Stowe Missal Research Articles

The Irish Material in the Stowe Missal Revisited

This article explores the composition history of the Stowe Missal in order to establish when and where the Irish language material contained therein was added to the manuscript. It is argued that t...

The Irish, the Virgin Mary and Proclus of Constantinople

An analysis of an eclectic group of five specific attributes of the Virgin Mary in four Old-Irish texts not later than the end of the eighth century: the Old-Irish tract on the Mass in the Stowe Missal, Cain Adomnain, Cu Chuimne’s Hymnum in laudem S. Mariae, and Blathmac’s poems to the Virgin. These texts bear striking similarities to abstract ideas from the East, notably those in the Mariological writings of Proclus, bishop of Constantinople. Here I explicate the unique character of each attribute, beginning with Proclus’ formulation and liturgical use, and compare them to their Irish counterparts. I also discuss how the Irish came to know his writings.

The Stowe Enigma: Decoding the Mystery

The Stowe Missal is something of an enigma for the modern scholar. In attempting to decode this enigma, we discover that two avenues of investigation open up before us. We can treat the Stowe Missal as the exemplar of a Celtic liturgical tradition, but we are hampered in this approach by the fact that Stowe is a lone example of this tradition. Alternatively, we can examine this missal as an insular example in the wider western liturgical tradition and see what this has to tell us about the liturgical practice of the ninth-century Irish Church. This is the approach adopted in this article.

Harmonizing the Truth: Eusebius and the Problem of the Four Gospels

In the late third century Eusebius of Caesarea, better remembered now for his work as a historian of the church, produced an apparatus for the reconciliation of the disagreements found in the four Christian gospels. It was a remarkable work in its own right for it preserved, as the tradition demanded, the plurality of the gospels, while allowing them to be presented and studied as a single entity, “the gospel,” and so succeeding in Tatian's aim in his Diatessaron — as exegesis and apologetics demanded. Moreover, though now largely forgotten, it remained an important element within theology for centuries. This paper's aim is to locate the significance of Eusebius's work in its original setting in the world of late antiquity and the Christian defense of pagan challenges to the gospels' integrity, and then to follow the influence of his work within just one strand of the tradition: that which forms the background of western, Latin theology. So it will note how that work was adopted and adapted by Jerome, how it then passed on to the late-patristic Latin schoolmasters who sought to transform all learning into convenient modules of defined value, and then was taken up by others in just one region of the Latin West, the insular world, such as the anonymous scribes of the Book of Kells, the Stowe Missal, and the Book of Deer, for whom Eusebius's work was a mystery that they could not simply abandon, even when they could not understand it. Throughout this period, the Eusebian Apparatus roused the intellect of scholars, teachers, and scribes, but in each milieu the significance and perceived utility of the Apparatus was different. The history of ideas is about changes within intellectual and textual continuities, and with the Apparatus we have a clearly identifiable scholarly tool that does not in itself change over the period, but whose reception and exploitation vary greatly.

Harmonizing the Truth: Eusebius and the Problem of the Four Gospels

In the late third century Eusebius of Caesarea, better remembered now for his work as a historian of the church, produced an apparatus for the reconciliation of the disagreements found in the four Christian gospels. It was a remarkable work in its own right for it preserved, as the tradition demanded, the plurality of the gospels, while allowing them to be presented and studied as a single entity, “the gospel,” and so succeeding in Tatian's aim in hisDiatessaron— as exegesis and apologetics demanded. Moreover, though now largely forgotten, it remained an important element within theology for centuries. This paper's aim is to locate the significance of Eusebius's work in its original setting in the world of late antiquity and the Christian defense of pagan challenges to the gospels' integrity, and then to follow the influence of his work within just one strand of the tradition: that which forms the background of western, Latin theology. So it will note how that work was adopted and adapted by Jerome, how it then passed on to the late-patristic Latin schoolmasters who sought to transform all learning into convenient modules of defined value, and then was taken up by others in just one region of the Latin West, the insular world, such as the anonymous scribes of the Book of Kells, the Stowe Missal, and the Book of Deer, for whom Eusebius's work was a mystery that they could not simply abandon, even when they could not understand it. Throughout this period, the Eusebian Apparatus roused the intellect of scholars, teachers, and scribes, but in each milieu the significance and perceived utility of the Apparatus was different. The history of ideas is about changes within intellectual and textual continuities, and with the Apparatus we have a clearly identifiable scholarly tool that does not in itself change over the period, but whose reception and exploitation vary greatly.

The early Irish Stowe Missal's destination and function

In 1929 the great James Kenney argued that the early Irish Stowe Missal must have been produced as a private service‐book which a priest could easily carry around with him, but in recent decades scholars have claimed, either explicitly or implicitly, a different purpose for it. The codicological arguments proposed by Kenney are nevertheless still valid and this paper will argue that close linguistic examination of the manuscript's liturgical contents supports the theory that the Stowe Missal was an itinerarium, a book for a travelling cleric.

Dagán, Columbanus, and the Gregorian mission

An attempt to sketch the biography of Dagan, the Irish bishop who met the Gregorian missionaries in Kent, and to establish whether the Irish church concerned itself with the mission. Several categories of sources are considered: contemporary epistles (by Gregory, Columbanus, Lawrence), annals, canon law (Hibernensis, Synodus Patricii) liturgical material (Stowe Missal, martyrologies), hagiography (saints’ Lives and genealogies), saga (Borama), and Bede’s HE.

Kerry and Stowe Revisited

The Stowe Mıssal provıdes evıdence for a lıturgical culture in whıch the liturgical building was intended to house only the celebrant bishops and priests during the Mıssa Fıdelium, the congregation, and probably the deacon, remaining outside except when (and if) they entered to receive the Lord's body and blood. The Stowe Missal and other Irish texts retain diaconal formulae that may have been used outside the building while the sacerdotal liturgy continued inside. 'Monastic' sites on the Iveragh Peninsula of County Kerry provide evidence supplementary to and convergent with that of the texts. The external congregation, often probably considerable, may have been arranged according to category at different distances from the building. Although an 'oratory' may have been small, the ritual and 'priestcraft' that took place within (although out of sight of the worshippers) is likely to have been anything but plain and simple.

The so-called omission of the baptismal formula in the order of baptism in the Stowe Missal

A discussion of the ordo baptismi in the early medieval Irish church, leading to the conclusion that its baptism represented the survival of Early Christian usages.

The Lute in Elizabethan Society

the Celtic and other rites in regard to the character of the music employed for hymns. The decipherments provide Celtic melodies that may be dated as being of the 9th, Ioth, and i th centuries at the latest-the only Celtic melodies of any class that may be dated so early on direct evidence, save for certain Chant melodies that seem to be Celtic. The melodies discovered and deciphered by John Cargill include two on the Cross at Canna, one on the Cross at Dupplin Castle, one on the silver case of the Stowe Missal, and one in the Book of Cerne. I have not been able to find his decipherments of these last two, although I know he made them. My only contribution, after an incomplete survey of Celtic ornament, is two melodies on the Cross of Tola at Dysert O'Dea in County Clare.

The Stowe Missal

The Stowe Missal

THE LITANY OF SAINTS IN THE STOWE MISSAL

Journal Article THE LITANY OF SAINTS IN THE STOWE MISSAL Get access EDMUND BISHOP EDMUND BISHOP Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Journal of Theological Studies, Volume os-VII, Issue 25, October 1905, Pages 122–136, https://doi.org/10.1093/jts/os-VII.25.122 Published: 01 October 1905

Stowe Missal

Journal Article Stowe Missal Get access Grenville A. J. Cole, R.I.A. Grenville A. J. Cole, R.I.A. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Notes and Queries, Volume s9-IX, Issue 217, 22 February 1902, Pages 150–151, https://doi.org/10.1093/nq/s9-IX.217.150f Published: 22 February 1902

Stowe Missal

Stowe Missal Get access W. Roberts W. Roberts Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Notes and Queries, Volume s9-IX, Issue 214, 1 February 1902, Page 98, https://doi.org/10.1093/nq/s9-IX.214.98d Published: 01 February 1902

Stowe Missal

Stowe Missal Get access H. A. W. H. A. W. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Notes and Queries, Volume s9-VIII, Issue 207, 14 December 1901, Page 484, https://doi.org/10.1093/nq/s9-VIII.207.484b Published: 14 December 1901