On the Meaning of the Term ‘Liber Commicus’

Abstract

The somewhat striking title of Liber Commicus was the usual designation in the Mozarabic Church for the liturgical book known elsewhere in western Christendom as the lectionarium, that is, the collection of passages from the Old Testament, Epistles, and Gospels specified for reading during the Mass throughout the ecclesiastical year. This book, so important for the history of the medieval Church in the Iberian peninsula, and cited in a great many documents, has survived in two complete manuscripts from the 11th century, two significant fragments from the 9th and the 11th centuries, and several smaller fragments. First made available by Morin in 1893, the work has most recently been edited by Pérez de Urbel and González y Ruiz-Zorilla. (Their spelling commicus is related to certain arguments relative to the term's origin; this form of the word will be used in this study up to the point at which I wish to argue otherwise.)