. Since the late 15^th century, we have known the Homiliary primarily through various printed editions which drew on manuscripts of dubious quality.[9] As early as 1704, the father of modern manuscript studies, Jean Mabillon noted that these printed editions were faulty, containing later materials which could not have been used by Paul the Deacon.[10] He suggested instead that we might find the original composition in certain 9^th century manuscripts he had seen in Reichenau.[11] But no one did so. It was 150 years later that the historian Ernst Ranke undertook a lengthy search for these manuscripts, hoping to make a properly critical edition. He was, however, disappointed. He discovered that, although the manuscripts were magnificent in some respects, they were also incomplete and partially mutilated. [12] Augiensis 29 ends only a 3^rd of the way through the material charted by its table of contents, with a few fragments. The earliest copy of the putative second volume, Augiensis 15, has rather less magnificent beginnings. Not only does it appear to have been rather faulty at its composition, its condition is quite deteriorated.[13] After seeing these manuscripts, Ranke published a notice of his disappointing findings, mentioning that more manuscripts were needed, and still hoping to complete an edition.[14] He never did. Instead, a reprint of the faulty 1539 Cologne “II” edition was put out by Jean-Paul Migne in volume 95 of his Patrologia Latina Cursus Completus.

            A generation later, Friedrich Wiegand would attempt to clarify the original contents of the homiliary. Working from the Reichenau manuscripts and what he believed to be some 11^th century ones from Benediktbeuern (Munich, Clm 4533 and 4543),[15] Wiegand posited that the original contents of the Homiliary of Paul the Deacon composed some 244 entries of patristic homilies, divided into a winter portion, a summer portion, and a commune sanctorum.[16] Wiegand placed a great deal of faith in the later manuscripts from Benediktbeuern to fill in the deficiencies of the earlier Reichenau manuscripts. This was because he noted that the Chronicle of Benediktbeuern records a gift of two homiliaries from Charlemagne.[17] Reasoning that this gift was the Homiliary of Paul the Deacon, Wiegand printed the prefatory material from the Reichenau manuscripts, along with a summary of contents he reconstructed through comparing the tables of contents with the actual contents from Reichenau and Benediktbeuren. Wiegand printed a list of the liturgical occasions given in the manuscript, as well as the biblical texts and incipits of the patristic entries assigned. In lieu of a critical edition, which he hoped to complete later, he noted other manuscripts necessary for such work. But Wiegand also would never complete this task. Instead, in a later article, he identified a number of the patristic homilies whose incipits he had supplied, directing scholars to the Patrologia Latina for printed texts.[18] Other scholars contributed to the task as well, and these articles stood for decades as the primary reference point for studies of the homiliary, with supplements from several others.[19] What was not realized were some of the significant deficiencies of Wiegand’s study. For instance,  Wiegand relied primarily on 9^th century and 11^th century tables of contents to “purge” what he believed were later additions from the manuscripts, but he did not realize that portions of the manuscripts which he discounted were actually from the 9^th century and could arguably reflect the original composition better than the 11^th century table he strongly privileged.[20]

            In 1966, a young monk and scholar named Réginald Grégoire would print a summation of the past half century’s research, with some additions, in his Les homéliaires du Moyen Âge. He gave also a brief thematic and historical introduction to the homiliary, which has since recurred in contemporary scholarship. What is not often noticed, though, is Grégoire stated at the time that his work was primarily a reprinting of other’s research.[21] Grégoire reproduced the thesis of Wiegand, rather than re-examining it and arguing for it afresh. His additions were in other areas: analysis of other homiliaries, the creation of comparative notes, tables, and indexes, and updated reference points to the relevant bibliographical information and new critical editions. He would update this material again in 1980 with Homéliaires liturgiques médiévaux: analyse du manuscrits (Spoleto). These two works enshrined the reconstructed text of Wiegand and are cited by most scholars in the field as being the authoritative accounts for study of Paul’s compilation.

            Since their creation, these tools have been used for all sorts of activity. Some have identified manuscripts on the basis of the reconstructed contents, indexing their finds to the Wiegand-Grégoire numbering.[22] Others have argued, rightly I still believe, for the use of Paul the Deacon’s collection by specific authors such as Aelfric of Eynesham[23] Bernard of Clairvaux (and the Cistercians more generally),[24] or Hildegard of Bingen, [25]  along with the influence of it on their thought. On the less cautious end, statements have been made in general works to try and generalize about the whole of Carolingian religious life, medieval monastic culture, or even the entire culture of the Middle Ages.[26] I have to say that a lot of the former work has been excellent and admirable in nature. But I need only make a few obvious statements to register my concern about any work done on Paul the Deacon thus far, some of which resembles concerns aired by other scholars before, including those who use Grégoire’s tools regularly.

            First of all, we need to recognize and note the limitations of the tools presented by Wiegand, Grégoire, and others. Wiegand, in particular, was very modest about his research and noted that more work was needed before we could confidently talk about the contents and use of the Homiliary. Grégoire, in his own way, noted the same thing, though I often think his confidence in making generalized statements about the whole of the Homiliary’s history, combined with his silence about the great differences among the various manuscripts of which he was aware, seem to have led some scholars astray. There are other issues with Grégoire’s reference works, though these are more along the level of issues in presentation or typos attributable to simple human error. [27]

            Second, we have to admit that the whole enterprise deserves a reconsideration, due to developments in our manuscript base and in other areas of the field. Friedrich Wiegand used only five manuscripts, which were incomplete and mutilated, to complete his research, and he was aware of only 10 more, spanning in range from the 9^th to the 15^th century.[28] That is a very small and inconsistent base to work with, yet up to the 1980s, scholars were aware of hardly more than these. Now, though, thanks to the great efforts at cataloguing in the past several decades and due to countless hours of poring over various catalogues, articles, and digitized collections myself, I have been able to identify 72 relevant manuscripts and 20 fragments, primarily from the first two centuries after the Homiliary’s composition, with a significant spread of transmission in the primary areas of Carolingian rule.[29] Beyond these, my personal catalogue contains dozens of examples from the 11^th century, and I am aware of hundreds more from the 12^th-15^th centuries, though the picture becomes much more complex at this point and I can only comment in very general terms about those manuscripts. There are other reasons the enterprise merits reconsideration, but I shall shelve those due to the constraints of time. In my remaining time, I would like to note some of the major questions related to this material, and how my research sheds initial light on them.

            First off, the contents of the Homiliary. I am not confident at the moment that we have a clear hold on Paul’s original composition. The Wiegand-Grégoire reconstruction identified 244 patristic texts, in a particular liturgical arrangement. However, this reconstruction does not even faithfully produce all the evidence from the original manuscripts; there are dozens of entries in the original manuscript base which were deemed to be later additions to the work, about which I think more work needs to be done. Furthermore, in 1978, Raymond Étaix noted that the copies used for the reconstruction were all from a single region near Lake Constance, which means they might reflect only a regional arrangement or rearrangement of the text, rather than the original, given the diversity of liturgical practice and lectionary arrangements of the time. Several contemporaneous French copies Étaix had seen were very different. They omitted numerous texts identified in the reconstruction, added others, and rearranged the order of many of them. He suggested at that time that Paul the Deacon may have put out more than one version of the Homiliary.[30]

            My own research thus far has shown that the issue is quite complex. I have found manuscripts which strengthen some portions of the Wiegand-Gregoire reconstruction, such as some fragmentary tables from the 9^th century, one serving as endleaves to a 9^th century commentary on Virgil (Laon, Bibliothèque Municipale, MS 468), the other  at the beginning of a manuscript also containing a 9^th century copy of Pliny and a later 12^th century compilation of biblical history (Leiden, Universiteitsbibliothek, VLF 4).[31]  But I can also further Étaix’s point by saying that I have seen completely different, extremely early arrangements of the text from 9^th century copies, especially a Bavarian copy that could be our earliest witness yet. Thus, I think it is still an open question whether the Wiegand-Grégoire construction resembles the original, is simply a regional version, or something even more complicated. Essentially, it is difficult to speak right now of the basic contents and arrangement of this homiliary, besides generalities known even in the awful early modern editions, which means that any number of studies dependent on this reconstructed text may need to reconsider some of their conclusions.

            We are also unaware of Paul’s selection of material. Rosamond McKitterick, noted in her 1976 monograph The Frankish Church and the Carolingian Reforms that no one has gone through the early manuscripts to see whether Paul faithfully presented the sermons he included. Did he shorten them? Did he edit out certain phrases, correct their grammar, or even change some of their theological content? We honestly do not know at this point, and it would be significant to discover whether there are any trends in the adaptation of this material.[32]

            Two final points on the use of the Homiliary, both originally and down the ages. First, scholars have been arguing since the eighteenth century about where the Homiliary was read and whether this Homiliary was a document used only for liturgical reading or also for the construction of sermons.[33] Most of these arguments have been based on criteria which do not seem entirely suitable for settling the question. On the better end, scholars have made conclusions are fairly firm evidence. For instance, royal and ecclesiastical legislation throughout the 9^th and 10^th centuries required all sorts of clergy to possess a homiliary of some sort for the purpose of liturgical reading and private study.[34] Thus, it seems this homiliary was probably used for such a purpose, at least somewhere. This is a decent argument, although it doesn’t give us much in the way of specifics.[35] On the other end, we have arguments for use based on a very shaky criterion: scholarly assessments of the contents of the Homiliary and its utility for medieval readers. There are two difficulties of this approach: first, how do we determine what was or was not suitable for use in medieval cathedral, monastic, or parish settings? I bring this up because many scholars’ judgment of the content often seems based on personal or confessional assessments of the utility of what they deem complicated theology or “fanciful” exegesis, with little clear indication of how one determines what a medieval audience thought complicated or fanciful.[36] Second, though, and more strongly, if we are to allow for such arguments based on content, they can only be admitted when we have a clear idea of what that content through establishing the contents more firmly by study of the earliest manuscripts.

            In any case, I would prefer to make judgments about the use of Paul the Deacon’s Homiliary based on the nature of the actual manuscripts, which show in various ways that they were used in monastic, cathedral, and royal chapel settings. Regarding parishes, of course, the verdict is still out, but I simply have to note that we may not be able to settle this question definitively. After all, what would a “parish” copy look like? Deluxe monastic copies have certain distinctive features, based on peculiar divisions of reading in monastic liturgy and in-house styles of decoration; the same is true of many cathedrals and of royal copies.[37] Parishes would not necessarily have such distinctive features, and the probability of survival of a parish copy is quite low. I have other thoughts on this, but I will have to leave things here for now.

            My final point about use relates to the claim I mentioned before, that this Homiliary served as the primary source for liturgical readings and private study, making it a best-seller for over a millennium. As much as I admire this idea and, in some ways, wish it were true for all sorts of reasons, I have to say I find the idea a little too nostalgic for my taste, and I am very unsure of it.[38]  I would like to know who was reading this work, where, when, and why, in the 9^th century and up into the 20^th. But, it seems that that question can only begin to be answered by first studying the actual, earliest manuscripts of the work and settling some basic questions about the Homiliary, before we move on to generalizations about over 1200 years of religious thought and practice. I plan, in the next several years, to survey all of the 9^th century manuscripts, as well as key witnesses from the 10^th and 11^th centuries, in order to establish more firmly the Homiliary’s  contents and uses. So, hopefully, my own work will constitute a large portion of the new research on the Homiliary of Paul the Deacon. But I hope to persuade others to take up the question as well.

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[1] Significantly, this claim is repeated primarily by German historians of preaching in the nineteenth century, and I have yet to come across it in contemporary Luther studies. Circumstantially, I can report a rather significant overlap in themes between Luther’s Gospel Homilies and those in Paul the Deacon’s Homiliary (particularly Bede and Gregory the Great), but it is an area with significant potential for research, rather than one I am prepared to speak about authoritatively.

[2] Such ideas regarding the Homiliary’s perdurance are especially the view espoused in A.G. Martimort, I.H. Dalmais, and P. Jounel. The Church at Prayer- Volume IV: The Liturgy and Time (Authorized English tranlsation of L’Eglise en Prière: La Liturgie et le Temps. Desclée, 1983.  Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1986). This is a significant fact, as The Church at Prayer has been a standard textbook in Roman Catholic clerical education, as well as in liturgical studies, for several decades.

I should note that, although Catholic scholars seem to trace the disappearance of Paul’s Homiliary to Sacrosanctum Concilium, the actual article of the constitution simply says that greater care must be taken in selecting litugical readings. It does not single out or specifically ban Paul’s compilation.

[3] See, e.g, Ernst Ranke, “Zur Geschichte des Homiliariums Karl’s des Grossen. Ein litterarische Notiz” (In Theologische Studien und Kritiken XXVIII [1855]), 382-396; Friedrich Wiegand, Das Homiliarium Karls des Grossen auf seine ursprüngliche Gestalt in untersucht (Studien zur Gschichte der Theologie und der Kirche I:2. Leipzig, 1897), esp 1-4, 83-96; M. Manitius, Geschichte der lateinischen Literatur des mittelalters, I (1911; 1959): 266-267; Henri Barré, Les Homéliaires carolingiens de l’école d’Auxerre. Authenticité. Inventaire Tableaux Comparatifs. Initia. (Studi e Testi 225. Vatican City: 1962), 3-4; Reginald Grégoire, Les homéliaires du Moyen Âge (Rome, 1966); idem, Homéliares liturgiques médiévaux: analyse de manuscrits (Spoleto 1980), 423-486, esp. 423-427; Cyril Smetana, “Paul the Deacon’s Patristic Anthology” (In Paul E. Szarmach and Bernard F. Huppé, eds. The Old English Homily & its Backgrounds. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1978), 75-97, A. G. Martimort. Les lectures liturgiques et les livres (Typologie des Sources du Moyen Age Occidental. Turnhout, 1992). 87; Eric Palazzo. A History of Liturgical Books: from the Beginning to the Thirteenth Century (Trans. by Madeleine Beaumont. Collegeville, MN: 1998),  154-155; Margot Fassler, “Sermons, Sacramentaries, and Early Sources for the Office in the Latin West: The Example of Advent” (In Margot E Fassler and Rebecca A. Baltzer, eds. The Divine Office in the Latin Middle Ages: Methodology and Source Studies, Regional Developments, Hagiography. Oxford: OUP, 2000.), 15-47 at 35-36, 38;

[4] The standard English translation is in P.D King, Charlemagne: Translated Sources (Kendal, 1987), from whom my translation differs somewhat. See the appendix to this paper. The Latin text has been edited in A. Boretius, MGH Leges II.1, Capitularia regum Francorum (1883), 80-81. Principal manuscript witnesses are Karlsruhe, Badische Landesbibliothek, Augiensis 29 (1/4 of 9^th; Reichenau); Munich, Bayerische Landesbibliothek, Clm 6264a (1/3 of 9^th; Bavaria); Leiden, Universiteitsbibliothek, VLF 4 (3/4 of 9^th; N France); Oxford, Corpus Christi College 255A (N France; 10^th); and Oxford, Magdalen College MS 102 (12^th; Origin unknown).

[5] Curiously, the aesthetic language used in this letter (stamp, decorate, polish) has not, to my knowledge, ever elicited scholarly comment.

[6] King translates as “manufactory of learning.”

[7] Which collections Charlemagne has in mind are unclear to me, at least from the 8^th centry. From the 9^th, we might note Reims, Bibliothèque municipale 296 (9^th-10^th; Saint-Thierry) is an excellent example. There are no entries for liturgical days, authors, or anything of the sort. Seems a rather unique example. Online at: http://www.europeanaregia.eu/en/manuscripts/reims-bibliotheque-municipale-ms-296/en.

[8] For instance, it is supposed that the Homiliary must have been written some time from the mid-780s onwards but before 802. This is because Charlemagne’s efforts at liturgical reform are thought to have occurred, if they occurred at all, primarily after he received a key liturgical text from Pope Hadrian, the “Gregorian Sacramentary” or Hadrianum, with the help of Paul the Deacon himself. But exactly when Paul the Deacon helped acquire this other text for Charlemagne and whether it is at all related to the composition of the homiliary is uncertain. Several discussions of the text, however, such as Fassler’s or Palazzo’s, cited above, rely on discussing Paul the Deacon’s homiliary as a product flowing out of the liturgical reform given impetus by the influence of the Hadrianum. This is extremely unlikely, for all sorts of reasons. At the most basic level, we can tell that the Epistola Generalis must have been written before 802 because Charlemagne has not yet attained the imperial title at the writing of the letter. We also have to reckon with the fact that its putative author, Paul the Deacon, died some time in the 790s, but its unclear exactly when. See Cyrille Vogel, Medieval liturgy: an introduction to the sources (Trans. by William G. Storey, Niels Krogh Rasmussen, and John K. Brooks-Leonard. Washington, 1986), 363-364. The classic detailed account remains Vogel’s “La reforme liturgique sous Charlemagne”  (In W. Braunfels, ed. Karl der Grosse: Lebenswerk und Nachleben) 2:217-232. See Yitzhak Hen, Yitzhak Hen, “Paul the Deacon and the Frankish Liturgy” (in Paolo Chiesa, ed. Paolo Diacono: Uno scrittore fra tradizione longobarda e rinnovamento carolingio. Atti del Convegno Internazionale di Studi Cividale del Friuli—Udine, 6-9 maggio 1999. Udine: Forum, 2000), 205-221 for a somewhat different view. .

[9] Namely, those of Speyer (1482), Basel (1493, 1498, 1513, 1516), Cologne (1525), Paris (1537), and Cologne II (1539, and 1576).

[10] Namely because these authors, like Heiric of Auxerre, wrote well after Paul’s death.

[11] Annal. Benedict. II (Paris), 328.

[12] As one can see from the prefatory material, the beautifully laid-out table of contents, and the beginning of the first entry, all of which are available on The Libraries of Reichenau and St Gall project online at http://www.stgallplan.org./.

[13] The most amusing of these deficiencies being the table’s consistent spelling of Bede’s name as uenerabilis presbiter Bene.

[14] Ranke, Zur Geschichte des Homiliariums Karl’s des Grossen,  395-396.

[15] It turns out that Wiegand was incorrect in identifying these manuscripts as completely 11^th century. They are partly 9^th century originals and 10^th and 11^th century additions. Indeed, the portion which he privileged in his reconstruction was the later material, rather than the earlier. Bernhard Bischoff redated portions of these manuscripts in his

[16] Wiegand, Das Homiliarium Karls des Grossen, 14-65.

[17] Ibid. 3-4. The entry in the Chronicle reads as follows: Libri quos ad altare sancti Benedicti dedit sunt duae omeliae, una de aduentu Domini usque in Pascha, et altera in aduentum Domini de Pascha, in quibus iussit scribi sermones diuersorum patrum, diaconoque suo praecepit emendare eas, ne ecclesia sancti Benedicti mentire in aliquo uideretur a quibusdam loco. MGH Scriptores, IX, 216.

[18] Wiegand, ‘Ein Vorläufer des Paulus-Homiliars,’ In Theologische Studien und Kritiken 75 (1902): 188-205.

[19] Especially, Germain Morin, “Les sources non identifiées de l’homiliare de Paul Diacre” (In Revue Bénédcitine XV [1898]), 400-403; and Jean Leclercq, “Tables pour l’inventaire des homiliaires manuscrits” (In Scriptorium II [1948]), 205-214.

[20] The manuscripts were re-examined and given an earlier date, at least in parts, by Bernhard Bischoff in Bischoff’s paleographical analysis and Elisabeth Klemm’s art-historical analysis in Die ottonischen und frühromanischen Handschriften der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek. Textband + Tafelband.  (- (Katalog der illuminierten Handschriften der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek in München 2. Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2004). What is curious is that Grégoire seems to have been partly aware of some of the problems inherent to Wiegand’s method, as he did not have much personal confidence in Clm 4534 in particular, a concern he registered in only one place: Les homéliaires du Moyen Âge, Appendix I, 188: “Son texte est très corrumpu.”

[21] This is a fact he acknowledges primarily in his preface to Les homéliaires, noting that the work had its impetus in a request from Jean LeClercq to republish LeClercq’s tools and conclusions from “Tables pour l’inventaire des homiliaries manuscrits,” along with a synthesis of previous research. This note does not appear in Homéliaries liturgiques médiévaux, which is the work known to most scholars in the field, as it superseded the previous research.

[22] Among several others, one would have to note:  Mary P. Richardson, “Texts and Their Traditions int he Medieval Library of Rochester Cathedral Priory” (In Transactions of the American Philosophical Society. New Series 78:3 [1988]), i-xii + 1-129); Rodney Malcom Thomson, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Medieval Manuscripts in Worcester Cathedral Library (CUP, 2001);  Helmut Gneuss, A Handlist of Anglo-Saxon manuscripts: a list of manuscripts and manuscript fragments written or owned in Englands up to 1100 (Tempe, AZ: 2001) ; Raymond Étaix’s handlists of homiliary manuscripts and studies of several particular homiliaries, collected in Homéliaires patristiques latins: recueil d’études de manuscrits médiévaux (ABrepols, 1994). 

[23] The seminal article being Cyril Smetana, “Aelfric and the early medieval Homiliary” (In Traditio 15 [1959]) 163-204, with the point futhered and refined in a series of excellent articles by Thom Hall and Joyce Hill.

[24] Chrysogonus Waddell in Carolyn Muessig, Medieval Monastic Preaching ( ), 342, citing Reginald Grégoire, “L’homiliarie cistercien du manuscrit 114 (82) de Dijon” (In Cîteaux, Commentarii Cistercenses 28 [1977] 133-205).

[25] Beverly Kienzle, Hildegard of Bingen and her gospel hiomlies: speaking new mysteries (Brepols, 2009), 67.

[26] E.g. Martimort, Dalmais, and Jounel. The Church at Prayer- Volume IV: The Liturgy and Time, 224; Roberto Rusconi, “Preaching” (In André Vauchez, ed, in association with Barrie Dobson and Michael Lapidge, Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages. 2 vols.); Cambridge and Chicago 2000) II:1178-1179; and, to a degree, Mayke de Jong, “Charlemagne’s Church” (In Joanna Story, Charlemagne: Empire and Society) 117.  One might argue that these works are not meant to delve into specifics. However, it is precisely the placing of such expansive claims in general reference works or surveys that perpetuates a particular image of this homiliary within the scholarly milieu, not to mention among undergraduates or non-specialists.

[27] Additionally, I have to note that Grégoire’s reference tools have further problems. They have significant typos, misattributions, and mistakes, and he had an unfortunate habit of giving his own names for the liturgical occasions and other materials, rather than those given in the manuscripts he had consulted. Some of its other methods of presentation are also troublesome and, at times, misleading

[28] Wiegand, Das Homiliarium Karls des Grossen, 9-11.

[29] See Appendix II for an initial mapping of the spread of these manuscripts and Appendix III for a list. I must stress that these materials may be significantly revised in the next few years of my research.

[30] The whole argument of Étaix’s “L’homéliaire d’Ebrardus retrouvé (Paris, B., N., lat. 9604)” (In Revue d’histoire des textes 8 [1978]) 309-317 needs greater airing among scholars dealing with Paul the Deacon material.

[31] Even these witnesses would change the reconstruction somewhat. The Laon manuscript only covers a portion fo the summer seasion and still contains a handful of diffrences form the reconstruction, both in terms of order and in number of readings. The Leiden manuscript contains nearly all of the reconstructed text, plus 70 more readings, primarily biblical.

[32] I have considered a few examples, and it seems that Paul may have been inconsistent in his use of material. Sometimes he makes no discernible changes to the text of the patristic material he includes. For instance, in several sermons by Gregory the Great, he includes Gregory’s comments about contemporary events in Italy. On the other hand, Paul will sometimes bring together disparate material together which was not originally joined. I need to do more research on this point, though. This is also an important point, as the Homiliary of Cluny shows. Raymond Étaix showed that it not only re-arranges Paul the Deacon’s material and adds to it, but it also has incomplete or shortened versions of the homilies used by Paul. 

[33] Let us say that the conflict, well-known in sermon studies, between maximalist views related to the use of Paul the Deacon’s homiliary (as seen in McKitterick, Frankish Church) and minimalist views (as in Milton Mc.Gatch, Preaching and theology in Anglo-Saxon England: Aelfric and Wulfstan (Toronto 1977), started well before the twentieth century, beginning with some of the first thorough assessments of the evidence by German scholars like Cruel, Marbach, Koeck, and Linsenmayer, as well as before.

[34] Statute of Haito of Basel, Statute c.6,  MGH Cap I , p. 363; Council of Tours, MGH Conc II I cc.4 17., p. 288 ; Cap. de exam. eccles., c. 10; Interrogationes examinations (post 803), c. 6; and Quae a presbyteris discenda sunt (805?0, c. 12, in MGH Cap. reg. franc., 1:110, 234, and 235.  Bishop Waltcauld, Statuta, c.11. de Clercq, La Legislation, 365; Hincmar of Rheims, Statues to Presbyters, PL 125:774D; and the Statues of Vesoul, , c. 13, de Clercq, 371. Possibly also the Council of Arles, which allowed for the reading of sermons by deacons when the priest was ill: Concilium Arelatense, c. 10, MGH Conc., 2.1:250.. Also, councils might insist on specific homily collections, like that of Gregory the Great: Riculf of Soisoons, c.1, PL 131, col. 15 ; Hincmar of Rheims, Statuta of 852, c.1, and Statuta of 858, c.8, PL 125; also, in Vat. Ottobonianus 261, c.6. ed. A. Werminghoff, ‘Reise nach Italien im Jahre 1901’, NA 27 (1902) 582.

Thomas Leslie Amos, The Origin and Nature of the Carolingian Sermon (Unpublished PhD dissertation. University of Michigan), and McKitterick, The Frankish Church and the Carolingian Reforms remain the most thorough examinations of the legislation to date.

[35] In another vein, scholars argue from analogy. They have noted that Aelfric of Eynesham seemed to consider Paul the Deacon’s Homiliary suitable for use in Anglo-Saxon monasteries, cathedrals, and parishes, once it had been translated appropriately. So, they reason, where might he have gotten this idea, other than the Continent? These are okay, so far as they go.

[36] This is particular crucial as Joyce Hill has often pointed out that precisely what Aelfric seems to have included in his own Catholic Homilies from patristic exegesis is the allegorical exegesis, not “simple instruction.” Similarly, earlier authors like Bede thought that lengthy, allegorical exegesis was precisely what “fixed” theology and moral exhortation more firmly in the mind. See his closing remarks in Homily I:16: Haec de mysterio petrae spiritualis, a qua primus pastor Ecclesiae nomen accepit, et in qua totius sanctae Ecclesiae fabrica immobilis et inconcussa persistit, et per quam ipsa Ecclesia nascitur ac nutritur, latius exponendo dicere libuit, quia solent arctius multo et aliquando dulcius inhaerere cordibus audientium ea quae, figurarum antiquitate praemissa, sic demum nova spiritualiter explanatione dilucidantur, quam quae sine ullis figurarum exemplis simplici tantum narratione credenda vel agenda monentur./“Regarding these things about the mystery of the spiritual rock, from which the first Shepherd of the Church received a name, and in which the fabric of the whole Church remains unmovving and unshaken, and through which the same Church was born and nourshied, it has been pleasing to speak of these things by explaining them more expansively, because they tend to stick much more tightly and at times more sweetly in the hearts of those hearing about things which, having been sent before in the antiquity of figures, are thus in the end clarified with a new explanation spiritually, rather than those things which, without any examples of figures, they are warned with a simple narration to believe or to do.”

[37] Though not all. Despite a lengthy study, John J. Contreni has shown that even a flourishing cathedral and intellectual center such as Laon might not have had a distinctive house style that can be identified in the surviving manuscripts. The Cathedral School of Laon from 850-950 (Munich, 1978), 41-65.

[38] It reminds me of the claims that some Roman Catholic liturgical scholars (such as Vogel) were making up to and immediately following the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, with regards to the ubiquity and uniformity of the older Gospel lectionary from the Carolingian period onwards. These claims with regards to the structure of the Gospel lectionary are highly contestable. There is a great deal of remaining diversity regarding the Gospel texts read on Sundays, which has yet to be substantively indexed.  

The Dominical Musketeers, aka, The True Story of Matt 16:13

Once again, I prove myself to be amused by the smallest things. In a 9th century homily collection I'm looking through (Karlsruhe, Aug 15. 9th century, Monastery of Reichenau), there is a small note next to the sermon on the Apostle Peter, in which Simon makes his confession "You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God," and he receives the name Peter (Matt 16:13-20).

The note reads on folio 159r:  "One for all. Thus is what the Lord responds to Peter" (unus pro omnibus. ita quod petro dns respondit). 

Yes, my friends. Here was the true founding of the Musketeers of the Royal Guard, not the Church, as we have since been led to believe.



(This is a joke, btw, in case someone reads this later and mistakes me for an idiot.)

Actually, this has something rather interesting to say about the theological basis for the papacy, but that's another topic.

Manuscript Links

Again a brief post today. I'm always struck by the fact that hundreds and even thousands of medieval manuscripts are publicly accessible online, but no one seems to collect the links necessary to look at all of these.

Additionally, I've wanted a handy list of these for my own personal use. So, I'm putting one up on the side of this website. If any medievalists happen to come across further links, please send them along, and I will put them up as well.

Meanwhile, here's an image from folio 2r of the "Gospels of Lothar" Paris Bibliothèque nationale de France MSS Latin 266. 

Marginal Notes

I have been unable to post for a little while, due to a brief holiday in Switzerland, followed by a conference in Vienna. But I am back to my regular routine and hope to post regularly again. I have a small post in the works regarding some facts about the 9th Trinitarian controversy between Hincmar of Reims and Gottschalk of Orbais, especially related to the sentence of "perpetual silence" upon the latter, but it shall have to wait a little longer. I'd like to tie it to a similar period of silence undergone by Gregory of Nazianzus in the 4th century Trinitarian controversies. Until then, here's a brief note.
-----

I'm in the midst of working on the contents of the manuscripts whose picture appears below. It seems to be a homiliary manuscript from the "Paul the Deacon" family, about which I will talk more in a later post. Suffice it to say that it falls directly into my PhD research to be working on the manuscript. It is from the monastery of Reichenau Island in Lake Constance and was written in the second third of the 9th century.

Occasionally, in the midst of such daily research, you come across interesting marginal notes while going through these manuscripts and I found one today, as you can see in this picture. I'll translate it below.

Five, the keys of wisdom, be. 
The first key is daily reading. 
The second key is careful meditation. 
The third key is frequent interrogation. 
The fourth key is memory for retaining. 
The firth key is the fear and honor of the Master.

I rather enjoy this because it seems to give a clue to the use of this manuscript as a piece of study. We know (or I intend to show, perhaps) that this manuscript was used for reading in the Daily Office, but it seems it was used for personal study as well. The "keys of wisdom" here reflect common steps in monastic biblical interpretation, such as we know it:

1. Regular reading of Scripture and the Church Fathers (lectio cotidiana)
2. Mulling on the same passage (assidua meditatio)
3. Asking questions of the passage (frequens interrogatio)
4. Memorizing the passage (memoria retinendi)
5. Discipline under one's master (timor et honor magistri)

Many might find the last step surprising, but, well, we are talking about monasticism here. 

Epiphany: Christ's Baptism and Adam

The season of Epiphany has begun, a season which focuses on moments of mystery and revelation in the life of Jesus Christ, when he "appears" to us or is unveiled to us in a particular way. This Sunday we read of the baptism of Christ. As is my wont, I will now include a wonderful quote from the works of the Venerable Bede on the significance of this event, the link between Adam and Christ.

"It is for us, dearly beloved, for us that these mysteries [Christ's baptism] were celebrated. For by the most sacred washing of his body the Lord dedicated for us the bath of baptism, and he also pointed out to us that, after the reception of baptism, the right of entry into heaven is accessible to us, and the Holy Spirit is given to us.

And there is a very fitting difference displayed. The first Adam, deceived by an unclean spirit through a serpent, lost the joys of the heavenly kingdom; the second Adam, glorified by the Holy Spirit through a dove, opened the entrance to this kingdom.

The second Adam on this day points out that, through the water of the bath of rebirth, the flickering flame by which the cherub guardian blocked the entry into paradise when the first Adam was expelled would now be extinguished. Where the one went out with his wife, having been conquered by his enemy, there the other, Christ, might return with this Spouse (the Church of the saints), as a conqueror over his enemy...

...Even though that most blessed life which Adam lost was sublime in its incomparable light and peace, clear of every cloud of stinging cares, and glorified by the frequent vision and spoken message of God and angels on earth, nevertheless it took place on this earth, although those who sought the earthly fruits were supplied with nourishment apart from labor  But what Christ bestowed in the height of heaven is everlasting life, renewed not by the frequent but by the constant light of divine contemplation.

The first blessed life of man was immortal in such a way that man could not die in it if he kept himself on guard against he seduction of sin; the second blessed life, in truth, will be immortal in such a way that man will not be able to die in it, nor be tempted by any seduction of sin assailing him."

---Bede, Homily I.12 (Matt 3:13-17)