“Liturgy as Historiography: Historical, Narrative, and Evocative Values of Eleventh-Century Masses,” in Early Music: Context and Ideas II. Proceedings of the International Conference in Musicology (Krakow, Poland: Jagellonian University—Institute of Musicology, 2008), 27-38. (original) (raw)
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The Downside review, 2019
The symposium explored the breadth and depth of sermon literature and preaching activity relating to monks, nuns, and monastic life, demonstrating how monastic preaching served as a microcosm of the religious and cultural landscape of the long Middle Ages (i.e. the fourth-sixteenth centuries CE). This theme was particularly suited to 2018 having been the European Union's first-ever Year of Cultural Heritage. The geographical and linguistic range covered by these papers was widely comprehensive, with scholars discussing Coptic, Greek and Latin source materials as well as many sermons in vernaculars such as Catalan, Dutch, English, French, German, Irish, Italian and Spanish. The conference opened with two keynote lectures. Brian McGuire, Emeritus Professor at Roskilde University, examined the Latin sermons of the 12th-century Cistercian monk, Bernard of Clairvaux, and how these texts described thought and feeling (affectus) in the search for self-knowledge. Claudia Rapp, Professor of Byzantine Studies at the University of Vienna, in her keynote entitled 'Words for Life, Spoken and Written: Monasticism and Homiletics in Byzantium', presented an analysis of the typology of monastic preaching in the Greek tradition. She established key ground rules in relation to the who, when, where and how of Byzantine monastic preaching. Thirty-three other speakers addressed a diversity of topics, including: early Benedictine and Carolingian monastic preaching; late medieval nuns as preachers and copyists of sermons; expressions of gender identity in monastic preaching; and the didactic use of animal imagery in homilies. In the space given here, only a sampling of the full range of papers can be highlighted. Dirk Krausmüller (University of Vienna), in his presentation 'Theodore of Stoudios' Engagement in Contemporary Debates about Foreknowledge and Predestination', discussed how this early-9th-century abbot challenged the idea that God could be known in 883515T DR0010.
Textus & Musica [En ligne], Les numéros, 7 | 2023 - Performance of Medieval Monophony: Text and Image as Evidence for Musical Practice, Performance of Medieval Monophony: Text and Image as Evidence for Musical Practice, 2023
This article addresses the transmission context of a formerly unknown text on music theory, copied on the verso of the last folio of a gradual (Lisbon, BnP, L.C. 238), which was part of a set of choirbooks commissioned by Catarina d’Eça, abbess of Santa María de Lorvão (1471-1521). The article discusses this source within the broader context of the production and circulation of liturgical books, particularly among Cistercian nuns. It reviews some assumptions concerning women’s agency in creating and performing liturgy and the negotiation between nuns and priests over nearly every aspect of liturgical care. It shows how the role of both lay and religious women as mediators across and between religious orders and kingdoms or territories can no longer be overlooked. The last section examines the theoretical sources of this brief musical treatise to determine whether the author of the text drew on the tradition of the Bernardian reform, or on other kinds of musical sources from outside the Cistercian tradition. Both the sources and the use of the Castilian language shed light on the origins of the text’s author.
Art in Monastic Churches of Western Europe from the Twelfth to the Fourteenth Century
Cambridge History of Medieval Western Monasticism, (Series: Cambridge New History), Alison Beach, Isabelle Cochelin (ed.), 2020
With the inclusion of medieval artifacts in the art-historical canon increasingly assured, scholars now turned precisely to those questions of religion and function that in Shapiro's time had been used to denigrate medieval art. 6 As a result, the characteristics of medieval art that had confounded earlier writers, in particular the absence of a stable stylistic progression, now provided the basis for new approaches to medieval art, including the question of how ecclesiastical art was made to function within the church liturgy. Summarizing such views, Herbert Kessler argued in 1988 that the medieval artifact was more agent than object, made to invite reflections on issues of devotion, learning and ritual. 7 The idea of a separate norm for medieval art was taken farthest by Hans Belting, who argued that medieval images should not be categorized as "art" in the way that the term has been understood since the Renaissance. He advocated a contextual approach that takes into account the reception of images. 8 Since the 1980s, there has been continued interest in what might be called the "functional approach," starting from the basis that medieval "images, far from being ends in themselves, always stood in the service of other goals." 9 As a result, the medieval church is studied today as a space for performances that derived its sense from the rituals that took place in it, such as the celebration of the liturgy of the hours (opus dei), processions and the sacrament of the Eucharist, as well as private devotion. 10 One of the major insights of this line of research has been to include not just architecture, sculpture and stained glass as active parts in this holistic experience, but to recognize that all of the objects present in the church, from the altar itself to liturgical manuscripts, from the censer to the priest's 6
Recently, theatre studies have focused on the relathionships between dramatic action and both the rhetorical mechanisms of writing and reading - based on locational memory’s techniques - and the construction of mental or artistic images. This article aims to demonstrate that in monastic circles, throught ninth and eleventh centuries, there is a deep change in the rhetorical memoria’s device for visualizing the Passion of Christ. It is a change that characterizes both silent, daily prayer and the public rites of Good Friday, especially the adoratio Crucis’ cerimonies. I will describe this change using three textual exemples of prayers to the Cross: we shall see that when the point of view changes, at the same time there is a change in the textual structure and in the dramatic system; in addition, the emotional response from the beholder also changes. From Peter Damian to Anselm there seems to be a process that moves from an ostensive intention of Christ’s body (quite a ‘seeing’ the broken body, covered with blood and injuries) to an affective sense of the Passion’s event (quite a ‘feeling’ and ‘sharing’ the pain for those wounds). The analysis would try to highlight how this change represents the historical foundation of the ‘theater of mercy’, so important in late Middle Age.
Turnhout: Brepols (Disciplina Monastica, vol. 13), 2021
This book is published with open access: https://www.brepolsonline.net/action/showBook?doi=10.1484/M.DM-EB.5.120300 A history of the monastic pursuit of eternal salvation in the early medieval West, revolving around a seventh-century monastic rule for nuns, the Regula cuiusdam ad uirgines ("Someone’s Rule for Virgins") The seventh-century Regula cuiusdam ad uirgines (Someone’s Rule for Virgins), which was most likely written by Jonas of Bobbio, the hagiographer of the Irish monk Columbanus, forms an ideal point of departure for writing a new history of the emergence of Western monasticism understood as a history of the individual and collective attempt to pursue eternal salvation. The book provides a critical edition and translation of the Regula cuiusdam ad uirgines and a roadmap for such a new history revolving around various aspects of monastic discipline, such as the agency of the community, the role of enclosure, authority and obedience, space and boundaries, confession and penance, sleep and silence, excommunication and expulsion. Table of Contents Summary The book consists of two sections. The first is a critical edition and translation of the Regula cuiusdam ad uirgines, a seventh-century Frankish monastic rule for nuns, along with the short treatise De accedendo ad Deum, which most likely formed a part of the Regula cuiusdam ad uirgines. The second section is a study on the transformations and diversification of monastic theology, concepts of communal life and monastic discipline in the early medieval period. It revolves around the Regula cuisudam ad uirgines in its historical and intertextual context. The study is divided four parts that are related to the four key words of the title of the book (Community, Space, Discipline, and Salvation). Each part consists of a chapter that makes an argument about the place of the Regula cuiusdam ad uirgines in intertextual contexts and a chapter that applies these arguments in a historical inquiry. Introduction Section I: Edition and Translation of the Regua cuiusdam ad uirgines Section II: Study Part I: Community revolves around the question to what extent the monastic community can serve as an agent of the collective and individual pursuit of salvation Chapter 1: Quidam pater – quaedam mater? The Regula cuiusdam ad uirgines and its author provides a survey of the monastic milieu in which the Regula cuiusdam ad uirgines was written, discusses potential authors and stakeholders in the monastic foundation that may have been addressed by the Rule and shows on the basis of semantic and stylistic similarities and shared content and ideas that Jonas of Bobbio, the author of the Vita Columbani, is to be considered the author of the Regula cuiusdam ad uirgines as well. Chapter 2: The dying nuns of Faremoutiers: the regula in action argues that Jonas of Bobbio’s description of the deaths of the nuns of Faremoutiers, which is a part of Book 2 of his Vita Columbani, and the Regula cuiusdam ad uirgines represent the same monastic program, once presented as a "narrated rule", once as a normative text. The Faremoutiers episodes are closely modelled after Book 4 of the Dialogi of Gregory the Great and can be read as a critical response to Gregory’s eschatology and his notion of pursuing salvation by living a virtuous life. After having fleshed out the parallels and differences between the Dialogi and the Faremoutiers miracles, the chapter analyzes each episode of the Faremoutiers miracles, showing that Jonas wrote his monastic program in a highly sophisticated manner into stories describing the deaths occurring in the founding generation of nuns in Faremoutiers – deaths that were most likely still remembered by the primary audience of the Vita Columbani. Part II: Space discusses the role of space and boundaries for the monastic pursuit of salvation and explores the origins of the medieval cloister Chapter 3 The Regula cuiusdam ad uirgines, a supplement to Caesarius’ Rule for Nuns? compares the provisions of Caesarius of Arles’ Rule for Nuns with the Regula cuisudam ad uirgines and argues that Jonas wrote his Rule as an expansion and revision of Caesarius work: an "early medieval" update of a "late antique" monastic program, as it were. Chapter 4: Enclosure re-opened: Caesarius, Jonas, and the invention of sacred space discusses the evolution of Caesarius of Arles’ notion of enclosure as salvific instrument and then shows how Jonas of Bobbio tried to face the aporias of Caeasarius’ theology of enclosure by expanding it towards a system of total control of all physical, social and corporeal boundaries and the implementation of various enclosures. Part III: Discipline provides a historical survey of the evolution of various aspects of monastic discipline in early medieval monastic rules leading to the Regula cuiusdam ad uirgines. Chapter 5: The Regula Benedicti in seventh-century Francia explores the role of the Regula Benedicti in Frankish monasticism in the aftermath of Columbanus and shows how Jonas used and revised the Regula Benedicti and refuted some of his main theological premises. Chapter 6: The Regula cuiusdam ad uirgines and its context describes the history of the topics addressed in each chapter of the Regula cuiusdam ad uirgines and provides a detailed commentary to the Rule itself, showing how Jonas rewrote the Regula Benedicti. I discuss every chapter of the Rule but put a special emphasis on the following topics: abbatial authority, hierarchy, boundaries, love, confession, silence, work, sleep, excommunication, and family ties. Part IV: Salvation focusses on the short treatise De accedendo ad Deum which provides a unique theological rationale why monastic discipline enables monks and nuns to pray effectively and to attain eternal salvation. Chapter 7: De accedendo ad Deum – a lost chapter of the Regula cuiusdam ad uirgines? shows that De accedendo was most likely a lost chapter of the Regula cuiusdam ad uirgines and thus written by Jonas of Bobbio as well. Chapter 8: Prompto corde orandum: the theological program of De accedendo analyzes the theological argument that monastic discipline enable a nun or monk to approach God through prayer, which forms one of the most sophisticated early medieval responses to the challenge of the doctrine of prevenient grace and the "semi-Pelagian" debate. De accedendo essentially explains how the monastic pursuit of salvation works.