Ceremonial Splendor: Performing Priesthood in Early Modern France

Abstract

In Ceremonial Splendor, Joy Palacios makes two interconnected arguments. First, she contends that during the period of roughly 1630–1730, Parisian seminaries successfully articulated and taught the model of the vray ecclésiastique, or true churchman, which aspiring priests educated within these establishments came to embody. In addition to physical decorum, one of their most important lessons was how to perform the Mass in a consistent and highly choreographed manner that emphasized the éclat, or splendour, of the consecrated Host and drew parishioners into an expression of sacredness that expanded outward from the individual bodies of priests and church buildings to encompass the entire community. Second, Palacios places this ceremonial logic germane to the French Catholic Church in opposition to the performance logics of the theatre. Her argument here is that it is not enough to study the seventeenth-century texts debating the morality of the theatre from a religious point of view. Rather, it is important to acknowledge that the ‘performance activities’ associated with Catholic worship also influenced antitheatrical sentiment. In my opinion, the second argument of the book is not as well-explored as the first, but the preoccupation with the theatre also precludes a more nuanced exploration of the ways that the religious ideals articulated in Parisian seminaries intersected with those of other cultural spheres in seventeenth-century France.