Clerical Community Research Articles

On the Periphery of the Clerical Community of Old Babylonian Ur

Abstract We offer transliterations, translations, and autograph copies of three Old Babylonian tablets held by the Musée d’Art et d’Histoire (MAH) in Geneva. MAH 15899 adds a new name to the roster of temple administrators in Ur, and leads us to propose a new interpretation of the year-name Rīm-Sîn IIa. MAH 16042 concerns a second son of the Uqqû first recognized in MAH 15896. MAH 15953 extends the family tree of the well-known Balamunamḫe of Larsa and connects the family with the religious life of the city. It probably postdates Samsu-iluna’s reconquest of Ur (Si 10) but it is difficult to say by how long. The witness lists of the tablets are intertwined with each other and with tablets from scientific excavations. These interrelationships reflect a common origin in Ur, and permit speculation about the location of the site from which they were plundered for the antiquities market.

The Early Patronage of the Cult of SS. Boris and Gleb

Abstract This paper examines the patronage of the cult of SS. Boris and Gleb through the reign of Volodimir Monomakh (r. 1113–1125) by using textual criticism, memory studies, and works on medieval Christian materiality. It revisits the chronology of the main texts on SS. Boris and Gleb (the Primary Chronicle, two hagiographical tales and Nestor’s Lesson concerning the life and murder of the saints); the Primary Chronicle contaminated the hagiographical works that were written under Monomakh. This textual analysis offers a new perspective on the patronage of the cult. There were many factors that stimulated the emergence of the cult in the 1070s, including the threat of nomadic raids, inter-princely conflicts, and the aspirations of clerical communities to enhance their spiritual glory, augment their wealth, and address issues of historical memory. The promotion of the cult was therefore a collective effort of the princely and clerical elites. Among the clerical promoters of the cult were the metropolitan’s see, monastic communities, and the local clergy in Smolensk and Vyshhorod. The patronage of the cult crossed institutional boundaries as different groups of patrons promoted their interests during the commemoration of the royal martyrs. Royalty sponsored the building and decoration of churches dedicated to the saints. The metropolitan’s see initiated the gathering of information on miracles performed by the saints, organised their liturgical commemoration, and used the cult for mediating princely politics. The cult was also affected by a revision of the memory of Iaroslav Volodimirovich (r. 1019–1054) during the reign of his grandson Volodimir Monomakh. As part of this revision, monastic hagiographers created stories about Iaroslav establishing and patronising the cult of the saints. The myth of Iaroslav’s patronage validated Monomakh’s commemorative activities and appealed to other descendants of Iaroslav as potential sponsors of the cult.

Singing Cato: Poetic Grammar and Moral Citation in Medieval Latin Song

Abstract Widely acknowledged as emerging from clerical, monastic, and pedagogical communities, the poetry of medieval Latin song was informed by the vocabulary, grammar, and rhetoric emanating from these spheres of knowledge and practice. I argue for the specific manifestation of these spheres through grammatical citation, a practice in which noun and verb paradigms poetically shape Latin songs. Specifically, grammatical paradigms structure select songs by declining or conjugating strophic incipits systematically throughout the poem. Grammatical citationality in Latin songs, whose poetry otherwise chiefly explores festive, religious topics, serves as a signal of their implicitly disciplinary and didactic function. With grammar operating as an emblem of correct, moral behaviour, these devotional songs exemplified morally and spiritually upright Christian behaviour for singers and listeners. A capstone to this sung didacticism is the thirteenth-century Cum animadverterem, a conductus uniquely linking grammatical citation with a quotation from Cato’s Distichs, a famed medieval textbook of moral learning.

Влияние имперской модернизации конца XIX - начала XX в. на жизнедеятельность духовенства новообразованных епархий Русской православной церкви (по материалам Омской епархии)

The paper aims to reveal sub-regional peculiarities of Omsk clerical community formation under conditions of modernization (the end of the XIX - the beginning of the XX century). Special attention is paid to analysing influence of modernization factors (Russia’s colonial policy in remote regions, peasant resettlement to the Trans-Ural region) on clerical life in newly established Omsk eparchy. Scientific originality of the study involves identifying features of Omsk clerical community acquired as a result of modernization processes. Relying on the conducted analysis, the author identifies and describes typical features of Omsk clergy: poor material situation, low educational level, readiness of some clergymen for changes in the parochial administration system under the new socio-economic and political situation.

Demonic Possession & Lived Religion in Later Medieval Europe by Sari Katajala-Peltomaa

Reviewed by: Demonic Possession & Lived Religion in Later Medieval Europe by Sari Katajala-Peltomaa Claire Trenery Carrothers Middle Ages, demonic possession, demoniacs, lived religion, gender and possession, blasphemy, intercourse with demons, Fourth Lateran Council sari katajala-peltomaa. Demonic Possession & Lived Religion in Later Medieval Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. Pp. x + 211. Sari Katajala-Peltomaa's latest monograph investigates some of the most intriguing phenomena of the Middle Ages: the presence of demons in everyday life and their possession of humans. Whilst Katajala-Peltomaa identifies demonic possession as a "spiritual phenomenon" (1), the book is concerned with its physical, mental and—perhaps most particularly—social ramifications. She defines "lived religion" as "a social process, a way to live, interact, and participate in one's community" (2), and she uses this framework to explore demonic possession in terms of the interactions—rather than the polarity—between "individual and collective religious participation" (27). The book's chronological scope runs from the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 (at which the Devil and demons were defined as creations of God, turned evil by their own doing and capable of tempting humans into sin) to the fifteenth century (when ideas previously associated with demonic possession were increasingly co- opted into the concept of maleficium). Geographically, Katajala- Peltomaa sets up an interesting comparison between northern and southern Europe, which serves to illustrate regional distinctions in understandings of demonic possession. She focuses on Swedish and Italian sources, in which cases of demonic possession are "especially numerous" (24). Beyond being a "theoretical framework" (18) for analysis, the concept of "lived religion" is, for Katajala- Peltomaa, the "methodological tool" (19) that guides her reading of the sources. Each document is a reflection not only of widely held cultural understandings of demonic possession but of the specific community that brought about its creation: both monastic or clerical communities that constructed the written records and lay communities that witnessed the actions of demons and testified to their effects. Thus, "careful contextualization" (24) of the source material is crucial. Katajala- Peltomaa's main source base is records made at canonization hearings for prospective saints of miracles they were believed to have performed. Her close attention to context does not mean that she is unable to observe patterns across her sources, but she uses her analysis of the nuances to call for a "critical evaluation of the concept of 'medieval Europe' [as a] single, coherent entity" (27). The chapters are organised thematically based on stages of communal interaction with demons: from causes of demonic interference; to identification of the possessed; to communal responses to demoniacs; and finally, to wider societal and cultural discussions. The first chapter (Chapter 2, since Chapter 1 is an introduction) deals with perceived reasons for demonic possession, with a focus on whether or not the possessed were held responsible [End Page 432] for their affliction. Though not unanimous, the consensus in this period was that sufferers of demonic possession were victims of unfortunate—and often not blameworthy—circumstances. Katajala- Peltomaa sees the "accidental nature of demonic possession" (45) as related to collective but regionally specific anxieties. She illustrates this through a comparison of the environmental conditions associated with demonic possession in northern and southern accounts. For example, in the densely populated Italian city states, the threat of wilderness and forests was connected with demonic activity, whereas, in Nordic accounts, forests, which were a mundane component of daily life for many people, posed only physical threats (such as getting lost or being attacked by wild animals). Chapter 3 takes a closer look at the victims of demonic possession, particularly addressing whether women were seen as both physically and spiritually more vulnerable to demonic attacks than men. Katajala- Peltomaa reads in the accounts of female demoniacs "personal and social anxieties concerning the signposts of physical growth and social maturing" (menstruation, marriage, pregnancy, etc.) (47), but she notes that connections between the female lifecycle and vulnerability to demonic possession were not inevitable and largely came into play "when something went wrong" (47). Demonic possession represented something beyond the norm and necessitated extreme responses from communities, which could include physical restraint. These responses seem to have been practical solutions to the threat...

REINTERPRETING THE ROLE OF MUSLIMS IN THE WEST AFRICAN MIDDLE AGES

AbstractRecent research points to a renewed scholarly interest in the West African Middle Ages and the Sahelian imperial tradition. However, in these works only tangential attention is paid to the role of Muslims, and especially to clerical communities. This essay tackles theoretical and historiographical insights on the role of African Muslims in the era of the medieval empires and argues that the study of Islam in this region during the Middle Ages still suffers from undertheorizing. On the contrary, by using a ‘discursive approach’ scholars can unravel access to fascinating aspects of the history of West African Muslims and in particular to the crucial role played by clerical communities, who represented one node of the web of diffused authority which is characteristic of precolonial West African social and political structures.

LITURGY AS HISTORY: THE ORIGINS OF THE EXETER MARTYROLOGY

Through an Anglo-Norman case study, this article highlights the value of normative liturgical material for scholars interested in the role that saints’ cults played in the history and identity of religious communities. The records of Anglo-Saxon cults are largely the work of Anglo-Norman monks. Historians exploring why this was the case have therefore concentrated upon hagiographical texts about individual Anglo-Saxon saints composed in and for monastic communities in the post-Conquest period. This article shifts the focus away from the monastic to those secular clerical communities that did not commission specific accounts, and away from individual cults, to uncover the potential of historical martyrologies for showing how such secular communities remembered and understood their own past through the cult of saints. Exeter Cathedral Library, MS 3518, is a copy of the martyrology by the ninth-century Frankish monk, Usuard of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, written in and for Exeter cathedral's canons in the mid-twelfth century. Through investigation of the context in which it was produced and how its contents were adapted to this locality, this article uncovers the various different layers of the past behind its compilation. It further suggests that this manuscript is based on a pre-Conquest model, pointing to the textual debt Anglo-Norman churchmen owed to their Anglo-Saxon predecessors.

‘An admirable little book written by a lady’: Emily Williams and recording and restoration of stained glass in late Victorian England

ABSTRACTThe preservation of the papers of Emily Williams (1835–1900) allows a close examination of the work of an important female antiquarian of the late Victorian period. Williams, the first known woman to write a book on English stained glass, published Notes on the Painted Glass in Canterbury Cathedral anonymously in 1897. The book formed the foundation for later studies of the cathedral's monumental glass and includes multiple illustrations based on Williams’ drawings. In addition to writing this book, Williams partnered with the cathedral glazier to reinstate medieval glass in a number of the cathedral's windows, glass that is viewed by many thousands of tourists annually. A study of Williams’ work in the 1890s brings to light a new chapter in the history of Canterbury's famed stained glass; it also adds to our understanding of the work of female antiquarians, the activities of women in clerical communities, the publication and illustration of female-authored works, the roles played by women in the Victorian obsession with stained glass, the lives and self-fashioning of spinsters, and the gendering of types of intellectual labor.

Lexical Loans and Their Diffusion in Old English: of ‘gospels’, ‘martyrs’, and ‘teachers’

ABSTRACTThe study of borrowed vocabulary and language contact in the Old English period is technically problematic in many ways. Surviving texts give us few clues as to how loans functioned outside the clerical communities, what their regional and register distributions were, and to what extent written sources reflect the circulation of loans in spoken language. This may suggest that a descriptive catalogue of lexical loans is the only approach applicable to the Old English material. This paper, however, aims at an inferential analysis of several loans from Latin and Greek in the religious and educational domain based on contemporary approaches to linguistic innovation, diffusion and change, and the wider cultural context that would have ensured their currency and dissemination – social networks provided by medieval schools and monasteries, and the ecclesiastical community at large. Using a select body of educated loans, it argues that strong ties within monastic communities would generally have prevented contact-induced lexical change from spreading outside the monasteries. Yet the role of individual innovators with both clerical and non-clerical ties and early adopters with elementary Latin proficiency (parish priests) in diffusion of change should not be underestimated.

Liturgy or private devotion? Reappraising Warsaw, Biblioteka Narodowa, I. 3311

AbstractScholars have typically characterized Warsaw, Biblioteka Narodowa, I. 3311, an unlocalized Anglo-Saxon gospel lectionary of the late tenth or early eleventh century, as a book intended for use in private devotional reading. Despite this, a study of the contents of the book indicates that it was used liturgically, possibly by an individual priest or a small clerical community. This article offers a reappraisal of the manuscript and its use based on the complementary pattern of gospel readings that is evident in the two sections of the book and the presence of previously unnoticed musical notation. It is argued that the volume was in fact used in the celebration of mass and should be added to the corpus of Anglo-Saxon liturgical books.

Causes, forms and effects of social and moral confusion of the institutional Roman-Catholic Church in Poland

The lostness of an individual or institution is manifested in their aversion towards conforming or adapting to the social and cultural conditions in which they are to function or carry out their fundamental tasks. Lostness affects secular institutions as well as religious institutions, including churches. In this paper I demonstrate the lostness of the institutional Roman Catholic Church in Poland over the past 25 years through the reflections of clergymen and theologians, as well as on the basis of sociological research findings. Theologians claim that this lostness also signifies the specific pastoral situation of the Church brought about by the systemic transformations in Poland over this period, previously unencountered by and unknown to the Church, hindering the Church’s functioning and inducing it to take erroneous decisions. Lostness takes on a variety of forms and is manifested in numerous spheres of the Church’s secular activities, but does not affect its essence or religious identity. However, it does embrace its functions and actions, its attitudes and its decisions, in the area of secular and political activity, its relations with society, and also in relations within the clerical community. Wording it differently, lostness applies to the human structure of the Church, and within this above all the bishops and leaders who guide it and manage its assets, and who also perform an instructional and educational function towards the Church’s faithful.

A Paradise of Priests: Singing the Civic and Episcopal Hagiography of Medieval Liège by Catherine Saucier (review)

Reviewed by: A Paradise of Priests: Singing the Civic and Episcopal Hagiography of Medieval Liège by Catherine Saucier Emily Thelen A Paradise of Priests: Singing the Civic and Episcopal Hagiography of Medieval Liège. By Catherine Saucier. [Eastman Studies in Music.] (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press. 2014. Pp. xvi, 300. $75.00. ISBN: 978-1-580-46480-2.) Medieval Liège was a special place for secular clergy. Known from the sixteenth century onward as a “Paradise of Priests,” it boasted an imposing cathedral and seven collegiate churches, in addition to myriad smaller ecclesiastical institutions. [End Page 607] With 270 canons singing in these churches as early as the mid-eleventh century, the extraordinary size and wealth of Liège’s clerical population attracted international attention. The liturgy sung by these canons has been studied in conjunction with the widely celebrated feasts of Corpus Christi and the Holy Trinity, both of which were founded in Liège. Yet the plainchant and polyphony that celebrates the city’s own clerics and saints has received comparatively little attention. In this book, Catherine Saucier examines the liturgies for three of the most prominent bishops associated with Liège—St. Theodard (d. c. 668), St. Lambert (d. c. 700), and St. Hubert (d. 727)—and shows how the city itself is celebrated through the plainchant and polyphony written and sung by the liégeois clerical community. Through a meticulous investigation of the rich hagiographic tradition that provided inspiration and textual sources for these liturgies, Saucier traces how the saintly identities of these bishops developed and how the stories of their lives were shaped—and sometimes even rewritten—to promote civic ideals and objectives. In the first two chapters, she shows how the Offices of Ss. Theodard and Lambert, both of whom were murdered for political rather than religious reasons, draw upon an idea begun in the corresponding hagiographic literature that the city was sanctified by the blood of these martyrs. Saucier argues that the chants of the liturgy were designed to validate and idealize these bishops’ martyrdoms, to make their sacrifices holy rather than political. She shows that the translations of their relics to Liège as celebrated in the liturgies were important occasions of conflating civic and saintly attributes, such as in the antiphon Laetare et lauda that she discusses throughout the book. In the central chapter, Saucier demonstrates that the Office for St. Hubert was at odds with its hagiographic sources by maintaining the appearance of the physical presence of Hubert’s relics in the city, despite the fact that his remains had been translated to Andage. As Lambert’s successor, Hubert promoted Liège as a sacred site by overseeing the translation of Lambert’s relics to the city, but the liturgy for St. Hubert ensured his continued veneration in Liège. The fourth chapter turns to polyphony and an analysis of the motet Fortis cum quevis actio by Johannes Brassart (c. 1400-55). Saucier elaborates on the clerical context of the motet (including the unusual detail of a liturgical strike) and how Brassart drew inspiration from another important episcopal founder, Bishop Notger (d. 1008). The final chapter addresses the larger importance of ritual in the sanctification of Liège by tracing the development of the feast of St Lambert’s Translation from the later Middle Ages to the early-sixteenth century. Saucier discusses five occasions on which Lambert’s relics were venerated, including three processional displays of his nude skull, that reflect varied civic motivations for calling upon the protection of the saint. The book includes convenient tables that outline the plainchant along with its textual sources for the saints’ offices as celebrated in the city’s cathedral and an appendix of sources preserving the music. The analytical musical portions are written in such a way as to be comprehensible to the wide audience likely to be interested in Saucier’s colorful narrative. Because of its broad scope, clear organization, [End Page 608] and accessible style, this rich book will be of service not only to musicologists but also to scholars of liturgy, hagiography, church history, and urban history. Emily Thelen Alamire Foundation Catholic University of Leuven Copyright...

Early Medieval Settlement and Social Power: The Middle Anglo-Saxon ‘Home Farm’

THE LAST TWO DECADES have witnessed a marked rise in middle Anglo-Saxon settlement research, as archaeologists have become increasingly aware of the way in which this transformative period in English history can be recognised through habitation sites. Though a period during which individuals and institutions seemingly wielded unprecedented new power, archaeologists have struggled to identify many of the processes or ‘motors’ by which such authority was articulated in the landscape. This paper concerns itself with understanding one such driver, demonstrating how early medieval kings shifted power from tribute-orientated regimes to ones rooted in agricultural exploitation. The Church was fundamental to this shift in authority, and was used as a means of consolidating new power relations. In order to sustain more permanent clerical communities, the Church developed core agricultural areas surrounding their centres, known as inland, upon which were established early types of ‘home farm’. In addition to their functional purpose middle Anglo-Saxon ‘home farms’ were subject to exceptionally high degrees of spatial ordering. Such definition of settlement space, which now included property plots and houses defined by boundaries of unprecedented permanence, allowed elites to shape and consolidate perceptions of social order in the landscape. Power was now being materialised, not only through agricultural production but also through the lived experience of rural communities, as a social hierarchy which considered the place of kings as divinely appointed became firmly established.

Qiyunshan as a Replica of Wudangshan and the Religious Landscape of the Ming Empire

AbstractMount Wudang (Wudangshan 武當山) is well known to have been the most holy mountain in the Ming. As the center of the Zhenwu 真武 (Perfect Warrior) cult, Wudangshan not only attracted millions of pilgrims, but also spread the Zhenwu cult to the entire empire, with many sites of the Zhenwu cult known as the “Little Wudang Mounts” (Xiao Wudang 小武當) and other regional branches (travel-palaces 行宮 etc.) modeling after Wudangshan. Among these regional Zhenwu branches, Mount Qiyun (Qiyunshan 齊雲山) was arguably the most important. This study explores the conscious effort of the Daoist clerical community to duplicate the Zhenwu cult of Wudangshan at Qiyunshan. I argue that the high point of Daoism at Qiyunshan was the Jiajing 嘉靖 emperor’s (r. 1522–1566) patronage. This imperial support not only served the emperor’s personal religious interest, it also provided political legitimacy to promote Jiajing’s lineage and remap the religious landscape of the empire. Due to geographical, regional, and cultural differences,...

St Cuthbert: Durham's Tutelarie Deitie

The cult of St Cuthbert was central to the regional identity of north-eastern England with its inhabitants termed the haliwerfolc, or ‘people of the saint’ (Cuthbert). The saint became crucial to the liturgical practices and celebrations of Durham's clerical and secular communities as well as being a guarantor of martial victories; usually against the Scots. However, with the cult of saints an early victim of the Reformation launched by Henry VIII in the 1530s, the outlook for St Cuthbert's legacy became increasingly uncertain. Attachment to the saint's memory became inextricably entwined with Durham's pre-Reformation history as commemoration of the cult, rather than the saint, took on more significance. This article looks at how St Cuthbert's historians and other antiquaries regularly manipulated his legend to satisfy different purposes and circumstances; so that completely different perspectives on Cuthbert and his cult have emerged over the centuries since the Reformation. But, throughout the changing interpretations of St Cuthbert's story his significance in Durham remains unchallenged.

Sermons, Exegesis, and Performance: The Laon Ordo Prophetarum and the Meaning of Advent

Of the four texts that Karl Young presents as Procession of plays in The Drama of the Medieval Church, the example from the northern French cathedral town of is distinctive. (1) The play impressed Young because it has a wealth of rubrics indicating impersonation, thereby qualifying it, in his estimation, as a genuine drama: (2) Nebuchadnezzar, for example, is to carry himself haughtily (superbo incessu), while the Erythraean Sibyl is to act insane or crazed (insanienti simillima). (3) Even for a modern reader the play is striking in comparison to other Prophets Plays: the dramatis personae necessary for performance, as well as the clothing they should wear and attributes they should carry, are summarized at the beginning of the text, rather than being introduced with the entrance of each character. (4) The level of detail provided is impressive: Isaiah, for example, should wear a dalmatic with a red stole hanging vertically in the middle in the front and behind (stola rubea per medium verticis ante et retro dependens), Moses is to carry the tablets of the Law (tabulas legis ferens), and John the Baptist wears a hair shirt and has long hair (pilosa veste et longis capillis; 145). This degree of detail, along with the convenient summary of all the required sartorial and iconographic symbolism at the beginning of the text, makes evident that the composer and redactor intended the text to be performed--it was not, for example, meant merely to be recited, or even simply read to oneself. Indeed, while many clerical communities had their own Prophets Plays based on the same Advent sermon, the Ordo Prophetarum is distinctive in its intentionality: it made manifest the community's own understanding of the meaning of Advent, a meaning that accreted gradually during the weeks leading up to Christmas as the scriptural and homiletic readings proclaimed during the liturgy fused with the interpretive understanding of those readings. Such complex exegetical intertextuality was to be expected from the cathedral community. In the High Middle Ages, the town of was not only the seat of an influential diocese and site of a royal residence, but it was also home to a prestigious cathedral school that drew students from all over Europe. (5) The school became famous under the guidance of its master Anselm who, along with his brother Ralph and their associates and successors, compiled the famous Glossa ordinaria, the text of the Bible accompanied by interlinear and marginal commentary culled from centuries of authoritative writers. (6) Students from all over Europe, including many of the most influential ecclesiastics of the succeeding generation, streamed to to study with Anselm; there were so many, in fact, that Bernard of Pisa famously asserted that it was nearly impossible for them to find lodging in the small town. (7) By the time the Ordo Prophetarum was copied at the end of the twelfth century, the Glossa ordinaria had for decades been the sine qua non of textbooks for the study of the Bible. The identity of the cathedral community would have been intimately tied up with its school's teaching and the understanding that Scripture was inherently enigmatic, containing hidden meanings and truths, and that any of its apparent contradictions could be reconciled and harmonized through assiduous study. (8) In this way, to be a canon at was to acknowledge the necessity of understanding Scripture in its four exegetical senses--the literal or historical, the allegorical or typological, the tropological, and the anagogical. These exegetical tenets were the foundation of the canons' understanding of Advent, and they are fully integrated into--and fully evident in--the drama that the community created and preserved. The Ordo Prophetarum appears in Laon, Bibliotheque municipale, MS 263 (hereafter Laon 263), a codex compiled by Laon's cathedral community in the last quarter of the twelfth century. …

A Monastic Death Ritual from the Imperial Arrey of Farfa

A MONASTIC DEATH RITUAL FROM THE IMPERIAL ARBEY OF FARFA By SUSAN BOYNTON Lengthy and complex rituals surrounding illness and death were an important part of the collective experience of medieval monastic communities . In manuscripts from as early as the eighth century, the texts for Christian death rituals consist of prayers, readings, and chants for the visitation of the sick, unction, communion, the funeral mass, and burial.1 Even though many of the early medieval formularies were copied in monastic scriptoria, the texts could be performed in secular or monastic settings.2 The earliest death rituals that are explicitly written for monastic communities and contain extensive prescriptions for the actions that accompanied a monk from his final hours of life to his grave are transmitted in monastic customaries of the eleventh century. The first fully developed Cluniac customary, the Liber tramitis, appears to contain one of the oldest preserved explicitly monastic death rituals.3 1 On death rituals in the early Middle Ages see Frederick S. Paxton, Christianizing Death: The Creation of a Ritual Process in Early Medieval Europe (Ithaca, NY, and London, 1990), and Damien Sicard, La liturgie de la mort dans !église latine des origines d la réforme carolingienne (Münster, 1988). I am grateful to Frederick Paxton for discussing the Farfa ritual with me. The following abbreviations are used throughout: CAO = Réné-Jean Hesbert, Corpus antiphonalium officii, 6 vols. (Rome, 1968-79); Mohlberg = Liber sacramentorum romanae aeclesiae ordinis anni circuli (Cod.Vai. Reg. lat. 316jParis. Bibl. Nat. 7193, 41/56, Sacramentarium Gelasianum), ed. Leo Cunibert Mohlberg, 3rd ed. (Rome, 1981); SG = Jean Deshueses, Le sacramentaire grégorien: ses principales formes d'après les plus anciens manuscrits , 3rd ed., 3 vols., Spicilegium Friburgense 16, 24, 28 (Fribourg, 1992). 2 The present discussion does not address death rituals intended for the secular clergy, although some survive from the eleventh century. As described by Sarah Hamilton in "The Rituale: The Evolution of a New Liturgical Book," in The Church and the Book: Papers Read at the 2000 Summer Meeting and the 2001 Winter Meeting of the Ecclesiastical History Society, ed. R. N. Swanson (Woodbridge, 2004), 74-86, at 79, an early eleventh-century manuscript from Rome (Vat. MS Archivio San Pietro H. 58) contains two different ordines for the visitation of the sick, including one that, according to Hamilton, seems to be intended for use within a clerical community rather than a monastic one. I am grateful to Julian Hendrix for bringing my attention to this study. 3 On the death rituals in the three Cluniac customaries from the eleventh century, see Frederick Paxton, "Death by Customary at Eleventh-Century Cluny," in From Dead of Night to End of Day: The Medieval Customs of Cluny, ed. Susan Boynton and Isabelle Cochelin (Turnhout, 2005), 297-318; see also Paxton's forthcoming reconstructive edition, The Cluniac Death Ritual in the Central Middle Ages (Turnhout, 2010). 58TRADITIO Although compiled at Cluny in the second quarter of the eleventh century, the Liber tramitis was intended for the imperial abbey of Farfa, where the earliest extant manuscript of the customary was produced around the middle of the century.4 Thus the Liber tramitis reflects not only the customs of Cluny, but also their reception and assimilation by the community at Farfa.5 For most of the liturgical practices described in the Liber tramitis, one can only hypothesize a direct influence on the ritual life of the community at Farfa; the textual and manuscript evidence to prove this supposition beyond a doubt is usually lacking. However, in the case of the death ritual it is possible to demonstrate the influence of Cluniac usages on Farfa's own traditions, by comparing the description in the Liber tramitis to the ritual found in three liturgical books from Farfa, all copied between the middle of the eleventh century and the early twelfth; the edition below presents this text for the first time. The earliest of these three manuscripts, C (Vatican Library, Chigi C.VI. 177), is roughly contemporaneous with the oldest witness to the Liber tramitis (copied at Farfa). The latest of the three Farfa manuscripts, V (Rome, Biblioteca Vallicelliana, F 29) is the base manuscript...

The Clergy, Identity and Lay Society in the Diocese of Durham, 1561–1635

This article examines the relationship between the clergy and their secular neighbours in the diocese of Durham in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. In particular, it seeks to uncover the extent to which the two spheres experienced a shared sense of identity, in a period when that relationship was being recalibrated as the full impact of the Reformation was making itself felt. For example, the novelty of clerical marriage, within and without the clerical community, as well as oppositional doctrinal and confessional outlooks, were superimposed on to existing associations and networks. In other respects interaction between the clergy and lay society fluctuated between harmonious and positive to contentious and damaging. Meanwhile, preconceptions about the diocese are re-examined in the context of this relationship.

The Gothic Enterprise:A Guide to Understanding the Medieval Cathedral (review)

Reviewed by: The Gothic Enterprise:A Guide to Understanding the Medieval Cathedral Norbert Nußbaum The Gothic Enterprise: A Guide to Understanding the Medieval Cathedral. By Robert A. Scott. (Berkeley: University of California Press. 2003. Pp. xiv, 292.) On the surface, this book is a study about the great sacred structures of the High Middle Ages and the causes and circumstances of their creation. But anyone who reads it carefully will soon understand the actual topic paramount in Scott's distinctive perspective. The author is a social scientist who has discovered for himself the sheer fascination of the English cathedrals, reporting here in a very individual way about that voyage of discovery. At the core of this biographical process is Salisbury Cathedral, and it stands at the study's center. And because the Stonehenge megaliths are but a few miles away, at the book's end Scott juxtaposes two monuments as the creations in stone of two differing historical collectives. In this many-faceted and compelling study, he attempts to explore the motives and circumstances of existence of these two collectives. The book begins and ends with a sense of wonderment about the artifacts which first awakened the interest of scholars in the Gothic period some 250 years ago. Scott includes himself in the ranks of these discoverers of wonder in knowledgeable awe of Gothic artistry. He is in search of a kind of holistic understanding of the phenomenon. So he is not only interested in the construction of the great churches between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries, and their fuller meaning. The buildings are also viewed as examples reflecting the ambition and productivity of a medieval feudal society whose cultural habitus was significantly stamped by a belief in the world beyond, cultic practices, magical thought, thinking in symbols and images, and the multiple constraints of a way of life constantly at existential risk. Scott has worked through an abundance of interdisciplinary literature in order to present as many varied aspects of his topic as possible, and his investigative curiosity carries him into the furthest nooks of medieval studies. This is further enriched by frequent consultation of standard works of diverse neighboring disciplines, and these lead to surprising and illuminating insights. However, the selection suffers from an essential limitation in that except for two studies, all the literature he cites is in English, or a work in English translation. The consequence is that Scott can report authoritatively on recent work in social history and the history of mentality, where Anglo-American research has been at the leading edge of inquiry, but when it comes to questions that require a better knowledge of Continental European discourse, his treatment remains inadequate. What I have in mind are, for example, the highly controversial debates, relativizing older theses, on the possibilities for a philosophical-theological interpretation of the medieval church as a model for heaven. Or inquiry on sacred space as a space for social and spiritual acts, or studies on the material economy and technology of the great stonemason workshops. A further result of his selective approach is the heavy focus on a specific geographical area, namely England. This tilt is not necessarily inimical to a correct total cultural-historical portrait, but that rather Anglo-centric picture is difficult to project and transpose onto the continent without certain gaps and fractures. [End Page 139] One may also wonder about the general utility of the findings. Scott investigates several of the fundamental questions on the position, function, and collective frame for action of the clerics almost exclusively in reference to the monastic vita communis of the early medieval period and High Middle Ages – being aware and correctly pointing out that some English cathedrals were under the control of monastic communities. But that was by no means the rule when viewed from a Continental vantage. There the clerical communities of the cathedral chapters were in the quickening process of dissolution precisely at the same time the first Gothic construction projects were launched. So the model of the vita communis cannot be regarded as a spiritual correlate of the community enterprise of the "cathedral." The specific weight given various topics here springs from a distinct discursive...

La comunitat de preveres de Reus i el seu encaix dins lafiscalitat municipal

This article reviews the position of the secular clerical community established in the town of Reus since its creation in 1326. To begin with, there is a focus on the different income sources perceived by this community, with reference to both certain parish rights, and the benefits granted to each clergyman and the income collected from the town for anniversaries or masses for the deceased. However, the main issue covered concerns this group's tax duties with the town. This involves chronologically tracking the definition process for the tax system of this group based on statements and /or judicial sentences issued throughout the 14th century. This paper moreover examines the situation of the local clergy with regard to material goods, based on the assets noted in some tax records. Finally, there is an analysis of the degree of clerical involvement in the town government, particularly with regard to income stemming from certain taxes. The appendix includes some interestingordinacions , or ordainments from the 15th century that reveal the inner workings of this community.