Liturgical Landscapes in Post-Conquest England: Commemorating King Oswald in the Northern Province

Abstract

Bringing together the work of musicologists and historians, this essay interrogates the contents of secular and monastic offices for Oswald of Northumbria in the northern province across the high and late Middle Ages, identifying the ways in which perceptions of St. Oswald and his relationship to communities in northern England and Scotland were articulated through the night office. It argues for the importance of considering a liturgical office in its entirety, demonstrating that they were not static, but could be adapted to differing needs. In the northern province the inclusion of geographical and topographical markers within these liturgies was central to the construction of a complex liturgical web connecting the historical Oswald to the communities where the offices were recited. Saints’ offices collapse time and mediate between historical figures and the communities in which they are present through liturgical veneration. Particular places can also act to suggest connections across time, and this essay argues that the invocation of local landmarks such as Lindisfarne, Bamburgh, and Hadrian’s Wall in matins readings for Oswald in the northern province enabled the communities of the North to navigate between their historical pasts and their liturgical presents.