The Homiliary of Paul the Deacon: Religious and Cultural Reform in Carolingian Europe by Zachary Guiliano

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Homiliary of Paul the Deacon: Religious and Cultural Reform in Carolingian Europe by Zachary Guiliano Rod Thomson Guiliano, Zachary, The Homiliary of Paul the Deacon: Religious and Cultural Reform in Carolingian Europe (Studies on Patristic, Medieval and Reformation Sermons and Preaching, 16), Turnhout, Brepols, 2021; hardback; pp. 339; 1 b/w, 3 colour illustrations, 13 b/w tables, 2 b/w line art; R.R.P. €90.00; ISBN 9782503577913. This is a model of what a monograph should be. It is a groundbreaking, seductively written introduction to what the author demonstrates to be a text of the first and widest importance (‘The homiliary is a monument in the history of Europe and the world, eminently worthy of further study’, p. 249). Compiled a few years before 800 ce, at Charlemagne’s order, Paul the Deacon’s Homiliary, on the evidence of the surviving copies alone, was to become one of the most widely distributed and most influential liturgical books of medieval Europe. In his first chapter, Dr Guiliano establishes the content of the original text, formerly based (R. Grégoire, Les Homéliares du moyen âge (Spoleto, 1980), pp. 423–78) upon half a dozen ninth-century manuscripts to which were ascribed wrong dates, [End Page 246] provenances, and interrelationships. All this Guiliano corrects, mainly based on first-hand examination of the manuscripts. He lists fifty-seven copies from the ninth and tenth centuries, including thirteen copies of special authority because they preserve at least part of Paul’s original preface. This is an example of the positive help that digital technology is giving to manuscript studies. Whereas nineteenth- and early twentieth-century scholars were dependent upon word of mouth, or perhaps printed catalogues (often wrong) for information as to the whereabouts of manuscripts, today one can sweep databases and be reasonably sure of the results. Not that, even now, such research is easy (the difficulties, and Dr Guiliano’s doggedness in tackling them, are outlined on pp. 39–41, 148). Mind you, the difference it makes to Grégoire’s list of the Homiliary’s contents is not so very great (p. 66), mainly involving renumbering rather than alterations to the texts. Dr Guiliano is constantly alert for opportunities to make observations of general importance, and anyone interested in Carolingian Europe should read his book. For instance, at the beginning of his chapter on the Homiliary’s theology: Thus, if we know the theological topics most important to Charlemagne and we know that he thought his homiliary was the greatest collection of patristic texts in his cultural world, it behoves us to ask just what sort of doctrine is found in it and how it relates to the topics outlined in the Admonitio Generalis [... and] other similar pieces of instruction from the period, such as Alcuin’s list of topics for the instruction of the Avars. (p. 175) Again, a painstaking examination of how long it would have taken to make a copy of the (usually two-volume) Homiliary—between one and two years—enables Guiliano to conclude that only a dozen or so copies could have been made before Charlemagne’s death (pp. 127–37). Many more copies survive from the eleventh and twelfth centuries, which is why so many manuscripts of this date figure in his list of authoritative copies. This observation must modify the opinion of those scholars who have maintained that Charlemagne ‘ordered’ that the Homiliary should be used, to the exclusion of all others, throughout his Empire: We cannot know how many communities knew they were using or copying Paul’s text; we cannot even assume that Paul’s preface was consulted by every user of the homiliaries that transmitted it, nor that anyone felt constrained by it. Charlemagne and Paul may have intended the homiliary to be used in a particular way, but others could have used it for all sorts of purposes. (p. 199) A discussion of Paul the Deacon as the ‘author’ of the Homiliary leads to a consideration of the medieval concept of ‘author’ generally (pp. 91–101). And an examination of the sources for the Homiliary’s contents leads to the conclusion that no single...